Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: Found in translation

Found in Translation
By MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM
Published: October 2, 2010
Michael Cunningham is the author of “The Hours” and, most recently, “By 
Nightfall.”
AS the author of “Las Horas,” “Die Stunden” and “De Uren” — ostensibly 
the Spanish, German and Dutch translations of my book “The Hours," but 
actually unique works in their own right — I’ve come to understand that 
all literature is a product of translation. That is, translation is not 
merely a job assigned to a translator expert in a foreign language, but 
a long, complex and even profound series of transformations that 
involve the writer and reader as well. “Translation” as a human act is, 
like so many human acts, a far more complicated proposition than it may 
initially seem to be.
Let’s take as an example one of the most famous lines in literature: 
“Call me Ishmael.” That, as I suspect you know, is the opening sentence 
of Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick.” We still recognize that line, after 
more than 150 years.
Still. “Call me Ishmael.” Three simple words. What’s the big deal?
For one thing, they possess that most fundamental but elusive of all 
writerly qualities: authority. As writers we must, from our very 
opening sentence, speak with authority to our readers.
It’s a little like waltzing with a new partner for the first time. 
Anyone who is able to waltz, or fox-trot, or tango, or perform any sort 
of dance that requires physical contact with a responsive partner, 
knows that there is a first moment, on the dance floor, when you 
assess, automatically, whether the new partner in question can dance at 
all — and if he or she can in fact dance, how well. You know almost 
instantly whether you have a novice on your hands, and that if you do, 
you’ll have to do a fair amount of work just to keep things moving.
Authority is a rather mysterious quality, and it’s almost impossible to 
parse it for its components. The translator’s first task, then, is to 
re-render a certain forcefulness that can’t quite be described or 
explained.
Although the words “Call me Ishmael” have force and confidence, force 
and confidence alone aren’t enough. “Idiot, read this” has force and 
confidence too, but is less likely to produce the desired effect. What 
else do Melville’s words possess that “Idiot, read this” lack?
They have music. Here’s where the job of translation gets more 
difficult. Language in fiction is made up of equal parts meaning and 
music. The sentences should have rhythm and cadence, they should engage 
and delight the inner ear. Ideally, a sentence read aloud, in a foreign 
language, should still sound like something, even if the listener has 
no idea what it is he or she is being told.
Let’s try to forget that the words “Call me Ishmael” mean anything, and 
think about how they sound.
Listen to the vowel sounds: ah, ee, soft i, aa. Four of them, each 
different, and each a soft, soothing note. Listen too to the way the 
line is bracketed by consonants. We open with the hard c, hit the l at 
the end of “call,” and then, in a lovely act of symmetry, hit the l at 
the end of “Ishmael.” “Call me Arthur” or “Call me Bob” are adequate 
but not, for musical reasons, as satisfying.
Most readers, of course, wouldn’t be able to tell you that they respond 
to those three words because they are soothing and symmetrical, but 
most readers register the fact unconsciously. You could probably say 
that meaning is the force we employ, and music is the seduction. It is 
the translator’s job to reproduce the force as well as the music.
“Chiamami Ismaele.”
That is the Italian version of Melville’s line, and the translator has 
done a nice job. I can tell you, as a reader who doesn’t speak Italian, 
that those two words do in fact sound like something, independent of 
their meaning. Although different from the English, we have a new, 
equally lovely progression of vowel sounds — ee-a, ah, ee, a, ee — and 
those three m’s, nicely spaced.
If you’re translating “Moby-Dick,” that’s one sentence down, 
approximately a million more to go.
I encourage the translators of my books to take as much license as they 
feel that they need. This is not quite the heroic gesture it might 
seem, because I’ve learned, from working with translators over the 
years, that the original novel is, in a way, a translation itself. It 
is not, of course, translated into another language but it is a 
translation from the images in the author’s mind to that which he is 
able to put down on paper.
more to read
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/opinion/03cunningham.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1
-- 
groetjes Renée
The way to know life is to love many things.
 Vincent van Gogh

 “Chiamami Ismaele.”
Questa però era facile! :-)

 Questa però era facile! :-)
Even I could have done that!
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 Even I could have done that!
Translation task number two:
"There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is
the true method."
                -- Herman Melville, Moby Dick
:-)
-- 
"The musicians that didn't know music could play the best blues.
I know that I don't want no musicians who know all about music
playin' for me."
                -- Alberta Hunter

                 -- Herman Melville, Moby Dick
"Ci sono alcune imprese in cui un'attenta disordinatezza è il vero
metodo"? (Ammetto che "disordinatezza" me lo sono inventato su due
piedi...)

  :-)
"Ci sono alcune imprese in cui un accurato disordine è
il vero metodo ".
(I do not wish to translate the name of author and book.)
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Army1987 formulated on dinsdag :
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I don't think that is correct, my translation is way better. >:|
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 "disordinatezza"
L'influsso irlandese ti sta facendo male! :-P
Get back to Italì! :-DDD

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Cose del genere le facevo anche in Italia, ma troppo spesso mi
capitava di scoprire che la parola che "inventavo" esisteva già... :-(

 (I do not wish to translate the name of author and book.)
Ermanno Melville, la balena bianca.
(una volta in Italia si usava tradurre o italianizzare i nomi)
-- 
Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are
the laws of nature!
    -- G.B. Shaw

 >:|
La "disordinatezza" di Army è un orrore!
 
-- 
There is no distinctly native American criminal class except
Congress.
    -- Mark Twain

 (una volta in Italia si usava tradurre o italianizzare i nomi)
At last I did something good!
Today in class I made a mess of Italian, so luckily it was back to 
normal lol
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