Masaryk University
Faculty of Arts
Department of English and American Studies
English-language Translation
Bc. et Bc. Dominika Slepánková
A Comparative Analysis of Two Czech Translations of
John Irving’s The 158-Pound Marriage
Master’s Diploma Thesis
Supervisor: Mgr. Filip Krajník, Ph.D.
2019
I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and
secondary sources listed in the bibliography.
………..……………………………………
Author’s signature
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my supervisor, Mgr. Filip Krajník, Ph.D., for his valuable feedback and
his enormous patience with me. I have to thank my mom and my husband who put up with
my constant mood swings during this whole process. And last but not least, I have to thank
the kind souls that really held me above the water. Thank you, Tereza, Jeffrey and Andrea.
List of abbreviations
ST source text
DB+MF translation by Danka Boháčiková and Michal Formánek
PK translation by Pavel Kříž
Table of contents
Introduction ...... 1
1 The 158-Pound Marriage ...... 3
1.1 Plot of the novel ...... 4
2 Czech translations ...... 10
3 Comparative analysis ...... 13
3.1 Book and chapter titles ...... 13
3.2 Author’s style ...... 21
3.3 Idiomatic language and culture-specific items ...... 34
3.4 Profanity ...... 46
3.5 Foreign language ...... 61
Conclusion ...... 69
Bibliography ...... 72
Resumé ...... 75
Summary ...... 76
Introduction
To this day, John Irving has written fourteen novels and he is considered one the best contemporary American writers. His first novel Setting Free the Bears was published when he was just 26 years old. What brought him his international fame was his fourth novel The World According to Garp published just four years after the novel which is central to this thesis. His books were translated into more than 35 languages. Czech translations of his novels are usually produced no later than a year after their original publication date in the United States.
In the former Czechoslovakia people had to wait a little before they were able to read the first ever novel by John Irving translated into Czech. It was up to 1987, meaning nine years after the original publication of The World According to Garp in the
United States (“Svět podle Garpa“). Nowadays, Czech translations of John Irving’s novels are usually produced no later than a year after their original publication date in the United States.
This thesis will focus on two Czech translations of John Irving’s third novel published in 1973, The 158-Pound Marriage. It mainly focuses on the textual analysis of selected excerpts from the novel and aims to reveal the tendencies and strategies of each translator. The first part provides information about John Irving and the novel.
Origins and his inner motivation considering this particular novel are described too, because they play an important part. The plot of the novel is explained in necessary detail, so the reader of the thesis is capable to understand all the connections between the characters, their actions and their behaviors and then can consequently follow the analysis that simultaneously works with all this information. In the chapter titled Czech translations, background information about the translations and the translators is given.
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The second part analyses the translations and describes the findings in five subcategories: book and chapter titles, author’s style, idiomatic language and culture-specific items, profanity and foreign language. The examples chosen for the analysis were taken from the source text without any prior knowledge of the translations so as to avoid any bias. In every subchapter I provide the reasoning behind each category and also the information that introduce the category further.
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1 The 158-Pound Marriage
The 158-Pound Marriage is Irving’s third novel. It was published in 1973. It is very different from all his other novels in many ways, certainly in the terms of the narrative.
For the first and so far the only time, Irving chooses one of the protagonists as the narrator, an unreliable one to be exact. The narrator is the only protagonist that does not grow, or learn anything about life or himself; Irving deviates from his usual
Bildungsroman structure. Irving wrote this novel during a difficult part of his life. He was rather burnt-out from his teaching job in Iowa he had at the time, he hated the fact that he was staying at one place where nothing was going on, according to his words.
He channeled all his anger and frustrations into this book:
I felt I’d been to Iowa. I’d gotten a lot out of it, I’d liked it fine. But now I
wasn’t wrestling so well anymore. I was getting beaten up. I was feeling
old, physically. I was sick of teaching. I didn’t want to do it anymore. I was
restless, aimless. We lived in four houses over a three-year period in the
same dull city, Iowa City. I thought I was gonna die a death of boredom.
(Marcus 1979: par. 53)
He openly admits that two other novels inspired him to write this one: Madox Ford’s
The Good Soldier and John Hawkes’ The Blood Oranges. He even quotes excerpts from them at the beginning of the book. Both of them also deal with spouse swapping.
After his first book Setting Free the Bears received good reviews, but did not sell very well, the publishing house he was working with at that moment, Random House, did not really attempt to promote his second novel The Water-Method Man. When The
158-Pound Marriage was released without almost anyone noticing it, because of the lack of any form of press, Irving decided to make big changes and terminated his contract with Random House. It proved to be a step in the right direction (Miller
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1982: 6). When Irving channeled all the negativity from his system into Marriage, he decided he wanted to write something “life-affirming”. With that wish in mind and with a new publishing house standing behind him, The World According to Garp came to existence and catapulted Irving to the status of one of the most acclaimed contemporary
American authors.
1.1 Plot of the novel
The main protagonists of this novel are two married couples in the center of a four-way affair: Severin Winter, Edith Winter, Utch and the nameless narrator. Severin Winter is a wrestling couch and a professor of German at the New England university. He and his wife Edith (maiden name Fuller) met in Vienna, to where she traveled as an unofficial ambassador of the New York Museum of Modern Art to acquire a few paintings of Kurt
Winter, Severin’s father.
The second married couple is Utch and the narrator of this novel. Utch’s legal name is Anna Agati Thalhammer, but nobody called her that name since she was five years old. At that time, in 1943, the Russians were coming to her Austrian village and
Utch’s mother hid her in the chest cavity of a cow she just slaughtered. After several days of Russian looting, killing and raping, she was literally born into the arms of a
Russian officer when the cow she was hidden in was moved, because it started to rot and smell. The Georgian Russian officer, captain Kudashvili, decided to name her
Utchka, meaning a calf in Georgian slang. The narrator changed her name to Utch when she reached her thirtieth birthday, because “it is natural … that a woman in her thirties would no longer be an Utchka, so I called her Utch” (Irving 1986: 17). Similarly to the first couple, they met in Vienna. The Georgian officer decided to adopt Utch and took her to live with him in the occupied Vienna. The narrator decided to travel to Vienna to
4 research materials for his upcoming historical novel. The narrator is a professor at the same university as Severin Winter.
At the beginning, the plot is unraveling rather inconspicuously despite the tale of
Utch’s rebirth in the first chapter. The notion that the two couples are sexually involved is hinted at very gently, but the reader cannot be entirely sure at first. The time line of the novel is linear, but because the narrator is a historical novelist (not very successful one at that), he is focused on the past of other three protagonists and describes it in several flashbacks.
The affair that was initially supposed to spice up the two marriages gradually reveals its ugly origins and profound lies. Utch and the narrator were unknowingly trapped in a revenge acted out by Edith for Severin’s crushing and painful infidelity.
The ménage á quatre that was doomed from the very beginning is finally stopped by a horrific domestic accident that happens to the daughters of Severin and Edith, Dorabella and Fiordiligi. At the end of the story, Utch is leaving the narrator, because during the course of their affair, she fell in love with Severin and is crushed by their break up and his rejection.
The novel is full of sexual and explicit language. The language is gradually intensifying, in accordance with the emotions of the protagonists. However, the novel is in no way erotic. Sex is not portrayed and described in an arousing way, very often it is intentionally awkward or unpleasant to point to the fact that the affair is a bad thing that will not end well.
The narrator is highly unreliable. Each time he decides to revisit a certain story he reveals something he intentionally omitted in the first place to make the story fit his purpose. He is very selfish and pays little to no attention to the feelings of others, especially his wife (Campbell 1998: 53). For a novelist, he is very bad at judging
5 character, reading people and viewing things and events objectively. He misreads others very often: he considers Utch as self-sufficient (but she gets swayed by her uncontrolled emotions for Severin), he believes that Edith is agonizing over losing him as a lover
(even though she clearly states several times that she never loved him). Not one character is created as either positive or negative; all of them are in some way unlikeable. Irving claimed about the characters: “at the time I wrote The 158-Pound
Marriage, I needed to write about those people I didn’t feel good about. I had to write about those people, and I’m trying very hard not to write about people like that again”
(Marcus 1979: par. 76). Irving’s usually important aspect of family is overlooked in this novel as the “adults” only care about themselves and their kids play almost no part in their lives. A lot of the themes present in this and his previous novels tie together in The
World According to Garp. Part of the last sentence of Marriage even serves as a title of
Garp’s second novel: The Second Wind of a Cuckold.
Severin Winter is a “saboteur” and a manipulative control freak, but he is the only one from the Winter family who actually cares about the children. He was the only one worried about the consequences of the whole affair from the beginning, probably because he was very aware that his infidelity was the reason for it.
Edith seems like a sophisticated young New Yorker, an ideal wife that is willing to try “swinging” for the sake of the marriage. But later it is revealed that she orchestrated the affair as a payback for Severin’s cheating. Even though the affair was mutually agreed upon, after the break up, Severin tries to further control Edith and she consequently seduces his wrestling student to get back at him, to assert herself as her own person. She is portrayed as a lousy mother who cannot distinguish her two daughters, who are not even identical twins.
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Utch seems to be the most innocent character from the group; she is a devoted mother that is putting up with her husband’s constant “secret” affairs. She genuinely falls in love with Severin. Her emotions are so intense that she basically lets him break her heart, destroy her self-confidence and also her marriage. With the same intensity of emotion and action, she leaves the narrator and heads to Vienna with their two sons at the end of the novel.
Even though the narrator is no saint himself, he is also deceived by this relationship. He and Edith grew really close through their mutual love of writing and the narrator was not aware that he was being used as a tool for vengeance. Suddenly he is left without a wife, a lover and his kids. This and the preceding accident of the little girls wake him up from his ignorance towards the whole situation. He misses Utch and the kids to the point that he sleeps in Utch’s slip and dresses the chairs at the dining table in the boys’ T-shirts to not feel so lonely. In the end he decides to leave for Vienna to research the novel he wanted to research in the first place and to make amends with his wife.
There are two main settings: the university in New England and Vienna. John
Irving fell in love with Vienna during his year abroad and the city is featured in many of his novels: “I’d never seen any place like Vienna. It was so new and strange – or so old, as it turns out, and strange - that it forced me to pay attention to every aspect of it.
Nothing else had ever demanded that kind of attention from me” (Marcus 1979: par.
39). The minor settings are the beds, wombs and the wrestling room. The beds are connecting all four protagonists (Campbell 1998: 56). Wombs are important for Severin and Utch; Severin managed to escape Austria in the safety of his mother’s womb and
Utch was hidden in the womb of a cow. The wrestling room is a central place of
7 conflicts emerging (Severin and Audrey Cannon – his lover; Severin and Utch), but also a place of reconciliation (Utch and the narrator; Severin and Edith).
It is problematic to pinpoint any character development, because of the first person narrative. The narrator often misjudges others or chooses not to enclose much information about them. Most development is shown with Edith who is in the end able to forgive her husband and to accept him for who he is. Severin Winter is the most complex character in this novel, partly also because the narrator is so focused on him, the reader receives the most information about him. What is very clear from this first-person narrative is that the narrator himself did not learn anything from the whole experience. That sets him apart from the majority of protagonists from Irving’s novels who always evolve and learn from all the bad and good things that Irving made them go through in their particular story.
Important themes are marriage and family, but also power and leverage. Both
Severin and Utch are orphaned. The narrator and Edith still have parents but they are very detached from their families. Contrary to that, Severin has a very unique, somebody would say unhealthy, relationship with his late mother. Erotic paintings of the former model hang in the Winters’ bedroom. Children are close to invisible throughout the novel, which is peculiar as the protagonists of the novel are all parents.
The absence of children underlines the fact that something is wrong about the affair. It puts the protagonists into a very special constructed world that has little to do with reality and actually damages it. It shows even more closely how irresponsible and selfish the parents are. At one point the narrator mentions: “I remember the children least of all, and this bothers me” (Irving 1986: 129). The Winter girls have to get very badly hurt to “wake” everybody to the fact that what they are doing is not all right. The theme of leverage and power is embodied by the ever-present wrestling. The affair is
8 only a way to get back at Severin. The power struggle in the Winters’ marriage makes it seem loveless at times, but this proves false at the end of the novel.
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2 Czech translations
Translations of imported literature have a long history in the Czech environment. From all the books produced by Czech publishing houses, translated literature in 2017 made up 36 % (“Zpráva o českém knižním trhu”, 2018). Since 1990, the number of publishing houses was rising as a reaction to previous restrictive measures from the government, when only state and ministerial publishing houses could exist. The period of normalization (the 1970s and 1980s) also had a big impact. Before November 1989 there were 45 publishing houses. This number rose to roughly 2500 in 1991. In contrast to previous state supervision, the only obligation left was to announce the start of the business at the local town council. Publishing houses were suddenly founded by various fellowships, scientific institutions, universities, agencies and businesses (Halada 2009:
12). A lot of people that had no previous experience with this business decided to enter it. This increase in numbers signified a change in sociopolitical relations, but also new opportunities for economic and personal fulfillment (Halada 2007: 15).
We can distinguish three stages of development following November 1989: 1) enormous growth of the market during the first half of 1990, 2) emergence of the rediscovered genres at the end of 1990 and during 1991, and 3) an approaching sales crisis in 1992. The last stage posed the question of how to stay on the market. Many of the publishing houses found out that with more lenient rules coming after the changes of the political situation the market is freer, but that simultaneously meant more demanding and more complicated. Since 1992 the print run was falling, but at the same time the number of published titles was rising. The distributors failed to fulfill their role as the connecting link between the author and the reader. As a result, some big publishing houses went bankrupt, for example Mustang in 1996 (Halada 2007, 15–17).
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More and more publishing houses are being founded every day and the Czech market is currently supersaturated with them (Halada 2007).
Irving’s novels have been translated into more than 35 languages. The first Irving novel translated into Czech was The World According to Garp in 1987 (Odeon publishing house). All his books (14 novels, 1 autobiography and 1 children’s book that was written by one of the characters of the novel Widow for One Year) were translated into Czech. They are published in approximately one year following the original publication date in the USA.
The first translation of John Irving’s novel The 158-Pound Marriage was created in 1995 by Danka Boháčiková and Michal Formánek and published by Mustang publishing house under the title 158 librová svatba. The title alone is rather questionable, but so are other facts pertaining to this translation. This is the sole literary translation for Boháčiková and Formánek. This fact can possibly support the hypothesis that this translation could be rather faulty. Even though I reached out to other translators that worked around the same period and for this publishing house, I was not able to collect any more information about these translators. Even the Theatre, Literary,
Audiovisual Agency, association DILIA, was not able to provide me with any information unfortunately (“DILIA”). I believe it would be of a great merit to gather more information about the translators and their habitus, especially because this translation is a product of two creators. The Mustang publishing house had a rather short history. It was founded in 1993 in Plzeň and focused mainly on military literature, unfortunately without any concept. John Irving’s novels were published in the edition
BELETRIE along with authors such as Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer. It was producing a rather large number of publications, but it failed to pay the authors and printers on time. The publishing house ceased to exist in 1996, because of their crushing
11 debt (Halada 2007). It not would be farfetched to theorize that the publishing house did have a certain impact on the overall quality of this translation, because of their less than optimal working practices that ultimately lead to its bankruptcy.
The second translation of this novel was created in 2003 by Pavel Kříž and it was published by Odeon publishing house under the title Manželství do 158 liber. It was reprinted in 2009. Pavel Kříž has translated 21 literary works and is still active to this day. In his translating career he mainly focuses on dubbing and work for television. His most interesting project would be the TV series Dallas (“Pavel Kříž”). It was after many episodes of Dallas when he was contacted about a possibility of working on literary translations of some Dallas books. He also translated novels by Ken Follett, Mark
Watson or I.J. Parker. This was his first time for him translating John Irving, but two years later, in 2005, he translated Irving’s first novel, Setting Free the Bears (“Pavel
Kříž [dabingforum]”). I was able to contact Mr. Kříž through an e-mail I received at
DILIA, but he refused to answer any more of my detailed questions, so I respected his wishes. However he shared a very important fact that his translation is completely independent from the first one, he was not familiar with its text at all. The analysis will clearly confirm this.
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3 Comparative analysis
The examples for the analyses were picked from the English original based on their appropriateness for one of the chapters below. The examples were taken from the whole novel. This was enabled by the length of the novel that is just 256 pages. It is Irving’s shortest novel. For Irving this means really short as his longest novel, Until I Find You, has 1035 pages (Irving 2005). Suitable examples were manually collected and processed, and they were given a proper structure that enabled side-by-side analysis.
The examples were collected from the source text without any prior knowledge of the translations so as to avoid any bias. Thus, the only hypotheses that could be formulated at this moment are based on the external facts about the individual translations. I will offer a conclusion based on the facts uncovered during the analysis. 158 librová svatba was translated by a couple that had not before or after worked with a literary translation, therefore the translation may contain numerous mistakes and can be stylistically inferior. It may also contain more inconsistencies as it was created by two translators instead of one. The second translation was created by a professional translator, therefore should present consistent and faithful results. Each example is introduced in its context within the book for a better understanding. At the end of each subchapter, a short conclusion will be provided.
3.1 Book and chapter titles
The title of the novel creates the first impression the readers get from a book. It can make the difference between buying the book and leaving the store empty-handed. For
Irving, titles are very important; he claims he has them even before he has the books that belong to them (Hansen 1986). According to Levý, there are two types of titles: descriptive and symbolic. The descriptive title, such as The Tragical History of Doctor
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Faustus, is the older type and its informative component is more important than any aesthetic function, so it is to be translated as is. Symbolic titles are to be concise, expressive and should pertain to the themes of the story (Levý 2011). The 158-Pound
Marriage definitely belongs to the symbolic category. At first glance, the reader can be unsure what does the particular “pound” represents. The word “pound” possesses two meanings, one being British currency and the other an imperial unit of weight. A rather mysterious title can be a great way how to engage the reader and capture his attention.
When the reader finds out that the central theme and metaphor of this novel is wrestling,
the meaning of the word becomes clear. Translations of this title differ greatly:
ST: The 158-Pound Marriage
DB+MF: 158 librová svatba
PK: Manželství do 158 liber
The title combines two major themes of the novel: marriage and leverage (that is represented by a wider metaphor of wrestling). None of the translators chose to convert pounds to kilograms. Although it would somehow clear up the initial confusion whether the pounds are units of currency or weight (as this word works identically in Czech as it does in English), this does not pose such an issue as converting every mention of it throughout the whole book would. Additionally, a story set in America, at an American university would feel peculiar filled with metric references. It would be a very visible case of domestication. Even though Levý (2011) says that titles of new translations should preserve the title of the previous ones, it applies to very popular or canonical literary works only. This novel does not belong among Irving’s most popular ones, so it is more than acceptable that Kříž decided to create a new title. In this case it was almost unnecessary, as Boháčiková and Formánek failed to translate this title properly. First and foremost, the title contains an orthographical error – there should not be a space
14 between the parts “158” and “librová”. Within the context of titles, this is unforgivable.
This type of error should have been corrected at the level of the publishing house, if not by the translators. Second, they decided to translate the word “marriage” as “svatba”.
Even if we were willing to ponder about the “creative license”, this argument falls flat to the fact that marriage is a central theme and at any point of the story, there is no wedding or any mention of it. Kříž adapted the Czech expression “váhová kategorie do x kilogramů” and created a very clever title. Fortunately none of the translators chose to erase the specific numeral “158” and create something along the lines of “Manželství střední váhy” as the numeral is specifically referencing a weight class of Severin Winter and it is an important part of the story.
As it is mentioned above in chapter one of this thesis, the whole story is saturated with wrestling terminology and references. This is the case with chapter names as well.
Chapters two, three and five of the novel share the same format:
ST: Scouting Reports: Edith [126-pound class] (34)
DB+MF: Výzvědná hlášení: Edith [126 librová kategorie] (23)
PK: Zpráva skauta: Edita (hmotnostní kategorie 126 liber) (24)
ST: Scouting Reports: Utch [134-pound class] (55)
DB+MF: Výzvědná hlášení: Utch [134 librová kategorie] (39)
PK: Zpráva skauta: Uč (hmotnostní kategorie 134 liber) (41)
ST: Scouting Reports: Severin [158-pound class] (77)
DB+MF: Výzvědná hlášení: Severin [158 librová kategorie] (55)
PK: Zpráva skauta: Severin (hmotnostní kategorie 158 liber) (59)
In each of these chapters, the narrator is inserting a flashback of a respective titular character, as the name suggests. Scout in this particular case means the person who usually works for a sports club of any sorts and seeks talented individuals. Athletes who 15 are picked out by a scout get offered a contract by a professional team or can receive a scholarship at the university. This fact is not being communicated clearly in the translations. Boháčiková and Formánek did not commit a semantic mistake, but rather a contextual one. A scouting report can in fact mean “výzvědné hlášení”, but that would occur in the context of war, for example, when scouts were sent behind the enemy lines to gain information about the enemy’s side (the original meaning of the word). They also thrice again repeated their mistake from the title of the book (the erroneous space between the parts “158” and “librová”). Translation that Kříž came up with is disputable. He can very well mean “skaut” – the talent hunter. This meaning is a part of the Czech language as the Internet Language Reference Book shows (“skaut”).
However, as a homonym, it is indistinguishable from the meaning “skaut” as in person who is a part of a scouting organization. In this case, it is possible to give Kříž the benefit of the doubt and state that he was translating with the “talent hunter” meaning in mind. However, the mind of the average Czech reader that is not yet aware of the wrestling theme of the book would probably think of “skaut” from the scouting organization for youth, as they have a long and strong tradition in the Czech Republic.
What is missing is a preposition in the weight class, as the right terminology goes
“hmotnostní kategorie do x liber”.
The rest of the book chapters do not share a common format anymore and become proper symbolic titles that do not uncover the content of the given chapter, they
however share the wrestling metaphors:
ST: Preliminary Positions (101)
DB+MF: Předběžné pozice (73)
PK: Přípravné pozice (78)
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This chapter is dedicated to the affair and all its naughty details. It is the first chapter of the novel filled with lots of expressive language and actual love making. The couples enjoy the weekend at Edith’s mother’s house at the Cape, no children, no rules. At this point, their affair is working out, but clear indications are starting to appear that Severin does not agree with the whole process, or at least with the fact that he is the only one worrying about the outcomes of their little experiment. Everybody is getting into the
“preliminary positions” before the real match begins that ends their ménage á quatre.
Kříž’s translation correctly uses the wrestling terminology in this case.
The title of the next chapter hints at the ever-rising desire of Severin Winter to control absolutely everything about their affair:
ST: Who's on Top? Where's the Bottom? (131)
DB+MF: Kdo je nahoře? A kde je vlastně dno? (95)
PK: Kdo je na špici? Kde je dno? (102)
Severin always wants to be on the top, very much the same as in a wrestling match. The wrestler on top is the one in control and he is the one gaining points. The title also cleverly references sex positions. For the first time, Severin decides to play the children card. He starts to showcase his disdain of Utch openly and the narrator is worried that
Severin will put an end to the whole thing and he (the narrator) will lose Edith. At one point Severin snaps at the narrator: “Take care of your wife.” And surely that is the one thing the narrator does not want to do. Boháčiková and Formánek translated the words, but not really the deeper meaning of this title. Kříž did not choose a good term either, as
“špice” would in this sense be used for a different sport, most probably one of a racing persuasion. Both sets of translators decided to translate “bottom” as “dno”. Although it is missing the sporting reference in Czech, that is the only optimal option without changing the original noun. I would suggest a more creative approach that aims to
17 preserve the significance of the title, along the lines of “Kdo má navrch? Kdo je na
žíněnce?“ or “Kdo má navrch? Kdo je na lopatkách?” Even though the words “žíněnka” or “lopatky” do not appear in the source text, they provide the meaning and essential wrestling references. It clearly communicates the confusing feeling of who is currently winning or making the decisions in the complicated relationship.
Next chapter is challenging as it referencing a real life work of art:
ST: Carnival's Quarrel with Lent (155)
DB+MF: Spor Masopustu s Postem (113)
PK: Svár Masopustu s Půstem (121)
This chapter is referencing a Pieter Brueghel’s painting called The Fight Between
Carnival and Lent. A reproduction of this painting hangs over the narrator’s kitchen table and inspired him to write one of his historical novels. He originally went to
Vienna to see the original painting, but he met Utch there and they fell in love.
Narrator’s father calls Utch “a Carnival character through and through!” (Irving 1997:
186). The story escalates in this chapter, because Severin took Utch to the wrestling room to spend the night with her. When narrator shared this with Edith, she got furious and later explained why. The wrestling gym is where Severin was meeting up with his lover. In this case both translations are very nice. Kříž’s translation is a little more fitting as he uses the word “svár”. “Spor” is a little too common to correspond to the
English “quarrel”, in this case “fight” would be the source word.
The title of the next chapter suggests that it reveals details about Severin’s affair that is the true driving force and original source of the current situation of the characters:
ST: The Wrestling-Room Lover (190)
DB+MF: Románek z tělocvičny (139)
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PK: Milenka ze zápasnické žíněnky (149)
Severin began to suffer from insomnia when one of his wrestlers, Bender, was not reaching the results he was hoping he would. He made a habit of cycling to the university gym to swim and to use the sauna, but one day he crossed paths with Audrey
Cannon, as assistant professor of Dance and Theater Arts. She was dancing on the wrestling mats. What makes this interesting is the fact that Audrey lost her foot in a freak home accident. Once Edith caught them inflagranti at the gym, the affair was over, but left a deep scar in the Winters’ relationship. The reader finds out that this affair is the reason why the Winters entered this swapping experiment: so Edith can get her revenge on Severin. Behaviors and actions of everyone involved suddenly become much clearer. Severin immediately puts an abrupt stop to their adventure, breaking
Utch’s heart as a result. I would say that Boháčiková and Formánek’s translation somewhat diminishes the whole significance of Audrey Cannon with the word
“románek”. In Severin’s words, he truly loved Audrey and only God knows how the affair would end if Edith did not catch them in the act. Therefore, if they adhered to their original strategy, “láska z tělocvičny” would be a better solution. Although the best solution would probably be the combination of both translations: “Milenka z tělocvičny”.
Following chapter contains the break-up and hints at the emotional state of the narrator:
ST: The Runner-Up Syndrome (219)
DB+MF: Finálový syndrom (161)
PK: Syndrom druhého (173)
After the break-up, things get very awkward between the couples. If Severin seemed like a control freak before, he is an even bigger one now. He forces Edith to travel with
19 him to his yearly out-of-state wrestling tournament, because he is afraid that if left alone, Edith and the narrator would slip into old habits and continue the affair. Edith hates wrestling and everything about it and Severin knows it, but does not care. As revenge, Edith tries to seduce Severin’s star pupil, Bender. Severin catches them in the act and as a result, Bender loses the tournament the next day, because he both let his coach down and “could not perform” with Edith.
When the couples try to become friends at a sit-down dinner at the Winters’ place, the turning point of the plot appears. A huge piece of glass from the sliding shower doors slips out of its groove and shatters onto the little Winter girls who are taking a bath at that moment. This event serves as a wake-up call to everyone included that what they are doing is pointless and that the family matters the most. They realize that they have been grossly neglecting all their children and the “real world”. The title describes the narrator’s feelings about the whole affair. From the beginning he saw
Severin Winter as a rival, as someone he has to defeat in a way. The whole affair functioned and was terminated on Severin’s terms. The narrator feels defeated, once again, hence the “syndrome” in the title. Although the term “runner-up” is usually used for a second place in sports, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, it can identify any competitor that does not win first place (“runner-up”), therefore a loser.
The word syndrome is used to describe the state of mind of the narrator, hinting that he feels like this rather often, perhaps obsessively, hinting at the fact that it maybe even reaches the status of a medical condition. Even though the author uses it as such, the word syndrome does not really have to appear in the translation. Boháčiková and
Formánek mistranslated and Kříž chose a literal translation. The repeating state and
“same symptoms” could be expressed better and in clearer terms, for example as
“Věčně druhý“ or “Zase poražený”.
20
Chapter names are almost as important as the title of the book itself. The name of the next chapter is supposed to draw the reader to continue reading. It is supposed to be enticing enough to achieve the goal, but not too revealing to give too much away. In context to the source text, Kříž’s chapter titles were a little more inventive than those of
Boháčiková and Formánek. Also, the titles of the first three chapters contained a shift in meaning and unfortunately the biggest mistake in both translation itself and orthography was the title that Boháčiková and Formánek created. It could be up for discussion whether the title is the work of the publishing house (as it is sometimes the case) or not, however the glaring error in the title should have been caught and corrected at some point during the editing process.
3.2 Author’s style
This chapter will focus on the analysis of how all translators adhere to the style of John
Irving. Style of John Irving is very distinctive – he differs from most today’s author by sticking to the model of the novel of the 19th century that is built on strong characters developing the plot. Charles Dickens is his big idol and actually it was his Great
Expectations that made him want to become an author: “Great Expectations is the first novel I read that made me wish I had written it; it is the novel that made me want to be a novelist” (Balser 2017: par. 3). Irving’s style is not definable by individual textual items, but rather by the complexity of his long sentences and difficult metaphors, or the mental picture he causes to appear in the reader’s mind. His novels are “noted for their expansive scope, vivid and engaging characterization” (“Novelist John Irving” 2016: par. 16). The translation also has to preserve the nuances of the original text and its tone. This is particularly important with Irving as he often mixes comical language with tragic events and vice versa. In his creative process Irving always starts from the last
21 sentence: “Once I know, like a piece of music, what it sounds like at the end, where I’m going, I make a kind of roadmap in reverse, back to where I think the story should begin. So far, that last sentence has never changed. I see that ending and I write toward it. It is kind of waiting for me” (“TIME”). He claims that only by knowing the end, he can develop the characters and the plot the right way. He also spends a much larger portion of time rewriting the novel rather than writing it. He claims that: “Given the fact that I know everything in the story before I write it, all I want to be thinking about is the language, the tone of voice, the pace of the language.” (“Novelist John Irving” 2016: par. 3). This shows that every word and every action has its function and that is why it is extremely important for translators to work with his words very carefully.
In this first example, the narrator is speaking about the bombing of the Cathedral of Reims during the WWII and how the inhabitants of Reims consider it a tragedy that the sculpture, The Smile of Reims, lost its face:
ST: People regard art too highly, and history not enough. (21)
DB+MF: Lidé si příliš vysoce cení umění, ale historii nedoceňují. (13)
PK: Lidé si cení umění příliš, a historie ne dost. (14)
The narrator finds it outrageous that the bombing of the cathedral of Reims is considered a tragedy, not the deaths of all the people involved. In this instance, the most important aspect is FSP. The quantifications should be at the end of each part to give the right emphasis to the whole sentence, for example “Lidé si cení umění příliš a historie málo”.
In the next example, the narrator is describing Severin’s appearance for the first time. Descriptions are very important in Irving’s work as many of his characters are somehow peculiar, distinctive or even disfigured (in this book it is Audrey Cannon who
has been mentioned in the previous chapter):
22
ST: […] with one weird bottom tooth knocked askew - a V-shaped chip
taken out of it, nearly as deep as the gum. (29)
DB+MF: Jeden z dolních zubů měl příšerně nakřivo - s odštěpkem tvaru
písmene V sahajícím až k horní dásni. (18)
PK: s jedním spodním zubem podivně nakřivo - chyběl z něj kousek ve
tvaru V skoro až k dásni. (20)
Boháčiková and Formánek probably did not pay enough attention to this sentence because, although it is in other ways correct, they inserted a logical inconsistency into it
– the chip of the bottom tooth cannot in fact reach the upper gum. All translators omitted the important part “knocked” askew that is referencing a wrestling injury and should by translated as such. The violent nature could also be conveyed by an appropriate connection with the word “chip”, as teeth chip only when some external force acts on them, for example: “spodní zub měl úplně nakřivo, véčkový úlomek mu sahal skoro až k dásni.”
The description of Severin continues as the narrator talks about Edith for the first
time and then compares Severin to her:
ST: […] a man who wore his clothes as if they were all hair shirts of the
wrong size (28)
DB+MF: mužem, který nosil šaty špatné velikosti (18)
PK: muže, který nosil své šaty, jako kdyby to byla kajícnická roucha
nesprávné velikosti. (19)
The pronoun “his” is emphasized, because the narrator is talking about Edith first, then
Severin. This aspect should reflect in the correct FSP of the utterance in Czech. Irving always “paints a picture”, he does not just describe. When reading his sentences, the reader is always offered a scene that is constructed in a specific way to evoke a specific
23 feeling or a mood. Boháčiková and Formánek simplified this sentence to a point that completely erased any trace of this in the translation. Kříž constructed a great translation: the correct FSP in the first sentence and the use of the words “kajícnická roucha”. Although there is a one-word expression for “hair shirt” (cilicium), Kříž explicitated this term to make the text clear.
The next example is continuing the reveal of character traits of Severin:
ST: What's the worst cigarette? What's the strongest, vilest, most throat-
rending, lung-gunking cigarette on sale? Because I'll get you a carton of
them (109)
DB+MF: Jaká cigareta je neškodlivější? Jaká je nejsilnější, nejničemnější,
jaká cigareta na trhu nejlíp roztrhne hrdlo a zasviní plíce? Ptám se, protože ti
jich přivezu karton. (79)
PK: Které jsou ty nejhorší cigarety? Jaký je ten nejsilnější, nejodpornější
druh v prodeji, co rve hrdo a zasírá plíce? Protože ti jich koupím karton.
(84)
Severin hates when Edith smokes (and that usually happens when she is with the narrator, before they go to bed). As Edith keeps teasing Severin, he hopes this would end her smoking once and for all. Boháčiková and Formánek chose a vocabulary of higher register than what would be appropriate for this particular situation. Words
“nejškodlivější” and “nejničemnější” are certainly well-suited adjectives describing cigarettes, but probably would be more fitting for a doctor appearing in a television advertisement that is supposed to discourage the viewers from smoking. Repeating
“jaká” three times is also not optimal and in the second sentence it ruins the construction of the sentence. Kříž’s register is appropriate for the situation and I
24 appreciate his choice of profanity to intensify the utterance, as Severin is clearly upset and it helps to pinpoint this sentiment.
Next example is from Edith’s flashback to the time when she travelled to Vienna
and met Severin:
ST: She sat down on the bed. At its foot was a set of barbells which
appeared as immovable as her memory of Frau Reiner's use of her tongue.
(121)
DB+MF: Pod postelí našla činku, která Edith připadala stejně
nepřemístitelná jako myšlenka na to, jak Frau Reinerová používá svůj jazyk.
(88)
PK: U nohou lůžka byla nakládací činka, která se tam zdála tak zafixovaná
jako vzpomínka na jazyk Frau Reinerové, a co s ním dělala. (94)
Frau Reiner is an old friend of Severin’s mother; she is roughly 60 years old. When
Edith first met Severin, he took her and his three closest friends out for a dinner – Frau
Reiner and two ex-wrestlers Zivan Knezevich and Vaso Trivanovich. Edith was shocked how close Severin and Frau Reiner were, especially when Frau started licking
Severin’s ear in the cab. In this moment, Edith is sitting on Severin’s bed and has no doubts that she has fallen in love with him, but his weird relationship with Frau Reiner worries her. The biggest issue in this sentence is to find a word that is possible to use with both “memory” and “set of barbells”. Boháčiková and Formánek’s
“nepřemístitelná” goes well with the barbell, but not so much with the memory. Kříž
“zafixovaná” is more suitable, but this particular word lacks negative connotation. Also, his choice to use an expression “nakládací činka” is confusing. Both translations are lacking in their own way. Edith wants the memory erased out of her head, but that cannot be achieved. Words such as “vrytá”, “přikovaná”, “vypálená” come to mind. The
25 translator could have focused on what do “a memory” and “a barbell” have in common
– they can weight you down. By explicitating that Edith is concerned about the
Severin’s and Frau Reiner’s relationship and modifying some parts of the sentence so it can be expressed with only one subordinate clause, the translation could also read like this: “U nohy postele ležela činka, která by ji tížila stejně jako vzpomínka na jazyk Frau
Reinerové.”
Following situation occurs after a sleepover the two families had at the Winters’
house and kids decided to sleep huddled together in front of the television:
ST: […] and Severin Winter lay among them in Edith's gown, looking like a
transvestite weight lifter dropped through the roof of an elementary school
like a benign bomb. (134)
DB+MF: a tak mezi nimi Severin Winter ležel v Edithině županu a vypadal
jako vzpěrač v průsvitném nátělníku, který se propadl jako granát střechou
do základní školy. (98)
PK: a Severin Winter ležel mezi nimi v Editině župánku a vypadal jako
vzpěrač-transvestita, prohozený střechou základní školy jako hodná bomba.
(105)
The children got scared by a movie and Severin came downstairs to comfort them. The narrator found the aforementioned scene in the morning. This is yet another great example of Irving’s style of not just describing a scene, but creating an experience. At the time, Irving is demonstrating that Severin is the caring parent (between him and
Edith) and shows his other side, the one that is not obsessively controlling the lives of three other people all the time. He also creates a comedic situation by contrasting the small children with a large athlete who is at the same time wearing something overwhelmingly feminine. Vital parts of this excerpt are the words “Edith’s gown”,
26
“transvestite” and “benign bomb”. Boháčiková and Formánek decided to inexplicably leave out all these and/or mistranslate them. This resulted in a confusing sentence where
“župan” transformed into “nátělník” in just one sentence. The change of “bomb” into the “grenade” would not be problematic, but what turns it away from source text is not identifying the object as harmless. Irving’s intent was to evoke a funny yet warm feeling, but Boháčiková and Formánek neglected to take this into consideration. Kříž’s translation preserves the important aspects of the source text, yet his usage of the adjective “hodný” is not very fitting for an inanimate object, word “neškodný” could very well replace it.
In this next example Severin is talking quite harshly to Edith. He no longer hides
his emotions towards the affair and the other couple:
ST: It’s a perfect setup. You’ve got yourself a lover of your choice, and
you’ve placated me with a poor cowlike creature whom you’ve no need to
be jealous of - and you know it. (155)
DB+MF: Je to skvělá situace. Máš milence, jakýho jsi si vždycky přála, a já
se musím smířit s tím telátkem, na který rozhodně nemusíš žárlit - a ty to
víš. (113)
PK: Je to perfektní konstelace. Ty sis sehnala milence podle svého gusta a
mě jsi odbyla žalostným stvořením připomínajícím krávu, na které
nepotřebuješ žárlit - a ty to víš. (121)
As this situation is taking place in the latter part of the book, Severin’s real character is showing. He is blaming Edith for everything, even though he was the one who had the affair first, and insults Utch. The tone is supposed to be harsh and it is very important to preserve the ugly insult of Utch. Boháčiková and Formánek are very inconsistent in their usage of proper and colloquial language. Also instead of “sis” they used erroneous
27
“jsi si”. The vital part is “cowlike creature”. Severin does not use a classic slander for
Utch, he degrades her from a human to a creature. “Cowlike” is referring to her short and wide stature. Boháčiková and Formánek decided to preserve only the cow part of the source text, but instead of insulting Utch, they chose the innocent “telátko”. This is an endearing term in a way, so it is completely misplaced in this utterance. Kříž understood the importance of the insult, but translated it quite literary and unnaturally.
If he would have left out some parts, “žalostná kráva” would be a great solution, “ubohá kráva” even better.
The piece of following wisdom is uttered by the narrator’s father when the narrator is announcing to him that he is leaving for Vienna to gather material for his new historical novel. His father is worried that the narrator will fall in love with this
“countess” described below:
ST: Oh God, I can see it: some countess, in name only. Penniless, but used
to the finer things. Her entire family of raving hemophiliacs wants to move
from Vienna to New York but can't bear to leave the horses behind. (163)
DB+MF: Dovedu si to představit: nějaká hraběnka, ale jenom jménem. Bez
halíře, ale samozřejmě zvyklá na fajnovosti. Celá její rodina poblázněných
hemofiliků si umíní se přestěhovat z Vídně do New Yorku, ale nemohou
přenést přes srdce, že s sebou nemohou vzít koně. (119)
PK: Oh, Bože, už to vidím: nějakou hraběnku jen podle jména. Bez groše,
ale zvyklou na fajnovější věci. Celá její rodina šílených hemofilů se chce
odstěhovat z Vídně do New Yorku, ale nemůže tam nechat koně. (127)
The first translation preserves the complexity of the sentence, however in the “si umíní“ part the translator chose a future tense and a overcomplicated wording that only slows down the pace of the sentence. The return to the proper grammar in the last sentence
28 and the expression “přenést přes srdce” perfectly mimics the discourse of some stilted countess.
The second translation preserves the tempo of the source text, but unfortunately leaves in the English expression “Oh”, that is not at all natural in Czech. The expression
“bez groše” aptly refers to the feudal times. In the case of “hemofilů” the translator made a substantial error. Instead of the correct word “hemofilik” – a person with a blood clotting disorder (stereotypical disease of the nobility) – he uses the word
“hemofil” – a Gram-negative bacterium causing invasive infections. There is a slight shift in the meaning in the last subordinate clause when the word “nemůže” is used. All translators also omitted the idiomatic expression “in name only“ that has the meaning of
“just for show”, “not true”, something that is being said, but it is not based in truth. All translators translated it misguidedly word-for-word. In this case, Boháčiková and
Formánek’s translation is more creative.
The narrator’s father’s fears did not come true and the narrator brought home a peasant girl who is however little worried about her moving to the United States, as is
the narrator:
ST: I tried to imagine her vision of America: a country of one vast
smoldering cookout - with rapes and police skirmishes, car crashes and
starving black children on the side. (171)
DB+MF: Zkoušel jsem přijít na to, jak si vlastně Ameriku představuje:
jedna velká zakouřená kuchyně - znásilňuje se tam a je tam plno policejních
šarvátek, autonehod a černošské děti tam trpí hladem. (125)
PK: Pokoušel jsem se představit si její vizi Ameriky: země, jeden velký
dýmající piknik - se znásilňováním a šarvátkami s policií, bouračkami aut a
navíc s hladovějícími dětmi. (133)
29
As the narrator is pondering the foreigners’ stereotypes about America, he paints a colorful picture, which unfortunately beat the translators. They struggled with both the vocabulary and the syntax of the sentences. Cookout is a favorite summer outdoor activity for friends and family, most often held on 4th of July, when Americans prepare hot dogs, burgers and such on the grill, so the term “grilovačka” is the most fitting one.
Unfortunately, “piknik” is not precise and “kuchyně” is almost nonsensical in this particular context. Kříž omitted “black” children who were clearly hinting at racism, an issue that is at the heart of America, but added superfluous “aut”. No translator came up with a smooth construction of the sentence. A construction of “grilovačka plná”, followed by the list of concerns would possibly solve all the issues with the translations.
In the next part is the reader gets to know the wrestling-room lover in greater detail:
ST: She was a very private woman in the midst of a very private moment.
(197)
DB+MF: Byla to žena žijící pouze ve svém soukromí uprostřed
svých soukromých aktivit. (144)
PK: Byla to intimní žena uprostřed velmi intimní chvíle. (154)
She is Audrey Cannon, an associate professor of Dance and Theatre Arts at the same university as both Severin and the narrator are teaching at. Audrey limps, because she lost her foot during a horrific garden accident where she pulled a rotary blade over her foot. The story is even more tragic as she used to be a dancer prior to this accident.
Severin catches Audrey dancing in the wrestling gym on their mats one night. The mats are very soft and give way, so Audrey feels like she can dance again. Boháčiková and
Formánek’s translation refers to Audrey in a general way, not to this particular moment.
Kříž tried to preserve the repetition of the same word, but that often does not work the
30 same way it does in English and this is the case. “Intimní žena” is a very peculiar expression. Also, the word “intimní” should probably be avoided as it connotes of female hygiene products in Czech. I would recommend to avoid the repetition and use a more every-day expression, for example: ”Byla to velmi tajemná žena uprostřed velmi důvěrné chvilky.“ The reason I believe the word “tajemná” is fitting is because it best describes Audrey’s “aura” - she does not talk to anyone, no one knows how she got crippled etc. Before their affair, Severin even devised complicated back stories of how she lost her foot and entertained Edith with them.
The following example describes a pivotal moment in the novel. After the breakup, both married couples try to stay friends and have a dinner at the Winters’ house. While the adults sit and converse awkwardly at the dinner table, the Winter girls,
Dorabella and Fiordiligi, are having a bath in the upstairs bathroom. The scene is pre-shadowed by the narrator who mentions that the glass sliding doors have wiggled themselves loose several times when he and Edith were enjoying themselves in the shower. Not much later after that, sounds of shattering glass reach the dining room.
Severin and the narrator dash upstairs and discover what happened to the little girls:
ST: The bathroom looked like the scene of a gangland slaying. (233)
DB+MF: Vypadalo to tam jako po masakru v podsvětí. (172)
PK: Koupelna vypadala jako scéna z gangsterského masakru. (185)
This utterance is supped to be obviously startling. The reader is not aware whether the girls are alive; he is even supposed to believe that they are not. At this moment everything is possible and because this is a John Irving novel, a fan or a knowledgeable consumer of his work would expect the children to be dead – grim realities, horrible maiming injuries and death are Irving’s forté. Even the sentences following are leading the reader to assume that the worst has happened – “the glass exploding from the
31 frame”, “the tub was pink, the water bloody” (Irving 1997: 234). Only after several long sentences the reader can finally breathe with relief. The most important part to translate are not the actual words, but the tension and the fear. The main point is not the
“gangland slaying”, but the blood that covers almost every surface in the bathroom and the uncertainty of whether the girls are alive. Boháčiková and Formánek created a more natural solution. Kříž lost all the tension from the sentence by including an Anglicized word that is not commonly used in Czech. All translators could have benefited from using a concept more familiar to the Czech reader, for example “a butcher shop”, “a slaughterhouse” or “a crime scene”.
In the next example, the narrator is experiencing a myriad of emotions towards
Severin and his wife Utch:
ST: I hated Severin Winter for making my wife pathetic in my eyes. (237)
DB+MF: Nenáviděl jsem Severina za to, že jsem díky jemu pocítil lítost ke
své ženě. (175)
PK: Nenáviděl jsem Severina Wintera, že z mé ženy udělal něco pro mne
tak trapného. (188)
All of the narrator’s complicated feelings for Utch are embodied by a single word
“pathetic”. The narrator is embarrassed by Utch and also a little disgusted with her. He is bewildered that he feels resentment towards her. This is not the strong “peasant” woman I married! Boháčiková and Formánek chose the word “lítost” to convey this complicated message, but that is expressing only a modicum of the narrator’s feelings.
He is hurting that Utch is in pain at the moment, but it is also not very uncommon for a husband to feel sorry for his wife when she discovers herself in a complicated or uncomfortable situation. In this sense, “lítost” would not be a new or bad feeling to have. Kříž managed to draw near to the emotion, but then put it into an awkward
32 subordinate clause. Also, Utch did not just embarrass the narrator, as she could by loudly burping at the dinner table, for example. The narrator just uncovered a character flaw that shook him rather significantly. I believe that the word “ubohá” best describes the given sentiment, for example: “Nenáviděl jsem Severina Wintera za to, že mi kvůli němu moje žena připadala ubohá.”
The last example in this subchapter is a longer excerpt from the beginning of the novel. I decided to include it to illustrate the problematic part with Boháčiková and
Formánek’s translations:
ST: … and once Haslinger's apple orchard was bombed in blossom time …
This happened before the bees had fertilized the flowers, so the fall apple
crop was ruined. Frau Haslinger was found hacking at herself with a pruning
hook in the cider house, where she had to be restrained for several days -
tied up in one of the large cool apple bins until she came to her senses.
During her confinement, she claimed, she was raped by some of the village
menfolk, but this was considered a fantasy due to her derangement at the
loss of the apple crop. (15)
DB+MF: Jednou, když zrovna kvetly stromy, bombardovali i Haslingerův
jablečný sad … Stalo se to dřív, než včely začaly opylovat květy, takže celá
podzimní úroda byla zničena. Frau Haslingerovou našli v moštárně na
třídícím háku, kde už takhle musela viset několik dní - uvězněná v jedné
obrovské, studené nádobě na jablka, až dokud nepřišla k sobě. Když se z
toho vzpamatovávala, tvrdila, že ji znásilnili nějací muži z vesnice.
Vzhledem k velké škodě na úrodě jablek se každému zdál tento příběh
malicherný. (8)
33
PK: … a jednou byl bombardován Haslingerův rozkvetlý jabloňový sad …
Stalo se to, ještě než včely mohly květy oplodnit, takže úroda jablek byla
zničena. Frau Haslingerovou našli, jak do sebe seká vyvětvovacím hákem
v moštárně, kam ji museli na několik dní zavřít přivázanou k jedné velké a
chladné bečce na jablka, než se vzpamatovala. Potom tvrdila, že během
uvěznění ji znásilnili někteří muži z vesnice, ale to bylo považováno za
halucinace vyvolané vyšinutím v důsledku ztráty sklizně jablek.
In Boháčiková and Formánek’s hands, Frau Haslinger lived through a very different story as we can see. Apart from the sentences being erroneously translated, they fail to make sense at least on their own in Czech – Frau Haslinger is somehow hanging from a hook for three days, that hook is apparently located in a large apple bin and to conclude her misery, her alleged rape story is dismissed as petty, because the harvest was lost – the real tragedy, according to the village folk apparently. These logical inconsistencies at the very beginning of the book are notable enough to possibly deter the reader from continuing reading this novel. This is of course the last thing the translation should do.
Mistakes of this kind do appear from time to time in the first translation, as we will see in other subchapters. However, the baffling thing is that there are also parts of the analysis of this chapter where the translation of Boháčiková and Formánek exceeds that of Kříž.
3.3 Idiomatic language and culture-specific items
Baker (1992) defines idioms as “frozen patterns of language which allow little or no variation in form and … often carry meanings which cannot be deduced from their individual components”. They are a great tool that can be used to distinguish a good
English speaker and also a good translator. It is a process that demands great
34 understanding of the source language, because the translator has to identify the idiom and recognize it among the text. As Fernando and Flavell (1981) put it: “Translation is an exacting art. Idiom more than any other feature of language demands that the translator be not only accurate but highly sensitive to the rhetorical nuances of the language.” Idioms are very often unrecognizable for the untrained eye, because they depend on prior knowledge as well as the context. Simple “kick the bucket” may as well mean “nakoupnout kýbl” when the character proceeds to grab his foot and scream in pain after, but other times it is an idiom meaning “to die”. Overseeing (or oppositely, seeing it where it is not) an idiom may lead to harsh and possibly comic results. Adelna and Dastjerdi (2011) distinguish five categories of idioms: colloquialisms, proverbs, slang, allusions and phrasal verbs. In the analysis of idiomatic language I will be seeking whether the translator identified the idioms correctly and then how well they did with the translation, or in some cases, transcreation.
In this first example, the narrator’s is cursing Severin’s stubbornness when he is
trying to explain something to him about Utch:
ST: I could break my teeth! (17)
DB+MF: Divím se, že jsem si přitom neumlátil pant! (10)
PK: Dal bych si jednu do zubů! (10)
Boháčiková and Formánek translated this idiom very well. “Breaking one’s teeth” means explaining something in detail to somebody, but to no avail. They changed teeth to “pant” (a common word for “jaw”), because of the Czech saying “mlátit pantem”.
That originally means talking for a long time, usually about nothing and boring your audience, so it is kind of demeaning to the subject of the sentence, but in this situation it can apply, as Severin is not really listening. Kříž decided to preserve the teeth part from the original saying, but changed the meaning of the sentence. According to Levý
35
(2011), it is better to not translate the general terms, but to maintain the meaning of the sentence. The teeth are not really what that is important in this.
In the next example, the narrator is describing the ordeal of one of their
summers:
ST: […] when Utch was bitten by the bug of antiques (18)
DB+MF: […] Utch popadla mánie sbírání starožitností (10)
PK: [v létě] se Uč zbláznila do starožitností (11)
In this case, all translators identified the idiom and managed to translate it well. In both versions the translators changed the “be bitten by the bug of” to some form of craziness.
Both translations preserve the meaning, but Kříž’s translation feels more natural and the whole sentence flows better. “Zbláznit se do” is a common expression in Czech.
Boháčiková and Formánek explicitated that Utch has started to collect the said antiques, but in this case, it is redundant. If one would wish to still use the noun “mánie”, verb
“propadnout” would be more appropriate and one could form this accurate sentence:
“Utch propadla mánií sbírání starožitností”. The “crazy” aspect of the translation is very important, because it is capturing the initial stage of getting a new hobby and being obsessed with it.
Next sentence closely follows the one that has just been discussed:
ST: a kick which Utch was soon off (18)
DB+MF: Utch to přinášelo vzrušení, byla z toho celá pryč. (10)
PK: [na léto] vášně, která Uč brzy pustila. (11)
From the example it is clear that Utch became bored with antiques very soon.
Boháčiková and Formánek misunderstood both the expression “kick” and the phrasal verb “be off something”. They did not take the context and the second idiom into
36 consideration and thus produced a sentence with an opposite meaning. Kříž’s translation is accurate and reads very nicely.
The next excerpt is an example of a culture-specific item:
ST: Big Ten Championships at Michigan State University in East Lansing
(22)
DB+MF: na turnaji Horní desítky ve státě Michigan ve Východním
Lansingu (13)
PK: na šampionátu Velké desítky na Michigan State University v East
Lansingu. (14)
As with any concepts that exist in the source culture, but not in the target one, the translation is always rather difficult. There are problems with both solutions to this sentence. Boháčiková and Formánek chose a more appropriate “Horní desítka” as the meaning clearly suggest there are ten best teams competing. Kříž’s “Velká desítka” does not really convey the stated meaning. “Šampionát” is a better solution than
“turnaj”, but the preserving of the English name of the university seems like an odd choice. Kříž did not omit the fact that the championship took place at a university though. That fact disappears in the first translation completely as the translators translate “state” in this sentence as “stát” and not as a part of the name of the university.
In the next example, the narrator is describing Severin’s coaching method of leading the wrestlers through a dark tunnel of an old gym and the appearance of those wrestlers when they come out of it; they are in a trans-like state and focus only on the match:
ST: […] as if they had been brainwashed in a dungeon (79)
DB+MF: jako by zápasníkům někdo vymyl mozky v hnoji (57)
PK: jako by jim někde v kobce vymyli mozky (61)
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Because there is a direct equivalent of expression “to brainwash” in Czech, all translators had no problem with translating it. However the problem occurred for
Boháčiková and Formánek who probably oversaw the difference and interchanged the word dungeon for the word dung - “hnůj”. This mistake created a confusing expression, because “vymýt mozek v hnoji” does not mean anything in Czech, at best the translators would have to use the verb “vymáchat”.
Yet another example of a very American item is featured in the next example where the narrator is describing an item from Severin’s wardrobe he has outgrown, but
unfortunately does not realize that:
ST: a college letter-jacket (45)
DB+MF: sako s iniciálkou univerzity (31)
PK: univerzitní bundu (33)
Letter-jackets (or letter-man jackets) are not common at Czech high schools or universities, but the concept is known in Czech Republic as they became a part of everyday fashion now. The best and correct solution comes from Kříž, because the word
“bunda” correctly describes this piece of garment. Kříž uses this word consistently throughout the book. It is possible that Boháčiková and Formánek confused this with suit jackets often worn at private high schools and universities and that is the reason why they decided to go with the word “sako”. In this context, however, it is incorrect, as it is explained in the book that Severin went to the Iowa State University.
This next example contains three idiomatic expressions:
ST: It was a feat of beating red tape few could have pulled off, but Severin
had escorts who knew the ropes. (60)
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DB+MF: Šlo o akt doběhnutí k cílové červené pásce, kterou dokázalo
protrhnout jen málo lidí. Severin však měl eskortu, která uměla tahat za
správné nitky. (42)
PK: Takový výkon, překonat úředního šimla, se mohl podařit jen
málokomu, ale Severin měl doprovod, který se vyznal. (45)
Little Severin lived in the Russian part of Vienna, but his mother insisted that he went to an American school in the American part of occupied Vienna, so he could learn English and would be able to one day escape Europe. This sentence contains three idiomatic expressions that can create difficulties for the translators. The first one unfortunately defeated Boháčiková and Formánek. Because the rest of the sentence is understood correctly, it is baffling that the translators did not decide to change the very confusing beginning of the sentence as they could probably deduce that “beating the red tape” means overcoming an obstacle of some kind. Even though that it is not the correct expression for this idiom, at least the connotation is same (to be specific, it means overcoming or circumventing the bureaucratic obstacles). The simplified sentence could hold up as a Czech sentence with some integral logic, for example: “Bylo to náročné, ale Severin měl eskortu, která uměla tahat za správné nitky.“ Adhering to translating a part of idiom, but not knowing its complete meaning often results in embarrassing outcomes. Kříž understood all parts of the sentence well, but he decided to insert an apposition and translated the verbs as perfective, even though the “red tape” had to be beaten every day.
Characterization of Severin continues in the following example:
ST: (I didn’t know quite how to take that; she could have meant he was not
a discriminating reader, he was) a kind of “book glutton” (82)
39
DB+MF: (Nevěděl jsem, jak tomu mám rozumět; možná to myslela tak, že
nedával ničemu přednost) prostě jenom knihy hltal (59)
PK: (Nevěděl jsem, jak to mám pochopit; mohla to myslet tak, že není
vybíravý čtenář, že) knihy jaksi hltá (63)
All translators chose the same strategy and the verb “hltat” as an equivalent for the word
“glutton”. As gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins defined by over consuming, both solutions are well crafted. However, Boháčiková and Formánek produced a natural sounding result. “Kniha jaksi hltá” does feel a little forced as Kříž tried to translate the
“kind of” part.
Edith, as an aspiring author, tried to cooperate with the university’s writer-in- residence, Mr. Helmbart (who is also a character in Irving’s second novel The
Water-Method Man), to get better at her craft, but unfortunately the only thing Helmbart was interested in was sleeping with Edith. However, Edith really wanted to learn and so, naïvely, tolerated his harassing behavior. In the next example, the narrator is contrasting
Severin and Helmbart:
ST: There was no mistaking his touch for a cheap feel (87)
DB+MF: V těch dotycích nikdy nebylo nic víc (63)
PK: Jeho doteky se nedaly splést s laciným osaháváním (67)
In this instance, the narrator describes one of Severin’s very important mannerisms: constantly touching people he is currently talking to. As he does not discriminate between men and women, he explains it is not in any way sexual. Both translations are well thought out, there are no shifts in the meaning, although the first translation remains vague. Kříž’s translation simultaneously refers to Helmbart whose touches are nothing but cheap feels.
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Severin, as a wrestling couch, makes Edith, and later also the narrator and Utch, come and see all the wrestling matches. Even though Utch loves to watch wrestling, the
narrator and Edith hate it:
ST: Edith was no jock either. (90)
DB+MF: Edith také zrovna dvakrát neholdovala sportu. (64)
PK: Edita taky nebyla žádný sportovní nadšenec. (69)
The expression “jock” can be used both for somebody who is good at sports or who is a sport-enthusiast. Each of the translations seems to pick one of the options. Boháčiková and Formánek’s translation sounds very Czech and “holdovat sportu” can have both meanings in this particular sentence. Kříž decided to use “nadšenec”. This example nicely illustrates how two different strategies can still yield good results.
In the next example, Utch is talking to her husband about his ways with women:
ST: she often used the word “womanize” (91)
DB+MF: často používala slovo „zženštilý“ (65)
PK: často používala výraz „běhat za ženskými“ (70)
Unfortunately, the first translation is erroneous as it misunderstands the correct meaning of the word and actually uses the opposite. The translators did employ this meaning consistently, but even then the following sentences do not make any sense on their own.
For example: „Je jasné, že jsem zženštilejší než Severin Winter, ale stejně je na tom v porovnání s ním i papež“ (Irving 1995: 65). The point made about Severin throughout the novel is that he does not flirt with women; he is not a womanizer at all. Everybody compared to Severin is a bigger womanizer, even the pope. The point Boháčiková and
Formánek mistakenly make is that Severin is a “he-man” and every man in comparison to him is effeminate. That is also directly contrary to other characterizations offered in the novel. Severin loves to cook, takes care of the children, once he even mentions he
41 would love to be the “stereotypical wife”. That implies that if someone would be judged effeminate based on their behaviors, it would be Severin. The translation is faulty and leads to logical inconsistencies throughout the whole novel.
Kříž’s translation stays true to the underlining meaning of the word and it is clear to the reader what the author is trying to convey. However, “běhat za ženskými” could have, for some people, a connotation of a man who is trying, rather desperately, to charm a woman. Translation of “womanizer” should be nearing a man who is very smooth with women and seduces them easily. Maybe “svůdník” would be a more fitting term.
Next is an example of a proverb as an idiomatic expression:
ST: You whet one appetite, you whet them all (101)
DB+MF: s jídlem roste chuť (73)
PK: No, když se povzbudí chuť u jednoho, povzbudí se u všech. (78)
The first translation is absolutely excellent. The substitution for a Czech idiom containing the word “jídlo” a “chuť” is logical and even though it is much shorter than the original expression, it makes it really clear what the “other appetites” refer to, as it is said during a sit-down dinner that is usually followed by the exchange of sexual partners. The second translation preserved the overall meaning, although the sentence is rather wordy. It is a literal translation of a proverb – even though the reader gets clear information, this strategy is faulty and not optimal.
After a raunchy day that all the four protagonists spent together in the Cape Cod house, Utch is heavily intoxicated at the end of the evening. Severin makes the
following remark about Utch to the narrator:
ST: Why do you let her get so plastered? (110)
DB+MF: Proč ji necháš takhle se ponižovat? (79)
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PK: Proč ji necháš, aby se tak namazala? (85)
The narrator has to take care of her, instead of spending the night with Edith, as he initially planned. In this moment we can for the first time observe the hints that Severin actually despises Utch. This is a case of slang. Unfortunately, Boháčiková and
Formánek mistranslated again. They also refined the expression and made Severin sound rather compassionate. In this context, this constitutes an error. Boháčiková and
Formánek refine very often in their translations, we will be able to see more of it in the next subchapter about profanity. Kříž translated the idiom correctly, although he used a wrong form of the verb – perfective, instead of imperfective – as this (getting intoxicated) happens rather regularly with Utch. The expression “namazat se” is still quite weak for this context; it does not display the disgust Severin feels at that moment.
Change of the form and intensifying of the word in focus could produce an entirely different tone, the one that author intended: “Proč ji necháváš se takhle ožrat?”, for example.
Next is another example of a proverb:
ST: Later I remember him yelling: “There's a precious amount of having-
one's-cake-and-eating-it-too shit going on around here!” (112)
DB+MF: Pamatuji si, jak o pár dní později křičel: „Do prdele, každej tady
jenom ujídá-z-koláče-někoho-jinýho!“ (81)
PK: Později jsem si vzpomněl, jak vyřvával: „Tady se každej nějak moc
snaží, aby se vlk nažral a koza zůstala celá!“ (87)
This is Severin’s reaction to the discussion with the narrator concerning independence in their four-way affair, but also generally in all relationships. Severin finds it baffling that the narrator (and generally most people) wants to be in a committed relationship, but simultaneously demand total independence and privacy. Kříž did successfully
43 translate the idiom, because he found the equivalent one in Czech. He also very naturally worked it into the whole utterance. One would think that having an equivalent proverb in Czech would make this task easy, but as we can see in the translation of
Boháčiková and Formánek, it is not the case. The erroneous and nonsensical word-for-word translation is worsened by the preserved English hyphenating that makes absolutely no sense in Czech. Considering the “shit” part of this utterance, Boháčiková and Formánek at least made an effort to preserve it in the translation, but Kříž once again omits the bad word. Inserting of simple “kurva” before “moc snaží” would keep the intense emotion of Severin’s outburst (“Tady se každej nějak kurva moc snaží, aby se vlk nažral a koza zůstala celá!“).
The theme of botched translation of idioms continues in the following example,
where the father of the narrator gives him a life advice before he leaves for Vienna:
ST: If you have to knock up anybody, knock up a peasant. They make good
wives; they're the cream of womanhood. (163)
DB+MF: Když už budeš někde klepat, zaklepej u sedláka, tam mají dobré
hospodyňky, které jsou potom chloubou domácnosti. (119)
PK: Když už budeš muset nějakou zbouchnout, zbouchni venkovanku. Jsou
z nich dobré manželky, je to výkvět ženství. (128)
This segment contains two idiomatic expressions: informal phrasal verb “knock up” and expression “cream of something”. Kříž’s translation is very good, but instead of “je to výkvět” there should be “jsou výkvětem” (discordant pronoun). Boháčiková and
Formánek fatally misunderstood the idiomatic “knock up”, but in contrast to their other mistranslations, this sentence could at least work on its own in Czech. Instead of two, they created only one long sentence, separated with commas. The expression “cream of” was partly understood.
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Next example could be also situated in the profanity subchapter, but because the expression also several “clean” definitions, I decided to list it in this subchapter. After
Bender’s defeat at the wrestling tournament in Stillwater, Utch is recapitulating an event
to the narrator (from Edith’s perspective):
ST: I think he shot his wad the night before. (226)
DB+MF: Myslím, že ze sebe dostal to potřebné už předchozí večer. (166)
PK: Myslím, že všechno prošustroval včera večer. (179)
In this case, it is important to remember that the night before the match, Edith tried to seduce Bender, but he failed to perform. The excerpt contains an innuendo that references both this and his loss at the tournament. “Shoot one’s wad” means both exerting all your energy (figuratively or literally) and climaxing (often prematurely).
None of the translations quite reflect this play on meanings.
Next example features a not very known term from psychology:
ST: A self-fulfilling prophecy if I have ever heard one! (245)
DB+MF: Proroctví, které se samovolně naplňuje, existuje-li vůbec nějaké!
(181)
PK: Ještě jsem neslyšel takové proroctví, které se pak muselo naplnit! (194)
A self-fulfilling prophecy is a concept known in psychology that means that by claiming something will turn out in a particular way, you will make yourself or others behave in such a way that will lead to that particular result. It may be either positive or negative
(“self-fulfilling prophecy“). The narrator is angry at his editor, because he just announced to him that his new book will not be too heavily promoted, because his last three books did not sell very well. Because the editor decided not to promote the book, it will sell poorly, because the public will not know about it, and therefore his own prophecy about the low sales will come true. Self-fulfilling prophecy is a term and
45 therefore should be translated as such. Boháčiková and Formánek did not take an advantage of the available term in Czech and rather explained it, but trying to invent a literal translation for the second part of the utterance hurt the whole sentence. Kříž misunderstood the original and translated the sentence as an opposite to what it actually means. The sentence by itself is also illogical. In Czech there is no equivalent to the “if I ever heard (seen,…) one” expression, so creating new construction for it resulted in an awkward utterance. “If I ever heard (saw etc.) one” means “I know this thing and I recognize it when I see (hear) it”, that is why I believe that incorporating the elliptical expression as a simple exclamation would result in a good translation: “To je teda sebenaplňující proroctví!”
Idiomatic language is always challenging and the case of these translations is no different. All translators showed their strengths, but also their weaknesses. Boháčiková and Formánek provided several creative and strong translations, but mostly their translations were mistranslated or the original text badly misunderstood. Very often they get either confused by a complicated metaphor or neutralize expressions. Kříž has a good understanding of the English language as he has probably come to contact with more English-specific items, but his sentences are sometimes more crafted than created.
3.4 Profanity
John Irving creates bizarre characters with even more bizarre stories often full of sex and violence; expressive language and profanities are therefore an important part of his novels. This chapter will contain analysis of chosen extracts containing any vulgar language or expressions pertaining to sex. Although profanities are a part of everyday language, many translators tend to neutralize curse words. That may be because of their own sensitivities, but also because English also has a greater potential for curse words
46 than Czech has (mostly its unfixed word order and zero derivation that enables an easy change of parts of speech) and sometimes it is necessary to tone down the profanities to make the story readable and enjoyable. Also, in English, thanks to the structure of its grammar, the possibilities for creating new and more complicated swearwords are almost endless. Because of this fact, the translator has to be clever and creative. When translated with care and attention, the profanities can massively improve and underscore the utterances at times.
The first example contains the most notorious swear word of the English
language:
ST: Hey, what the fuck? (79)
DB+MF: Do prdele! (56)
PK: Hej, co se kurva děje? (60)
When Severin is leading his wrestlers through “the tunnel”, he gradually turns off all the lights in the gym, which often startles the racquetball players on the adjacent courts.
“Fuck” is an extremely versatile swearword that in its many forms can act as any part of speech in the sentence. That is why it is always essential to work with it in context. In this case the startled players are baffled by the sudden absence of light. Boháčiková and
Formánek did not consider the context and translated it plainly, as it would be in most cases, a simple exclamation of a person making a mistake. Kříž did take the context into account, but his sentence could benefit from shortening. “Co je, kurva?!” would better resemble everyday speech.
Next example features another very popular English cussword that is almost as often used as “fuck”:
ST: It's this kind of shit that makes him the king of ‘the new novel’ (83)
DB+MF: Tyhle sračky z něj dělají krále „nového románu“ (59)
47
PK: Žvásty tohohle typu z něho patrně dělají krále „nového románu“ (63)
The narrator says this about Helmbart who considers himself a modernist writer. He said to Edith that she cannot begin to write until “she could describe a table and show its soul and its sex.” In this case Boháčiková and Formánek created a truer translation.
Kříž’s sentence lost its expressiveness, because he decided to translate the vulgar word with softer “žvásty”. This sentiment also reflects Irving’s own feelings towards the
“new novel”. He is a strong believer in plot, characters and feeling.
Because Helmbart possesses many negative character traits, he is featured also
in the next example of a swearword:
ST: I wanted him to make an ass out of Helmbart. (85)
DB+MF: přála jsem si, aby Helmbartovi roztrhl prdel. (61)
PK: chtěla jsem, aby Helmbarta nějak ztrapnil. (65)
Once Edith was fed up with Helmbart’s advances, she asked Severin to do something about him. Boháčiková and Formánek created a very comical sentence. Although in
Czech, there is an expression “natrhnout prdel” (which the translators probably had in mind), the translators botched it into a very peculiar and comic one. Kříž neutralized the profanity, but did capture the message of the source text. A fitting word for this context would be “vůl”, as in “Chtěla jsem, aby z Helmbarta udělal vola“.
In the next excerpt, we can see an example of the first of many sexual profanities
or euphemisms:
ST: […] after God knows how many times I'd come (86)
DB+MF: po bůhví kolikátém vyvrcholení (62)
PK: když jsem se bůhví kolikrát udělala (66)
After Severin dealt with Helmbart at the faculty Christmas party, Edith was very impressed and turned on. In this excerpt she is describing their shower sex. The verb “to
48 come” used as a euphemism for an orgasm can be found in many examples throughout the whole novel. As it is a colloquial expression, Kříž’s translation is far more accurate than Boháčiková and Formánek’s translation that takes the advantage of a higher register that would correspond to the English verb “to climax”, for example.
Another euphemism used many times throughout the novel is a “hard-on”:
ST: I don't believe that boy has ever had a hard-on! (99)
DB+MF: Já ani nevěřím, že by se mu mohl postavit! (71)
PK: já nevěřím, že se tomu klukovi vůbec někdy ztopořil! (76)
Boháčiková and Formánek did change the meaning of this sentence and made Bender,
Severin’s aforementioned wrestling protégé, allegedly impotent. However the utterance discusses whether he had it already, not whether he is able to. All translators chose the same strategy and translated the expression “hard-on” with a verb. The only viable option in Czech would be “erekce”, but that lies in a completely different register, and other nouns would sound comical. Kříž’s verb of choice is still little too medical for this playful and funny conversation. Boháčiková and Formánek presented the best compromise of a solution, even though they modified the meaning a little bit.
“Come” makes another appearance in the following example when the narrator
is interrogating Utch after he senses some problems between her and Severin:
ST: Utch, does he come? (100)
DB+MF: Utch, tak jak je to s ním, vyvrcholí? (72)
PK: Uč, udělá se? (77)
Here, the reader receives first hints about the fact that Severin entered this affair unwillingly and does not find Utch attractive, that he in fact does not like her at all. All translators correctly translated the euphemism, but Boháčiková and Formánek consistently choose the word of a higher register.
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The next part of the novel from which several examples are going to be shown in this chapter is rich with vulgar language and mentions of sexual activities. It is taking place at the Edith’s mother’s place in Cape Cod. Even though Severin had reservations about their affair from the beginning, in this part the foursome is relatively happy and everybody is enjoying their time together. The tone should be happy and possibly
playfully sarcastic:
ST: Got a whole string of pricks for you, my dear. (106)
DB+MF: Mám pro tebe řetěz posetý ostny, miláčku. (77)
PK: Sehnal jsem ti celou šňůru pinďourů, drahoušku. (82)
When Severin is cooking paella and the narrator, Edith and Utch are sitting on the couch talking, he wraps sausage links around his waist and teases Edith with them.
Translation by Boháčiková and Formánek is completely erroneous. They completely ignored the other and for this context the correct meaning of the word “prick”, an euphemism for “penis”. The other problem that is not evident from the excerpt is that the sentence lacks any sense on its own or as a part of a larger paragraph. They omitted the sentences that describe Severin wrapping the sausages around his waist. The whole
“Cape Cod house” portion of the novel is translated very poorly and is full of nonsensical sentences and mistakes that are claiming facts that are contrary to the already established facts in the novel. For example: Edith says to Severin that Utch must feel so tiny after he is with Edith, but from what the reader already knows about the main characters, Utch is short and sturdy. Lot of mistakes also occur from interchanging similar sounding words, notwithstanding the fact that the translators had the words written out before them – “voda zapáchala” as a translation of “water stung” – the translators mixed the words “stink” and “sting”. Kříž presented true and an aptly playful translation of Severin’s little joke.
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Next example features another very commonly used dysphemism for having sex.
Severin is done cooking dinner and he is very annoyed that the rest is enjoying
themselves while he is cooking. His tone should be jaded:
ST: “The paella's ready, team,” he said, “if we can stop screwing long
enough to eat it.” A vulgar man. (108)
DB+MF: „Přátelé, plevky jsou hotové,“ řekl, „měli bysme s tím šoustáním
na chvilku přestat, a radši něco pojíst.“ Sprosťák. (78)
PK: „Paella je hotová, bando,“ řekl nám, „jestli můžeme nechat prcání na
tak dlouho, než ji sníme.“ Vulgární chlap. (84)
Although “paella” is not the main word being examined in this subchapter, some attention has to be devoted to it because of Formánek and Boháčiková’s confusing translation. Paella, much like many typical dishes, does not translate (tiramisu, pizza, risotto etc.), nor did my research reveal any other forms of this word. The closest result emerged in one online herbal stating that “plevka” is a “drobný blanitý listen na květním lůžku úboru nebo strboulu, z jehož paždí vyrůstají jednotlivé květy”, that is in latin called “palea” (“plevka”). In English this part of a flower is called “sepal” – kališní lístek. The confusion might have occurred because of the latin word that is similar to
“paella”. The reader may be aware that “plevky” is supposed to be some form of food from the context, but because it is a frequent word in the Cape Cod portion of the story, the whole passage is awkward and confusing. However, an attentive reader may uncover the true identity of the dish from the first occurrence of the word in the text:
“Severin připravoval enormní paella (sic.)” (Irving 1995: 76). It is clear that this passage did not undergo any proofreading, unfortunately, because the rest of the analyzed sentence is done very nicely. Kříž’s favorite go-to expression for sex does not sound out of place here, like it does in following examples.
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When Severin and the narrator return from the trip to the grocery store, Utch and
Edith are hidden somewhere and Severin guesses the bedroom:
ST: “I’ll bet they’re in there lapping each other right up, so to speak,”
Severin said. (112)
DB+MF: „Vsadím se, že se tam uvnitř objímají,“ řekl Severin. (81)
PK: „Vsadím se, že se tam navzájem chlemtaj, abych tak řekl,“ poznamenal
Severin. (87)
The verb “lap up” is used here as a euphemism for oral sex, cunnilingus to be precise.
Severin also hints at the suggestiveness with “so to speak”. Boháčiková and Formánek removed this sexual act entirely and replaced it with much more innocent “objímat se”.
This solution is not correct, because it is not faithful to Severin’s vulgar tone. Kříž used a verb that is not normally used to describe this kind of activity, but it is very suggestive. However the reader may still get very confused. Kříž could have replaced the confusing verb with the expression “nabažit se”, for example: “Vsadím se, že se tam sebe v ložnici nemůžou nabažit, abych tak řekl.” Combination of a clear verb and an explicitation in a form of “ložnice” would unmistakably lead the reader to the correct conclusion.
In the next example, Edith uses the verb “fuck” in its original and very vulgar sense when she is teasing the narrator. The narrator and Edith decided to spend the night in the Great Green Wrenching Orgasm Room (all rooms in the house were renamed by
Severin after their prominent features – this one is green and has the highest orgasm score, the bed is also always breaking down, so a wrench hangs on the headboard, alas
the wordplay “wrenching”):
ST: If you can fix it, I really will fuck you. (115)
DB+MF: Jestli to opravíš, tak tě fakt ošukám (83)
52
PK: Jestli to dokážeš spravit, fakt s tebou budu prcat. (89)
After the narrator and Edith pretended to make love passionately to anger Severin, the bed breaks. The tone is supposed to be intense and serious; the narrator reacts that he has never heard Edith speak so crudely. Kříž’s favorite choice for this particular verb is really misplaced, because it sounds comical and not in any way serious or sensual.
Boháčiková and Formánek’s choice is a safe one. However, both translations’ FSP are not optimal. Rheme of this utterance is “really”, because they were only faking having sex before. It should be located at the end of the sentence, for example: “Jestli ji opravíš, ojedu tě doopravdy.”
Next comes a brief moment of introspection from the narrator that also contains
a word describing a four-way sex act:
ST: I admit that my own sense of family suffered from our foursome (129)
DB+MF: Přiznávám, že můj smysl pro rodinu naší hrou trpěl (93)
PK: Přiznávám se, že můj vlastní cit pro rodinu naším kvartetem utrpěl
(100)
Kříž did choose a great translation for the word “foursome” that generally means just a group of four people, but its other meaning in this context is clear. The usage of this euphemism is also more fitting for a sentence containing contemplations about family and children. Boháčiková and Formánek created a kind of oxymoron ˗ “trpět hrou” ˗ that nicely underscores the sad sentiment of the narrator’s utterance.
After their weekend together, the ladies packed whatever clothes they could find and did not pay attention to what was whose. Severin is enraged when he finds
narrator’s underwear among his own:
ST: Can't he keep track of his own fucking underpants? Does he have to
leave his goddamn laundry around? (147)
53
DB+MF: Nemoh by si na ty svý všivácký slipáče dát bacha? Musí se to
jeho posraný prádlo všude tady válet? (107)
PK: To si nemůže pohlídat vlastní zkurvený spodky? Musí tu nechat válet
svoje zatracený prádlo? (114)
Severin feels like he is losing control over the relationship. He feels like the narrator is intruding into his marriage even when he is not physically present. This example features adjectives of the same meaning, but of different intensity (after the initial outburst of emotions, Severin is gradually calming down). Boháčiková and Formánek neutralized the first curse word and simultaneously intensified the second one. It is a shame, because the expression “posraný prádlo” does connote of a very different picture in the Czech reader’s mind than to what the author intended. However “zasraný prádlo” would solve the problem of the wrong connotation, as “zasraný” is a common Czech curse word. Boháčiková and Formánek also used the word “slipáče” even though it is very well explained in the book that the narrator wears boxers. It is referenced several times in the episode where the narrator finds his underwear slit across the crotch and when he puts them on unknowingly, they look like a little skirt. They use the wrong word consistently in the whole translation. Kříž worked well with the intensity of the adjectives and also cleverly used a general term “spodky” and avoided the mistake
Boháčiková and Formánek did.
The very elaborate euphemism for masturbation is used in the following
example when the narrator fails to please his wife Utch:
ST: She was helping herself to get there (153)
DB+MF: pomáhala si sama (111)
PK: pomáhala si k tomu sama (119)
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All translators chose the same strategy and translated the figurative expression literally.
From the context the reader may very well understand the meaning of this sentence, but as the verb “help one’s self to” is usually used with food, a better option might be simple: “Obsloužila se sama”.
Emotions run high in the next example. The narrator gets furious at Severin after he calls Utch a “poor cow like creature” (this excerpt was analyzed in the subchapter
Author’s style):
ST: That swinish, snobbish, self-important cuntsman! (155)
DB+MF: Ten svinskej frajerskej děvkař! (113)
PK: Ten svinskej, snobskej, namyšlenej píčus! (121)
Apart from losing one of the adjectives, Boháčiková and Formánek chose an inappropriate curse word. In most cases, it is not very important what curse word the translator chooses, because their main function is to express emotions towards someone or something – choosing “píčus” over “kretén” would not make much difference, because both are very vulgar and strong, therefore fulfill its position in the sentence.
However “děvkař” is an expression carrying a certain connotation of a cheater, of an unfaithful man. Calling Severin by this name in this particular case does not correspond to the situation or to the narrator’s feelings. Kříž chose a curse word that is perfect in both its strength and translation. Czech “píčus” is a great translation of “cuntsman”, because both are considered the strongest insults in their respective countries.
In the next example Severin is revealing the true origins of their affair and his feelings to the narrator. He does not believe that Edith’s feeling are not as genuine as he
thought and then he questions Severin about his feelings for Utch:
ST: [Severin: “I'm fond of her…and I would never hurt her”] Narrator:
“Fond of her! That ass! Such fondness I have rarely seen.” (208)
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DB+MF: [Severin: Jsem z ní nadšenej…a nikdy bych jí neublížil]
Nadšenej! Hovno! Takový nadšení se jen tak nevidí. (152)
PK: [Severin: Uč jsem si oblíbil…a nikdy bych jí neublížil] Oblíbil si ji!
Ten blbec! Taková obliba se vidí málokdy. (163)
Severin’s response is met with bewilderment, because Severin was not treating Utch as someone he is fond of. The author wanted Severin to express that he has feeling towards
Utch, but also wanted to avoid the “like” and “love” vocabulary, as not to give any more hope to her (or to the narrator). He likes her, but just not like she would prefer it.
Kříž’s translation fits this sentiment. It creates a kind of awkward sentence, but that is accurate. As you could also be fond of an activity, hobby or a personal belonging, the sentence somehow transforms Utch into “an object”, at least in this particular situation.
Boháčiková and Formánek’s choice of a verb is wrong, both semantically and contextually, but they decided to change the curse word aimed at Severin into a general
emphatic curse word that very aptly punctuates the moment and the narrator’s emotions.
Here Utch gets very angry at the narrator after the breakup when he says they will be friends with the Winters again:
ST: You simple son-of-a-bitch (216)
DB+MF: Seš prostě hajzl (158)
PK: Ty primitivní zkurvenče (170)
This very common curse word often gets mistranslated, because of its compound nature.
Kříž does exactly that and comes up with a bizarre result, because although Czech does use the curse “zkurvený”, the noun is “zkurvysyn”. Boháčiková and Formánek chose a more common “hajzl” that also has the right sound to it, but omitted the other abuse, when Utch also calls him simple, meaning “dumb”. For example “Ty hajzle pitomá”
56 would be a natural solution, because inversion of adjective and noun is very common when cursing in Czech.
In the following example, Utch is screaming at the top of her lungs after the break up with the Winters. After the narrator is soothing her that they will surely be friends again, Utch yells at him, because according to he, they were never friends, they
were only lovers:
ST: I don't even know if we were lovers […] I think we were just fuckers!
(217)
DB+MF: Ani nevím, jestli jsme vůbec milenci byli […] Jenom jsme šukali!
(159)
PK: Ani nevím, jestli jsme byli milenci […] Já myslím, že jsme jen mrdali!
(170)
This part is a real translating challenge. The translator has to preserve the emotional strain in Utch’s utterance, focus on the correct FSP that give the appropriate point to the utterance and to replace the coupled construction “lovers – fuckers”. Even though in
Czech there is a noun derived from the verb “milovat” – “milenci”, there is no such noun for the vulgar variety of the verb “souložit” (whatever one the translator chooses) that would have the same or at least similar connotation as the original English word
(derived from the same verb and simultaneously meaning a very strong insult). A possible solution to this situation could be transforming the words into verbal nouns, e.g. create “milování” from “milenci” and “šukání” from “šukat”. The sentence from
Boháčiková and Formánek’s translation could then read: “Ani nevím, jestli vůbec šlo o milování … spíš šlo jenom o šukání! Boháčiková and Formánek’s translation loses the emphasis by not placing the word “milenci” at the end of the sentence, according to proper FSP, but they managed to do a good job with the second part of the sentence that
57 delivers the point by shortening it. Kříž managed the FSP of the first sentence very well.
He then slowed down the second part with the literal “Já myslím” and then used a particularly strong profanity to underline Utch’s fury. The extreme swearword fits the situation and its very upset central character that was just abandoned by a man she claims she loves.
Following menacing sentence is spoken by Severin to his trainee Bender right before his big match at the wrestling tournament is Stillwater. Severin is enraged that he caught him with Edith the previous night. He delivers the sentence slowly in a low
voice, very close to Bender’s ear:
ST: I hope you get your ass knocked off. (229)
DB+MF: Doufám, že ti vypráská prdel (169)
PK: Doufám, že ti nakope prdel (182)
This really breaks Bender’s spirit, as he used to hang on Severin’s every word. After
Bender’s loss, Severin resigns as a wrestling couch at the university and their whole family leaves for Vienna. Edith got what she wished for. With a translation of this utterance it is very important to keep it menacing. This sentence shook a man to his very core. Kříž chose a classic collocation that works great. Boháčiková and Formánek’s solution, although not wrong at all, does not sound that intimidating and also may sound a little too close to the Easter traditions in Czech Republic. The menacing effect comes from the last spoken word. In Czech translation, too, the verb (or any part of the speech the translators would choose to put in) should be placed at the end of the sentence.
However, this really could not have been achieved with the expressions the translators decided to use. I would propose intensifying the utterance and accommodating the nature of a wrestling match that involves a lot of grappling, pulling and throwing, for example: “Doufám, že tě roztrhne vejpůl.“
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The break-up has a really profound effect on Utch that manifests in her following problem:
ST: I can't come! (230)
DB+MF: Nemůžu vyvrcholit! (169)
PK: Nemůžu se udělat! (182)
Both couples were very sexually active prior and during the affair, so this is a crushing blow to the narrator’s and Utch’s relationship. Even though Utch recovers when she takes the narrator to the wrestling room, the reader starts to get the growing feeling that
Utch will leave the narrator. As yet another example of the use of the word “come”, it can be claimed that all translators have a set way of translating it and in this particular case do not take an advantage of the riches of the Czech language. Utch is very upset and she is yelling in the narrator’s face, she also runs out of the bedroom crying this sentence. Because of this reason, Boháčiková and Formánek’s “nemůžu vyvrcholit” is not suitable. It is from a higher register, it is long and rather hard to pronounce quickly and repeatedly.
When the narrator sees Severin’s car outside the gym, he is sure that he has
taken up another lover and quickly brings Utch around to spy on him:
ST: Don't you want to see who he's fucking now? (241)
DB+MF: Copak nechceš vidět, s kým teď spí? (178)
PK: Nechceš vidět, koho teď prcá? (191)
Utch does not like that very much, but decides not to argue with her obsessed husband.
Boháčiková and Formánek’s translation captures the urgency in the narrator’s voice much better with “copak”. Even when they neutralized the profanity in the narrator’s utterance it works much better than Kříž’s choice. His insistence on using the word
“prcat” manages to turn every phrase it is used in into a joke.
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The couple of spies discover that Severin’s mysterious new lover is in fact his
wife Edith:
ST: […] her hand fondly cupping his balls […](243)
DB+MF: Její ruka mu náruživě zajela k rozkroku (179)
PK: její ruka ho láskyplně uchopila za kulky (193)
Seeing that Severin and Edith are once again happy in their relationship somehow hurts
Utch and it is also the last straw for her. In this moment she decides to leave the narrator for good. Boháčiková and Formánek’s decision to use a superordinate term lead to a better result than in Kříž’s case. His usage of the word “kulky” has a connotation of canine testicles, possibly from the Czech saying: “Lesknout se jako psí kulky.”
Boháčiková and Formánek evaded this problematic part well. The sentence flows
naturally and is accurately arousing.
In this part of the novel that is nearing its conclusion, the narrator is recapitulating his final thoughts and all of the transpired events:
ST: I'll bet Edith Winter is the best-looking piece of ass in all of Vienna.
(255)
DB+MF: Vsadím se, že Edith Winterová je teď ve Vídni ta největší kočka.
(189)
PK: Vsadím se, že Edita Winterová je ta nejpohlednější buchta v celý
Vídni. (203)
For the objectifying expression “piece of ass” the translators chose different strategies.
Boháčiková and Formánek decided to neutralize the expression and used a word
“kočka”, meaning “an attractive female”. Kříž chose a demeaning term “buchta” that is closer to the original meaning, but paired it with an expression from a higher register. A more fitting adjective would be more neutral “nejhezčí”.
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From the examples contained in this chapter it can be concluded that although
Kříž’s translations are more faithful to the source text, as Kříž has a better grasp of the
English language and its many intricacies, Boháčiková and Formánek’s solutions tend to be more fitting when there is a certain amount of creativity required. However this ceases to be beneficial in case they confront an unknown word or saying; they fail to research the given issues and understand them before coming with a “creative” solution that has little to nothing in common with the source text. These were mainly located within the parts of the story taking place in the Cape Cod house. These lapses in meaning could have been avoided if the translation has been proofread or the language problems have been researched. The creativity in parts that were well understood proves that. Kříž tends to neutralize the swearwords in not so important utterances, but really excels when the strong swearwords underscore the situation.
3.5 Foreign language
Two of the main characters are foreign, Austrian to be precise. Severin was born in
London, but quickly returned with his mother to Vienna. However, because his mother wanted him to be able to have a better life, he went to school in the American part of the occupied Vienna. His English is undistinguishable from that of the narrator or Edith.
Utch lost her parents and grew up with captain Kudashvili. They lived in the Russian part of Vienna and so she spoke mostly Russian. She started to learn English because of
Kudashvili’s wishes and after he left Vienna, she worked as a translator. When she met the narrator, her English still was not perfect. Because of this fact, Utch is speaking broken English in the beginning of the novel (“in her early rounds of her bouts with
English” as the narrator describes it) and in flashbacks to when she and the narrator met for the first time. There are also other foreign characters that speak English as their
61 second language: the Man with the hole in his cheek, the ambassador, Willy and
Heinrich, Utch’s former lovers. All of them are in the Viennese part of Utch’s story.
Translation of an imperfect speech is always a challenge and is something that is not very broadly described in theory. For the purposes of the analysis the imperfect speech could be qualified as an idiolect. The translations should clearly indicate that the character is not a native speaker, but the creativity should not morph into ridicule. When speaking his or hers second language, the character should never sound stupid. For example, out of all four protagonists in the book, Utch can speak the most languages
(English, German and Russian). The characters in Vienna are able to speak English for a distinctive reason. The Man with a hole in his cheek, Utch’s former bodyguard, is learning English, because Utch does and he loves her. Willy and Heinrich are students that studied English for 7 years. The ambassador is required to speak English because of his job. Utch’s flaws when speaking are more or less connected to pronunciation, because she has a strong accent. Other characters make mistakes on the level of grammar, but Irving does not make them talk with an accent.
There are three categories in this chapter: 1) A foreigner is speaking English or 2)
A character is speaking German and this fact is highlighted by an insertion of few
German words that do not influence the possibility of understanding by the reader or 3)
A foreigner or the narrator insert a German word into their utterance (the narrator does this when speaking about Severin or in parts of the story about Vienna). In several
following examples Utch is speaking broken English:
ST: Why did we wont to come here? (19)
DB+MF: Proč jsme šli právě sem? (11)
PK: Proč jsme sem chtěl jet? (12)
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When Utch is asking why they wanted to come on the vacation during which she got bitten by the bug of antiques, she mispronounces the word “want”. Boháčiková and
Formánek translated the sentence as “Proč jsme jeli právě sem?” and then changed “jet” za “jít”. This would work really well in Czech if the form of the past tense of “jít” was not so different from the root noun. Utch’s mistake emerges from interchanging near homonyms. The mistake in Czech should be also based on the sound similarity with the correct word. Kříž chose a different strategy; he made Utch use a wrong gender of the
verb “chtít”. That is a mistake that foreigners learning Czech make very often.
ST: From vut? (20)
DB+MF: Od kchut? (12)
PK: Před co? (12)
In this case Utch pronounces the word “what” wrong when she is asking the narrator from what they need to run from. Boháčiková and Formánek came with a really interesting solution; “od kchut” sounds like “odkud” pronounced with a Russian accent which is a solution that corresponds to her background with captain Kudashvili. Kříž decided to make Utch say only the basic form of the word “what”, diverting from the
author’s style.
ST: Haf patience (21)
DB+MF: Trpělifost (12)
PK: Maj trpělivost (13)
This saying is very fitting for Utch as the first sentence of the book says: “My wife
Utchka … could teach patience to a time bomb” (Irving 1997: 13). Boháčiková and
Formánek preserved the V to F sound change in a very clever way. This sound change
hints to a German accent which also works well as German is her native language.
ST: (You find him attractive?) Oh ja, more dan dat. (32)
63
DB+MF: Ach, Ja, víc než janom ta. (21)
PK: Ó ja, víc než ta. (22)
The last example of Utch’s pronunciation is taken from the conversation with the narrator about whether she finds Severin attractive or not. The strategies that the translators chose did not lead to great solutions. Boháčiková and Formánek translated into “víc než (janom) to”, they next decided to transform the word “to” into “ta”.
Because “ta” is an actual Czech pronoun, the sentence becomes confusing. As the only important message is that Utch likes Severin very much, the translators could maybe create a sentence containing some of the sounds changes mentioned above, for example:
“Ó ja, je felmi pochledný.”
In the next example we can see Drexa Neff speaking. Drexa Neff was an
occasional housekeeper, babysitter and laundress to Utch and captain Kudashvili:
ST: [The czars are gone, Drexa.] Ja, mein Hauptmann, and so is Gortz. (63)
DB+MF: [Carové už nejsou, Drexo.] Ja, mein Hauptmann, a tak je to i s
Gortzem. (44)
PK: [Carové jsou pryč, Drexo.] Ja, mein Hauptmann, a Gortz taky. (47)
This moment occurs during a dinner conversation. Drexa announces that yet another man, Gortz, went missing without a trace. Later Drexa mentions that Utch will marry a czar. This is an example of how an author will identify a character as German-speaking without the necessity of making them speak German. Luckily none of the translators decided to translate the inserted German words, as it would completely erase the author’s intentions.
Next we can observe yet another example of Utch’s pronunciation:
ST: Vitch one of you is taking me home? (75)
DB+MF: Ktechý z vás mě doprovodí domů? (53)
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PK: Kerej z vás mě odveze domů? (57)
Boháčiková and Formánek are consistently using the same sound and conform to the author’s form. Kříž’s decision to make Utch say “kerej” is closer to vernacular than a mispronunciation and does not correspond with Utch’s utterance.
Following are several examples of how the narrator is inserting German into situations concerning Severin or situations taking place in Vienna. All translators
preserve these inserted expressions:
ST: [Severin was] not as consciously trying to make us feel guilty for his
great unnamed Schmerz. (155)
DB+MF: ani se nás nesnažil vinit za jeho Schmerz. (113)
PK: abychom pociťovali vinu za jeho velkou, nepojmenovanou Schmerz
(121)
ST: […] he would appear in the windows of passing cabs or in the aisles of
swaying Strassenbahns (168)
DB+MF: […] viděla ho v oknech taxíků nebo Strassenbahns projíždějících
kolem (122)
PK: […] objevoval se v oknech kolem projíždějících taxíků nebo v uličkách
kymácejících se Strassenbahns (131)
ST: Messing around in that debris was verboten because so many bombs
had been dropped there, and not all of them had gone off. (178)
DB+MF: Motat se bylo verboten, protože tam explodovalo mnoho bomb, a
všechny ještě neexplodovaly. (130)
PK: Hrabat se v ruinách bylo verboten, protože tam bylo shozeno tolik
bomb a ne všechny vybuchly. (140)
65
In the next case the speaker is M. Maisky who is working at the Russian
Embassy. Utch is working for him as a translator and when she decides to marry the narrator and leave for America, they both decide to announce this to him:
ST: Unashamedly he weep would! (169)
DB+MF: Určitě by plakal, a ani se za to nestyděl by! (123)
PK: Plakat by se nestyděl! (132)
M. Maisky is describing how the late captain Kudashvili would probably feel about this situation. Maisky’s imperfections with English are demonstrated through imperfect word order. Although Boháčiková and Formánek’s translation could be shortened a little bit (“Určitě by plakal a nestyděl by!”), their translation is well built. In Kříž’s translation, the scrambled word order is not evident.
The next three examples are excerpts from the conversation that the narrator has with the Man with the hole in his cheek that suddenly appears in the men’s bathroom of
Utch’s Studentenheim. Utch was telling the narrator stories about the man that used to be her bodyguard when she was a little girl. She thought he was a part of the notorious
Benno Blum gang. She thinks he is dead by now and so when she thinks she sees him sometimes, she is convinced she is going crazy. However, he is still alive and is keeping
an eye on her:
ST: She walk around that old museum, I walk around it too. She go out for
Strassenbahn rides at the worst times, I try to go after her. Most of the time
she never see me, but a few times I am careless. I get old. (176)
DB+MF: Prochází tím starým muzeem, tak procházím i já. Jezdí v
Strassenbahn v ten nejhorší čas, jezdím i já. Většinou mě nezahlédne, ale
občas udělám chybu. Stárnu. (128)
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PK: Chodí kolem toho starýho muzea, tak já chodím taky. Jde si jezdit
Strassenbahn v nejhorší době, snažím se jít za ní. Většinou mě nikdy nevidí,
ale párkrát jsem neopatrnej. Stárnu. (137)
ST: Is you crazy? (176)
DB+MF: Ty snad blázen být? (129)
PK: Jsi ty blázen? (138)
ST: […] but you are so hit by her - I can see. I am hit by her like that, too.
(177)
DB+MF: ale vidím - ty jsi do ní úplně zbláznit. Já taky takhle do ní blázním
(129)
PK: ale tebe tak vzala - to vidím. Mě taky tak vzala. (138)
When the narrator and the Man with a hole in his cheek chat, he explains that he is learning English, because Utch is learning English too. As he reveals in the third example, it is because he is in love with her. His English is rather good; his mistakes involve incorrect forms of verbs in the third person singular and occasionally scrambled word order. This makes the translation very hard, because his mistakes have to be minor yet visible enough. Taken out of context, Kříž’s translations would not hint that these words are supposed to be spoken by a foreigner. The attempts of recreating his mistakes in Czech do not come through. On the other hand Boháčiková and Formánek did a good job of transferring little imperfections in his speech, mainly “tak procházím i já” and “já taky takhle do ní blázním”.
Translating imperfect speech is a challenge and mostly a creative endeavor. The objective is not to make the translation as faithful as possible (sometimes it is even impossible; how can one follow certain rules to translate an utterance that itself does not follow any rules? Imperfect speech is random by its nature), but to identify what seems 67 to make the particular utterance imperfect and apply this in the target language. From analyzing foreign language occurrences in this novel it can be concluded that in this particular category, translators Boháčiková and Formánek performed better. Each of the analyzed examples showed that they worked on the translations with care and attention to detail. Their translations of imperfect speech were very creative, but at the same time adhered to a “type” of mistake made in the source text. Kříž also did a fairly good job, but seemed to focus on the individual words rather than the whole utterance and the type of each imperfection. In case of the Man with a hole in his cheek, whose English was only slightly erroneous, the imperfections were not discernible at all.
68
Conclusion
The comparative analysis of two Czech translations of the novel The 158-Pound
Marriage yielded several interesting conclusions. After establishing five subcategories, suitable examples were manually collected and processed, and they were given a proper structure that enabled side-by-side analysis.
The first chapter analyses book and chapter titles, mainly for the importance John
Irving ascribes to them. The fact that John Irving creates titles for his novels long before he finishes said novels has already been mentioned in the introduction; being aware of the importance is reflected in one’s translational endeavours. All the translators mentioned in the present thesis seem to put some effort into coming up with creative and enticing solutions that invite the reader for reading on. The only exception is the very first translation of the novel’s title which sadly contains an orthographical mistake and a mistranslation.
The second subchapter focuses on the complexity of the author’s style. As it was already mentioned in the subchapter itself, Irving’s style is not definable by individual textual items, but rather by the complexity of his long sentences and difficult metaphors, or the mental picture he causes to appear in the reader’s mind. His novels are very well thought out, he knows the story and the endgame of every character beforehand and has plenty of space to focus on the tone and pace of his sentences. Translators Boháčiková and Formánek usually have a problem with identifying and choosing a word from a proper register and very often neutralize the expressive language. When performing the analysis, it was also discovered that should these two translators come upon a somewhat problematic part, they often tend to deal with it by omitting the word or phrase in question altogether. I would debate that it is a good strategy, because when the omission is executed well and is not noticeable in the target text, there is much less damage done
69 then by concocting a nonsensical result. Boháčiková and Formánek could have used this strategy even more, as there are several erroneous parts in their translation. Kříž obviously has a better grasp of the English language than the first translators, but he lacks the sensitivity of an author and his translations rarely adhere to John Irving’s style and voice. However, that does not mean Kříž’s translations are in any way inferior.
The third subcategory deals with idioms and culture-specific items included in the novel. Because of the characteristics of idioms, the results clearly showed that
Boháčiková and Formánek mostly struggled in this field. Most of their translations show that they failed to correctly transfer these fixed expressions and that they also misunderstood the source text. However, there were few bright moments when their translation was very nice and apt. Also in this category I identified their neutralizing tendencies. Kříž has proved himself to be a great translator in this subchapter. He understood the majority of all expressions and transformed them commendably.
The fourth and fifth subchapters that analyze profanities and foreign language finally gave Boháčiková and Formánek the chance to shine. These categories are not that much about the knowledge, but about the creativity; this seems to be a strong suit of the first translators. Their tendency to neutralize was detected in this category too – it often leads to less expressive language, but in this case, they probably chose the strategy of ‘better safe than sorry’. Boháčiková and Formánek’s solutions of inclusion of foreign language throughout the novel were very creative and exceeded those of Kříž’s.
Kříž often neutralizes lower-level profanities, but then also intensifies very aptly in the cases of emotional outbursts of the characters. He was not afraid to use even the harshest of Czech swearwords. The most significant inadequacy in this area would probably be his insistence of using the verb “prcat” and other words conveying comical
70 or completely unsuitable meanings. Unfortunately, he did not put much effort into the transcreation of the imperfect speech of foreign characters.
My initial hypothesis was that Kříž, a professional translator with many years of experience, will far and beyond exceed the first-and-last time translators Boháčiková and Formánek. Pavel Kříž’s translation has many indisputable qualities with just a small amount of inconsistencies that could probably be attributed to one’s personal style.
However, Boháčiková and Formánek, considering their perceived habitus, also created a fairly good translation. They mainly proved to be very creative and little cautious with expressive language. Alas, contrary to the initial hypothesis, one’s professional status was not confirmed to be an absolute guarantee of quality.
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Bibliography
Primary sources
Irving, John (1997 [1973]). The 158-Pound Marriage. New York: Ballantine Books.
Irving, John (1995 [1973]). 158 librová svatba. Plzeň: Mustang s.r.o.
Irving, John (2009 [1973]). Manželství do 158 liber. Praha: Odeon.
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Adelnia, Amineh & Dastjerdi, Hossein Vahid (2011). Translation of Idioms: A Hard
Task for the Translator. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 1 (7), 879–833.
Baker, Mona (1992). In Other Words: A Course Book on Translation. London and New
York: Routledge.
Balser, Erin (2017). Why John Irving loves Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.
Retrieved from: https://www.cbc.ca/books/why-john-irving-loves-great-
expectations-by-charles-dickens-1.4279291.
Campbell, Josie P. (1998). John Irving: A Critical Companion. Westport: Greenwood.
DILIA. Accessed November 3, 2019. Retrieved from: http://www.dilia.cz/
Fernando, Chitra and Flavell, Roger (1981). On Idiom: Critical Views and perspectives.
Exeter: University of Exeter.
Halada, Jan (2007). Encyklopedie českých nakladatelství 1949–2006. Praha: Libri.
Hansen, Ron (1986). John Irving, The Art of Fiction No. 93. The Paris Review (100).
Accessed April 2, 2019. Retrieved from:
https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2757/john-irving-the-art-of-fiction-no-
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Irving, John (2006). Until I Find You. London: Random House.
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Levý, Jiří (2011 [1983]). The Art of Translation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins
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Marcus, Greil (1979). John Irving: The World of ‘The World According to Garp’.
Rolling Stone. Accessed February 12, 2019. Retrieved from:
https://greilmarcus.net/2018/02/26/the-world-of-the-world-according-to-garp-
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University. Accessed on November 12, 2019. Retrieved from:
https://lesley.edu/news/novelist-john-irving-shares-his-craft-urges-discomfort.
Pavel Kříž. Databáze knih. Accessed March 10, 2019. Retrieved from:
https://www.databazeknih.cz/prekladatele/pavel-kriz-1164.
Pavel Kříž. Dabingforum.cz. Accessed March 10, 2019. Retrieved from:
https://dabingforum.cz/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=24296.
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http://botanika.wendys.cz/index.php/21-slovnik/1435-plevka-palea.
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https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/runner-up.
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http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/self-fulfilling-prophecy.html.
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Zpráva o českém knižním trhu 2017/2018 (2018). SČKN. Accessed March 30, 2019.
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Resumé
Tato magisterská diplomová práce se zabývá srovnáním dvou českých překladů třetího románu Johna Irvinga The 158-Pound Marriage. Soustředí se hlavně na textovou analýzu vybraných částí románu, která má za cíl odhalit tendence a strategie jednotlivých překladatelů. V první části se nacházejí informace o Johnu Irvingovi, románu samotném, jeho překladech a překladatelích. Druhá část se skládá z analýzy překladů v pěti podkategoriích: název knihy a jednotlivých kapitol, autorský styl, idiomatický jazyk a kulturně specifické pojmy, vulgarismy a cizí jazyk. Příklady k analýze byly vybrány z původního textu bez předchozího seznámení se s texty překladů, aby byla vyloučena jakákoliv zaujatost. Srovnání svou překladů ukazuje, že i přestože je autor druhého překladu profesionální překladatel s mnohaletými zkušenostmi, což lze na jeho díle jasně pozorovat, autoři prvního překladu si v porovnání s ním vedli velmi dobře a jejich překlad místy vykazuje chvályhodnou kreativitu. Původní hypotéza, že profesionalita je absolutní zárukou kvality překladu, byla vyvrácena.
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Summary
This master’s diploma thesis deals with a comparison of two Czech translations of John
Irving`s third novel, The 158-Pound Marriage. It mainly focuses on the textual analysis of selected excerpts from the novel and aims to reveal the tendencies and strategies of each translator. The first part provides information about John Irving, the novel, its
Czech translations and respective translators. The second part analyses the translations and describes the findings in five subcategories: book and chapter titles, author’s style, idiomatic language and culture-specific items, profanity and foreign language. The examples chosen for the analysis were taken from the source text without any prior knowledge of the translations so as to avoid any bias. The comparison of the two translations demonstrates that even though the author of the second translation is an experienced translator and performs as such, the authors of the first translation performed commendably in comparison, and their translation includes several rather creative solutions. Contrary to the initial hypothesis, one’s professional status was not confirmed to be an absolute guarantee of quality.
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