Yukiko Duke’s ‘The Joy of Translating is Gone’ in Swedish Book Review, translated by Ian Giles, is both an affecting memoir and an interesting look at the practice of one pair of translators. She begins with her mother’s death last year at the age of 98, followed quickly by her father’s, saying “For me, the passing of my parents marked not only the end of an era in my personal life, but also the definitive end of part of my professional life as a translator.” After a description of how she got into it (a friend called in desperation, needing someone to turn Kenzaburo Oe’s novel M/T and the Narrative About the Marvels of the Forest into Swedish after the original translator dropped out, and she called her mother, who said “Of course we’ll translate Oe… Then we might get to meet him”), she turns to their working methods:
But how were we to approach it in purely practical terms? Mum was in Stockholm and I was in Tokyo. We agreed to do a rough translation first so that we could get a feel for Oe’s language and its rhythm. Hundreds of emails pinged back and forth between Sweden and Japan, but progress was sluggish. The Japanese sentences had to be completely taken apart, the words recast and then bolted back together. Cultural phenomena had to be explained; tricky words and names from Shikoku had to be checked so that they were correctly spelled. What on earth had we got ourselves into? After a month’s work, we’d made it through a pitiful one and a half chapters of the book. We trudged on heroically, but the work felt increasingly Sisyphean.
‘My God – at this rate we’ll never make our deadline,’ Mum lamented.
The summer holidays arrived and I went home to Sweden. Mum and I sat side by side beneath the linden trees at our summer house on Gotland, working together. She would read the source text aloud, we would discuss it and then I would write down a rough translation. Never have we got through as much tea, coffee or chocolate as we did then, but suddenly everything was flowing. It was almost magical. […]
We noticed how well we complemented one another, Mum and I. She had a superb sense for the Japanese, but was less certain about the nuances of Swedish, while for me it was the exact opposite. But together, we were able to crack even the tougher sentences by intuitively feeling our way through them.
‘No, he’s not sentimental,’ Mum might irritably say of some character in the novel. ‘He’s more Eugène-Jansson blue.’
‘How about nostalgic?’
‘That works!’
We kept at it, calibrating atmospheres and emotions in the novel with the aid of references to art and music – ‘more jazz than rock’n’roll’, ‘like Bach, not Beethoven’, ‘think the Skagen painters’ – and we kept at it throughout our collaboration of almost thirty years.
M/T and the Narrative About the Marvels of the Forest was an unusually difficult Oe work to translate. Usually, Kenzaburo Oe wrote in straightforward, deliberately unaffected prose, but in this novel he paid tribute to the oral storytelling tradition and retold the ancient myths. This left Mum and me with a lot of food for thought. Ought we to include a glossary of all the archaic Japanese terms, or would the reader figure out what was meant on their own? And what were we supposed to do with Oe’s grandmother’s broad dialect? In Swedish, should her rustic way of speaking be Gotlandic, Scanian or West-Bothnian? We quickly agreed that a glossary was necessary, but we both thought that our dialectal attempts sounded ham-fisted. In the end, the grandmother was left to speak standard Swedish, while retaining an elegant and old-fashioned way of expressing herself.
By the time we had charged through half the book, we felt invincible. We were even so bold as to take time off from our working days to pick wild strawberries or go walking and swimming. It was all going so well! That was when we encountered a word – a small, sneaky word – that brought us crashing back down to earth.
‘So, the hero is perched on an engawa,’ Mum said, and was about to tell me what he was up to when I asked her how she thought we should translate that word. An engawa is a kind of roofed veranda that runs along the outer walls of traditional houses.
‘What about… veranda?’ I said tentatively.
‘No, no, that’s completely the wrong association. Everyone will picture something like the porch you see on houses in Sweden or America. That’s completely off. It has to be corridor!’ Mum protested.
For once, she became resentful when I wouldn’t give in. We began to try and define this banal word so that we might explain it – and we really struggled. The traditional Japanese conception of an engawa is a bridge or transition between an inner world – the home – and the outer world.
‘Yes, that’s right – it’s a corridor between one world and the other!’ Mum said triumphantly.
But try getting the Swedish reader to visualise this veranda-cum-corridor in their mind’s eye! In the end, we agreed it would just have to be called an engawa and that it would be included in the glossary.
Eventually, Mum and I divided the book’s chapters between us and began to polish the sentences separately: we would change a word here and there, as well as shifting commas and full stops to improve the rhythm. After a few months, we swapped our bundles of chapters and continued our fine tuning. Finally, I took the whole novel and went through it from start to finish before getting my dad, the cultural editor, to proofread it. Whenever there were occasional disagreements within the family, we would call Kenzaburo Oe – Mum had reconnected with him – to find out what he thought. He patiently assisted us by explaining dialectal words and telling us the backgrounds of various legends. Over time, our protracted work on the manuscript led to us becoming firm friends with both him and his family. […]
After working on M/T and the Narrative About the Marvels of the Forest, Mum and I thought our translation career was over, but we were mistaken. One day, the legendary publisher Per Gedin rang up and asked whether we’d like to translate an incredible Japanese book for him. Per didn’t think it would sell, but he was most enthusiastic about the author and thought he ought to be available in Swedish.
‘Who is it?’ we asked, intrigued.
‘His name’s Haruki Murakami and he’s gained a cult following in the USA. I think he’s absolutely brilliant.’
So it came to pass that we translated Murakami’s collection of short stories, The Elephant Vanishes. Our task in this instance was finding the right form for a language that was completely different from Oe’s: more youthful, more urbane, and more influenced by pop culture. Mum and I proceeded on a trial and error basis. Curious to see how others had dealt with it, we read the American translation, only to be left perplexed. The language didn’t sound at all like Murakami’s Japanese original. It was far brisker and more caustic, but it was also less poetic. We called the author and asked him what had happened to the language.
‘Hmm, well,’ he said, somewhat embarrassed. ‘I don’t meddle in the work of my translators. I’ve spoken with them, and they and the publisher say that my tempo is too leisurely for the American reader. And since I’m a translator myself, my view is that all translations are interpretations. Maybe that’s me in hotted-up, American form.’
We asked him whether he’d like to be hotted up in Swedish too.
‘No, no, no. If Swedish readers can accept me as I am then naturally I prefer that.’
A few years later, Mum and I would find out that the Americans had cut one and a half chapters from The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Haruki Murakami was by no means thrilled about this, but the publisher said it had to go – otherwise they would struggle to publish the novel. For Murakami, whose first great literary and musical loves were American, there was great value in being translated into English. So great, in fact, that he was prepared to have his text harshly doctored.
Over time, there followed more works by both Oe and Murakami, as well as others by authors such as Yoko Ono, Yu Miri and Taichi Yamada.
Since Haruki Murakami is also a translator himself, he has – just like Oe – been helpful to Mum and me and easy for us to work with. The only problem is that he’s so productive and pretty intuitive when he writes – he doesn’t always remember what his intentions were after the fact. In Kafka on the Shore, there’s a scene in which a fish species we don’t have in Sweden rains from the sky. How were we going to solve that one? When we called Murakami, his response was: ‘Was there a scene like that? I don’t remember it. Oh well, why don’t we say it’s raining mackerel – you have those in Sweden, don’t you?’
Lucky her, to get to work with authors like that!
I looked at some pictures of engawa and it is pretty much a veranda and not a corridor. If a translator has a limited number of words that they can afford not to translate, but explain, this one seems to be wasted. While looking into it, I learned another word, lanai, which is pretty much the same, but a Hawaiian version.
A lanai can be on upper floors too (which is common in apartment buildings in Honolulu). I don’t know if those would be called verandahs or engawas.
N.B. In Hawaiian lānai ‘porch’ ≠ the island of Lāna‘i; English speakers pronounce both /lǝnai̯/.
@D.O.: Looking at some pictures and by what I have seen of traditional Japanese housing in films, I can understand the mother’s reservations about calling engawas “veranda”. Overall, they’re relatively narrow, and have multiple access points to rooms, and their main purpose seems to be as walkways connecting rooms, while the typical Western veranda is broader, has only one (or, with a backdoor, maybe two) access points to the house, and it usually serves additionally as space for storage, meeting with visitors, and with the right weather, as extra living space.
A few of the engawas in the pictures are like that, but most of them look to narrow to put a bicycle or a rocking chair on them without obstructing passage.
OTOH, for me a corridor (in the none-military /logistical sense) implies walls on both sides; a covered engawa like this might qualify as corridor, but most do not. So I am on board with leaving the word untranslated and explaining it.
So American translations of Murakami are not to be trusted? I‘ve always suspected as much. Maybe I will pick up some Murakami novels in Swedish on my next trip to Gotland.
I can understand the mother’s reservations about calling engawas “veranda”
Looking at those pictures my American mind immediately thinks „porch“. Never „veranda“, but of course the translators were looking for a Swedish word not an English word.
So what was the Swedish word that the English translator translated as „veranda“, and does it actually have the same semantic range as the English word?
Re “engawa” 縁側, what about
“covered walkway” — short, simple,
and accurate?
Now I wonder if you could translate engawa as ballatoio in Italian. The meaning is almost identical (“corridoio esterno di disimpegno, specialmente nelle case rustiche, ove suole essere coperto dal tetto sporgente a gronda”) but there’s the sticking point I only envision a ballatoio as an upper-storey structure and not a raised ground floor like an engawa.
Vanya: So what was the Swedish word that the English translator translated as „veranda“, and does it actually have the same semantic range as the English word?
I don’t know, but probably veranda. But for a historic or archaizing effect, perhaps svale or svalgång. And we’re back to Norw. svalgang or sval.
Apparently it’s a universal concept with local expressions.
That turned out weird.
… but probably not veranda. Maybe simply gång, but for a …
I’m dense today, reading on my phone in the spring sun. I had it right the first time, but only after correcting myself before posting, and then I thought I had miscorrected myself, so I miscorrected myself. Add to that that I may have misunderstood Vanya’s question.
Anyway, what I’m trying to guess at is the Swedish words they discuss here:
This is certainly Sw. veranda.
I believe korridor is restricted to interior long rooms with doors like in hotels and hospitals. That’s why I thought of gång, but now …
… this makes me think of passage, though that might have been translated as Eng. passage or passageway, especially in this context.
Obviously, I shouldn’t pronounce on the finer shades of Swedish at all, but somebody’s gotta do it.
When I saw ballatoio, I asked myself, why would anyone design a ballroom like that and not put it on the ground floor? Treccani explains “not ballroom, but fighting room” and gives details of the evolution:
—
BALLATOIO (fr. galerie; sp. galeria; ted. Geländergang; ingl. platform, gallery)
Dal latino bellatorium, termine con cui si designava la galleria di combattimento strapiombante dal ciglio delle torri (v. B. Migliorini, in Studj Romanzi, 1929, p. 201 e segg.), la parola ballatoio passò a significazione generica di pianerottolo sporgente, simile al moenianum degli antichi (v. meniano). Il ballatoio sull’alto delle mura si chiamò nel Medioevo più comunemente cammino di ronda (v. fortificazione).
Nell’architettura civile moderna il ballatoio è praticato più che altro come corridoio esterno di disimpegno, specialmente nelle case rustiche, ove suole essere coperto dal tetto sporgente a gronda. Le mensole di sostegno, di materiale resistente (granito, ferro, ecc.), debbono essere incastrate nel muro almeno per un terzo del loro sporto. Le lastre pavimentali, siano di pietra (particolarmente di ardesia) o siano di ferro. debbono anch’esse penetrare un poco nel muro per esser meglio fissate. Non così se il materiale, come negli châlets, nelle baite e in genere nelle costruzioni rustiche, sia il legname. Nelle case coloniche s’usa spesso di prolungare all’esterno le poutrelles dei soffitti per servirsene come di mensole.
Ballatoio si chiama poi nelle navi l’andito sporgente da poppa, della quale occupa tutta la larghezza a livello del cassero.
—
To paraphrase, ballatoio was originally a protruding ledge or corridor on an upper floor of a mediaeval fortress (torre). In modern architecture, what GP said.
The last sentence has a use on ships, lit. “the gangway protruding from the poop deck, from which it covers the whole width at the level of the quarterdeck”. Maybe someone (AntC?) knows what this is called in English…
The engawa thing reminded me of Russian завалинка ‘earthen embankment (to protect a house from freezing during winter),’ a basic feature of village architecture that is often referred to in stories and novels; it too is sometimes simply transliterated, since there is no good English equivalent:
“A little old woman, whom Semyon knew and whose nickname was Nanny Goat, was sunning herself on the zavalinka with her face to the sun.”
“The blin came running home and saw the sparrow sitting on the zavalinka with his beak twisted to one side and weeping.”
“However, such a large thing as a sewing machine could hardly get behind a zavalinka.”
Would it be too much to hope for to render engawa as Pawlatsche, since we spent the time learning about that interesting building-design feature just last month? If it’s not quite enough the same thing, call it a reverse-pawlatsche or something …
Interesting; that’s Gang “corridor” and Geländer “railing”.
But of course if an “engawa” is a common feature of Japanese houses that doesn’t have an exact analogue the way most houses are built in Sweden or in Western countries generally, why not just treat it as a loanword, the way one uses “tatami” rather than just “straw mat” or whatever. Perhaps drop an explanatory footnote upon first use (or have a glossary elsewhere that the reader knows to consult) and move on.
And lo and behold, wiktionary (for whatever that’s worth) treats “engawa” as an English word borrowed from Japanese, that turns out also to have a different non-architectural meaning relevant to the preparation of sushi, which is another untranslated loanword. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/engawa
Interesting; that’s Gang “corridor” and Geländer “railing”
Not merely interesting, but also unintelligible to the nekkid mind: Irrgarten: 8 m Geländergang mit zwei Kehren
?
[I hate that “Kehre” always makes me think of Heidegger. I don’t want to think of Heidegger. I have enough on my plate already.]
Rather than “relevant to the preparation of sushi”, I might say “borrowed by Western sushi aficionados”. It is simply the Japanese word for the meat or bone at the base of the fin, but useful to describe a part of fish anatomy that seems to lack a corresponding word in English.
why not just treat it as a loanword
That’s what they did.
It is simply the Japanese word for the meat or bone at the base of the fin
More research has revealed that it’s not just any old fin, but the fin on flatfish. Doesn’t sound very appealing:
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Engawa, the collagen-rich, chewy part of the flounder located near the fin, is considered a delicacy and fetches very high prices due to high demand.
#
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Collagen (KOL-uh-jin) is a protein in the body. Different types of collagen are in many body parts, including hair, skin, nails, bones, ligaments, tendons, cartilage, blood vessels, and intestines.
#
Ears are chewy too, but they are not intended to be swallowed. Fish don’t have ears, though. I think. Flounder must live with one ear to the ground, it they have one.
#
Indian puts his ear to the ground: “buffalo come.”
Cowboy: “how do you know?”
Indian: “ear sticky.”
#
Outer ears are cartilage. Fish only have inner ears, except for a few that have a bunch of extra little bones that effectively forms a middle ear together with the swim bladder.
Is a Zwischenkieferknochen among those extra little bones ? Are we in Goethe territory ? I vaguely remember that one of the inner ear bones in humans has something to do with fish.
Ears are chewy too, but they are not intended to be swallowed. Fish don’t have ears, though. I think. Flounder must live with one ear to the ground, it they have one.
I don’t think any parts of a fish are intended to be swallowed. The question of whether flounders have an ear to the ground or both to the sky, like their eyes, had never occurred to me, and I’m going to not look it up immediately.
I’m going to not look it up immediately.
No pressure. Take it at your own pace !
If Japanese 縁側 engawa is equivalent to 툇마루 toenmaru in Korean traditional architecture as various sources seem to suggest (except with different styles of flooring construction), then I have to side completely with Mum and say that veranda is entirely the wrong choice. In fact, I’m not sure that it would have even crossed my mind to call it a veranda, since the former is a concept that is intimately tied to traditional dwellings.
The loanword 베란다 beranda conjures up entirely different associations in Korean, calling to mind the multi-storey buildings that most city-dwellers live in, and I suspect it’s also the case with Japanese ベランダ beranda.
I expect that “beranda” as a loanword into Japanese and Korean may have a modern/Western connotation that specifically contrasts with traditional local architectural styles, but that may not be the case in e.g. Swedish. The Basque wiki article on “Engawa” says it can be applied to a kind of “beranda” where “beranda” is the Basque word with no doubt different overtones than the Japanese and Korean words and quite possibly different ones than English “veranda.”
https://eu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engawa
There’s a German company Beranda that builds verandas.
The etymology of veranda is interesting. < Hindi varandah < Port. varanda < ? but ref. Sp. baranda.
I was now going to make the ludicrous claim that it’s from a Germanic language, a present participle from the same root as Ger. Wehr, but it strikes me that this might actually work, only with a verb from the same root *bar- as In *barō f. “beam, rail; fencing”.
Nonono, that’s the premaxilla, the bone (one on each side) that bears the upper incisors. I’m talking about the Weberian ossicles that carp and their relatives have on the other side of the head.
The swim bladder is a modified lung…
WikiP:Engawa describes many variants on the basic theme; different structures built for different climates. I note that they use the words “porch”, “sunroom” and “veranda” for different variants.
The general structures look immediately familiar to me from the visual depiction of buildings in Ghibli films and other Japanese animation.
WikiP:Veranda has a list of similar structures in other countries — and for Japan, but it has none of the variants that appear on the page for Engawa, and instead says:
I would not describe gangi-zukuri as being verandas; I would just probably just say “covered walkway”. Unlike engawa or actual verandas, it doesn’t look like it’s part of a living place.
In terms of Japanese media, the engawa I remember most strongly is the one at the Northern Garrison in Throne of Blood, where Washizu commits the first murder.
> > But try getting the Swedish reader to visualise this veranda-cum-corridor in their mind’s eye! In the end, we agreed it would just have to be called an engawa and that it would be included in the glossary.
> Obviously, I shouldn’t pronounce on the finer shades of Swedish at all, but somebody’s gotta do it.
I’ll pick up the gauntlet.
I wonder if they considered farstu (Something between a hallway and an entrance. Often am unheated room outside the main body of the bouse, connecting the indoors to the outdoors.)
That sounds more like a mudroom or сени.
Almost. But it can also be a cosy place where you sit and take your evening coffee.
Google image search shows some that look almost relevant.
Especially ‘farstukvist’ seems pretty close. (But it has connotations of old-timey Sweden that might be out-of-place in a Japanese setting.)
On a different topic – I’ll have to read Murakami in Swedish. I like his books in English, but wouldn’t have guessed that the Swedish translation might be significantly different.
were the Weberian Ossicles a sect in Dune or a prog band from rochester?
I think I heard them once, opening for Potsdam Gravity Potato.
That sounds more like a mudroom or сени.
“mud room” here in 2021
The lineup for the Weberian Ossicles ought to be:
Engawa Veranda — lead vocals
Geländer Zavalinka — synthesizer
Ballatoio Gangi-Zukuri — lead guitar
Toenmaru Eugène-Jansson — bass guitar
Lānai Farstukvist — percussion
Very transnational, much fusion, wow
Which country will they compete for in Eurovision?
Tuva.
But I heard Ms. Veranda is planning to go solo.
One would expect these days that any Tuvan entry in the Eurovision competition would sing in English, just like this year’s entries from nations as varied as Azerbaijan, Cyprus, and Norway. But one might hope that the group in question would be properly ambitious and thus sing in a conlang of their own devising, a la https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magma_(band)#Koba%C3%AFan.
Yes, but there are always surprises.
Obligatory link to the national anthem of Tıva in an interpretation that is bombastic enough for Eurovision.