MASARYK UNIVERSITY Translation and Analysis of Lemony Snicket's
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MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF EDUCATION Department of English language and literature Translation and Analysis of Lemony Snicket’s All the Wrong Questions Final thesis Brno 2021 Supervisor: Written by: Mgr. Martin Němec, Ph.D. Mgr. Ondřej Kazda Prohlášení: Prohlašuji, že jsem závěrečnou práci vypracoval samostatně, a že jsem použil pouze uvedené zdroje. Souhlasím s uložení mé práce na Masarykově univerzitě v Brně v knihovně pedagogické fakulty a s jejím zpřístupněním ke studijním účelům. Jindřichův Hradec, 21. dubna 2021 Mgr. Ondřej Kazda Declaration: I declare that I have worked on my thesis independently and that I have used only listed sources. I agree with the deposition of my thesis at Masaryk University, Brno, at the library of Faculty of Education and with making it accessible for study purposes. Jindřichův Hradec, 21st April 2021 Mgr. Ondřej Kazda 2 Acknowledgments I would like to thank to my supervisor Mgr. Martin Němec, Ph.D. for his kind and valuable advice and the guidance that he provided during my work on the thesis. 3 Bibliography Kazda, Ondřej. Translation and Analysis of Lemony Snicket’s „All the Wrong Questions“: final thesis. Brno: Masaryk University, Faculty of Education, Department of English and literature.2021.77 pages. The supervisor of the final thesis: Mgr. Martin Němec, Ph.D. Abstract This thesis is concerned with the young adult series “All the Wrong Questions” written by Daniel Handler under the penname Lemony Snicket and its translation into the Czech language. The practical part of the thesis consists of my own translation of the first two chapters of the initial volume of the series entitled “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”. The theoretical part of the thesis focuses on Daniel Handler and his life and work and on the analysis of my translation in accordance with linguistic theories by Jiří Levý and Dagmar Knittlová. Key words: Daniel Handler, Lemony Snicket, translation, analysis, comparison, All the Wrong Questions 4 Bibliografický záznam KAZDA, Ondřej. Translation and Analysis of Lemony Snicket’s „All the Wrong Questions“: final thesis.: závěrečná práce. Brno: Masarykova Univerzita, Pedagogická fakulta, Katedra anglického jazyka a literatury. 2015.77 stran. Vedoucí závěrečné práce: Mgr. Martin Němec, Ph.D. Anotace Tato závěrečná práce se zabývá dětskou knižní sérií “All the Wrong Questions”, jejímž autorem je Daniel Handler pod pseudonymem Lemony Snicket, a jejím překladem do českého jazyka. Praktická část práce je tvořena mým vlastním překladem úvodních dvou kapitol prvního dílu knižní série s názvem “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”. Teoretická část práce se soustředí na život a dílo Daniela Handlera a na analýzu mého překladu dle teorií Jiřího Levého a Dagmar Knittlové. Klíčová slova: Daniel Handler, Lemony Snicket, překlad, analýza, porovnání, All the Wrong Questions 5 Table of Contents 1. The Illuminating Introduction or Four Wrong Questions ........................................ 8 1.1. Why Would Someone Choose to Read Such a Gloomy Story? ........................ 8 1.2. Wasn’t One Dreary Series More Than Enough? ............................................. 10 1.3. How Can You Tell a Handler from a Snicket?................................................ 12 1.4. Is He Writing Like That on Purpose? .............................................................. 15 1.4.1. Typical features of the Snicket books ....................................................... 15 1.4.1.1. Alliteration ......................................................................................... 15 1.4.1.2. Literary allusions ................................................................................ 16 1.4.1.3. Complex vocabulary .......................................................................... 16 2. The Thrilling Translation ....................................................................................... 18 3. The Academic Analysis ......................................................................................... 46 3.1. Proper names, geographical names ................................................................. 46 3.1.1. Stain’d-by-the-Sea .................................................................................... 46 3.1.2. S. Theodora Markson ................................................................................ 47 3.1.3. The Clusterous Forest ............................................................................... 50 3.1.4. The Fountain of Victorious Finance, The Museum of Bad Breakfast ...... 51 3.1.5. Hemlock Tearoom and Stationery, Bellamy Station ................................ 52 3.1.6. Other important names from the series ..................................................... 53 3.1.6.1. The Bombinating Beast ...................................................................... 53 3.1.6.2.Hangfire............................................................................................... 54 3.1.6.3.Geographical names using alliteration ................................................ 55 3.2. Measures, currency ...................................................................................... 56 3.3. Explanatory words ....................................................................................... 58 3.4. Reference ..................................................................................................... 61 6 3.4.1. Adding a pronoun ................................................................................. 62 3.4.2. Omitting a pronoun .............................................................................. 63 3.5. Idioms and similes ....................................................................................... 64 3.6. The verb “say” and its repetition ................................................................. 68 3.7. Complex vocabulary and its reflection in my translation ............................ 69 4. The Concise Conclusion ..................................................................................... 74 5. The Bookish Bibliography ..................................................................................... 75 5.1. Printed Sources ................................................................................................ 75 5.2. Electronic Sources ........................................................................................... 76 7 1. The Illuminating Introduction or Four Wrong Questions 1.1. Why Would Someone Choose to Read Such a Gloomy Story? “If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book.”1 Thus begins the first volume of A Series of Unfortunate Events, and the opening sentence aptly sets the tone for what is to follow. Written by Daniel Handler, under the penname Lemony Snicket, A Series of Unfortunate Events consists of thirteen books describing the misadventures, misfortunes and woes of the three Baudelaire children, who lose their parents in the first chapter and spend the rest of the series trying to survive in the face of adversity, personified mostly by an unsavory man named Count Olaf and a colorful cast of bizarre supporting characters who aid him in his efforts to get rid of the children and get his hands on the famed Baudelaire fortune. It was on my eleventh birthday that I first became familiar with the books. I was in a bookstore in Prague, browsing the children section, looking for the perfect birthday book to buy. At that age, I would spend all my money on books, and I remember gradually growing just a little bit sick and tired of the same old fantasy stories with no real stakes, full of plucky heroes and heroines who would always end up triumphing over evil, no matter how unlikely and far-fetched that outcome was. Perhaps it was not entirely different from the way Daniel Handler felt, when he started to write his book series. Tucked far away from the bestsellers section, almost as if hidden on purpose by the bookstore staff, I discovered a small stack of books, which at first glance seemed almost out of place among all the other book covers in the kids’ section, which for the most part depicted laughing children, animals, fantastical creatures, and brave knights in shining armor. There was no one laughing on the cover of these books. What was there, were three, extremely miserable looking children in a variety of gloomy, unpleasant locales, drawn in a gothic, Tim Burtonesque style. And there was the title, long, a bit unwieldy and impossible for me to look away 1 Snicket, The Bad Beginning, p.1 8 from. A Series of Unfortunate Events. On a whim I took the first volume from the shelf, opened it, and read the sentence which can be found in the beginning of this thesis. And I was hooked immediately. I bought the first book, read it cover to cover in the span of few hours and was back for three more books the following day. Throughout the next four years, my obsession with the series only grew stronger. I quickly tore through the eight installments that had already been available on the Czech market and began a long and arduous wait for the rest of the books to be translated and published. Finally in 2007, the thirteenth volume, titled fittingly The End was published. I remember finishing the book and feeling very bittersweet about it. On the one hand, I was happy that Handler had stuck the landing and ended the series in a satisfying manner, without breaking the promise of a not entirely happy conclusion which he had given to the readers all those years back in the first