3/4 Readings – Cheryl

Nabokov: Letters to the American Translator

It seems like Nabokov was so involved and weighed in so heavily during the translation process that even to call it a co-translation feels a little iffy—I wonder if today, a writer like Nabokov might have put his books into Chat GPT and worked off of that since he's changing most of the initial draft anyway. It does bring up interesting questions about collaborative translations that I've never really delved into that deeply: should the translators be credited based on how involved they were in the process, or how much of their work makes the final cut (which would be terribly messy and probably impossible to measure)? In the first translation class I ever took, the structure of each session was built around working in small groups to combine individual translations into a product that everyone was happy with. I don't know if this necessarily created better work every time, but having other opinions and perspectives certainly could help a translation to address more perspectives and appeal more broadly as a result.

Authority in Literary Translation: Collaborating with the Author

I can't remember where I heard this last semester, but I love this translator's response when asked whether they preferred having a living author to consult or a dead author whose opinions they could disregard, "The deader the better!" I agreed especially with the section on "Consequences of author intervention" where it acknowledged the diminishing of the translator's work and their subordination in relation to the author who is seen as having the final authority as the creator of the work. Having access to the author, at the same time, could allow the translator to clarify certain intents that they might only be able to guess at otherwise. Maybe it's a kind of vanity, but I'd rather not have the author interfere too much in my translations—having to seek approval on every last detail sounds tedious and frustrating. 

Hurley vs Irby Translations

Maybe this an effect of the times they were published in—I've just looked it up and found out that they were produced in the same year so nevermind), but Hurley's sounds a tad more high-brow and somewhat pretentious while Irby imbues the narration as what comes across to my 21st century ears as more swagger and cool indifference. 

Hurley: "Most decidedly, a brief rectification is imperative."

Irby: "Decidedly, a brief rectification is unavoidable."

Hurley: "I am aware that it is easy enough to call my own scant authority into question."

Irby: "I am aware that it is quite easy to challenge my slight authority."

Hurley's narrator sounds more uptight and prim, while Irby's sounds more hardened and modern (maybe a Philip Marlowe type). Which of these is more accurate to the original?