Beedle is out!!
Yeah, I know, Beedle was out yesterday. There is a reason why I couldn't review it yesterday: the people at Salamandra (the publishing house responsible for the editions in the whole Spanish-speaking world) are absolute idiots.
Beedle's was a simultaneous world-wide launch, right? Beedle was to be published at the 00.01 of the 4th of December. Ever since Deathly Hallows' publication, through-out the world (or, at least, Latinamerica) bookstores have become accustomed to release the book not at 00.01, but at London's 00.01. In Argentina that means 20.00 (or at 21.00 in the eastern half, because of summer-time).
That is just fine. But what did the idiots do? Salamandra asked every bookstore to not release Beedle until 20.00 OF THE FOURTH OF DECEMBER. That is, twenty-four hours later the rest of the world had launched Beedle the Bard.
I had pre-ordered the British version of Beedle at my local only-English bookstore, and me and my friend Flor (who has a very basic grasp of English) planned to buy the Spanish versions at another bookstore (Yenny) on the way to KEL to pick up mine and sit at a nearby McDonalds to read it together with lunch. We did, however, heard rumors about the book being launched in the evening of the fourth, but first I thought my friend had misread the article at Harrylatino, then I hoped the people at Harrylatino had made the mistake, and when this wasn't rectified, that the people at Salamandra had made a mistake and surely realise that they needed to release the book on the 3rd, if they wanted a truly simultaneous launching, right?
Of course, this didn't happen. On Tuesday, I made a call to both bookstores, and they both told me they would start selling the book on the morning of the fourth. I decided not to worry.
By the time we arrived to buy Beedle at Yenny, things were conspicuously quiet. When we asked, they told me exactly what I feared:
Bookshop clerk: We're not selling it yet. It will come out at eight in the afternoon.
Me: But-but-but I called on Tuesday. You people told me it would be out this morning.
Clerk: *shrugs* It's a world-wide simultaneous launching.
Me: If it was, it would have come out yesterday. It doesn't come out on the fifth.
Clerk: *shrugs, annoyingly, again*
Me: I know people who already have it.
Clerk: We will be selling it at eight.
I had to give up. We exited the place, muttering against the Salamandra people and the apparent incapacity of the clerks at Yenny to think for themselves. We went to KEL, and as they were selling the Bloomsbury edition and were immune to Salamandra's stupidity, I could buy my book ^_^ The shop was empty, though, and as soon as we came in, the woman behind the counter turned to grab a copy of Beedle that was on an especially decorated shelf. Were we really that obvious?
Anyway, happy because of our one triumph, we sat at a McDonald's table, changed into our Hogwarts uniforms, and I began the simultaneous translation.
Anyone who has ever attempted a simultaneous translation knows this isn't easy bussiness, but a rather amusing one. My friend tells me I tend to do a lot of mimics with my hands, to help her understand me, and to panickly self-correct me. She says it is funny.
Me: "'Tis my old donkey, sir'" Wait, is there a word for a female donkey?
Flor: No, I don't think so.
Me: Are you completely sure?
Flor: Does it really matter?
Me: "...which hopped at his heels all day, ...doing like a donkey... (I couldn't remember the word for that) and groaning and... doing clang sounds (there's no way to turn an onomatopoeia into verb in Spanish!)...Y'know, like it did when it hit the floor"
Flor: I understand.
Me: "This was the beggining of Mr Malfoy's long campaign to have me removed from my post as Headmaster of Hogwarts and of me to have him removed..." No, wait, that's not right. "...and my campaign to have him as favourite Death Eater..." NO, THAT'S NOT IT! "... and the removal of his position..." AAAGHHH!!! OK, wait (takes a few seconds to read the entire paragraph). The exchange marked the beggining of MALFOY'S campaign to have Dumbledore removed as Headmaster and the beggining of Dumbledore's campaign to have Malfoy removed from his position as a Death Eater. All right? (picture me drawing an invisible chart on the table with my fingers)
Flor: (peeking) as Lord Voldemort's FAVOURITE Death Eater. You missed that.
Me: (dies of exhaustion)
I lost my voice midway A Warlock's Hairy Heart, and by the end of the tale's commentary, it was time to head home. My friend had to be at uni for an English final exam by six (hey, at least she revised vocabulary), so we resolved to pre-order the Spanish copies at a book-store near home, pick them up today at three and head back to my place to finish our reading, now able to compare original and translation.
It was actually an OK translation. There were several things I didn't like, but we are talking about the woman who translated "Horcrux" into "Horrocrux", "bitch" into "bad witch", "The Greater Good" into "The Common Good" or "The Good for everyone" (El bien común) and made Voldemort say "Fantastic!" instead of "good" (I could go on and on and on...).
One of the things that bugged me was that the title of the book itself was written differently in several parts. The cover and the first title pages (no idea of the word for those) say "THE Tales of Beedle the Bard" while the introduction and commentary say "Tales of Beedle the Bard". Not only the editors are idiots for not fixing it to fit, but she's also an idiot for dropping the article. In Spanish we have nice articles. Articles have gender and number. Sentences without articles have a wrong-feeling about them. I suppose the dropping isn't that bad, but they should pick one title AND STICK WITH IT.
A few gory bits have been edited, as always. In Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump, the hounds "bayed for Babbitty's blood" in the original, while in the translation they simply "were barking maddingly". This may seem a small thing, but is just the last of a long list of examples of the translations of the HP series by this woman.
Another thing that bugged me a bit was the translation for Sir Luckless. It can be literally translated as Sir Sinsuerte, which I thought had a nice ring to it, but she used "Sir Desventurado" (desventura means, literally, 'misfortune'). There were also a couple of very much Spanish words and verbs conjugated on the old vosotros (something akin to the old English 'thee', now only in use in Spain and in century-old books). The "slipper" in The Wizard and the Hopping Pot was translated as "zapatilla" (trainer) instead of "chinela" (slipper!). I am aware that in some countries zapatilla means slipper, but not in mine. I kept picturing a pot with a Nike on. Use a more neutral word, woman!
A few small things were the translation of the "tale of the three brothers" as " the fable of the three brothers", and 'clang' being translated as 'cataplum' which is a completely different sound. "Wand of elder, never prosper" was adapted as "wand of elder, bad shadow and little trick" (WHATTAHELL?). There are a lot more, but surprisingly less than I thought there would be. One last I'd like to tell you about, is an omission in the baroness' personal message. The third paragraph begins: "To change the lives of institutionalised and marginalised children...", and the translation's third paragraph begins: "To change the lives of these children...". Why the words (the very important words) 'institutionalised and marginalised' were dropped, I cannot understand. First, there is a very literal translation ('institucionalizados' and 'marginados') and second, there is no redundancy, which is a common affliction of the translation from English to Spanish. It is a common thing in Gemma Rovira Ortega's works, where words and sentences sometimes randomly dissapear, but this wasn't an occasion where you could take artistic licence.
All this aside, I LOVED Beedle the Bard. I love fairy-tales in general, and all of Rowling's have the more traditional elements and common places, and at the same time they manage to be surprising and entertaining (they would have been more if I hadn't read the Amazon review, but hey, I didn't thought at the time that we would be able to read them a year later). Bruno Bettelheim could totally add them on his book The Uses of Enchantment, if it wasn't for the obvious reasons. (On a total random Off-Topic note, I had to look up the original title of that one, and it took me ages, because they frigging translated it as Psicoanalisis de los cuentos de hadas/Psychoanalysis of Fairy-tales, WTF?)
The Wizard and the Hopping Pot
I loved the disgusting bits. The warts, the sour milk and bad cheese, the retching sounds- that's Rowling from beggining to end. And I think the story itself reminds me of a real, original fairy tale, but I can't quite put my finger on which one. The commentary was awesome. The story of the relations between wizards and muggles was very interesting, and so was the evolution of the tale to fit the sentiments of the times. The censorship rant was also very nice. Go to hell, Disney (and possibly Beatrix Potter, I am told).
I went MAD trying to understand the word nincompoop! I found it in the end, but it wasn't on the pocket dictionary I had on me then. We were very confused because we couldn't figure out what was swallowed whole by what in the revised version of the tale, and had a nice laugh once I calmed down, read the whole paragraph, and was able to translate it properly. I also had trouble translating 'toadstool', which I didn't know was a mushroom, so I translated literally to toad stool, which sounded cute but weird. It was a surprise when we googled it today and pretty pictures of (now I know) toadstools appeared.
The Fountain of Fair Fortune
The drawing of the Fountain is SO beautiful. And did you noticed the planet's symbols on it?
I loved the story. I know I am being redundant, because I loved them all. But this one in particular. The repetition of the number three (the three women, the three tests) was very fitting, of course. The big white blind worm was great and disgusting and scary. It is very interesting how each of the women represent each of the three things humans generally treasure the most; health, love and money (Here, when somebody sneezes, people say not 'bless you' but 'health, money and love'. My great-grandmother used to say 'y un joven de yapa / and a men as a gift').
And the commentary. People were staring at us because we were laughing so loud. I studied English Theatre this year at uni, and I was so happy to show off my knowledge and explain to my friend about pantomimes and the importance theatre has on English culture (much different from ours). I was jumping up and down when I read about the WADA, and started thinking of all the wonderful possibilities this gave. Not only of badfic (of which there will be plenty!) but of fun, creative adaptations of existing plays for a wizarding audience, and of the writing of new plays. Can you imagine MAGICAL theatre? It's too good to let it pass. There needs to be fic about this.
The Warlock's Hairy Heart
So gory. So scary and so entertaining. I have little to say on this one, except that I enjoyed it inmensely, and while I didn't feel a fairy-tale reminiscense like with the other ones, it is easy to brand it as such. God, what an ending. there should totally be a movie about this one.
The maiden aunt Honoria and her fiancee The One who was Fond of Horklumps cracked us up. Me especially because I HAVE a maiden aunt Honoria in a story I am writing. There wes more than one maiden Honoria in my family tree. The fondling of Horklumps... I don't think I'll ever be able to hear the word 'fond' and keep a straight face again.
Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump
Once again we have a smart, cunning witch who saves the day, and that is just great. The argument that Beedle had never met an Animagi, which was why he wrote that Babbitty was able to speak as a rabbit, sounds a bit weak, but I think we can forgive Rowling this one. The foolish king, the charlatan (I loved that she called him a charlatan) were so amusing.
The Tale of the Three Brothers
It just wasn't the same without Harry and Ron MSTing it. It was also a little weird to read it, for the first time, with Death as a female (such as it is in Spanish) when I had pictured him as a men, or at least, as an asexual being. Still, nice and ejoyable, I guess. The commentary was interesting, and so was the drawing of Ignotus Peverell's grave. One little thing I found interesting was that now Rowling wrote about both a daughter betraying her mother and a son betraying his father in order to steal a powerful object from them. The similarity between the two stories is obvious, and I thought it was worth a further study. There's a lot about people's relationships with their parents in the HP books, but besides the 'a mother's love' topic, I don't think it's been properly explored.
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Wow, this was long. I feel obliged to repeat this: I loved them. And royalties go to children who need it. Buy Beedle (I bought two!), have a nice couple of hours reading, and the satisfaction of knowing that maybe you made a difference in a child's life.