Translation and Its Analogues

I accept the fundamental difference between creative artists (writers, painters, film directors, composers, choreographers etc.) and interpretive artists (conductors, singers, actors etc.). The former are preeminent, but, of course, there can be significant overlap, as in Orson Welles, Fred Astaire, or Louis Armstrong, but often this is because, in their chosen forms, conception is all but indistinguishable from performance. I have a particular interest in literary translation and I find the possible parralel between an interpretive artist like a conductor or an opera singer and a literary translator to be quite intriguing. Like a conductor, singer or actor, a translator is not really a creative artist. He is not really involved in the conception or structure of a piece of art. But rather, like a conductor or singer he must constantly decide what elements of the original are most essential and use whatever resources they have to bring those qualities out in the finished product. The big difference I see between a translator and other interpretive artists like singers, dancers and musicians is that the latter are very much in the moment arts, while, in this respect, a translator is much like other writers, who have time to constantly think about and revise their work.

Perhaps even more intriguiing is the parrallel between literary translation and transcription of a musical score. I was struck by this when listening to a piano transcription of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker. Large parts of the score suffered absolutely no diminishment whatsoever, and might as well have been composed for that instrument. Others, while not completely diminished did sound rather "tinny". The fact that much of the score sounded as good as it did is, I think, particularly telling in that an enormous part of Tchaikovsky's appeal lies in his orchestral colouring. It has been my experience that much the same is true for translation as well. Reading a superb carrying over like the King James Bible side by side with the original Hebrew, I can honestly say that much of the text is every bit as strong in English as it is in the original. Inevitably, however there are moments when the particular effect of the Hebrew simply cannot be well conveyed in English.

Translating is an exhilerating process, but also a humbling one. You are constantly faced both with the universalism of literature and its localism. The inevitable failure to exactly reproduce some peculiar, but wonderful, flavour of the original clashes with the exhileration of moments when the two languages come together in spectacular ways. I like translating because when well done it lets others experience something they would otherwise be unable to. No one is able to learn all of the major literary languages of the world, and so we are all at the mercy of translators if we stray from the few we have have managed to pick up. Though less than ideal, if you love great literature, reading in translation is all but inevitable, so let it at least be done well.

NOTE: I listed my favourite translations here.