I remember vastly enjoying Emil and the Detectives as a child, and then more or less enjoying struggling through it auf Deutsch as a teenager. I was shocked to discover it had gone out of print, and even more shocked to discover it wasn’t properly in the library system. The copy I eventually borrowed hadn’t been checked out in five years, and moved only seven times in the ten years before that. This was a Big Deal book, once upon a time, Charlotte’s Web big. Or so I vaguely understand.
Anyway, I reread it in English, and however good it might be in Erich K�stner’s original, in May Massee’s translation (the one I read as a youth) it is dreadful. The translation is not just dated (and how) but clumsy and awkward, retaining in places the rhythm of German sentence structure in English. Oof. Some of the charm does come through, particularly at the very beginning, where Mr. K�stner talks about the South Sea romance he really wanted to write, about the cannibal maid, and the whale with the twisted leg, and the toothbrush. On the whole, though, the writing was so lousy that there was no way to get into it enough to be charmed.
I have no idea whether a new translation would be any good (although it would certainly be better) or whether a good new translation would sell, as there isn’t much market for a story, told in simple language, with a very simple little plot, that clocks in at more than two hundred pages. It’s clearly written for children who are too young for complicated plot (with, you know, character development, and real conflict, and so on) but like to read and have the patience and attention for a long book. Or, more likely, it’s for their parents to read to them, and therefore for parents with the patience and attention for a long book with no character development or real conflict.
I very nearly decided to make it my Perfect Reader’s next bedtime book, but honestly, I can’t do it with such a bad translation, and I haven’t the time nor energy nor vocabulary to translate it myself. And, of course, what with rehearsals and all, I’m not the one doing the reading most nights anyway.
...
It seems that Overlook Press is publishing a new translation, or at least a different translation, next month. I may have to pick that up.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.