Friday, February 15, 2019
Translating is something that I know
quite a bit about. I have translated five books of Russian poetry, as
well as a number of texts, into English. And one thing that a
translator understands very well is the importance of a good
translation.
Sometimes translations aren't all that
good. There was one notable occasion in my life when a translator had
fun. It happened when I was 13, at a Soviet-American youth summit. A
Chinese politician was saying that they called Mikhail Gorbachev “old
man Gor,” “old man” being a sign of respect. This got
translated as “little geezer Gor,” to a huge chorus of laughter.
You don't often call Soviet Union's head of state a little geezer.
Good translation demands effort. You
have to get the structure right, and you have to get the feeling
right. Either one or the other is demanding; both are especially
demanding. A professor once said that my translations were too
Russian. That was deliberate. I sought to convey the poem as it was,
even when it meant following the Russian rhyming and rhythm scheme.
Right now I know several good
translators on the Internet. My favorite one is Andrey Kneller. He
has produced a vast amount of excellent work
(https://sites.google.com/site/poetryandtranslations).
Mine are at https://sites.google.com/site/ibshambat
and https://sites.google.com/site/ibshambat/russian-songs.
Sometimes when problems arise they are
a result of bad translating; they can also be a result of inferior
original work. It is hard to do a good job of translating a bad poem,
though I have seen it done. Usually however the fault is with the
translator; and it becomes up to him to correct it.
I got into translating mainly at the
suggestion of a teacher. I had a Latin teacher named Hughlings
Himwich who had a broad knowledge of literature, and he encouraged me
to translate Russian poetry into English. I also knew a band named
Persephone's Bees. The head was a Russian woman, and when I asked how
she got the name for the band she said that it came from a poem by
Russian poet Osip Mandelshtam. I went to the library, found the poem,
translated it and sent it to her with a note, “Is this the poem?”
I enjoyed doing that so much that I kept translating. First it was a
book of Mandelshtam. Then another book of Akhmatova. Then more and
more.
Throughout the process there were many
people trying to discourage me. But now even they see the merit in
what I had done. It should make one proud to have their son's or
their ex-classmate's work used in books and dissertations. As the
founder of Cobol said, sometimes it's better to do and get yelled at
than not to do at all.
As the world is becoming Anglicized,
there is going to be a need for a lot of translations, especially of
literature in other languages. I do not expect it to be a huge field,
but I expect it to be a sizable one. For as long as you aren't
calling the Ayatollah a little geezer, your attention may be needed.
As for me, I have made my contribution, and I hope that others do as
well.
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