This makes me think of a fabulous bit in Douglas Hofstadter's Le Ton beau de Marot (one of my very favorite books ever, and highly recommended to anyone with an interest in translation, language, and/or poetry). I'm just going to quote a little here, mostly because it's too much to type in the whole thing:
Does a sentence written in American English mean what it means in British English? (Does the word "monarchy" mean the same thing in both places? How about "Yankee"? How about "jolly"? How about "you"?)
Does a sentence written in British English mean what it means in Indian English? (Does "cow" mean the same thing in both of them? How about "beef"? How about "Crown"? How about "nose?")
Does a French sentence written by someone in Pushkin's Russia mean what the same French sentence written in Hugo's France meant? (Did "Napoléon" mean the same thing to both of them? How about tsar?)
Does a San Franciscan speak the same language as a New Yorker? (Does "Chinatown" mean the same thing to both of them? How about "China"? How about
( ... )
Yes yes yes, that's exactly the sort of fascinating thing I meant. Thanks for the quotes!
Confession: I checked out Le ton beau from the library not long after it came out, because it sounded like something I'd love to read. I ended up metaphorically throwing it across the room (not literally, it wasn't my own copy to hurl) when the writer said he'd rewritten the first three chapters to make the type setting in the initial letter of the first paragraph of each chapter come out symmetrically. At that point I snarled "Oh, for god's sake!" and slammed the book shut, never to read it again.
I shall endeavor not to defriend you for that! Hmmph. Philistine.
Of course, that's sort of what the whole book is about - how do you choose "what is important about this text" that must be preserved in translation, and how do you choose what to slip? Literal meaning, metaphorical meaning, style, scansion, rhyme, syllable count, elision of a particular letter, typographical symmetry? Parts of the book are more interesting (to me) than others, and I'm pretty sure I didn't read it linearly. It's possible I didn't even read every single page. (And actually, I haven't reread it in ages, and I think I want to, now.)
So I pulled my copy off the shelf and started rereading. I think that I would recommend you start with chapter 3, then read chapters 1 and 2 along with the poems after each chapter, move to the poems after 3, and then possibly skip chapter 5 unless you are interested in AI and computers.
Reply
Confession: I checked out Le ton beau from the library not long after it came out, because it sounded like something I'd love to read. I ended up metaphorically throwing it across the room (not literally, it wasn't my own copy to hurl) when the writer said he'd rewritten the first three chapters to make the type setting in the initial letter of the first paragraph of each chapter come out symmetrically. At that point I snarled "Oh, for god's sake!" and slammed the book shut, never to read it again.
I should try again, shouldn't I?
Reply
Of course, that's sort of what the whole book is about - how do you choose "what is important about this text" that must be preserved in translation, and how do you choose what to slip? Literal meaning, metaphorical meaning, style, scansion, rhyme, syllable count, elision of a particular letter, typographical symmetry? Parts of the book are more interesting (to me) than others, and I'm pretty sure I didn't read it linearly. It's possible I didn't even read every single page. (And actually, I haven't reread it in ages, and I think I want to, now.)
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment