more specifically on a new English translation of Madame Bovary. Before you stop reading, read this excerpt from the very beginning of the article:
If you go to the website of the restaurant L’Huîtrière (3, rue des Chats Bossus, Lille) and click on ‘translate’, the zealous automaton you have stirred up will instantly render everything into English, including the address. And it comes out as ‘3 street cats humped’. Translation is clearly too important a task to be left to machines. But what sort of human should it be given to?
Since I only clicked on it to keep myself from going insane from essay marking, I don't have time to comment too extensively. But I wanted to share. In part because the question of translation came up a couple of weeks ago.
Thoughts?
If you go to the website of the restaurant L’Huîtrière (3, rue des Chats Bossus, Lille) and click on ‘translate’, the zealous automaton you have stirred up will instantly render everything into English, including the address. And it comes out as ‘3 street cats humped’. Translation is clearly too important a task to be left to machines. But what sort of human should it be given to?
Since I only clicked on it to keep myself from going insane from essay marking, I don't have time to comment too extensively. But I wanted to share. In part because the question of translation came up a couple of weeks ago.
Thoughts?
*MySmiley*
structured procrastinator
structured procrastinator
Julian Barnes on translation
- 18/11/2010 05:49:37 PM
1043 Views
That's a very interesting article. Though it does sound like he'd never be happy.
- 18/11/2010 08:06:09 PM
707 Views
That was a long article.
- 19/11/2010 07:05:12 PM
621 Views
Re: That was a long article.
- 19/11/2010 09:59:24 PM
612 Views
Yeah, I think English translations on average are better than those in smaller languages.
- 19/11/2010 10:16:44 PM
734 Views
On balance, I'm glad I read the Steegmuller translation when I read the novel.
- 20/11/2010 05:14:42 PM
563 Views
Vas-tu faire s’enculée, Camille!
- 20/11/2010 05:26:08 PM
644 Views
If you don't mind a few grammatical corrections of your swearing... 
- 20/11/2010 05:42:57 PM
663 Views
- 20/11/2010 05:42:57 PM
663 Views
It was a quick and dirty rendering
- 20/11/2010 05:53:13 PM
587 Views
And I didn't order from France. It's a US-based company that I bought it from. *NM*
- 20/11/2010 05:54:55 PM
254 Views
I love Pleiade editions
- 21/11/2010 12:14:14 AM
590 Views
How tall are they, out of curiosity?
- 21/11/2010 12:50:57 AM
726 Views
Not tall
- 21/11/2010 09:59:55 AM
611 Views
I got my books today.
- 23/11/2010 05:38:20 AM
819 Views
Re: I got my books today.
- 23/11/2010 10:33:10 AM
628 Views
Regardless, if Pleiade is the best France has to offer, their book industry is awful.
- 23/11/2010 07:17:13 PM
882 Views
Re: Oh Authorial intent.
- 21/11/2010 02:07:27 AM
715 Views
Like hell it's about authorial intent.
- 21/11/2010 05:40:22 AM
640 Views
Re: I didn't even read it, I guessed based on the author's initials.
- 21/11/2010 01:37:40 PM
835 Views
So I take it you missed the whole part about Nabokov's translation of Eugene Onegin.
- 21/11/2010 03:28:14 PM
583 Views
Re: Yes, I missed all of that. Such a conclusion clearly follows from my previous response. *NM*
- 21/11/2010 03:57:16 PM
347 Views
Actually it does. Your responses are just cheap tricks, not discussions. *NM*
- 21/11/2010 04:44:21 PM
262 Views
Re: Cheap tricks?
- 21/11/2010 10:45:39 PM
689 Views
Barnes' article has little to do with authorial intent
- 21/11/2010 11:37:25 PM
622 Views
I think it is more about the "authentic experience" than about intent.
- 21/11/2010 10:01:57 AM
622 Views