S. K-B :"Bertie Russell (forgive
the familiarity) discussed a related translational problem. He pondered the
English sentences:
A: “The number three has five letters.”/ B: “The number
two has three letters.” A mechanical translation into French might give A: “Le
numero trois a cinq lettres”/ B: “Le numero deux a trois lettres,” BR then
corrects both the original and the translation of B to restore some sanity: “The
English number-word ‘two’ has three letters.” “Le mot-numeral Anglais ‘two’ a
trois lettres.”[...] When translating certain innate, language-specific word
properties such as sound, shape and length, the translator must avoid
falsehoods. [...] how best to convey VN’s intentions? He is conjuring with
English sounds and associations.
PS: Re-yr I understand that
the irreverent reference to "Olga Olegovna Orlova — an egg-like alliteration
which it would have been a pity to withhold." also indicates the name of a
Russian aristocrat saint. I’m sure everyone gets the naughty “leg over” (coital
euphemism) and the less obvious (?) coitus interruptus hint in “all over” (cf
the parody of the song “Jealousy”: “’Twas all over my best settee, the night
that he came over me ...”)"
JM: Bertie? What a lofty company. And yet, BR's
translations mainly illustrate the problem that arises
from self-referential sentences as seen from a ogician's
perspective. Language-specific word properties ( sound, shape and lenght)
should not be falsified in a translation, yes. But even S K-B's delightful
examples in Zemblan, I find the whole package, added to meaning, very
difficult to achieve.
There
are lucky exceptions, though, but these are extremely rare.
Shade: There’s one
misprint — not that it matters much:/ Mountain, not fountain. The majestic touch./.../
Life Everlasting — based on a
misprint!"
Kinbote: Translators of Shade’s poem are bound to have trouble with the
transformation, at one stroke, of "mountain" into "fountain": it cannot be
rendered in French or German, or Russian, or Zemblan*; so the translator will
have to put it into one of those footnotes that are the rogue’s galleries of
words. However! There exists to my knowledge one absolutely extraordinary,
unbelievably elegant case, where not only two, but three words are
involved**...
........................
*Portuguese:
Monte-Fonte, same meaning & word properties intact.
** - Get these
in German, Russian or French, or try to translate examples
of world-golf in English! I remember that even when they were cleverly
achieved their entries in the alphabetical Index necessarily demanded a
different order from the original
one.
.......................
Mind
you, I'm still unconvinced either about my own or about your
arguments. The issue is...
"undecidable"? I
don't think that VN's solution in relation to EO was the
(only) perfect one. Besides, there are also samples of his
translating Pushkin into French with "falsifications", or at
least, using VN's own differentiation ( le vrai et le vraisemblable
), ie, that were merely plausible and bore only a similarity to
the truth.
S
K-B's PS: ... "leg over" and "all over"? Oh.
Oh....I
had associated the irreverence only to something like PF's "Oleg"
and VN's preference for the letter "O" (cf. "Mademoiselle O".Would VN
have associated his Swiss governness with,well... what's the other "O"
book?)
btw: Stan, your phrase-book in Portuguese was probably
published in Portugal: it sounds very "old-world" to me,
not ancient...