Lost (and Found) in Translation
And the many conundrums of the work involved.
Literary translation is such a curious thing!
Back in 2016, shattering my hopes and expectations, The Vegetarian — written by Han Kang in Korean and translated to English by Deborah Smith — picked up the Man Booker International Prize.
I had read the book earlier that year. While the story was interesting enough, reading it brought me little to no pleasure because of the bland writing, repetitive words, and a complete lack of literary charisma.
There’s a difference between writing a story and being a storyteller, the latter being indispensable to any great work of literature.
An amazing blogger I respect and look up to once said, and I’m paraphrasing, a good writer could write about the steps of how to cut grass, and the readers would gobble it up just the same.
As for The Vegetarian, it appeared the author had a great story to tell; only, she couldn’t really tell it with a vigor that’s needed to hook the readers.
She failed at being a storyteller.
Or, did she?
There’s a difference between writing a story and being a storyteller, the latter being indispensable to any great work of literature.
All that time though, in the back of my mind somewhere, I knew I couldn’t possibly blame Han Kang without having read the original book in its original language.
What I was reading was someone’s — Smith’s — interpretation of what Kang may have tried to convey. Worse, it’s entirely possible that Smith, who’s never translated a novel before The Vegetarian, and who’s been learning Korean more or less for only half a decade at the time she undertook the task of translating this book, simply wasn’t up for a stellar task.
I understood that I should not have been expecting the same charisma from Smith as I do from, say, Alfred Birnbaum’s translated works of Haruki Murakami’s novels.
That said, I also thought The Vegetarian unworthy of winning the International Man Booker Prize, which starting in 2016, wasn’t awarded to the author alone for her entire body of work, but instead, it was now awarded to an author for a single book that had been translated into English, and the award [and the prize money] was shared between the author and the translator.
The translator now having elevated to the same pedestal as the author… more or less.
Han Kang may have been worthy of the prestigious accolades, but Smith? There are novice translators out there who translate Korean Manhwa just for the kicks and do a better job than she.
I’m bilingual myself, so the difficulties of translating — not just the words from one language to another, but also the emotion associated with the language — isn’t lost on me. Often, certain emotions can only be felt to their intended extent in certain languages.
For example, in English, we often use the expression — “I’m sorry for your loss” — to convey sympathy towards someone who’s lost a loved one.
In my native tongue, Bengali, a literal translation of the above, if that’s even possible, will earn you confusion at best, if it doesn’t get you kicked out of the funeral house first.
One of my favorite writers, Mona Chalabi, said during an interview with Emily Ludolph for 99u, and I’m paraphrasing, that when you start learning a new language, your brain starts to internalize things in completely new ways because of how you associate certain words to their intended feelings.
Mona gives the example of the word “sad”. She says,
“the word sad has got such a weighted meaning for me in English because I’ve heard it in all of these different contexts, right? When you move to a new language and that word hasn’t been ascribed with years of memories, it’s a lightweight word. That means your use of it is different.”
This is kind of mind-boggling to think about, and perhaps not something most people would understand or agree with unless they’ve gone through the process of learning a new language in their adulthood, or at least they’re bilingual and understand the different nuances different languages bring to the table.
This poses two very distinct challenges for translators.
First, they need to, often, not necessarily always literally translate a body of work, but instead, translate the feelings associated with them. This can mean changing the actual words just so that the translated work carries the same feelings in the reader that the original work is intended to. The translator here is essentially translating the feelings from one language to another as opposed to literally translating words.
Second, translators need to have enough time with a certain language to fully grasp the meaning of the original text. For example, if a certain word loses its depth simply because one hadn’t spent enough time with the language, as Mona said about the word “sad” in French somehow becoming lightweight simply because she didn’t have the same memories associated with the new word as she did with the English word “sad”, then how can they [translators] be expected to properly translate the feelings?
Translators maintain the literary landscape just the same as the original architects, or they change the landscape altogether.
One of my favorite authors, Haruki Murakami, writes in Japanese. Most of his novels are translated by any of the following translators: Alfred Birnbaum, Philip Gabriel, and Jay Rubin. While reading some of Murakami’s older novels, I often tried to “guess” who the translator could be. It’s subtle, but each of these translators brings something in the final work that’s unique to them. They leave their own mark so to speak. It’s not readily recognizable, and I cannot always successfully tell who the translator is, but I like to play this game of “guess the translator” none the less.
Recently, Murakami’s latest novel Killing Commendatore was released in English, and this book was translated by two different translators in part, as some of his longer books usually are. Interestingly, one of the translators is someone I’m not all too familiar with — Ted Goosen.
As usual, I tried to guess who translated which part. It was curious that the first half of the book gave me a completely different feeling than what I’m used to from Murakami’s works, and this led me to wonder if perhaps the first volume of Killing Commendatore was translated by Ted Goosen.
I have no way of knowing this for sure, of course, all I can do is guess.
Incidentally, my favorite Murakami translator happens to be Alfred Birnbaum, and I know this because all of my favorite Murakami books have been translated by him.
Curious, wouldn’t you agree?
Originals aside, I’ll go ahead and say that the credit for the making of a translated book goes as much to the translator as it does to the author.
And that is also precisely why I was so disappointed when The Vegetarian won The Man Booker International Prize. Because while the original book may have been spectacular, the version that I read, the one which was translated to English by Deborah Smith, was anything but!
Translators are a different sort of creatures than authors. They wield the pen in ways that cut deeper, or shallower, or in a zig-zag fashion. They maintain the literary landscape just the same as the original architects, or they change the landscape altogether. That’s power wielded only by the mighty translators.
And as we all know, with great power comes great responsibility. Perhaps those who preside over recognizing such power (and associated responsibilities) will do better by remembering this. (Yes, team Man Booker, I mean you!)
