One thing about this blog business is that a blogger as vain as YHB is always at risk of spending an hour re-reading old notes. It’s sad, really. Like Krapp, narrowing my input to my output. Anyway, a month or so ago, I was browsing my backside, as it were, when I happened to notice the note about reading Emil and the Detectives, in which I mention that the Overlook Press is publishing a new translation. So, having been reminded, and having been reminded that I haven’t seen the book since it came out last year, I finally went and got the new translation. And read it.
And it stinks.
What W. Martin, the translator, decided to do (according to the translator’s note) is to “render the story—which is as universal as it is local—into a contemporary, colloquial American idiom.” This is a mistake. At least if the book is going to be largely faithful, sentence to sentence, to Erich Kästner’s original, it’s a mistake, because then you have horse-drawn streetcars and bowler hats and a boy with a bicycle horn saying “Dude, that’s so awesome!” (p. 79) Very disconcerting.
What makes it worse, though, is that W. Martin does not have a good ear for current American childhood lingo. So Gus says “Listen, this thing with the robber is cool. It’s awesome, actually! So unless you have a problem with it, I’d like to help out.” (p. 80)
Now, the old translation was clunky, too. Translating is hard. YHB once tried to translate a short play from German into English. Well, twice. First time, utter failure from beginning to end. Second time, utter failure from beginning to about two-thirds of the way through, which is where I gave up. So I don’t want to snark too nastily about W. Martin’s work. It’s not like it ruins the book, which is a terrific book. I’m glad the book is back in print in English, and even if I am cranky about the translation (and I am), I still would recommend the thing to all and sundry.
It’s awesome, actually!
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.