Housing culture – home imaging

 

“Hidaka’s house wasn’t one of the mansions, but it was definitely large for a couple with no children. Though the peaked gables on the roof gave it a Japanese look, it had bay windows, an arch over the front door and window boxes hanging from the second storey that were clearly Western in design.”*

The task of a translator extends far beyond linguistic matters and necessarily involves creating images. The challenge lies in both visualizing the picture in the original text, obvious to the author, and gracefully reproducing it for the reader unfamiliar with the culture in question. An example of this task is the simple word “house”. While almost all dwellings have at least four walls, they vary in material, dimension, outside façade, inside layout and access to light and air, to name just a few factors. It is clear that the sentence “I loved my parents’ home” may elicit a universal feeling but fails to create a single picture, with each person envisioning the building differently. Often, housing styles may be fairly typical in a given country or region, creating a stereotype for those familiar with them. The actual variances may be quite significant or more subtle as I show in a few examples of “typical” homes.

Spanish houses and apartments, at least in cities, seem to emphasize social space at the expense of the more private spaces. The holiday homes on the Spanish coast have relatively large sitting areas, both outside and inside. By contrast, the kitchen is often quite small, “galley” style in polite terms, often cut off from the social space. Depending on the area, red tiles and arches are quite popular.

·    English dwellings, particularly urban ones, enjoy multiple but small sitting areas, referred to as “cozy”, often leaving me to think that the English like to keep their children’s mess and noise from strangers’ eyes and ears. Curiously enough, the entrance ways are often extremely narrow, barely wide enough for one person to pass through at a time. Based on TV programs, the English appreciate solariums and wooden beams, the symbols of luxury and character.

·    The French are a rather solid people traditionally. The houses are often made of brick or stone, especially in the countryside,  possibly with painted window shutters. Whether urban or rural, the furniture tends to be heavy in line with the style of the walls, with lots of bric-a-brac cluttering the living space. Traditional French dwellings often lack air and light, apparently to reduce the cost of heating the space. French houses are homey but a bit claustrophobic in my eyes.

American West Coast homes are as large as the land allows. The houses are constructed from wood and generally rather standard in construction, but include large rooms, meaningful garden areas, healthy air flow, natural light, central air conditioning and a garage. Ranch house style houses are designed to give the residents space and impress the neighbors. The character and age of the building are not relevant factors. The East Coast has a different tradition but I am not sufficiently familiar to comment.

·    Israeli houses are typical of the Eastern Mediterranean. People are social while the weather is hot. The kitchen and living room, often joined, take proportionally a large part of the livable space, often at the expense of the bedrooms. People seek patio space whenever possible as garden space can significantly raise the purchase price. Upper floors tend to become quite hot and are only practical with air conditioning. The Israeli unique feature is the requirement, both legal and emotional, for some kind of “safe” room, a reinforced area when (not in case) the country is bombed. Many older houses and apartments lack this feature, reducing their desirability. As for color scheme, Israel is a multicultural society, creating a wide variety of furnishing styles.

The translator of the novel cited in the first paragraph was fortunate in that the author himself provided details of the house. Likewise, Honoré de Balzac generally wrote pages about the physical description of the building and each of its rooms. However, most literary translators not only need to be familiar with the architecture but somehow transmit that image. I am quite happy to be a technical translator and not be required to achieve that goal. Yet, the thought does give another meaning to the term “in-house translator”.

* Higashino, K., 2014. Malice translated by A. Smith. London: Abascus.

Shocking art

 

[cubist fish*]

Most art in any form is commercially successful in its own time because it is line with current tastes. At the same time, some artists of all genres choose to take the road not taken and produce a creation whose raison d’être or, at minimum, its selling point is that it is shocking. Granted a few choose their form of expression due to a personal vision with minimal external influence. Yet, clearly, most such revolutionaries are quickly forgotten if even noticed. The interesting question is which of these pioneering works are actually appreciated by future generations.

Some artists turned their sails into wind and chose to challenge accepted taste. Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn are examples of deliberate breaking of accepted limits specifically on discussing sexuality. Almost a century earlier, Andrei Beli wrote a symbolist novel, Petersburg, in complete rejection of the classic Russan writers that preceded him, notably Tolstoy. In theatre, Victor Hugo produced Hernani knowing full well that the critics and public would find it overly extragenetic and absurd. Likewise, Ionesco in The Chairs wrote a tragic farce that went far beyond the capacity to appreciate of most theatre viewers of his day. In music, aside from the humoristic elements, P.D.Q Bach and Spike Jones shattered the serious intellectuality of classical music, albeit in rather different ways. Thus, every action does have a reaction even in art.

Admittedly, some artists created their own style mainly  because of their unique internal vision, not necessarily commercial interests. Clearly, James Joyce in Ulysses and Marcel Proust in In Search of Lost Time felt a need to express their reality whether or not anybody would appreciate it or even understand it. In theatre, Mother Courage and her children by Bertolt Brecht and Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco reflect the political view of their writers. Clearly, the first rappers sought self-expression, not riches. Thus, the seeds of some world-changing works came from the artists themselves.

Regardless of the motivation, most of these shocking works have lost their glean and are probably considered as impressive and appreciated as the collected works of Stalin (does anbyody still have a copy?. Which of these shining stars is still remarkable today is a matter of personal taste. Would you rather read On the Road by Jack Kerouac or Travels in Spain by Alexander Dumas? Would you rather see Sammuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot or Oscar Wilde’s Salome? Would you prefer a painting by Andy Warhol or Monet in your living room. At minimum, it can be said that at least these shocking artists are still known while most of their more popular peers have almost completely disappeared from the stage (or book store, if you will). Since fame is a fickle, as Oscar Wilde said, "the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."

 

 

* Picture captions help the blind fully access the Internet.

Picture credit

L’imparfait de subjective

Perfection is a concept that is useful for comparison but futile for satisfaction.  An example is the mythical concept of a perfect translation. Like Nadia Comaneci’s perfect 10, there is a belief that a flawless version in another language must exist. Alas, the path of improvement never ends. It is always possible to find a better word or phrase the sentence just a bit better.

The explanations for this inevitable failure to reach perfection in translation include the lack of skill by translators, the uneven quality of the original text and the nature of the improvements themselves. Depending on the case, any or all may be relevant. However, I see a bigger problem: Perfection in the case of translation is an impossible level to define and reach.

First, the ideal, the modal of perfection, is subjective. There many ways to translate a phrase. Each is different but each has its charm and strength. The assessment of better and worse quickly approaches the level of a matter of taste, referred to as preferential in the profession.  Pick up a few different translations of Don Quixote or War and Peace and compare. Can any specific one be qualified as the absolute transmission of the original?  The answer is explicitly negative as each translation both subtracts and adds to the original merely by the nature of target language.

However, even if the masterpiece did exist, few if any translators have the skill to reach that Mt. Olympus goal. Good translators have thorough knowledge of the target language, generally their native tongue, great familiarity with the target language and culture, two inseparable elements, impeccable work and quality control techniques and mastery of the technical means to apply all those. Clearly these skills are not incompatible with each other. Yet, few of us can honest claim to be experts in all. Most of strive for improvement to become solid and hope for excellence in one or more of those skills.

Assuming that the translator has these skills, one of the great difficulties of reaching perfection in anything is the lack of proper conditions. Most translators work at home, are female and freelancers. This means the translators have to balance many time demands, including cooking, cleaning, children, home repairs, friends calling and, last but not least, making a living. According to the 80/20 rule, the last 20% takes as much effort as the first 80%.  For an example, professional sprinters practice thousands or hours to reduce a tenth of a second from their time. So, in an ideal world, perfection is possible. Practically, there is a deadline for this project with more on the way.  Perfection is as far away as a week in Tahiti.

This leads to the fundamental conclusion, applicable to many fields besides translation. Perfection is not a required result in almost all cases.  In business, it is called good enough, a flexible term defined by customer needs and demands. A translation for internal consumption must be accurate and reflect the original; it does not have to be a masterpiece of literature.  It is generally clear a week later that the phrasing could have been improved here and there or another synonym would have been better. In practice, all the interesting parties were able to read the document painlessly and effectively and may even have not noticed the minor error. A webpage must be clean of all errors but does not have to be literature. Each case has its parameters.

That said, I do not intend to say that mediocrity is acceptable in anything. As the expression goes, anything worth doing is worth doing well. A mythical state of perfection spurs professional to strive and improve.  Yet, taken too far, the search for the ideal only frustrates people and makes them feel bad for no reason. The human language as the human body has countless forms, each with its own good and bad points. It is natural to strive to enhance the first and minimize the second. It is harmful to throw out the baby with the bath water, especially in reference to subjective concepts. It is the nature of the imparfait du subjunctive.

Everything you ever wanted to know about translation but were afraid to ask.

When I tell people that I am a translator, I sometimes get a quizzical look, followed by questions that indicate just how "hidden" the profession is despite its omnipresent impact on the Internet and media, among other.  So, as a public service so to say, I will answer a few common questions that people think about and even sometimes ask me.

"You mean like translating books and literature?"

There are some translators that do translate literature. I admire them very much but it takes a lot of time and skill, generally for not too much money.  I translate contracts, business articles, official documents and wills, to name a few.  My wife translates medical material. Most translators have a technical specialty. That is where the demand and money is.

"You can make a living off that?"

Yes, you can make a nice living off that or it is an ideal second income, whatever is more practical.  In fact, many of us have the actual problem of finding time to enjoy other things as it tends to be a bit of a time-consuming job. As the world becomes smaller, demand will continue to grow.

"But isn't it boring?"

Not at all.  Every document has a story. The details of a will or divorce agreement raise my curiosity to know the reason for their existence.  Even simple certificates have strange coincidences, such a person being born and dying on the same day of the year or their last name. Given a choice, translators veer towards material they find interesting and away from that they find boring. The Hebrew expression says "you can't argue about taste and smell." Add interest to that list. Besides,

"Why don't people just use Google Translate?"

In some languages, machine translation is quite effective for getting the gist of an email or Internet article.  I occasionally work with an Austrian project manager who, for some reason, doesn't write in English.  I run her emails through Google Translate and get what I need.  However, try that with technical material or the more exotic languages.  The results range from non-sensical to comic. An example is "viande de terre" for ground beef (from a real Canadian site).  In any case, for a marketing, legal, scientific or medical document to name just a few, Google translate is unacceptable.

"I studied Spanish in high school and college. Could I do translate?"

It is possible. Clearly, a translator has to be familiar with the source language.  However, that is just one element.  Other requirements include mastery of the written aspect of the native language, thorough knowledge of a field, such as engineering or business, and the love of a beautiful sentence.  Words have to be important in their own right. So, as many translators discovered, they never had any idea how much they enjoyed and were good at the profession.

To paraphrase my favorite magazine, Le Canard Enchainé, this has been a fictional but probable interview of a translator.