We start this subchapter with a witty fragment from Iris Murdoch’s writing debut, Under the Net (1954), in which the main character happens to be a translator (French/English), Jake Donaghue:
Hugo knew nothing about translating, but when he learnt that I was a translator he wanted to know what it was like. I remember him going on and on, asking questions such as: What do you mean when you say that you think the meaning in French? How do you know you’re thinking it in French? If you see a picture in your mind how do you know it’s a French picture? Or is it that you say the French word to yourself? What do you see when you see that the translation is exactly right? Are you imagining what someone else would think, seeing it for the first time? Or is it a kind of feeling? What kind of feeling? Can’t you describe it more closely? And so on and on, with a fantastic patience. This sometimes became very exasperating. What seemed to me to be the simplest utterance soon became, under the repeated pressure of Hugo’s “You mean”, a dark and confused saying of which I no longer myself knew the meaning. The activity of translating, which had seemed the plainest thing in the world, turned out to be an act so complex and extraordinary that it was puzzling to see how any human being could perform it. Yet at the same time Hugo’s enquiries rarely failed to throw an extraordinary amount of light on whatever he concerned himself with. For Hugo each thing was astonishing, delightful, complicated and mysterious. During these conversations, I began to see the whole world anew (MURDOCH, 1954, p. 65-66).
In underlying such an apparently triviaI activity, there are a number of issues to be considered, and sometimes they come up in the most unusual circumstances: while rereading an extract just translated, or talking to revisors and editors, or reading other reference books, or watching a movie, or even reading an interview or review in a newspaper, and so on.
Simple words become big, almost unsolvable, challenges in a whole universe created and presented in more than 300 pages (as for The Solid Mandala).
It is not uncommon to hear translators complain about the task of translating a literary novel (even technical texts often represent challenges). However, this raises a pertinent question: what is a necessary requirement to be a literary translator? The translator’s socio-
historical awareness is crucial to deal adequately with some of the challenges presented in the plot of The Solid Mandala to provide the Brazilian reader with a careful translation, as has been exemplified so far in this dissertation. We continue the discussion of the competences developed in Amparo Hurtado Albir’s model, complementing the socio-historical awareness.
Precisely, the Spanish scholar says that the literary translator’s attitudes differ from the general translator’s because of the “aesthetic overload176” of literary texts, which would in a way create a “literary competence”, which would comprise:
[…] vast literary and cultural knowledge and some aptitudes related to the functioning of such texts (good writing skills, creativity, etc.). Such competence will allow her/him to face the specific problems which are in her/his translation:
problems derived from the aesthetic overload (style, connotations, metaphors, etc.), the author’s idiolect itself, the relation to the sociocultural conditions of the source environment, the intervention of the diachronic dimension (the translation of old texts), etc. These special characteristics, along with the specific weight of the author’s idiolect, make this the kind of translation in which the creative dimension incides more (HURTADO ALBIR, 2008, p. 63-64, my translation177).
We call attention to the use of the word “problem” (used by Aixelá in his theory as well) in her comment: the problems we run into are precisely what make literary translation (and Translation Studies as a whole) a fascinating topic of study. Thus, in this work we have preferred the term “challenge” to allude to examples of the aforementioned aesthetic overload.
To study this fascinating subject of culture, it is necessary to define it first. Coming from the Latin words cultus, which means cultivation, and colere, which means “to till”, the very meaning of the word evokes the idea of seeds, which keep on absorbing nutrients from the environment (sun, water, land) to guarantee their development. The same happens to us, as we go on absorbing elements from the environment surrounding us which have an influence on our development as human beings. Beyond any doubt, finding a comprehensive or accurate definition of culture is as hard as it is to find one about translation. For instance, in 1952, the American anthropologists Kroeber and Kluckhohnhad selected 164 definitions of
“culture” -and after that, we are sure they would have much more work to do in compiling _______________
176 In the original: “sobrecarga estética” (Marco Borillo, Verdegal Cerezo y HURTADO ALBIR, 1999, p. 167, apud HURTADO ALBIR p. 63).
177 In the original: “[...] amplios conocimientos literarios y culturales y determinadas aptitudes relacionadas con el funcionamento de esos textos (buenas habilidades de escritura, creatividad, etc.). Dicha competência le permitirá enfrentarse a los problemas específicos que plantea su traducción: problemas derivados de la
sobrecarga estética (de estilo, connotaciones, metáforas, etc.), del idiolecto próprio del autor, de la relación con las condiciones socioculturales del medio de partida, de la intervención de la dimensión diacrónica (la traducción de textos antigos), etc. Esas características especiales, junto con el peso específico del idiolecto del autor, hacen que quizás sea el tipo de traducción donde más se incide en la dimensión creativa” (HURTADO ALBIR, 2008, p. 63-64).
many more definitions (KATAN, 1999, p. 25). George Steiner claims that “the translator is a bilingual mediating agent between monolingual communication participants in two different language communities” (STEINER, 1975, p. 45). As for the translation of culturemes, many theorists have devised strategies and procedures. The theoretical guidance (or starting point) chosen for this dissertation was devised by another Spanish scholar, based at the University of Alicante: Javier Franco Aixelá, who claims the following in his article Culture-Specific Items in Translation:
Cultural asymmetry between two linguistic communities is necessarily reflected in the discourses of their members, with the potential opacity and unacceptability this may involve for the target cultural system. Thus, faced with the difference implied by the other, with a whole series of cultural signs capable of denying and/or questioning our own way of life, translation provides the receiving society with a wide range of strategies, ranging from conservation (acceptance of the difference by means of the reproduction of the cultural signs in the source text), to naturalization (transformation of the other into a cultural replica). The choice between these strategies will show, among other factors, the degree of tolerance of the receiving society and its own solidity (AIXELÁ, 1996b, p. 54).
In this instance, Aixelá talks about the receiving society (in this case, the Brazilian one).
However, to offer this society a careful translation, it is necessary to examine questions discussed by Patrick White in the original, and which exude in the text. It is clear during the reading of The Solid Mandala that there is a constant opposition between Waldo and Arthur:
on the one hand, the intellectual who wants to keep British values, to speak correct British English while sustaining a feigned verbal art (while paradoxically hiding his writing with his hand); on the other, someone who has a talent for manual work, making bread and butter, but at the same time nurturing a thrilling will to really know more about humanity through great books (even devising a play on the veranda of the house).
Surely, our activity would have been quite easier could we count on the physical presence and possibility of contact with Patrick White. The Swedish translator, Ingegärd Martinell, luckily had the possibility of sending letters to him during her work with The Solid Mandala to ask several questions. As an exercise, we located and separated each of the 7 items mentioned in Martinell’s letter (taken from Patrick White’s biography by David Marr) to see how the other translators dealt with such culture-specific items (following Aixelá’s terminology) in the final product and how the explanations might have been helpful or not, and whether the translators might have felt the same difficulty manifest by the Swedish translator. In this item, we start with the word “boiler”, whose explanation, made by White, is
the following: “an old and tough fowl which can only be made eatable by boiling” (MARR, 1995, p. 518). Let us see how it was translated:
Exhibit 31 – boiler
French German Italian Spanish 1 Spanish 2
Cis avait préparé une volaille bouillie qu’elle accommoda à la sauce poulette.
Ensuite, tandis qu’ils buvaient du porto et grignotaient des noix, Waldo leur révéla qu’il avait de la voix (WHITE, 1973b, p. 146).
Cis hatte ein Suppenhuhn aufgetrieben und dazu Eiersauce bereitet. Nach dem Essen, bei Portwein und Nüssen, ließ Waldo sich zu dem Geständnis hinreißen, daß er singen konnte (WHITE, 1978, p.
154-155).
Cis si era messa al fornello e aveva preparato uova in salsa. Poi, quando furono arrivati al vino di porto e alle noci, Waldo rivelò che aveva una voce (WHITE, 1973c, p.
141).
Cis preparó huevos con salsa en una cacerola. Después, en el momento del oporto y las nueces, Waldo reveló a los presentes que tenía voz (WHITE, 1973a, p. 149-150).
Cis había conseguido una gallina y había preparado una salsa de huevo.
Al terminar, cuando ya habían servido elo porto y las nueces, Waldo reveló sus dotes vocales (WHITE, 2016, p. 211).
English First Attempt Brazilian Portuguese - Revised
Cis had got hold of a boiler and done it up in egg sauce.
Afterwards, over the port and nuts, Waldo disclosed that he had a voice (WHITE, 1974, p. 128).
Cis havia se apoderado de um cozido e o incrementado em molho de ovo. Em seguida, com vinho do porto e nozes, Waldo revelou que ele tinha uma voz.
Cis havia conseguido uma galinha velha e a disfarçou com molho de ovo. Em seguida, durante o tradicional vinho do porto e nozes, Waldo revelou que ele tinha voz.
The versions in the other languages sometimes deleted the word (like the first Spanish translation and the Italian, which dealt only with the eggs), the French got it right, but left out the egg part of the recipe; the German kept the reference to a chicken being boiled with egg sauce. The most recent Spanish translation follows the Oxford dictionary’s second entry for the word: “British informal A chicken suitable for cooking only by boiling178”, being similar to White’s definition. In Brazilian Portuguese, we followed the explanation provided by White’s biography, therefore sparing the necessity to mark the meaning of “ferver”, which appears in the other versions.
_______________
178 BOILER. Definition in English. Available at: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/boiler.
Accessed on: 3 May 2016.
Another expression considered difficult by the Swedish translator is “lamb’s fry”, with White’s explanation being: “lamb’s fry” is “lamb’s liver” (MARR, 1995, p. 518), thus, let us have a look at this in the context in which it appears:
Exhibit 32 – lamb’s fry
French German Italian Spanish 1 Spanish 2
“Quand qu’on était à Mungindribble, on nous donnait un quartier de mouton, et un peu d’abats avec d’la chance.
Mais Bill, il pouvait plus supporter la vue des abats. A force d’avoir tué. Il les jetait aux chiens.
C’est bon la fressure.
J’adore la fressure d’agneau avant qu’elle perde son brillant sur l’étal”
(WHITE, 1973b, p.
181).
Mrs. Poulter erschien zum Beispiel und erzählte: »Als wir in
Mundingdribble waren, stand uns ein Viertel von einem Schaf zu, und dazu kriegten wir noch was von den Innereien, wenn wir Glück hatten. Aber was Bill ist, der konnte Innereien nicht mehr sehen.
Weil er doch immer beim Chlachten gearbeitet hat.
Und er hat sie einfach den Hunden vorgeworfen.
Dabei kann man sie so schön braten. Innereien vom Lamm mag ich besonders gern. Wenn sie Frisch sind. Im Fleischerladen
La signora Poulter veniva e diceva:
“Quando eravamo a Mungindribble, ci davano un quarto di pecora, e se eravamo fortunati anche un po’ di frattaglie.
Bill non poteva sopportare la vista delle frattaglie.
Ogni volta che veniva macellata una pecora, le gettava ai cani.
Ottima la frittura di frattaglie. Vado matta per una buona frittura di frattaglie d’agnello quando sono ancora freschissime”
(WHITE, 1973c, p. 177).
‒ Cuando vivíamos en Mungindribble nos daban um cuarto de carnero, y un poco de vísceras, si teníamos suerte. Bill enfermó y ya no pudo soportar ver las vísceras. De la matanza diária. Se las tiraba a los perros.
Fritas son muy buenas. Me gusta mucho el cordero frito, antes de que pierda frescura (WHITE, 1973a, p.
186).
‒ Cuando vivíamos en Mungindribble nos daban um cuarto de oveja y, con suerte, algumas vísceras. Bill estaba tan harto queno podia soportar las vísceras ni de vista.
Por tanta matanza.
Las echaba las achuras a los perros.
Pero fritas son ricas.
Me gusta el cordero frito antes de que se abombe (WHITE, 2016, p. 257-258).
verlieren sie so schnell ihre Farbe« (WHITE, 1978, p. 193).
English First Attempt Brazilian Portuguese - Revised
Mrs Poulter would come and say: ‘When we was at Mungindribble they allowed us the quarter of a sheep, and some of the offal if we was lucky.
Bill got so as he couldn’t stand the sight of offal. From the regular killin. Threw it to the dogs. Lovely fry. I like a nice lamb’s fry before it loses its shine on a slab’ (WHITE, 1974, p. 159).
A Sra. Poulter vinha e dizia: ‒
Quando nós estava em
Mungindribble eles dexavam pra nós o quarto de ovelha, e uns miúdo se nós tinha sorte. Bill ficou assim porque ele não podia suportar ver os miúdos. Do abatimento regular.
Jogava para os cachorros. Fritada adorável. Gosto de uma fritada de um bom cordeiro antes que ele perca seu brilho em uma prancha.
A Sra. Poulter vinha e dizia: ‒ Quando nóis tava em Mungindribble eles dexavam pra nóis o quarto de ovelha, e alguns miúdo se nóis tinha sorte. Bill ficou assim porque ele não podia ver os miúdo. Do abatimento regular. Jogava pros cachorro. Baita fritada. Gosto de uma fritada de fígado de cordeiro antes d’ele perdê o brilho numa prancha.
In this fragment, in addition to the work with the meaning of “lamb’s fry”, we need to consider that
The ability to delineate his [White’s] characters through their manner of expressing themselves and their linguistic individualities – in the spirit of Joyce – is well developed. When Johann Ulrich Voss, Mordecai Himmelfarb, and Lotte Lippmann speak English one is aware of their German background in spite of the fact that their choice of words is correct. Sir Basil Hunter’s affected manner of speech reflects his personality. Arthur Brown’s speech is not the same as his brother Waldo’s (BJÖRKSTÉN, 1976, p. 120-121).
In this case, we must focus on Mrs Poulter. There is a clear mark of speech with “we was” being repeated twice, thus signaling a popular way of speaking. None of the translations addressed this feature, thus turning Mrs Poulter, by the way she speaks, into an educated or high class woman – when in reality she is a modest woman from the countryside, who likes to watch TV and read the newspaper, who goes to church, who adores her husband, and at the same time represents the modern times reaching Sydney (the chapter which takes her name, Mrs. Poulter and the Zeitgeist, closes the novel). In Brazilian Portuguese, we strive to maintain this feature (together with the regionalism mentioned earlier in this dissertation), though knowing it is a big challenge, given Brazil’s linguistic variety. In this case, the most reliable strategy for any translator is to devise how Mrs Poulter would look like in one’s mind
(in terms of speech and manners). In this case, we devised Mrs Poulter coming from the countryside of a small town in the State of Rio Grande do Sul (for example, sometimes words in the Italian Venetian dialect mix with Brazilian words, even affecting constructions with verbs, in forms such as “ele fiz” – instead of “ele fez”). In the section, we opted for changing the pronoun “nóis” and the conjugation, and using popular expressions which are not in agreement in Brazilian Portuguese to mark grammatical mistakes (such as “eles dexavam” – which imitates the way we speak in Brazilian Portuguese –, “nóis tinha”, “os miúdo”, “d’ele perdê”) and the informal speech. Furthermore, one big change refers to the collocation of
“adorável” with “fritada”. In our first attempt, “lovely” was literally translated as “adorável”.
We had two options: either use a regional form of the word in Brazilian Portuguese,
“adoráver”, or change the adjective, as it would not be so common to hear the collocation
“adorável” as a collocation of “fritada” in Brazilian Portuguese. Therefore, we opted for the word “baita”, which gives the idea of something good.
Another expression which required an explanation was “Shower Teas”, with White’s explanation being the following:
Australian suburban brides are given tea parties by their friends before the wedding, to which the friends bring perhaps something for the kitchen, sometimes at more modest functions just a recipe. C.’s daugthers are always giving such teas, but as they never catch a husband they are never showered upon themselves (MARR, 1995, p. 518).
Exhibit 33 – Shower Teas
French German Italian Spanish 1 Spanish 2
Il était nanti d’une femme dont les vêtements sentaient le nettoyage à sec et de trois ou quatre filles en canotier blanc, qui donnaient de nombreuses réceptions pour leurs amis, où elles étaient comblées de cadeaux sans être jamais comblées elles- mêmes. Pauvre
Er hatte eine Frau, die nach
chemischer Reinigung roch, und zwei oder drei Töchter mit weißen Hüten.
Die veranstalteten ständig Tees mit Geschenküberrasc hungen für irgendwelche heiratenden Freundinnen,
Aveva una moglie che puzzava di lavaggio a secco, e tre o quattro figlie dai cappellini bianchi che ogni tanto
organizzavano una festicciola in onore di qualche loro amica, ma che nessuno invitava mai a casa sua. Povero
Crankshaw (WHITE, 1973c, p. 191).
Tenía una esposa que olía a tinte, y tres o cuatro hijas que usaban sombreros blancos y qye bañaban en té a sus amigas, sin que ellas mismas llegaran a bañarse nunca. Pobre Crankshaw (WHITE, 1973a, p. 201).
Tenía una esposa que olía a ropa recién salida de la tintorería y tres o cuatro hijas que usaban sombreros blancos, organizaban tés de despedida para las amigas que se casaban sin que nunca las hubieran despedido a ellas.
Pobre Crankshaw (WHITE, 2016, p.
Crankshaw (WHITE, 1973b, p. 195).
ohne daß sie je in die Lage kamen, einmal selbst aus demselben Grund mit Geschenken überrascht zu werden. Armer Crankshaw (WHITE, 1978, p.
209).
275).
English First Attempt Brazilian Portuguese - Revised
He had a wife who reeked of the dry-cleaner’s, and three or four girls in white hats, who gave shower teas for their friends, without ever being showered upon themselves. Poor Crankshaw (WHITE, 1974, p.
172).
Ele tinha uma esposa que fedia à lavanderia, e três ou quatro meninas em chapéus brancos, que davam chás para suas amigas sem elas mesmas nunca serem convidadas para chás. Pobre Crankshaw.
Ele tinha uma esposa que fedia à lavanderia, e três ou quatro meninas em chapéus brancos, que ofereciam chás de panela para suas amigas sem nunca terem algum chá de panela oferecido para elas mesmas. Pobre Crankshaw.
In this extract, looking up the word “shower tea” in the dictionary, the information provided is: “AUSTRALIAN a party held for a woman just before she gets married, at which usually female friends give her presents for her future home179”, thus matching what was said by White. The translation in Brazilian Portuguese opted for the most common form of the concept, which is “chá de panela”. “Chá de cozinha” is used too, but we consider that the reader will have a more immediate idea of the concept when reading “chá de panela”. Patrick White transforms the noun into a verb in the extract, which made the translation into Brazilian Portuguese quite difficult (note that in the first translation the idea of “be showered upon” is missing). The option we present in the revised version brings back the idea.
Another expression, this time involving Patrick White’s inventive capacity, is “gross business minotaur”, which received the following explanation Patrick White: “a certain type of business man with an eye for girls, they often look rather like bulls” (MARR, 1995, p.
518). Let us see how it appears (or not) in the translations picked for this dissertation:
_______________
179 SHOWER TEA. Definition. Available at: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/shower-tea.
Accessed on: 10 Jan. 2016.