02/06 Ted Goossen Lecture, Flaubert, & James Wood - Suis

 I really enjoyed Ted Goossen’s lively and informal talk. I appreciated his readiness to have an open discourse with his audience. What stood out to me the most was his comments on his translation process. He said that when he reads a text in its source language, he first has a “subjective, emotional response” to the text and his goal is to recreate that in the target language for his readers. He also expressed his favor towards accessibility and readability; He prefers weaving explanations in his texts instead of using footnotes so that a text reads smoothly and the rhythm isn’t broken. He strives to make his translations read naturally in English. I thought about how this contrasts considerably with Ken Liu’s philosophy and how he prefers to keep “foreignness” in his translations. Ted’s mention of rhythm and musicality in text was also very interesting–he thinks about jazz when reading and translating Haruki Murakami. He said he thinks about his knowledge of music as an asset when translating rhythm, and that he associates every author he translates with a certain genre of music. Lastly, his excerpt from the novel he’s translating by Hiromi Kawakami was thought provoking when he posed the question of translating words such as “ai” and “koi”–the former having a linguistic connection to buddhism–in a distinguishable way when the English language only has one word for those words.

I couldn’t find the name of the translator for the reading by Gustave Flaubert. Nonetheless, “A Simple Heart” reminded me of mortality in a heart wrenchingly beautiful way. Flaubert is known for his masterful realism and I was able to see that in the beautiful descriptions of nature. There were some moments in the text that made me feel as if the translator strived to be as faithful to the original French as possible. Some example phrases from chapter two are “was all the fault of the drink,” “Theodore obtained meetings,” “installed her in her house,” and “received a visit.” Perhaps they read a bit strange to me due to the more archaic English, but I don’t think those are common English phrases.

James Wood reviewed Lydia Davis’s translation of “Madame Bovary” in The New Yorker. He read her translation alongside the original as well as three other translations of the text. He wrote that “Flaubert’s strict, elegant, rhythmic sentences come alive in Davis’s English. She does not flinch” He gives an example of her translation of a sentence and compares it with another translation. He says of her translation that she “has exactly and no more than is needed.” (Which, I assume, he meant that he appreciates her faithfulness to the original.) I felt that this review was a very informed and in depth review. He also reviewed “The Wall” by Marlen Haushofer in The New Yorker. In this review, he wrote less about the translator, only calling the translation “lucid” and wrote more about the distinctive style of the original author. I felt that the latter review is a more typical review of a translated book in the US.