This and that

[selenak]

I've written my startrekholidays story and sent it off to be beta'd, as well as embarked on writing my Yuletide assignment. In betwee, there's RL business, but I do fifind the tiime for readiing the occasional article, such as a this one:


Emil's Berlin in translation: about the various English versions of "Emil and the Detectives" by Erich Kästner, and how each of them dealt - or failed to - meet the central challenge: How can you translate a book so closely connected to a particular time and place? How do you let young English readers understand Emil’s world without losing the specificity that is part of the original’s charm? (Was simultanously amused and appalled to find out the Berlin kids get a class upgrade in the English version smply by being given some type of Enid Blyton-esque public school slang to speak, which, err, is not what I'd have chosen as the British equivalent for Berlin working class kids...)

On another note, have a Lawrence of Arabia vid rec:

[VID] Garlands (17 words) by caramarie
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Ali ibn el Kharish & T. E. Lawrence
Characters: Ali ibn el Kharish, T. E. Lawrence
Summary:

‘I pray that I may never see the desert again.’

Heartbreaking Lawrence/Ali relationship and character study.

Comments

[trobadora]

That Emil article is fascinating! Thank you very much for the link.

(My first reaction was, "OMG, all those translations are wrong. But I have no idea how you'd do it right, either, and I wouldn't want to have to try." *g*)

[selenak]

I wouldn't want, either, but I guess if I had to, I'd go for Cockney. Not least due to the grand tradition of Siegfried Trebitsch, George Bernard Shaw's translator, using Berlinese for the Cockney in Pygmalion (where you absolutely have to let Eliza and her father speak in a big city dialect, or the plot makes no sense), which btw is also why it was used later for My Fair Lady. And Trebitsch did this in consultation with Shaw, who between being a Wagner fan and having gone to the trouble of reading Marx in the original actually did speak German. If Cockney = Berliner Schnauze is good enough for GBS, it's good enough for me!

(I would definitely not translate the names, though. Neustadt stays Neustadt. That novel isn't set in a fantasy realm.)

[vilakins]

I really enjoyed that article (especially as I worked in Frankfurt with a Berliner who sometimes used slang). I'd have gone for Cockney - it worked well in Private Schulz - without being aggressively so with lots of rhyming slang.

I read and enjoyed the book as a kid (along with Lottie and Lisa) but I have no idea which translations they were. I know I found the English slang in a lot of stories odd and foreign, but when you live on the wrong side of the planet you get used to not recognising your own world.

[selenak]

When I first read Kästner, slang for children, in Berlin or out of it, had moved on for decades, of course, but that never stopped me from enjoying the books. (More recently, in the marvellous movie Erich Kästner and Little Tuesday), they did a great job of letting the kid actor speak Berlin street dialect the way the kids in the novel do, and it felt entirely natural.)

Re: translating, I'd go for Cockney. Not least due to the grand tradition of Siegfried Trebitsch, George Bernard Shaw's translator, using Berlinese for the Cockney in Pygmalion (where you absolutely have to let Eliza and her father speak in a big city dialect, or the plot makes no sense), which btw is also why it was used later for My Fair Lady. And Trebitsch did this in consultation with Shaw, who between being a Wagner fan and having gone to the trouble of reading Marx in the original actually did speak German. If Cockney = Berliner Schnauze is good enough for GBS, it's good enough for me!