In the last few months I've read quite a few books in translation though I haven't blogged about all of them. Every time I have, though, I've mentioned the fact that I have always had a resistence to reading books not in their original language. I've been thinking more about this rather vague statement lately as I've been quite troubled by what I have perceived as really poor translations of some of the books I've read (no names to be mentioned of course). But when I say poor, I don't mean that they are not true to the original text -- far from it, probably. What I mean is that they read so clunkily (can't think of an acceptable academic way of saying this). I've looked into this and realised that in fact it is not just poor translation, or at least that there is a reason why it has been done like this. The buzz word seems to be "foreignisation": "foreignisation ensures that a text is self-consciously other", apparently. In other words, readers know they are reading something which originated in another language. This is the way, apparently, much translation is done these days, as opposed to the old-fashioned (??) method described by one commentator as follows: "In order to render impact into other languages, translators must first decide what gives literature its "impact" in its native language, and then find some analagous way to translate that into the intended language". Well, call me old fashioned, but I know which I'd rather read. Perhaps I've been influenced by my theatre background here -- ever since I can remember, if a theatre wanted to do a play by, say, Chekhov (that's him in the top picture) or Ibsen (below), they would ask a living British dramatist to do a version of it. That person might not know the original language, though perhaps they might work with someone who did. But the aim always was to produce something which sounded right to a contemporary audience. Thus, for example, in the past twelve months there have been two productions of Chekhov's The Seagull, one version by Christopher Hampton (Royal Court) and one by Martin Crimp (National Theatre), both distinguished dramatists in their own right. But maybe we are talking about something different here -- a "version" as opposed to a translation? What does anyone else think?
