MAINTENENT, JE LIS LE MIROIR D'AMBRE (josh read this one its about the golden compass)
okay, so now I'm reading "le miroir d'ambre" (which is french for 'the amber spyglass') because I finished "magicien d'oz" and claire (my younger homestay sister) happened to have it, and I never did get to finish the english version ... anyway, I'm reading it, but I started a bit before the part that I had origionally left off on because I couldn't remember much of what had happened, so I ended up rereading the chapters where mary malone ends up in the land of the wheel people, which sort are structured like a fake ethnoghraphy of their wheel culture.
the reason I bring this up is that reading the chapters the second time I had a slightly differnt feeling about the behavior of the wheel people, which I didn't really notice was different until I suddenly realized that in the french version all the wheel people are girls.
To clarify, in the english, the word phillip pullman initially uses to describe the wheel people is 'the creatures' and even though mary eventually finds out their name for themselves he still often refers to each as a 'creature' which pronominally (if that's a word) ends up being an 'it.' In the french, the word for creature is the same, but since french nouns are gendered, and 'creature' is feminine, 'the creature' ends up being 'la creature' and is referred to as 'elle.' the difference is really subtle, but it actually did change the way I was thinking about the wheel people (god what was their name? 'mulefas' or something like that) - first of all, they were les 'creatures' to me this time around because french grammar had grouped them in the same catagory as humans, whereas english grammar had grouped them as "other". second of all, as I mentioned, not only were they now anthropomorphized, but they were girls. consequently when I read "elles possédaient donc un langage et se savient faire du feu, et elles étaient organisé en société" and later "avec la plus grande délicatesse, leurs trompes manipulèrent les baguettes [side note - the fact that mary is traveling between dimensions with a bag of baguetes also changes the way I percieve her character - its a tiny cultural adjustment, but it happened in la magicien d'oz too, and its really weird how it alters the effect] en imitant les mouvements qu'elles lui avaient vu faire et elles tournèrent les pages du livre," despite the facts that we're talking about a bunch of furry fourlegged somethings with elephant-type trunks playing with mary's human toys, the scene is infused nevertheless with the sense of a occidental she-scientist being welcomed into a society of peacable, semi-naive native girls, whereas before my impression was a little more along the lines of jane goodall and the chimps. which is interesting, because I feel like pullman wanted to lean more towards the former, but was shackled by grammer - in english, if it's sentient and has an unspecified gender its either the ggenuinely neutral prounoun "it" which, becuase humans are never "it"s, lumps it automatically in the animal catagory, or the supposedly neurtal pronoun "he," which humanizes it but lumps it in the male catagory, because females are never "he"s.
this miniscule change in my perception of these scenes has stuck in my mind for an innapropriate amount of time for three reasons. One, because I write and have taken so many writing classes I'm constantly thinking about words and how they're loaded and how they create an effect, and its presque mindblowing for me to think that changes on so basic a level as pronoun usuage can change the mood of a scene, and how differences in the structure of grammar can allow french writers to manipulate mood in a way english writers can't, and vice versa, becuase they each have to play by a differnt set of rules (and then to think what writers might be able to do in so drastically different a language as japanese). then two, becuase, oddly, in this case, the french translation might actually be slightly more faithful to the intentions of the author than the english original, becuase he definately wanted you to perceive the creatures as people; and three, becuase of the weird realization that the switch in grammar probably only affected me that way becuase I was an anglophone reading french - that is, for an anglophone, it's just sort of in your mind that humans are he's and she's and animals are usually its, so when presented with the equivalent of a he or a she in another language my english brain wants to put it in the people catagory, even though it knows it doesn't necessarily go there. Par rapport, for a person who speaks a language where cats, dogs, people, tables and chairs are all he's and she's and there are no its, their brains probably wouldn't make the liason between 'she' and 'human,' becuase grammatically everything has to be either a he or a she, so there would be no sense of a sort of us/them anthropomorphic/ non anthropomorphic binary opposition. a creature refered to as she probably wouldn't make it seem more human becuase a frog is also a she, as is a table - the word wouldn't have the same connotation as it does in the english.
so in english there are three catagories, male, female, and neutral - in french there are only two, male and female, which perhaps weirdly makes both articles more gender neutral ... more about that later, maybe, if I have the energy.
also, the other thing that was bothering me, the thing about the bag of baguettes and dorothy eating tartines for the petite dejeuner, (i think that was it) was the way the little cultural adjustments the translators made in tiny details that shouldn't matter also made a difference in the way I was envisioning the scenes and the characters ... the tartine thing isn't that big a deal, becuase that's more or less just french for bread and jam (though i think it's specifically baguette split down the middle and jam) but the baguette thing is weirder, becuase a baguette is a specific kind of bread, and there's a general word for bread (ie pain) which they could have used instead, but the author chose the specific, for a reason I can't understand except perhaps it would sound more natural to french readers. Which makes sense, except for the fact that it actually makes the character less beleivable (not that this book is necesarily very 'beleivable,' considering its focused on a pair of adolescent interdimensional travelers, but for fantastical fiction to work you have to be able to beleive in the characters and their behavior even if you don't necessarily beleive in the events) because she's british, and people don't eat baguettes as a matter of course in oxford (and people don't eat tartines in kansas). this bothers me mostly becuase I really like a lot of translated literature, so now I find myself wondering what little might details have been changed in the english versions of books I like to make them more natural to english readers - I just keep thinking, what if madame koto's peppersoup had been madame koto's chicken noodle? or what if semyon somyonovich drank whiskey instead of vodka? Reading it, it probably would have seemed natural, but imagine the way it would have changed the charactization. And then I think about the other end of it, and wonder if there are hemmingway sailors and gangsters drinking wine in books in france.
the reason I bring this up is that reading the chapters the second time I had a slightly differnt feeling about the behavior of the wheel people, which I didn't really notice was different until I suddenly realized that in the french version all the wheel people are girls.
To clarify, in the english, the word phillip pullman initially uses to describe the wheel people is 'the creatures' and even though mary eventually finds out their name for themselves he still often refers to each as a 'creature' which pronominally (if that's a word) ends up being an 'it.' In the french, the word for creature is the same, but since french nouns are gendered, and 'creature' is feminine, 'the creature' ends up being 'la creature' and is referred to as 'elle.' the difference is really subtle, but it actually did change the way I was thinking about the wheel people (god what was their name? 'mulefas' or something like that) - first of all, they were les 'creatures' to me this time around because french grammar had grouped them in the same catagory as humans, whereas english grammar had grouped them as "other". second of all, as I mentioned, not only were they now anthropomorphized, but they were girls. consequently when I read "elles possédaient donc un langage et se savient faire du feu, et elles étaient organisé en société" and later "avec la plus grande délicatesse, leurs trompes manipulèrent les baguettes [side note - the fact that mary is traveling between dimensions with a bag of baguetes also changes the way I percieve her character - its a tiny cultural adjustment, but it happened in la magicien d'oz too, and its really weird how it alters the effect] en imitant les mouvements qu'elles lui avaient vu faire et elles tournèrent les pages du livre," despite the facts that we're talking about a bunch of furry fourlegged somethings with elephant-type trunks playing with mary's human toys, the scene is infused nevertheless with the sense of a occidental she-scientist being welcomed into a society of peacable, semi-naive native girls, whereas before my impression was a little more along the lines of jane goodall and the chimps. which is interesting, because I feel like pullman wanted to lean more towards the former, but was shackled by grammer - in english, if it's sentient and has an unspecified gender its either the ggenuinely neutral prounoun "it" which, becuase humans are never "it"s, lumps it automatically in the animal catagory, or the supposedly neurtal pronoun "he," which humanizes it but lumps it in the male catagory, because females are never "he"s.
this miniscule change in my perception of these scenes has stuck in my mind for an innapropriate amount of time for three reasons. One, because I write and have taken so many writing classes I'm constantly thinking about words and how they're loaded and how they create an effect, and its presque mindblowing for me to think that changes on so basic a level as pronoun usuage can change the mood of a scene, and how differences in the structure of grammar can allow french writers to manipulate mood in a way english writers can't, and vice versa, becuase they each have to play by a differnt set of rules (and then to think what writers might be able to do in so drastically different a language as japanese). then two, becuase, oddly, in this case, the french translation might actually be slightly more faithful to the intentions of the author than the english original, becuase he definately wanted you to perceive the creatures as people; and three, becuase of the weird realization that the switch in grammar probably only affected me that way becuase I was an anglophone reading french - that is, for an anglophone, it's just sort of in your mind that humans are he's and she's and animals are usually its, so when presented with the equivalent of a he or a she in another language my english brain wants to put it in the people catagory, even though it knows it doesn't necessarily go there. Par rapport, for a person who speaks a language where cats, dogs, people, tables and chairs are all he's and she's and there are no its, their brains probably wouldn't make the liason between 'she' and 'human,' becuase grammatically everything has to be either a he or a she, so there would be no sense of a sort of us/them anthropomorphic/ non anthropomorphic binary opposition. a creature refered to as she probably wouldn't make it seem more human becuase a frog is also a she, as is a table - the word wouldn't have the same connotation as it does in the english.
so in english there are three catagories, male, female, and neutral - in french there are only two, male and female, which perhaps weirdly makes both articles more gender neutral ... more about that later, maybe, if I have the energy.
also, the other thing that was bothering me, the thing about the bag of baguettes and dorothy eating tartines for the petite dejeuner, (i think that was it) was the way the little cultural adjustments the translators made in tiny details that shouldn't matter also made a difference in the way I was envisioning the scenes and the characters ... the tartine thing isn't that big a deal, becuase that's more or less just french for bread and jam (though i think it's specifically baguette split down the middle and jam) but the baguette thing is weirder, becuase a baguette is a specific kind of bread, and there's a general word for bread (ie pain) which they could have used instead, but the author chose the specific, for a reason I can't understand except perhaps it would sound more natural to french readers. Which makes sense, except for the fact that it actually makes the character less beleivable (not that this book is necesarily very 'beleivable,' considering its focused on a pair of adolescent interdimensional travelers, but for fantastical fiction to work you have to be able to beleive in the characters and their behavior even if you don't necessarily beleive in the events) because she's british, and people don't eat baguettes as a matter of course in oxford (and people don't eat tartines in kansas). this bothers me mostly becuase I really like a lot of translated literature, so now I find myself wondering what little might details have been changed in the english versions of books I like to make them more natural to english readers - I just keep thinking, what if madame koto's peppersoup had been madame koto's chicken noodle? or what if semyon somyonovich drank whiskey instead of vodka? Reading it, it probably would have seemed natural, but imagine the way it would have changed the charactization. And then I think about the other end of it, and wonder if there are hemmingway sailors and gangsters drinking wine in books in france.