Oh, I have read and loved Hurley's translations, but always felt the suspicion to which the author alludes: am I really getting the full force in someone else's English translation of an author as multi-facetedly enamored of language as Borges? To be honest, I didn't even know that there were other translations out there. I will read this article with interest.

(Incidentally, if you are interested in such questions, you might enjoy Rabassa's If this be treason: Translation and its dyscontents, which I picked up because I enjoyed his translations of Cort¨¢zar.)
posted by It is regrettable that at 4:38 PM on September 28 [4 favorites]

I was surprised to learn that Borges read and spoke English fluently, almost natively; then I was chagrined because he implies as much very matter-of-factly in the anecdote that opens ¡°Tl?n, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.¡±
posted by infinitewindow at 4:46 PM on September 28 [2 favorites]

Re: Borges's familiarity with English, one thing that comes to mind is that he taught a course on the history of English lit, and his students' evidently careful notes have been translated into English. As you might expect, the course is interestingly idiosyncratic--you can really tell what he liked in English lit, and that's fun. The transcriptions declare themselves faithful, the lectures have specific dates on them, and the way the course skips around is mentioned in the lectures themselves, which is very helpful because otherwise you might doubt the transcription was complete.

Out of 25 lectures, the first 7 are on Old English. Everything from 1066 to 1709 is covered in four paragraphs at the beginning of lecture 8: Milton is mentioned, and Shakespeare is not (he's occasionally mentioned when talking about what other writers thought of him). Samuel Johnson gets 3 lectures, including most of lecture 8. Romantic poets get 5 lectures, including 1 for Macpherson and the invention of Ossian. Carlyle gets 1 lecture, not neglecting to call him a "precursor of Nazism." Dickens and Collins are combined in 1 lecture. Robert Browning and Dante Gabriel Rossetti get 2 lectures each. William Morris gets 3 lectures, and Stevenson and Wilde are combined into 1 lecture.
posted by Wobbuffet at 5:38 PM on September 28 [20 favorites]

I read, years ago, George Steiner¡¯s book, After Babel, which opened my eyes to the fundamental problems of translation. Since then, I have always wondered about translations in general. I assume that every translator is trying to convey the meaning, the feel, of a text, but there are always differences. I love Rabelais, but know little French. The Urquhart/Motteux 17th century is one is my favorites, even dealing with 17th century English. More modern translations are easier to read, but lack the verve of the original English translation. I assume that every translator, either then or now, is trying to make the original available to those who don¡¯t know the original language. I guess it¡¯s a matter of taste. I looked at a number of translations of Cervantes, and settled on Samuel Putnam¡¯s because I liked how it sounded. Translation is an art, just as writing the original was art. It requires the human touch. All the hoo ha about machine translation, coupled with the dreary LLM text, is driving the art of words into a generic hole.
posted by njohnson23 at 5:42 PM on September 28 [9 favorites]

I was surprised to learn that Borges read and spoke English fluently, almost natively

Interview with William F. Buckley

"This Craft of Verse Lectures":
posted by BWA at 7:53 PM on September 28 [2 favorites]

Anthony Burgess had an anecdote about meeting J.L. Borges at a reception. Argentine spies were hovering around them eavesdropping, so they switched their conversation to Old English just to annoy them.
posted by ovvl at 8:18 PM on September 28 [13 favorites]

I can never learn enough about Borges. I've stopped trying to learn more so I can just organically encounter some new fact or work or aspect of him I previously missed. What a man!
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 8:39 PM on September 28 [2 favorites]

infinitewindow: "posted by infinitewindow"

Eborgesterical!
posted by chavenet at 11:52 PM on September 28 [3 favorites]

I'm fascinated by articles like this examining variations of translation, but I can't help pointing out the paradox: surely the only ones who can evaluate whether the translation is good or not are those who know both English and Spanish-- and if you do, why not read him in Spanish?

The general answer to the question "are you missing something in translation" is "yes, of course"; but all these translations are fine. The first (Bonner) strikes me as capturing the Spanish very well, without tricks. Di Giovanni's (the fourth) maybe tries too hard to use non-Latinate words... there really is nothing wrong with "taciturn" or "infinite".

Maybe the tricky bit here for translators is how to translate un¨¢nime (noche) and (flanco) violento. If I'm not missing something, these are unusual uses of the words in Spanish too. It's curious that some translators retained these and others felt the need not to.
posted by zompist at 1:26 AM on September 29 [2 favorites]

I'm involved in a translation project right now, translating a late 19th century Mexican writer into English. This article touches upon some of the problems but doesn't go deep enough I think.

19th century Spanish text sounds different than a modern Spanish text. So do I translate 19th century Spanish into 19th century English? Or do I modernize it? Or , more vaguely, should I attempt to produce the same effect that the text had on 19th century readers onto modern readers? I don't know the answer but its a balancing act.

I like Borges attempting not to directly translate but to evoke the same feelings in the target language as the original. A direct word-for-word translation rarely works if only because the mapping of words from one language to another is imperfect. Words carry different nuances in each language and so something is always lost or gained.

The word 'contaminate', for example, has stronger, negative implications in English than it does in Spanish. That Zend is contaminated by Greek implies that Greek is foul, a contaminant. But a gentler reading is that Zend remains 'pure', untouched by outside influences such as Greek. Only the Borges/Di Giovanni translation removes the 'contaminated' verb and replaces it with 'the Zend language is barely tainted by Greek' which, arguably, is closer to what the Spanish intended to convey.
posted by vacapinta at 2:59 AM on September 29 [6 favorites]

I studied under Borges translator Willis Barnstone as an undergraduate.

Boy, I hope he doesn't find out about this piece. He'd be next-level furious to see he's been left out.
posted by humbug at 3:48 AM on September 29 [3 favorites]

My dad brought us up to be Borgesians. He would read stories to us out loud after dinner.
In my writing, I sometimes try to summon a bit of Borges' voice. I write in English though I read Borges in Spanish, so I think I also have a bit of translation going on. I fail, every time, but I feel that he and Cort¨¢zar are part of my legacy, so I have the right to keep trying.
posted by signal at 5:22 AM on September 29 [5 favorites]

I suppose the truly Borgesian thing would be to read all the translations simultaneously. (I'm reminded of Hofstadter doing this with Pushkin's Eugene Onegin and then translating it himself.)
posted by madcaptenor at 6:16 AM on September 29 [4 favorites]

I think that getting the feel of Borges into English is close to impossible. His Spanish has something like the texture of Nabokov¡¯s or Conrad¡¯s English ¡ª you can sense the scaffolding of other languages underneath, and that¡¯s not something you can really copy. I once read a Flemish medieval play that had been translated into fifteenth-century Spanish by a twentieth-century translator, who wanted to get a sense of how strange the language could feel. That¡¯s about the only way I think you could get close to Borges in English ¡ª by making the translation a little odd, a little off balance.

Borges never thought twice about radically changing texts when he translated them. He rewrote parts of Poe¡¯s stories, gave them new titles so the twists wouldn¡¯t be spoiled, and even switched the gender of a character. For him, all stories lived in some kind of collective unconscious, and every writer was really just a translator of those hidden texts. Translators were authors in their own right and could change the original in order to improve them in the new language.
posted by Omon Ra at 8:21 AM on September 29 [10 favorites]

Omon Ra, that is a very Tl?nist idea of authorship—I love it!
posted by infinitewindow at 8:59 AM on September 29 [4 favorites]

I was introduced to (and fell in love with) Borges through Labyrinths. Reading these four translations, I was struck and mildly happy to see that (IMO) the Labyrinths translation is the best! I think the choice to keep odd word choices like "violent" and "unanimous" seems appropriate for the strange, off-kilter nature of his storytelling. And I think as a whole it most creates a sense of bewilderment, otherworldliness, and arcanity.

I also think the Hurley version is fantastic.
posted by lewedswiver at 9:21 AM on September 29 [1 favorite]

For more on Borges and translation, I highly recommend Invisible Work: Borges and Translation by Efra¨ªn Kristal. It's a really engaging read.

One fascinating example of Borges as a translator from English is his Spanish version of Faulkner¡¯s Wild Palms. He essentially ¡°straightens out¡± Faulkner: changing punctuation to make the stream-of-consciousness passages clearer, adding parentheses and semicolons, and even altering paragraph breaks.

Ricardo Piglia has noted that:

The translation of The Wild Palms is a battle between Faulkner¡¯s style and Borges¡¯s style. Normally, you don¡¯t notice the translator¡¯s hand¡ªyou never really see their style. But Borges didn¡¯t like that Faulkner began the novel with a man coming down the stairs carrying a lamp, without a paragraph break, so that the opening paragraph runs all the way to the bottom of the page and becomes incomprehensible. So Borges starts inserting breaks to make it clear that it¡¯s a doctor coming down with a lamp. He¡¯s fighting against Faulkner¡¯s style. Borges admired Faulkner deeply, but he didn¡¯t like texts that were confusing.

[¡­]

There¡¯s a moment in Faulkner¡¯s story when the canoe runs aground on something. Borges writes ¡°repech¨® la ribera fangosa,¡± (he struggled up the muddy bank) a phrase from Las ruinas circulares. In other words, he lifted that line¡ª¡°repech¨® la ribera fangosa,¡± which is a beautiful phrase¡ªand just put it in. ¡°It¡¯ll sound better,¡± he said.

From: Borges por Piglia
posted by Omon Ra at 9:39 AM on September 29 [3 favorites]

William Weaver's translation of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose is so good that it sounds not only as if the book had been composed originally in English, but also as if it'd been written originally by Borges and translated beautifully. I don't know if that would've been to il professore's liking, but the appearance of the Venerable Jorge of Burgos and his endless library certainly pointed to Eco's awareness, debt, and respect.
posted by the sobsister at 9:50 AM on September 29 [4 favorites]

surely the only ones who can evaluate whether the translation is good or not are those who know both English and Spanish-- and if you do, why not read him in Spanish?

Well, I don't read Spanish, and it matters to me whether the translation is good, so one reason for you bilingual people to read both and evaluate the English is so you can tell me what you think. I'm grateful when you do!

I also can't help wonder if from time to time a translation will be "bad" (in the sense of altering the meaning, or not giving two hoots about conveying style and flavour) and yet worthwhile in its own right. I have an inkling Urquhart's Gargantua and Pantagruel isn't exactly faithful to Rabelais, but does that matter?
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 12:20 PM on September 29 [3 favorites]

Another strange translation mystery: A while ago I read Borges: el misterio esencial, a transcription/translation of a series of lectures and interviews Borges gave in the U.S. (I believe the book first appeared in English as Borges at 80). What struck me is that you can tell the Spanish translator tried to lean on well-known Borges idioms to recreate his style. But the effect is the opposite. Instead of sounding like Borges, the text reads like someone doing a poor imitation ¡ªan uneven pastiche. The same man, translated into his own language does not sound like himself.
posted by Omon Ra at 1:36 PM on September 29 [1 favorite]

i_am_joe's_spleen: "I also can't help wonder if from time to time a translation will be "bad" (in the sense of altering the meaning, or not giving two hoots about conveying style and flavour) and yet worthwhile in its own right."

Sure¡ª the classic example is Edward FitzGerald's translation of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyyat. It's very free, and yet it produces a gem of English poetry, and I've read a book on Khayyam by an Iranian which admires it very much. (Borges' father published a translation of it.)

Or there's Maria Dahvana Headley's translation of Beowulf, which starts out "Bro!" That's a very modern take, yet it can be said that it captures the spirit of the Spear-Danes in a way that a literal translation would completely fail to.
posted by zompist at 1:41 PM on September 29 [3 favorites]

I have an inkling Urquhart's Gargantua and Pantagruel isn't exactly faithful to Rabelais

FWIW George Pollard has a table of game names given in five editions of Gargantua side by side with how six translators handled them. I'm sure this isn't a context you were talking about, but IMO it's fun to think about, because it's a tough problem: some of these games may have never existed in English, some may not be well-attested in any language, but some may have existed when Urquhart translated the text, etc., etc. If you really want to know what game Rabelais was talking about, then strictly speaking you can't rely on one-word or one-phrase translations, but glancing over it, Urquhart's seems both faithful and useful to me.

Like, just looking the downsides first, there are odd but understandable cases like Urquhart has "at love" translating "a lamourre," where the other four editions in French gave the text as "a la mourre" which the other five translators translate as "morra." But for a game like "la crosse" that maybe meant something like field hockey at the time, he gives the approximation of another outdoor sport, "cricket," just like a 1611 French-English dictionary and most other translators did, except Screech whose 2006 choice of "lacrosse" seems anachronistic--like, maybe a false friend.

And there are other test cases like "au propos" being translated differently by every English translation. Frame's 1991 translation "cross questions and crooked answers" is a very solid, well-informed answer consistent with 19th C. parlor games. But Urquhart's 1653 translation "at purpose in purpose" is also a very solid, well-informed answer consistent with 17th-18th C. parlor games. Meanwhile the other English translations seem weak (Smith 1893 leaving it as "a propos"), misleading (Screech 2006's "whisper it round"--sort of true but that sounds like a telephone game, and propos wasn't like that), uncertain to me but does not sound right (Cohen 1975's "cut-him-short"), or basically random but aimed at modern readers (Brown 2003's "twenty questions"--an unrelated game that AFAIK first appears in 1788 as "les douze questions").

I know less about card games, but as another example, I'm not sure why four English translators chose "spur away" for "picquet," except maybe that's an old name for it not known to Urquhart in 1653 or to me today--or that it's supposed to translate some use of the verb piquer. Not sure but it seems like that's a problem in either case for Brown's 2003 effort to make Rabelais more readable to audiences today, often leading to completely random replacements and in this case leaving it as something odd or opaque? In this case, Screech's 2006 translation "piquet" seems best all around for conveying what Rabelais meant and what I'd imagine a tabletop gamer would know now, and Urquhart's "at the picket" at least allows that gamer to take a guess.

So in this one tiny domain, Urquhart's translation seems so faithful that if he names a game I can't find anywhere else I'd tend to believe it existed almost as much as I believe Rabelais. Like, just looking over the table again, I wish I knew why he chose "ho the distaffe," because that's his translation for "croquinolles," and all the other translators tell me it's some kind of flicking game which seems obvious on the surface but if Urquhart thinks the game involves a distaff or something like it then it makes me wonder if that's why I don't see anyone connecting it to Crokinole. Anyway, I'm sure there are a lot of ways to look at it.
posted by Wobbuffet at 2:59 PM on September 29 [4 favorites]

It is a sad fact to me that the works of literature which suffer the most in translation, or are completely transformed by it, are those which are most deeply rooted in their language. I read somewhere that Miguel Angel Asturias always complained that his novels such as El Se?or Presidente would never receive a good translation as they delve not only into Magical Realism but also incorporate the rhythms and sounds of Native American tongues in order to produce something unique. A translation would not only translate the Spanish but all the other layers within it, transposing them to a new language. Is that possible? And if so, have you invented a new work?

I'm reminded of Michael Kandel's translations of Stanislaw Lem. Some stories are pure wordplay and, not being able to read Polish myself, I wonder about the relation between the original text and the translation. There's a great interview here on Hopscotch Translation with Kandel:

MK: (Michael Kandel): I¡¯ll give you a funny example. This has a Ukrainian in it, so that makes it current. I went to Krakow, they had an evening where different translators of Lem were talking about how they translated this or that. And there was a poem by Lem, in the Trurl and Klapaucius [tales], a poem [where every line] begins with the same letter.[4] And what did Swedish translator do? What did the Japanese translator do? What did I do? That kind of thing. It was interesting and funny. So, later, this Ukrainian scholar takes me aside. He was a Lem scholar, and he tells me, ¡°You were the only translator that caught this joke.¡± And the joke was¡ªand I think it was in the robot fables¡ªwhen somebody utters a war cry. And the war cry was a curse word, in Polish, where the letters had been reversed. In Polish, the word was kurwa, which just means a whore. But it¡¯s really pretty rude. And if you hit your thumb with a hammer, you say kurwa. I was working one time in Chinatown in New York, and someone had a problem working on the road, one of the construction people, and I heard him muttering kurwa, you know, it¡¯s a word that you¡­

CC: It¡¯s the Polish sonofabitch.

MK: Right. I did the same thing. The English I used was fuckit. And I put the letters backwards, and so this Ukrainian says, ¡°Ahhh, you caught that! You¡¯re the only one who caught that!¡±

CC: I love it. Well, that¡¯s one that you did catch and you were able to recreate in place.

MK: So yeah, it was constant. There were so many examples of things where there was no way you could do anything with them.

posted by vacapinta at 3:10 AM on September 30 [6 favorites]

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