I’ve been thinking lately about a thought-provoking conversation from a while back between translators Tim Gutteridge and Tim Parks about how to approach the translation process. I am especially drawn to this formulation by Parks:

“Once we have read and really got close to the text, then writing well in the target language is a huge asset, but only in so far as it is at the service of the impulse to recreate the experience we had on our initial reading” [italics mine].

As translators, we need first to be attentive readers and then to strive to recreate what we experienced. Translators need to pay special attention to beginnings and endings, and to formulations that are especially pithy or powerful. Here’s an example from one of my favorite novels where I believe some translators have stumbled.

Balzac’s 1834 novel Le Père Goriot ends with a memorable scene in Père Lachaise cemetery where Eugène de Rastignac has recognized the depth of betrayal and injustice that old Goriot has suffered. From the heights of the cemetery, he looks upon Paris and self-importantly states:

This line, the second to last in the novel, contains both a challenge to the city and a feeling of intimacy with it. “A nous deux” is a challenge that could be issued if starting a fight with someone, like “I’m taking you on” or “Bring it on” (though these slangy formulations don’t strike the right tone). At the same time, the phrasing of “nous deux,” meaning “the two of us,” is the kind of language used for an intimate connection. When Simone de Beauvoir describes her family life with her parents and sister in Mémoires d’une jeune fille rangée, she remembers being aware as a child of their closeness as they sat together in the living room and saying fondly to herself “nous quatre.”

Since it’s almost certainly impossible to capture all those nuances in the English translation, the translator clearly has choices to make here, emphasizing either challenge or intimacy. It’s also important to notice the briefness of this outburst in French. It should be similarly concise in English. Here are some English versions:

By using the word “ready,” Reed (Signet Classics, 1962) has inserted a notion that is absent from the French. Rastignac’s words do not express any preparedness or internal change, though some critics have claimed that this is the meaning of the ending of this roman d’éducation. So I’d say this is an interpretation that misses the mark.

Raffel (Norton, 1998) also adds the idea of being ready, and his translation is clunky besides. It expresses intimacy, but is entirely lacking in challenge. From a concise five or six syllables in French (the middle “e” of maintenant is barely pronounced), the translation has inflated to ten in English. “I’m ready!” is a syntactic afterthought here, and makes the declaration seem almost childish.

Crawford’s version (Penguin, 1951) comes in at a brisk six syllables. She has emphasized challenge over intimacy, and “war” is stronger than the French phrasing. Yet, since it’s impossible to find an exact equivalent, I think it works quite nicely.

Here’s my version. Five syllables. I think it manages to capture a sense of intimacy (“you and me” replacing “nous deux“) while still hinting at a challenge. Could one guy say this to another in a bar when suggesting he and his antagonist step outside? I think so. Do you agree?