Julia Sanchez Post-talk and Peter Constantine Pre-talk - Lianbi

I enjoyed getting to know Julia Sanches last Friday. She was very kind and approachable. Her presentation is very thoughtful and full of close-reading examples and rich ideas (kind of like Ken’s). I know we still feel wonky about her translation and tone. Perhaps she feels some regret too? She works with many languages including many kinds of English, and she usually does quite extensive research. Yet she still has to work until tight deadlines and with publishers from different countries with different preferences. The UK vs. US difference here is very interesting and informative.

The Bird is a Raven is a weird story… I don’t really like it. I wonder why Peter translated this. I notice some specific features of the translation:

• Tense. The entire story is carried out in present tense. Yet sometimes the narrator goes straight from present tense into past perfect. Those moments read weird to me, for instance: “I hadn’t noticed that the dining car had emptied out.” (10) There are also some moments where the narrator used present perfect tense while I would probably just say past tense (and they have different implications), e.g. “He hasn’t touched his apple juice.” (10) I wonder how these choices were influenced by the German.

• Time. In the beginning of the story, the time when the narrator boarded the train was “22:29” in the original but becomes “10:29” in the English, without “PM”. 

• There are many short sentences throughout the story. It makes Henry sound quite like the narrator, and both sound like disinterested, uncharming storytellers. Whenever the story’s pace or vibrance finally picks up, it’s immediately dropped again. We’re forever in this sense of heavy footsteps, chopped emotions, one after another. I took a brief look at the German and the sentence lengths are similar. Is the effect similar?

• German: Eine Frauenstimme sagt: Ich will nicht mehr, ich kann nicht mehr.

English: A woman’s voice says: “I’ve had enough; I can’t go on.”

I notice here that the free indirect discourse in the original is turned into quotation, and the comma is replaced by a semicolon. Not sure that this is necessary.

• “From his movements… I think right away: a bird.” This sentence that points at the title of the story reads odd to me. I might have written something like “From his movements… I immediately thought of something that resembles him: a bird.”