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r0B0t: The subtle art of translating foreign fiction
From Scandinavian crime to Elena Ferrante and Karl Ove Knausagaard, it's boom time for foreign fiction in the UK. But the right translation is crucial, says Rachel Cooke, while, below, some of the best translators tell us their secrets
Last year, I decided to treat myself to a new copy of Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan, a novel I have loved ever since I first read it as a teenager, and whose dreamy opening line in its original translation from the French by Irene Ash “A strange melancholy pervades me to which I hesitate to give the grave and beautiful name of sadness” I know by heart. But which one to get? In the end, I decided to go for something entirely new and ritzy, which is how I came to buy the Penguin Modern Classics edition, translated by Heather Lloyd.
Some days later, in bed, I began reading it. The shock was tremendous, disorienting. “This strange new feeling of mine, obsessing me by its sweet languor, is such that I am reluctant to dignify it with the fine, solemn name of ‘sadness',” went the first sentence, which sounded to my ears a little as though a robot had written it. For a while I pressed on, telling myself it was stupid to cling to only one version, as if it were a sacred thing, and that perhaps I would soon fall in love with this no doubt very clever and more accurate new translation. Pretty soon, though, I gave up. However syntactically correct it might be, the prose had for me lost all of its magic. It was as if I'd gone out to buy a silk party dress and come home with a set of nylon overalls.
Continue reading... robots
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I ran across a fascinating piece by Leo Polovets of Susa Ventures this week, provocatively titled: “Why Startup Technical Diligence Is A Waste Of Time.” You should go read it, but its central thesis is simple: “in today's world of SaaS tools, APIs, and cloud infrastructure … technical resources are rarely the cause of success or the reason for failure.” Is… !["Simple]("http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8828/28403596232_41eba56c75_m.jpg")
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