/lit/ - Literature

>>13822322
Faulkner and McCarthy

what about Raymond Roussel

I'd think Finnegans Wake or something like that but it was actually a huge hit when it was translate into Chinese.

What about Foam of the Daze?

>>13822322
>>13822322
Every piece of poetry in any language

I think it's impossible to translate Sagarana (João Guimarães Rosa) because he mix words together to talk about specific themes, giving the feeling it's oral language and hit you harder if you know the culture.
Another is Os Sertões by Euclides da Cunha. Borges talked about it in Ficciones, but I really don't know how they translated.

>>13822322

could you give an analytical example? As someone who isn't bilingual I've never really understood the idea of something being lost in translation.

Easily this lad. But to be fair translating poetry in general is an arduous task.

>>13822631
The best translation of the Divine Comedy is Dorothy Sayers' - it's a little innaccurate at points, but it's simply a better poem than any of the other translations.

>>13822662
You've read these translations?

>>13822662
It's a good interpretation - but I wouldn't call it a translation.

>>13822322
every piece of English literature directly inspired by The King James Bible is untranslatable into any other language.

>>13824031
that's fine though because English is the easiest language on the planet except for Spanish

>>13822322
Las Tumbas and Striptease by Enrique Medina. I think those two are almost impossible to translate, specially Striptease.

Just finished In the Miso Soup and enjoyed the shit out of it. Wondering if any weebs or jp anons have gave McCarthy's translations a shot and what they thought of it.

>>13824209
french is easier than both

>>13822322
Translation is an art, and the medium between the two languages has to be on the level or greater than the source. Most translators are not minds or craftsmen themselves, and what you get is a cargo cult of the original, even if they avoid paraphrastic rendering consciously-- the heavy lifting is done elsewhere.

>>13822662
>>13824023
If there's an impasse, something that's incommensurable, phonosemantic matching takes precedent; with the original as the jewel, a translation ought to catch its light from the viewpoint of a particular angle (at least). A worthwhile construction in the target language is the object of translation, something which enriches the target language -- call it a Fine Art Looting Operation -- the Cistine Chapel remains itself in a McDonalds ceiling, but if it has to be transposed into another viewing space at all, let it be a meticulous reconstruction of the original building, or a clean art gallery/museum where it can be viewed up close.

>>13822612
>bilingual, analytical example
The first paragraph/opening pages of Felipe Alfau's Chromos.

>>13822525
Same book just an alternate title by a different translator.

>>13822343
Wow that is actually shocking. I wonder why Finnegan's Wake really took off in China.

>>13822612
OP here, maybe not the best example but Boris Vian has a very "fantastical" and "dreamlike" way of describing actions in the book. The grammar/specific words he uses has double meanings and can be understood in a different context depending on how you view it. Certain words and expressions are culturally too diffcult to describe in English. Vian also just creates his own expressions. I personally find that the translations are extremely literal and don't have that "extra meaning" behind it if that makes sense.

Harry Mulish (Dutch): not only the vocabulary but also just the mood and setting. Knowing the Netherlands or Dutch culture really completes the experience, certain important details would go over your head otherwise.

>>13825636
Well, it's a different translation altogether (there's 3 in total), the most recent one. I'm not disputing that it probably reads better in the original, but maybe this translation is better than Froth?

>>13822336
This. I wanted to read it, but I won't if it's one of these impossible to translate books. What's better a Spanish or English translation?

>>13822322

Emily Dickinson
Herman Melville
Walt Whitman
Marianne Moore
Hart Crane
Faulkner
Joyce
Pound

The list goes on... it’s not about vocabulary, but musicality and the communication of a national essence is why they can’t be translated. Moby Dick is just a straight up American novel. Whitman, Moore, Dickinson and Crane are very American poets, therefore, their aesthetics, sentiments, rhythm, etc. Is best tailored for the American reader’s mind. This is true for all poetry I believe. L’esprit français comprendra mieux l’art français. The American mind for the American. Imagine reading White Noise by Don DeLillo in French, it just wouldn’t make sense. Now don’t get me wrong, as a native English speaker and semi-French literate I do believe there’s a lot to get out of reading French poetry (without translation obviously) with an American disposition, and likewise a French reading ours in English. But I don’t think an American would truly understand say, Baudelaire or Proust, and a French will not truly understand Whitman or Melville.

>>13826373
>Imagine reading White Noise by Don DeLillo in French, it just wouldn’t make sense
So it would be a faithful translation

>>13822322
In the middle of Buddenbrooks they start translating Bavarian German as yokel american english bizarrely.

>>13826373

Oh and to clarify. It’s not to say an American can’t enjoy Joyce because they’re. It Irish, or a Brit cant enjoy Pound, but there’s more nuance to address there. Firstly, some poets have a more nationalistic style than others. Joyce is clearly an amalgamation of several cultural essences ranging from French to English and of course Irish (as well as others), Pound is Chinese, Italian, British, American, etc. This complicates my previous statement but overall there are still elements that a literary, native English speaking mind will necessarily grasp more wholly than anyone else’s. And when considering how Joyce and Pound sought intensely to invent a unique english register for their works, it becomes more apparent that there is more to be lost in translation than simply vocabulary. A language is more than words, it may involve a history, a culture, a nation, a mood, a thought process, and so much more. There is such a thing as a “good translation” of course, but that just means the worker at hand was able to recreate the essence in the context of his chosen language, but it is certainly not much to do with the original in any sense of what I’ve just described. At least, that’s my opinion.

>>13822322
Why do you Frenchfags always pretend like your language is something incredibly sacred and superior to all other languages?
French people literally refuse to learn/speak English, it's infuriating.

>>13826336
in How I Wrote Some Of My Novels he explains the lost meanings of sentences

>>13826422

I don’t think he’s implying that. Most French know English, but they have a culture of pride and pomp so they try to remain insular about it.

>>13826404
And you know, the various Anglo cultures are not really all that far from each other. As an American, if I pick up a British work I feel like I'm reading something coming from the same cultural background. Some vocabulary might be different but the mindset isn't something I've ever felt like I had trouble understanding.

>>13826422

Americans refuse to learn Spanish when it would be incredibly useful for communicating with and helping a large population of the US. Why should a French learn English? In his own country it’s not necessary, and over here a French can get by with decent English because there’s no xenophobia towards him. Meanwhile Americans refuse to learn anything but English even when it’s useful for their society and then get mad when other people who have less incentive don’t want to learn theirs. It’s delusional.

>>13826451
>Most French know English
lol you've never been to France

>>13826461

Really? I feel differently. When I read Jane Eyre it felt that I was peeking into British society. Same for reading anything of Woolf. It doesn’t resonate with me, but I don’t feel that it’s so foreign that I can’t grasp it. I certainly wouldn’t say I “get” it the same way I “get” Crane and Whitman as an American. Same goes for the poetry of Yeats or Shelley. Shelley is very English, Yeats is very Irish, so while I may be able to comprehend the essence better than I would Apollinaire written in French, it’s not as if I digest it as thoroughly I would an American writer.

>>13826422
French is just degenerated Latin, like every other Romance language. There's nothing special about it.

>>13826481
I don't think it's the same really, but America and Britain have the same cultural route and just developed separately. So I think it's still on the same wavelength, just a bit away from my own point. Other Western nations are a bit further out on the spectrum. Once you get into Eastern literature things start to become legitimately baffling at times.

>>13826489
cultural root*
typo

>>13826464

Yes I was just in France last November. Most people I walked up to in Paris spoke very basic English at the minimum. They preferred to speak French obviously and were often very rude, but they certainly knew it. And all of my French friends said they’d been learning English their whole life in school. Did you have a different experience? Mon français s’est amélioré depuis, mais auparavant c’était moche.

>>13826489

Yeah I can get that. Also the shared language definitely influences a shared way of thinking. Whereas, judging from what I’ve read of French poetry, they are used to thinking more abstractly than we do, so it makes everything different for me. I like it though.

>>13826500
You're right probably, they're just rude and don't want to speak English with you.
My French isn't that bad so I tried to speak French to the baker when I bought some bread in Paris and he just responded to me in English like I was a stupid tourist.
The next day I said "fuck it" and spoke English to the baker, then he replied to me in French,
Fucking assholes.

>>13826509

Yeah I’ve spoken in French and been replied to in English before. The vice versa is funny though, I’ve heard of that but not experienced it. I’m going back there in the spring and expect things to go a bit more smoothly. It’s just so much easier to read than hear, parce qu’ils parlent si vite !

>>13826507
Right, if I read something French I can tell that I'm reading something "different."

>bilinguals (at best) discussing translation

>>13826509
kek

>>13826533

Ok Ezra Pound please bless our humble thread with the saintly wisdom of a true polyglot.

>>13826509
You THINK your French isn't that bad, what new speakers often don't realize is that even if their words and conjugation are all perfect their pronunciation is making them unrecognizable to the ear

>>13822322
I think an element could be lost when translating The Burning Plain/Pedro Paramo
Those books are written in a way that, though few words are spoken, they let you know a lot about the character: most of the time a simple minded man that, though he feels he's the victim of circumstances, he's not trying to change his situation nor coming to terms to it; A deaf scream drown in apathy.
It's not that this concept is new or imposible to grasp, I think seeing how the english language tends to work, it either's gets lost in translation or you have to add so much to the text that is no longer Rulfo's work.
And well, the cultural context though I believe you can understand it as long as you either lived between people that the "progress" forgot, or between unsuccessful catholics.

>>13826373
If that were the case then Moby-Dick wouldn't be a widely translated and popular novel all around the world. It's not an exclusively American novel in my opinion but a Universal classic. And both Melville and Whitman belong to a VASTLY different America to the one you're living in right now. Basically a different country. Whitman is difficult to understand even to most modern Americans yet still managed to influence foreign writers who were closer to him (by some decades) like Pessoa.
>>13826404
Kinda contradictory what you say of Joyce. I could say the same for Melvill.

>>13828394

Rimbaud’s Paris isn’t the Paris of today either but I believe cultural essences last longer than the epoch of their conception. Of course, Melville won’t hit me as if reading it in his time, but the vestiges of that day resonate with me more deeply as an American than a foreigner, in my opinion at least. And it’s never to say that these writers can’t be universal, I mean, here we are all reading Dostoevsky and most of us don’t know a lick of Russian, but that’s not the point. It’s a matter of which qualities can be grasped in translation and which are lost. I’m proposing that any native of an authors nation has an easier time “getting it” than the non native regardless of how much time has passed since the creation. I imagine the palpability dwindles over time even for a native but I still believe in the idea regardless, and as far as 19th to 21st century goes, I don’t think it’s such a huge leap that it would truly become foreign to a literary American. I do think Melville’s English is very distinctly American, especially when placed in the context of Whitman and Hawthorne, whereas Joyce seems to be using English in a way that feels unique to him alone. Now I will admit that I’m not well read on Irish novelists and have only read a handful of their poets, but of the Irish literature I’ve read, Joyce comes out as the most unique to me and I think that’s a result of his sort of encyclopedic approach to literature; he draws on so much at once it is hard to pin it with any particular nationality. While of course Melville is drawing on Shakespeare, Homer, Milton, I still feel that it is American enough to call the style American whereas I wouldn’t feel so sure about saying the same for Joyce. I may just be talking out of my ass here but I imagine Dubliners is the most “Irish” Joyce gets, and from then on he seems to plunge into his own world.

>>13822322
>Ich will eine Frau mit großen weiche Brüste, eine riesige Boden zu klatschen und Lippen, saugen das Leben aus mir
Translate this

High IQ thread.

>>13828615
There's nothing strictly American about Melville's work. Pynchon and DeLillo? Sure. But not really Melville (or Poe).

>>13822322

Volter Kilpi made it his mission to take the Finnish language where no author had taken it before. It's rather natural then that his later novels which rely heavily on neologisms and playing around with Finnish grammar would require a James Joyce to translate it. There was an attempt to translate at least the first chapter of Alastalon salissa for an English-language anthology, but the translator gave up literally on page two. Meanwhile, there does exist a Swedish translation which just ignored the linguistic aspect and apparently got the story and characters succesfully across, but reviewers remarked that it reads like a prose translation of a poem. And since the linguistic play is the main thrust of Alastalon salissa, then one can rightfully ask if the translation truly got the central point of the book across.

>>13828615
>Rimbaud’s Paris isn’t the Paris of today
You mean Baudalaire's Paris, right? Rimbaud was a peasant and had no special connection with Paris. Baudelaire was born, lived and died in Paris.

>>13828720

Didn’t he live there for some time with Verlaine? Anyway, Baudelaire is the better example, point remains though.

>>13828693

I disagree honestly. I think the American essence is more than just writing about consumerism and post-modern landscapes. Melville’s America certainly isn’t Pynchon’s but it doesn’t mean that Melville isn’t very American. The prose, the sentiments, the whole of it is the blood of America if you ask me, and if you don’t see that then I’m not sure what to say. If anything I thought this was a common idea about Melville. What is he if not American?

>>13828720
>>13828800
"Le vieux Paris n'est plus, la forme d'une ville/Change plus vite, hélas, que le coeur d'un mortel." (Old Paris is no more, the shape of a city/Alas, changes quicker than any mortal heart).

Baudelaire's Paris was already not the Paris of Baudelaire's time.

>>13828815
What I find hilarious is that you don't think Joyce is strictly Irish despite being considered THE Irish novelist. You're nation-blind, like many Americans, always finding pretentious intricate ways of appropiating others' cultures while gatekeeping your own. What a joke.

>>13828866

I think you can be a nation’s seminal artist without drawing strictly on their cultural essence. I said before I’m not well read on their novelists so I’m not trying to speak authoritatively, just empirically. That being said, the French influence is undeniable in Portrait, and Ulysses is a style which to me comes off as wholly unique to Joyce. From what I’ve read Joyce had a complicated, love-hate relationship with Ireland throughout his life, and very clearly had taken interests in the French, he even marks dialogue the same way they do in portrait. (A dash instead of quotation marks with “he said she said”) so regardless of him being a national emblem for them, he clearly had aesthetic interests elsewhere. I remember a chapter in Ulysses where he emulates prose styles of English ranging from the medieval to modern chronologically, and the dream sequence in Ulysses can be traced to German or Russian influence (I don’t remember which I learned, I’m drawing entirely on a Joyce class I took so excuse me). Again, I’m not authority nor do I claim to be particularly erudite on the subject, and like I said, Melville also obviously has a host of influences as well. But I find Melville’s magnum opus has a lot in common with other American classics and, of course I’m not speaking with certainty here, I can’t help but believe that Ulysses isn’t a unique endeavor, regardless of what it ended up meaning to the Irish nationality. And especially if we contrast this with Yeats, someone who made a POINT of his work to romanticize Ireland and accentuate their essence, I think someone like Joyce comes off as much more cosmopolitan, not that he die with pride for the country, but his artistic expression just seems greater than that. Yes I know all of his works take place there and it was significant for him to do that, but does that necessarily mean the essence he conveys is strictly Irish? Or rather, as Irish as Melville is American? I won’t pretend to know, but it doesn’t seem that way. Again, I’m not saying I know exactly what the fuck I’m talking about here, these are just impressions I’ve got.

>>13828968

*not that he didn’t die with

>>13822322
The Iliad

>>13828968
>Yes I know all of his works take place there and it was significant for him to do that, but does that necessarily mean the essence he conveys is strictly Irish? Or rather, as Irish as Melville is American?
Yes, he is. National identities are a spook, anyway.

>>13826072
It might be I never read the new translation. I'd be willing to check it out and see how it compares

>>13822662
no, longfellow.

>>13829029
t. has not read pope