German Senior Thesis Kelly L. Hill

Translation of Stories from Sommerhaus, später by Judith Hermann:

Red Coral Beads Sonia Summerhouse, Later

Sommerhaus, später : My Experience of Translation

I had been searching for a piece of German literature to translate since last spring semester, and when Dr. Jutta Ittner described the author of Sommerhaus, später, Judith Hermann, to me, I felt positive about my prospect: a young German woman whose very first collection of short stories had garnered popular acclaim and the praise of even Marcel Reich-Ranicki of the Literarische Quartett. I’d seen Herr Reich-Ranicki at work in several episodes during GRMN 386 Literature and the Media, so I had some idea of how seldom he praised pieces. While in Munich this past summer for The Munich Experience, I bought a copy and began to read it. I fell in love with Hermann’s lucid, simple prose, the haunting, sometimes mystical turn of her stories, and the puxxling, determined isolation of her characters. After reading the entire collection of stories, the three that stood out most in my mind were the ones that I chose to translate. I chose Sommerhaus, später because I felt that the project wouldn’t be complete without including the story that gives the collection its name. Also, I think that the voice of the narrator reflects closely Judith Hermann’s own voice, a young, artistic writer from East Berlin. Rote Korallen seemed an obvious choice, partially because of its subject matter and partially because of its positioning. I thought there must be a reason that it is the first story in the collection—that it would be the first story that pople would read from Judith Hermann. Also, the theme of the story intrigued me: wrestling with the past, trying to figure out how the past defines the present and how to separate the present from the past. I think this theme is an important symbolism in relation to the human experience, but also is uniquely important for Germany: how to deal with the country’s past, as that past gets further and further away. The question of what relationship the younger gernerations are supposed to have with their pasts—how do they break free of it, and can they ever? How much of the past is inevitably part of them, how much, as Judith Hermann puts it, of their great-grandmothers’ (and great-grandfathers’) stories are also their stories? I chose Sonja for its change in perspective. Most of the stories in the collection are told from the point of view of a young woman or an omniscient, un- gendered narrator. In Sonja, Hermann takes the perspective of a young German artist who is male and explores his world first-hand: the bars, the drinking, a woman, his relationships both to his artwork and to the woman in his life. She reveals his insecurities, his impulsive way of living without real regard for consquences. I was very interested in the story because of that interplay of gender. Being able to discuss Sommerhaus, später with Dr. Ittner helped me to come closer to truly understanding these stories and changed my perspective on the characters. I learned that there can be a huge difference between reading and working with the words of a story, and interpreting it! Hermann’s style is so simple, calm, and cool—in describing a character’s emotional state, she is far more likely to give the reader details of what the character does instead of saying point-blank what the character is feeling. Stein smiles when he looks at the narrator of Sommerhaus, später when they are in the garden, drinking. We interpret that as an attraction and emotional attachment, although the two were no longer a “couple” at this point. The translation work itself required plenty of time and discipline, especially since it was spread out over the entire semester. I set myself the goal of turning in 7 pages per week to be critiqued by Dr. Ittner, and I stuck by that goal fairly faithfully, with only a few catch-up times where I turned in 14 or more pages at a time. I estimate that I spent between two and three hours per week translating, revising, and revising again... depending on the length of the section and the level of difficulty. I found Sonja to be the easiest to translate, and the technical terms in Red Coral Beads to be the hardest (I cobbled together as many meanings as I could in the technical terms, but I am still not sure if they can be directly translated). My poor Deutsch-Englisch-Englisch-Deutsch dictionary is now completely kaputt, because I used it so much. I think my vocabulary has improved as a result of this project, and over the course of the projects, my reading skills in German have become more comprehensive and quicker, probably because of all the practice. Also, I simply had the pleasure of working closely with a series of stories that I very much enjoyed in both their German and English forms. What you are getting is a direct translation, as close as I could make it (and also on Dr. Ittner’s insistence). I may look into publishing these pieces (assuming there would be no copyright problem with this?) and thoroughly enjoyed translation them, whether they end up in print or not.

Kelly Hill.