Translator’s Notes: Julien Gracq in English

Translating Julien Gracq is a challenge. His own wish--impossible to realize--had been to write books that were practically untranslatable: Mon souhait--irrealisable--aurait ete que mes livres tiennent tellement a la langue qu'ils en soient pratiquement intraduisibles. (1) A recent search (2) of library holdings (including the Library of Congress) and of a number of web sites revealed that of Gracq's published works (ranging from his first novel, Au Chateau d'Argol, 1938, to Carnets du Grand Chemin, 1992) only his four novels had been translated into English, and published in the US. (3) The same novels, as well as one of the three novellas in La Presqu'ile have also been published in translation in the UK. (4) Having taught Gracq for years both at the undergraduate and graduate level (at the University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, and at the West Point Military Academy, West Point, N.Y.) where the Gracq assignments were a perennial favorite, I was often asked why so little of his work was translated. But when, a few years ago, I broached the subject of new translation projects to Julien Gracq, to start with his novella Le Roi Cophetua, he was less than enthusiastic. --Why new translations? His best-known texts, the novels, had already been translated quite some time ago, and well translated; especially by the poet Richard Howard, translator of Andre Breton and de Gaulle's War Memoirs ... --Besides, he was skeptical. I must surely be aware that he was even less read in English-speaking countries than in France; he seriously doubted that a publisher could be found in either the United States or England who would take on such a project ... But I persisted. Would he at least take a look at a few pages I had translated of Le Roi Cophetua if I left them with him to read at his leisure? --Yes. Two days later, walking up the rather steep incline to his house, I wondered what his response would be. But he had not only read those pages, he even made a few notes in his meticulous, small handwriting, in red ink on the margins. He was ready to discuss certain sentences and passages, and eager to provide a few "precisions," or "eclaircissements." --For example, right at the beginning of the novella, first page, my description of the soldiers during WWI, fine, but did I know why the overcoats they wore had flaps that could be folded over and buttoned ? --No. --To prevent the coats from wearing out at the knees ... --Same page, further down towards the bottom, did I know the reason for those periodic withdrawals during WWI from people's savings accounts? --It must have been some way of imposing taxes on the citizens of France ... --Yes indeed, it was a kind of levy by the state, to collect money for the war coffers ... --Did I know who Voisin was? --Yes, founder of the French commercial airplane industry. And so it went. I realized only later that he must have been testing my knowledge of contextual material--the history and civilization of France--but I obtained what I had been hoping for: a green light. I thanked him, collected my pages, and promised to send him the entire translation as soon as it was completed. After he read it, he seemed pleased. There was just one passage, a very slight misreading on my part, not at all important, he just wanted to call my intention to it for a moment. --And which passage would that be? --When the narrator is on his way to Braye-la-Foret, sitting in his train compartment, looking out the window at the cemeteries stretched out in the suburbs: ... cimetieres ... avec la foule en vetements mal teints qui remuait lentement entre les massifs comme une coulee de suie, mouchete de bleu horizon, piquee ca et la de la tache blanche d'un voile d'infirmiere ... . …