More on Translator and Interpreter as Protagonist

Sorry about all the spaces in the previous post. I'm copying from a Word file. This book review is along the same lines and mentions other works.

Susan

From the AIIC website:
Book review: Interpreters and translators as literary creations
By Phil Smith
Wortklauber, Sinnverdreher, Brückenbauer
DolmetscherInnen und ÜbersetzerInnen als literarische Geschöpfe
[Pedants, traducers or bridge builders. Interpreters and translators as literary creations]
Ingrid Kurz, Klaus Kaindl (editors)
Im Spiegel der Literatur Band 1
LIT Verlag Vienna 2005
ISBN 3-8258-8495-3
The editors of this collection of essays know that we interpreters enjoy seeing ourselves depicted in book or film yet cannot help judging the accuracy of any description of our profession or its practitioners, even if the interpreter is no more than a convenient hook on which to hang the story within the confines of artistic licence. This book does not set out to provide an academic study of the interpreter in literature, but simply to give us a taste of how others view our lives and work.
Do you remember the film "The Full Monty" about steel workers in the north of England who decided to strip when made redundant? There is a scene where they try to learn dance routines from a film about a female welder who's also a great dancer. One of the would-be strippers comments "I hope she's a better dancer than welder, her oxygen mix is all wrong".
Like the welder, we cannot entirely switch off, so if we read or see a depiction of an interpreter, our critical faculties slip into overdrive. We inevitably put ourselves into the shoes of the protagonist (Selbstverortung in der dargestellten Welt).
This deftly edited short book considers 15 works of literature that feature translators and interpreters. The reviews were written by working professionals who submitted a short piece on a work that they had read.
The thread that runs through all the reviewed stories is the interpreter as perpetual outsider, a person who does not live entirely in just one culture, but commutes between them and is therefore rootless and envious of those with a clear-cut identity. Language is often the well-spring of a firm sense of self. Home for an interpreter is his or her native language, yet because of where they live interpreters may have lost their mother tongue - they are geographically and linguistically adrift. The constant processing of the world around us that multilingualism brings can be a burden, and the interpreter may envy others the security of speaking just one language.
Interpreters in literature appear ready made with all their languages - by accident of birth or linguistic osmosis - and few authors appear aware that most of us have had to acquire our languages from scratch and learn our tradecraft. There are also some flashes of insight, for example the idea that sometimes you can only understand what people are saying once they've finished saying it (...bestimmte Aussagen erst im nachhinein auf ihre tatsächliche Bedeutung hin interpretierbar sind).
Some of the characteristics ascribed to interpreters ring a bell: an interpreter is always to some extent an outsider, aware of different ways of speaking, thinking and doing; an interpreter's own family history is often reflected in the languages she speaks; an interpreter never entirely switches off but is always on the lookout for that expression or well-honed phrase, and perhaps it is fair to talk of the "burden of bilingualism".
The reviewers find the portrayals of interpreters generally sympathetic, even insightful, although our colleague Sergio Viaggio is clearly no fan of Javier Marías' Corazón tan Blanco - the scene in the book where two interpreters work for a thinly veiled Margaret Thatcher and a thinly disguised Felipe González has acquired a kind of cult status amongst interpreters; I guess you either love it or hate it.
Each thought-provoking essay is short and deals with an individual work, which makes this a good book for dipping into.
As Robbie Burns said in his poem "The Louse" written in 1786:
O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
The works considered are:
Liselotte Marshall - Tongue-tied
Ingeborg Bachmann - Simultan
Abdelkebir Khatibi - Un été à Stockholm
Suki Kim - The Interpreter
Jonathan Safran Foers - Everything is illuminated
Jesús Díaz - Siberiana
Jhumpa Lahiris - Interpreter of Maladies
Ágnes Gergely - Die Dolmetscherin (A tolmács)
György Dalos - Der Versteckspieler
Michael Frayn - The Russian Interpreter
Christine Arnothy - Toutes les chances plus une
Doris Lessing - The Summer before the Dark

Translator and Interpreter as Protagonist

Hi-- I started this list in a fit of procrastination and wanted to share it. This is literature about translators and interpreters. Not all the comments about the works are mine. Perhaps the group would like to read one of these? Or, perhaps those who have read one or more of these books would like to comment on them?







Fiction



The Interpreter: A Novel, by Suki Kim







The Interpreter, by Suzanne Glass







OK, Joe, by Louis Guilloux, translated by Alice Kaplan







Songs for the Butcher’s Daughter: A Novel, by Peter Manseau







*Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett Patchett (very annoying book about an interpreter in which the word interpreter is not used once) (I loved Bel Canto... Did you notice how when they drew up the list for which hostages would stay and which would go free, the interpreter was on neither list? Invisible...)







*The Mission Song, by John Le Carré (interpreter spy thriller)







*The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter, by Arthur Conan Doyle



The Strand Magazine, volume VI, London, 1893 (available online)







Between Mountains, by Maggie Helwig (featuring an interpreter at the Hague and a reporter who has made his career interviewing a man on trial for war crimes - not sure whether he's actually called Karadzic in the novel, but it's based on him)











Non-Fiction



The Interpreter, by Alice Kaplan (about Louis Guilloux)







Le Ton Beau De Marot: In Praise Of The Music Of Language, by Douglas Hofstadter (among other things, about translating a poem)







The Translator: A Memoir, by Daoud Hari. About Darfur.







*If This Be Treason: Translation and Its Dyscontents, A Memoir, by Gregory Rabassa







The Origins of Simultaneous Interpretation: The Nuremberg Trial, by Francesca Gaiba







White House Interpreter: The Art of Interpretation, Harry Obst







Interpreters as Diplomats: A Diplomatic History of the Role of Interpreters in World Politics (Perspectives on Translation), Ruth Roland

The Girl Who Played With Fire & More Books

I'm following up on my last post, regarding both a change in format to our book club and the movie version of the second book in the Millennium trilogy.

For starters, I'd like to hear what everyone has been reading over the summer. Feel free to comment on a book that you've liked (or didn't like) and why.

I've been reading a book called "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao", written by Junot Díaz. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2008. Very interesting read. It's ostensibly about the life of a Dominican boy born in New Jersey in the 1970s, but it's just as much a commentary about the lasting impact of Rafael Trujillo, the dictator who ruthlessly ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 to 1961.

I also had a chance to see The Girl Who Played With Fire at the movies last week. As with the first movie, it makes a solid attempt to be true to the book, but it is hard to cram all of the details into a 2-hour film. The result, while visually interesting, is that the movie fell a bit flat, in my opinion. Not nearly as well-paced as the first film, and with a lot less depth overall.

Has anyone else seen it?

The Movie and Some Changes

Once again, it has been too long since we've had any activity on this blog, so I thought that I would take advantage of the fact that I finally got to see the movie version of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" to post here again.

I don't know who else has seen the movie, but I have to say, I felt that they did a really good job of representing the book, in all the unpleasant details. I'll look forward to seeing the next film in the series, which I believe is already showing in some theaters.

I've also heard that they're going to make an English version of the movie. Something tells me that it just won't be the same. But we'll see.

Anyway, in other news, the last time that Heather and I met with the board, we discussed making some changes to our format on this blog in order to get more activity and make it more interactive. One of the ideas is to include Skype conferencing to discuss books. We've also talked about including movies, especially when they are related to books that we've read!

Another idea, which I've wanted to get some feedback on, would be to free up everyone on the blog to discuss whatever you're reading, rather than choosing a specific book to read. That way, we can all hear about all the different books that people are reading, what they like and dislike, recommendations, etc.

I'd be interested to hear what you think, so please feel free to comment below or to post your own thoughts at any time.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

-John

Checking in, and a new movie!

Hello Fellow CATI book readers,

We haven't had any activity on the blog for a while, so I thought that I'd check in to see how everyone is doing. Please feel to post at any time.

I've actually been busy reading a few other books over the past couple of weeks, including Anathem, by Neal Stephenson, and Victorian Firebrand, by Richard Reeves (still currently reading). I haven't gotten to our current book yet, but I'm interested to hear from those who have already finished it.

I also wanted to include this link to Rotten Tomatoes (a movie website), where "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" movie has gotten some very positive reviews. Has anyone seen the film? I'd be interested to find out how it compares to the book. I'm planning on seeing it in the near future.

Cheers,

John

And our next book is...

...The Girl Who Played With Fire. Back by popular demand, we'll be reading Stieg Larsson's second book in the Millennium Trilogy.

Let's take a week or so for everyone to get their hands on a copy, then feel free to start posting comments on the blog.

Happy reading!

-John

Reminder: Vote on the next book!

Hi! A quick post to remind everyone to vote on our next book. Just go to the blog and click on your choice. We'll have the results in soon.

Thanks,

John