BLUES
REPORT: LANGUAGE JUNCTION AT THE GREAT
PLAINS’ EDGE
James
Manteith
The annual confluence of the American Literary
Translators Association took place this past November in Kansas City, Mo., a key
crossroads in European settlement of the American West. Bordering on the Great Plains, the city
stands roughly in the nation's center, and the multilingual gathering wove
together many directions, linking a supposed hinterland with the planet as a
whole. Many are surprised by the city’s
sturdy refinement, distinctive enough in America. Openness to Old World architectural
influences abounds in historic brick buildings throughout the downtown. Near the conference pavilions flows a canal,
with bridges, fountains and gondolas.
As Native American poet Thomas Weso remarks in an opening
presentation, this region has seen a range of languages pass through over
time. Traces remain, he says, in place
names derived from Indian tribes. “But I
think we’re almost all native Americans here, right?” the poet concludes,
blessing the days ahead.
The theme of country’s need for practitioners of the
art of translation receives repeated emphasis.
Despite America’s activeness on the world stage and the large number of
immigrants within its borders, the populace remains ill-informed about the
significance and value of other cultures.
Literary translation represents one possible means of building respect
for human cultural diversity outside the realm of political strategy.
There are sources for funding literary translation in
the United States, but the work primarily depends on personal initiative, with
low pay and relatively little recognition, even for translations of well-known
international writers. It’s said translations
are published in smaller runs here than in the past. On the other hand, there’s a boom in the
popularity of translations of international bestsellers — for instance, Swedish
detective novels. “I translate from
Swedish,” a translator says as if in apology, “and now I can eat!” But this is an exception. The conference features talk of ways to
improve conditions, and yet there’s a sense that however small the rewards,
literary translators in America — and likely everywhere else — are motivated
above all by love of working with words, broadening the range of experience
available in their native languages.
It’s telling to learn what individuals do for the sake
of translation. Mark Weiss, editor of an
anthology of Cuban poetry, describes a translator paying a visit to the Cuban
ministry responsible for authors’ rights, paying out of pocket for permission
to publish a certain poet’s work, then later finding out the rights didn’t belong
to the ministry at all. In another case,
translator Jim Kates, personally gathering materials for an anthology of
Russian poetry, unexpectedly discovered that even the poets themselves viewed
him as knowing Petersburg poets better than anyone in Moscow knew them, and
Moscow poets better than anyone in Petersburg.
What’s more, each camp saw him as its own, and it was said the writers
he joined under one cover would be unlikely to come together in the same room.
Such translators take on the role of literary scholars,
tracking down treasures not always apparent on the surface. Lisa Hayden, at work on the first English
version of a novel by the extraordinary Russian modernist Konstantin Vaginov, pours
fresh creative energy into recasting the writer’s complex style, densely
saturated with millenia of cultural residue.
Jim Kates, a publisher, poet and prolific translator of Russian poetry,
has compiled his own English-language versions of a cycle of Biblical psalms
given a dissident treatment by Genrikh Sapgir, whom many still know only as a
children’s author. Then there’s Marian
Schwartz, who manages to attend in parallel to a variety of sharply contrasting
directions in Russian prose, from the latest literary hits to books by
lesser-known writers, on up to venerable classics (Goncharov, Bulgakov,
Tolstoy) whose translations may need update given changes in the English
language or shortcomings in prior versions.
The need for constant update of literary translations
colors the translator’s labor. The original
may have its eternal niche in the literary pantheon, while its translations
either age or reveal their weaknesses one after another. This disconnect leaves room for speculation
and a certain dependency on social factors potentially remote from the text
being translated. A literary translator
has ample cause for doubt. Despite this,
translators find their task vitally engrossing and push ahead to new
accomplishments.
An uninitiated reader with no stake in translation
might never give a thought to the layers of literary and intellectual history
captured in the successive translations over time. This line certainly exists, with its own
striking and influential classics. A
vital figure for Russian literature in English is Constance Garnett, a
brilliant translator whose career began in the second half of the nineteenth
century. Garnett wrote extremely well,
and her biography coincided with Russian literature’s golden age, leading to
the appearance of a whole library of her translations, numbering 71 volumes
(including War and Peace), which in
turn influenced several generations of English-language writers. It’s now common to see Garnett’s style called
old-fashioned and overly homogenous, given the vastly different styles of the
authors she translated. Nonetheless, as
Marian Schwartz observed in a talk devoted to Garnett, “we all read her books,
we all loved them, and many of us became translators thanks to her.” Gratitude, though, doesn’t keep Schwartz from
trying her hand at books once translated by Garnett when she sees ways to come
closer to authors’ intentions, some of which may not register in rather bland
recent versions. “Everyone knows the
plots of Tolstoy’s novels,” she says.
“What’s left if you don’t give his style?”
The conference, attentive to craft, is a fine occasion
for paying respects to outstanding colleagues of the past. Translator and literary scholar Jamie Olson
tells the story of George Kline, who first translated Brodsky into
English. Olson, well-acquainted with the
progression of translations of the poet’s work, tells of how Brodsky himself
assumed an ever greater role in the translation process, supported by his
increasing mastery of English. There are
signs that the poet began overruling his translator’s decisions — perhaps
accounting for the off-kilter quality that can be found in Brodsky’s
“authorial” translations. Kline’s
refined, conscientious translations remain a thing unto themselves, the fruits
of a specialist who responded to Brodsky’s work in part based on the poet’s
religiosity, evocative of the lineage of faith found in earlier Russian poets
such as Pasternak. Ultimately, both
Brodsky and Kline strikingly embody the interrelationship of cultures.
In a formal ceremony in an elegant ballroom, the
Association presents its annual translation awards. The prize for best translation from an Asian
language goes to Charles Egan for his anthology of poetry by Chinese Zen
monks. Spanish translator Lisa Bradford
receives the year’s overall translation prize for her rendering of Argentine
poet Juan Gelman’s elegies for his son, among the “disappeared” in the course
of political repressions. Just as
significant is an evening of declamations, capped off with a mass chorus of
“Frere Jacques” in no fewer than fifteen languages. Pleasant, then, to think of the sum of the performers’
enthusiastic cacophony as a worthy offering to the power of translation.
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