TRANSLATION REVIEW No. 72, 2007 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editorial: “In Other Words:” The Interpretive Dialogue With the Text ...... 1 Rainer Schulte

In Translation: A Sampler...... 3 John Felstiner

“A Whole New Style Seemed to be Seeking Expression Here” ...... 9 Cormac McCarthy’s Outer Dark in Spanish Michael Scott Doyle

The Disparities of Two Anglophone Renditions of “The Survivor” by Primo Levi ...... 27 Philip Balma

Friedrich Schiller’s Skull and Bones? The Reception of a European Poet in 2005...... 33 Don Anderson

La Malinche, Laura Esquivel, and Translation...... 41 Harry Aveling

Endangered Places: Translating Toponyms in María Mercedes Carranza’s ...... 49 “El Canto de la Moscas” (The Song of the Flies) Michael Sisson

The Vision of Zephyr Press: A Profile...... 57 Erica Mena

Book Reviews The Shambhala Anthology of Chinese Poetry...... 61 Translated and Edited by J.P. Seaton Reviewed by Mike Farman

Love Hound: Poems by Oliver Welden...... 62 Translated by Dave Oliphant Reviewed by James Hoggard

Contributors ...... 65

“A WHOLE NEW STYLE SEEMED TO BE SEEKING EXPRESSION HERE”1: CORMAC MCCARTHY’S OUTER DARK IN SPANISH

By Michael Scott Doyle

If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious (…) The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy. — The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus

The good utopian promises himself to be, primarily, an inexorable realist. Only when he is certain of not having acceded to the least illusion, thus having gained the total view of a reality stripped stark naked, may he, fully arrayed, turn against that reality and strive to reform it, yet acknowledging the impossibility of the task, which is the only sensible approach (…) To declare its impossibility is not an argument against the possible splendor of the translator’s task. — The Misery and Splendor of Translation, José Ortega y Gasset

I

Whereas the native-language reader of Cormac incongruent Nabokovian skyscrapers of footnotes to McCarthy is always faced with a daunting challenge, service the reader’s understanding.6 In the end, his translator into another language faces what is McCarthy’s English — which pulls the reader into and ultimately an impossible task. McCarthy writes in a along its pages of narrative description and dialogue quintessential American English, in a stylized idiom while overwhelming him with the undertow of the idiosyncratic to the wordsmith yet deeply rooted either alloyed strangeness of the language and style in the landscape and laconic talk of the southern themselves and the heretofore unknown characters and Appalachian foothill- and mountainfolk (East worlds created — is also alien for the native-language Tennessee and thereabouts) or the ranchers, ranch reader. In his novel , McCarthy sums up what hands, and cowboys of the Texas-Mexico border.2 To any reader of his fiction will recall upon reading one begin with, it is an English that often requires re- of his novels: “The words of the book swam off the Englishing by the reader, a Jakobsonian exercise in page eerily and he thought he’d never read a stranger intralingual translation,3 so that even the literate tale” (294). native-language reader himself can embark on an If it is all so alien for the native-language reader understanding of what McCarthy has written, or at and speaker7 what must it be like to translate, or try to least the lexicon he has used or coined.4 In his translate, McCarthy’s literary worlds into a foreign Appalachian novels, it is a familiar, rural and folksy language, Spanish, with a completely different American English — “the raw essence of the area’s linguistic and cultural tradition and fabric? The task is uniquely guttural dialect” (Gibson)5 — with truly Ortegian.8 What does a translator do when a substandard dialectal literary roots in the tradition of novel such as Outer Dark wedges itself mulishly Twain and Faulkner. It is marked by landscape- and between Schleiermacher’s options — refusing to be object-specific words, an “unparalleled cataloging of budged toward the new cultural readership while physical and natural details” (Gibson), erudition on refusing also to be approached?9,10 What happens display through lexical acuteness. It requires the when Venuti’s compelling case for foreignization in honest reader to consult a good English-language translation is trumped — and is apparently made easier dictionary (and other hermeneutic resources) as an aid while actually becoming more challenging — by the to fuller understanding — vocabulary glossed in the writer who, to begin with, is alien and has already margins, incongruous in the genre of the novel, would foreignized in the extreme intralingually and certainly prove useful — in effect demanding that s/he intraculturally? How does a translator of Cormac too become a translator. Or the English-language McCarthy strive for Nida’s and Taber’s lucid novel itself could be accompanied by equally prescription of dynamic equivalence11 when there is no

Translation Review 9 cross-cultural organism to be found, for the narrative through translatorial import-export? A map of the DNA of Outer Dark, and its aural fingerprint, are difficult translatorial terrain to be traversed is the absolutely unique to the setting and idio-socio-dialect following: of the characters and therefore resist being shared

How do you translate McCarthy’s lyrical prose, a whatever crude vessels and turned in to sleep, flowing riot of words in Appalachian English sprawled on the packed mud full clothed with their cascading one upon another, into Spanish? How can mouths gaped to the stars. They were about with you possibly do it? (The alternative, that a foreign- the first light, the bearded one rising and kicking language reader learn American English well enough out the other two and still with no word among to read McCarthy in McCarthy’s English, provides no them rekindling the fire and setting their battered feasible solution because even for the native-language pannikins about it, squatting on their haunches, reader, McCarthy requires reading skills honed over eating again wordlessly with beltknives, until the years, and still what is written in the native language bearded one rose and stood spraddlelegged before remains alien.) Age-old issues of what and how, the fire and closed the other two in a foul white content and form, message and manner, sender and plume of smoke out of and through which they receiver — the nature, limits, and possibilities of fought suddenly and unannounced and mute and translation — rise phoenix-like in the task of as suddenly ceased, picking up their ragged duffel translating McCarthy, for his unique voice in and moving west along the river once again. American English should somehow remain just so as it The native-language reader of English — whose is carried into other languages, if only this were exegesis makes him the first of McCarthy’s translators possible. — is immediately challenged intralingually, as he will The reader enters the cryptic and foreboding world be throughout the novel (and is so throughout of Outer Dark through the following four sentences, McCarthy’s books), to make clear sense of what is italicized in the novel: transpiring. Nida and Taber, who privilege meaning THEY CRESTED OUT on the bluff in the late over form and manner, remind us that “translating afternoon sun with their shadows long on the must aim primarily at ‘reproducing the message.’ To sawgrass and burnt sedge, moving single file and do anything else is essentially false to one’s task as a slowly high above the river and with something of translator” (12).12 To recast their prescription for doing its own implacability, pausing and grouping for a translation, “the translator is bound to ask himself: moment and going on again strung out in What was it that [McCarthy], writing in his day [or in silhouette against the sun and then dropping under his American cultural idiolect and the southern the crest of the hill into a fold of blue shadow with Appalachian socio-dialect of the mid 20th century] light touching them about the head in spurious understood by the [English] he used? If we are to sanctity until they had gone on for such a time as make a faithful translation of [McCarthy’s novel] this saw the sun down altogether and they moved in is what must be our viewpoint” (8). The translator into shadows altogether which suited them very well. Spanish must first be an informed, at-home, and When they reached the river it was full dark and perfect reader who fully understands the English, no they made camp and a small fire across which mean feat because the average or even strong native their shapes moved in a nameless black ballet. reader of English must often struggle mightily to They cooked whatever it was they had with them in follow and understand McCarthy’s words, syntax,

10 Translation Review absence of punctuation, and layering of meanings. So the bearded one rising [getting/waking up, or the task of translating is doubled from the onset, standing up] and kicking out [rousing] the other requiring first an exegetic exercise, an intralingual two and still with no word among them rekindling kerneling or back-transformation within or from [lighting again] the fire and setting their battered English to English, before moving the work across pannikins [small pans or metal cups] about it, languages from English to Spanish. Such an exercise squatting on their haunches [the fleshy part of in preliminary lexical intralingual translation might the body about the hip], eating again wordlessly look something like the following, the extent of which with beltknives [large knives worn on their would, of course, vary from reader to reader: belts], until the bearded one rose and stood THEY CRESTED OUT [reached the top] on spraddlelegged [moving with or having the legs the bluff [cliff, headland, or hill with a broad wide apart] before [in front of] the fire and steep face] in the late afternoon sun with their closed [by so doing covered] the other two in a shadows long on the sawgrass [Cladium (fen- foul white plume of smoke out of and through sedge, sawgrass, or twig-sedge) is a genus of which they fought suddenly and unannounced large sedges, with a world-wide distribution in [with stealth, like a sneak attack or assault] and tropical and temperate regions. These are mute [in silence] and as suddenly ceased, picking plants characterized by long, narrow (grass- up their ragged duffel [camper’s clothing and like) leaves having sharp, often serrated equipment] and moving [moved, headed out] (sawtooth-like) margins, and flowering stems 1– west along the river once again. 3 m tall bearing a much-branched inflorescence For the sake of reading and full comprehension, … Because of the sharp, saw-like serrulations these four opening sentences might be fragmented into on the blades, dense beds of saw-grass can be smaller units, such as the eighteen shorter sentences dangerous to attempt to navigate through (the that follow (a type of mental remapping that often blades easily cut flesh)]13 and burnt sedge [the occurs similarly on the part of the reader qua family Cyperaceae, or the sedge family, a taxon translator, during the reading, once a lexical unpacking of monocot flowering plants that superficially is completed, so that a fuller understanding of words, resemble grasses or rushes … associated with syntax, punctuation, and verbal context is achieved): wet places and poor soils.], moving single file THEY reached the top of the cliff. In the late and slowly high above the river and with afternoon sun with their shadows long on the something of its own [the river’s own] sawgrass and burnt sedge, they were slowly and implacability [steady flow], pausing and grouping steadily moving single file high above the river for a moment and going on again strung out in and with something of the river’s steady flow. silhouette against the sun and then dropping under They paused and came together in a group for a the crest of the hill into a fold of blue shadow with moment and went on again. They were strung out light touching them about the head in spurious in silhouette against the sun. Then they dropped [not genuine, authentic, or true] sanctity under the crest of the hill into a fold of blue [holiness, saintliness, or godliness] until they had shadow with light touching them about the head in gone on for such a time as saw the sun down false holiness until they had gone on until the sun altogether [until the sun set completely] and they set completely. They moved about completely in moved in shadows altogether [completely in the the shadows, which suited them very well. When shadows] which suited them very well. When they they reached the river it was completely dark. reached the river it was full [completely] dark and They made camp and a small fire behind or over they made camp and a small fire across [behind which their shapes moved in a nameless black or above] which their shapes moved in a nameless ballet. They cooked whatever it was they had with black ballet. They cooked whatever it was they had them in various crude pots and pans. They turned with them in whatever [various] crude vessels in to sleep, sprawled on the packed mud with all [pots and pans] and turned in to sleep, sprawled their clothes on with their mouths open to the on the packed mud full clothed [with all their stars. They woke up and were moving when the clothes on] with their mouths gaped [open] to the sun rose. The bearded one stood up and roused the stars. They were about [woke up and were other two. They did not speak while they lit the moving] with the first light [when the sun rose], fire again and set their small battered pans or

Translation Review 11

metal cups about it. They squatted on their cazoletas, sentados en cuclillas y comiendo en haunches. They ate wordlessly with the large absoluto silencio con sus cuchillos de cinto, hasta knives they wore on their belts. The bearded one que el barbudo se levantó y se plantó abierto de rose and stood with his legs wide apart in front of piernas ante la lumbre y encerró a los otros dos en the fire which covered the other two in a foul un penacho de pestilente humo blanco a través del white plume of smoke. They fought suddenly and cual se batieron de súbito para resurgir sin previo with stealth and in silence and just as suddenly aviso y mudos y quedar inmóviles tan ceased. They picked up their ragged camper’s repentinamente como antes, recogiendo sus raídos clothing and equipment and headed out west along pertrechos y reanudando la marcha hacia el oeste the river once again. siguiendo el río (7). But, of course, McCarthy unpacked in this manner It is immediately apparent that a key element of is no longer McCarthy because it is not so much the what makes McCarthy McCarthy in English — the story being told as the telling of the story — how it is surface structure itself, conduit of style, tone, and told, a whole new style seeking expression — that narrative voice — is transmuted as he is reborn before makes McCarthy McCarthy. The telling of the story is the reader’s eyes in Spanish. This, of course, is at the heart of the story.14 Such semantic and syntactic inevitable, given that the genius of each language is unpacking serves merely as an illustration; it is a different.16 As we proceed to examine aspects of the heuristic device, a metaphor for how translation challenges posed to the translator by the four opening proceeds as an endeavor based first and foremost on as sentences of Outer Dark, and representative complete a comprehension of meaning as possible. difficulties elsewhere in the novel, the intent is The old law imposes itself: to begin with, one cannot certainly not to morph into a Rabassaian “Professor adequately or correctly translate what one does not Horrendo,”17 searching out in bad faith minute errors fully understand. in the translator’s final product or areas in which one In 2002, Outer Dark was translated into Spanish might argue discrepancy with the translator’s choices; as La oscuridad exterior by Luis Murillo Fort, an rather, it is to look closely at some of what happens to accomplished translator with an extensive McCarthy, or any accomplished dialectal writer, in bibliography of books translated.15 The novel’s translation — at what happens when McCarthy’s sui opening four sentences reappear in Spanish as: generis English is transplanted or mutated into Coronaron el peñasco al sol de la media tarde con Spanish. Be it said now that, by and large, Luis sus sombras largas sobre la masiega y las juncias Murillo Fort has done a very good translation of a very quemadas, avanzando en fila india muy despacio difficult novel, and his courage is to be commended con el río allá abajo y algo de su misma for taking on the challenges of Outer Dark. It is a very implacabilidad, parando para agruparse un good read in Spanish, still powerful and strange, just momento y poniéndose de nuevo en marcha not the same read, never as powerful and strange, as silueteados a contraluz uno detrás de otro para with the original. luego descender de la cresta hacia un pliegue de The opening clause of the first sentence, “They sombra azul con las cabezas iluminadas por un crested out on the bluff in the late afternoon,” is halo de espuria santidad y tanto tiempo rendered by Murillo as “Coronaron el peñasco al sol caminaron que el sol se había puesto del todo y de la media tarde,” a literal backtranslation (BT)18 of avanzaban ya entre tinieblas, cosa que les which is “They crowned/reached the top of the crag convenía mucho. Cuando ganaron el río era de (or rocky outcrop) in the mid afternoon sun.” A noche cerrada y acamparon y encendieron una mapping of difference in translation, as measured via pequeña lumbre más allá de la cual sus figuras se BT, allows us to isolate what is difficult to translate, movían en un anónimo ballet negro. Cocinaron en untranslatable, and what is lost in translation. In this toscos recipientes lo poco que llevaban consigo y phrase, it is difficult to carry over into Spanish the se echaron a dormir sobre el fango endurecido precise image of cresting out, the motion of rising up vestidos como iban y contemplando boquiabiertos to the top conveyed by the verb and adverbial particle las estrellas. Al alba estaban en pie, el barbudo together (crested out), as the word “crest” itself is a despertando a puntapiés a los otros dos, y siempre synonym for the summit or top of the bluff that has sin cruzar palabras entre ellos avivaron el fuego y been reached, heightening the reader’s sense of place dispusieron a su alrededor las abolladas and motion; “bluff” (a cliff, headland, or hill with a

12 Translation Review broad steep face) is rendered in backtranslated Spanish contraluz uno detrás de otro” (BT: going on again as “crag” or “rocky outcrop,” when it might also be silhouetted against the light one behind the other), “risco” (crag) or “acantilado” (cliff) in Spanish, but the which, if translated formally, would lead to something word “bluff” seems to evade a one-for-one lexical understandable but odd, as “siguiendo de nuevo uno match-up in Spanish, whereas the English word alone tras otro en silueta contra el sol.” Interestingly, accommodates all three Spanish words, peñasco, risco, however, a more formal translation such as this would and acantilado; and late afternoon is translated as “la foreignize the translation and thereby capture more of media tarde,” which backtranslates as “mid the distinctiveness of McCarthy’s style, which is afternoon,” as there is no idiomatic phrasal equivalent already foreignized within the English original. in Spanish to “late afternoon,” which can be rendered The next part of the first sentence, “and then more precisely but less naturally as “tarde en la tarde” dropping under the crest of the hill into a fold of blue or “la última hora de la tarde,” or something similar. shadow” is regenerated in Murillo’s Spanish as “para So Murillo is immediately wrestling with frustrating luego descender de la cresta hacia un pliegue de difficulties: the changes in surface structure produce sombra azul” (BT: [in order] to descend from the crest nuanced changes in meaning, and both types of change toward a fold of blue shadow), again losing the together begin to show how English and Spanish differ ongoing movement implied by McCarthy’s use of yet in their expressive and evocative capabilities. another gerund while also dispensing with the original Continuing with the first sentence, Murillo must doubling of “crest” and “crested out,” which in find rigorous lexical equivalents for “sawgrass” and English paints a greater consistency of landscape and “sedge,” which he does with “masiega” and “juncias.” narrative cohesion for the reader. The next syntactic Neither word, however, is provided in a standard string of words, “with light touching them about the general bilingual dictionary such as The Oxford head with spurious sanctity,” is translated as “con las Spanish Dictionary, and “masiega” is not given in the cabezas iluminadas por un halo de espuria santidad” online Diccionario de la lengua española (BT: with their heads illuminated by a halo of spurious (www.rae.es), which shows that the professional sanctity), with the implied “halo” in English being translator at work is mining a more extensive made explicit in the Spanish text, and again losing the inventory of resources (among them, one assumes, gerund upon gerund construction that marks various search engines such as Google and Yahoo en McCarthy’s original. The word “sanctity” can be Español), illustrating a requisite love of the verbal translated as either “santidad” or “inviolabilidad” chase and the will to problem-solve that characterize (inviolability), and Murillo does well to choose the good translators. The phrase “moving single file and noun that foreshadows the unholiness that is to be slowly high above the river” is translated as unleashed throughout the novel by these three “avanzando en fila india muy despacio con el río allá footsoldiers of evil. The sentence concludes with abajo” (BT: advancing Indian file very slowly with the “until they had gone on for such a time as saw the sun river down far below), which is idiomatic and fully down altogether and they moved in shadows altogether recasts the kernel meaning in Spanish, with “muy which suited them very well,” expressed in Spanish as despacio” capturing nicely the “very slow” slowness “y tanto tiempo caminaron que el sol se había puesto that in English is emphasized through syntactic del todo y avanzaban ya entre tinieblas, cosa que les placement; but “high above the river” has been flipped convenía mucho” (BT: and they walked for such a over to “the river down far below,” shifting the long time that the sun had completely set and they emphasis from the three men high above to the water were now making their way in the shadows, flowing far below them. The “pausing and grouping [something] which suited them very well”). Here the for a moment” becomes “parando para agruparse un alliterative image of “seeing the sun down,” momento” (BT: pausing [in order] to regroup for a phonetically reinforced by the “s” in “shadows” and moment), which loses McCarthy’s doubling of the “suited,” is translated away into an idiomatic Spanish gerund form (Spanish does not use gerunds in the that grasps hard to the kernel meaning rather than to its manner of English) in order to privilege a greater sense evocative form. However, Murillo compensates nicely of simultaneity rather than the purpose of the pause. for this loss of the “s” alliteration in English when he Murillo does a nice job of translating “going on again provides an alliterative “t” sound elsewhere with strung out in silhouette against the sun” as “tanto, tiempo, puesto, todo, tinieblas.” McCarthy’s “poniéndose de nuevo en marcha silueteados a parallel deployment of the word “altogether,” with the

Translation Review 13 second one playing on “altogether” (completely in contemplation, but it could also be mouths open in the shadows) and “all together” (three men in a group), act of three men exhausted and snoring. What so often vanishes in the explicitness of the Spanish rendition, happens in the Spanish translation of Outer Dark, and which locks meaning into the notion of “completely in in translation in general, is that the quest for full shadows.” Similarly lost is the double duty pulled by understanding by the reader qua translator leads to the word “suited,” alluding both to being “convenient” explicitation where and when the original text is richer (the shadows were convenient for the shadowy in connotation and ambiguity — and McCarthy’s activities being foreshadowed) and to being concealed words play on intentional richness and ambiguity. or clothed in a “suit” of shadows (e.g., as in a suit of In the fourth sentence, it is difficult to carry into a armor). matching Spanish the rustic tone and surface structure In the second sentence, the Spanish translation of “They were about,” translated as “estaban en pie” “cuando ganaron el río” captures nicely the alliteration (BT: they were on foot/they were standing); of “the of the “r” in “when they reached the river,” with bearded one rising and kicking out the other two,” “ganaron” being even more suggestive as in “when rendered as “el barbudo despertando a puntapiés a los they made the river,” and the phrase “full dark” is otros dos” (BT: the bearded one waking the other two consummately rendered as “noche cerrada” (literally up with kicks), which loses the action of his “night closed”), which in Spanish comes off as a rising/standing up in order to kick the other two out perfect idiomatic match. The “small fire across which bed (a non-bed on the hard ground); and of the coined their shapes moved” is translated as “pequeña lumbre compound word “beltknives,” given in Spanish as más allá de la cual sus figuras se movían” (BT: small “cuchillos de cinto” (BT: belt knives). With fire beyond which their figures moved), in which the “beltknives,” Murillo might have himself created a word “across” is locked into meaning simply “beyond” neologism such as “cintocuchillos,” which would risk or “on the other side of,” thereby losing the the ire of some purists and critics but which would connotation of the three men also moving (stepping, mirror what McCarthy was doing in and with English. dancing, crisscrossing) across the top of their fire “in a Had Murillo resorted to coining a similar word in nameless black ballet,” which in Spanish becomes “en Spanish, he would have been working within the un anónimo ballet negro” (BT: in an anonymous black Romantic hermeneutic tradition wherein the translator ballet), when “ballet negro sin nombre,” a more literal strives to write in the target language (TL) what the yet idiomatic translation, would be more suggestive original author might have written had the TL been the and McCarthyish than the word “anonymous.” language of the original writing. Coining in translation Among the changes in Spanish in the third would have pushed the Spanish language just as sentence, the doubling of the word “whatever” in McCarthy was pushing the limits of the English “They cooked whatever they had with them in language — a new style seeking expression. Although whatever crude vessels” is lost with “Cocinaron en risky, a translator is fully justified in doing to the toscos recipientes lo poco que llevaban consigo” (BT: target language what the author was doing to the They cooked in crude containers/receptacles what little source language. they had with them), which again arrests meaning Next, the compound word “spraddlelegged,” where such stabilization does not occur in the English unusual in English but a legitimate dictionary entry, is original. The word “poco” (little, small amount) tinges rendered as “abierto de piernas” (legs open/with his with quantification that which is more random in the legs wide open), which misses the opportunity to use a English phrasing of “whatever they had with them,” matching legitimate compound word in Spanish, which can include yet mean more than “what little “perniabierto.” Although Spanish is not characterized they had with them.” “Full clothed” is well translated by the English-language tradition of readily combining idiomatically as “como iban” (BT: just as they were) different parts of speech — verb and adjective, noun and “with their mouths gaped to the stars” is rendered and adjective, or noun built upon noun to create a new as “contemplando boquiabiertos las estrellas” (BT: noun — a good opportunity was missed here to contemplating the stars open-mouthed). In the latter translate compound for compound. phrase, the addition of “contemplando” again pins the To conclude with this fourth sentence, McCarthy’s meaning down somewhat more than the English “out of and through which they fought suddenly and original: “mouths gaped to the stars” certainly implies unannounced and mute and as suddenly ceased” is a gaping in astonishment or wonder, a wondrous retransmitted in Spanish as “a través del cual se

14 Translation Review batieron de súbito para resurgir sin previo aviso y novels, in order to foist greater clarity of meaning into mudos y quedar inmóviles tan repentinamente como our reading, we might begin to decipher the passage as antes” (BT: out of/through which they beat one follows: “and the wagon grew, swollen, near mute, another suddenly [in order/only] to reappear without with dew.” So does this mean that the moisture of the prior warning and mute and [to] remain still/immobile dew drops made the wood of the wagon actually swell as suddenly as before). Here the Spanish language in size, or appear to do so? Does it mean that the works more efficiently to express via a single phrasal wagon began to somehow fill up with dew, and that construction, “a través,” the sense of “out of and the moisture seeping into its nooks and crannies through,” which must be expressed as two separate silenced the creaking or the jangling of the tinker’s movements in English, but lost is the reader’s mental wares? The Spanish translation supplies possible picturing of three men simultaneously emerging answers for the reader, eases the reading by adding (stepping) from and coming (perhaps waving their punctuation, while in English we are left more to feel hands to clear the air) through the smoke. “Fought” or sense the meaning through the densely packed becomes overly specific with “se batieron” (they beat language that has been stripped bone-clean of one another), as McCarthy does not indicate how they punctuation. fought, whether by beating with the fists, punching, Further along, we encounter following: “The sun pushing and pulling, stomping, tripping, striking with stood directly over them. It seemed hung there in an object, etc. And the quickened ebb-and-flow glaring immobility, as if perhaps arrested with surprise rhythm of the fighting, conveyed by the stringing to see above the earth again these odds of morkin once together of the conjunction “and,” used four times in commended there” (87), translated as “El sol estaba English, is slowed to two instances in Spanish, while justo encima de ellos. Parecía flotar allí en una the strategic syntactic placement of the adverb inmovibilidad deslumbrante, como pasmado de ver de “suddenly” and, of course, its alliteration, “as suddenly nuevo aquellos despojos sobre la capa a la que habían ceased,” are all lost in the translation across the two sido entregados una vez” (79). Murillo’s translation of different languages. “above the earth again these odds of morkin once The opening page of Outer Dark is but a prelude commended there” as “de nuevo aquellos despojos to the difficulties that will beset Murillo as he sobre la capa a la que habían sido entregados una vez” struggles to rework McCarthy’s prose into Spanish. (BT: again those goods/remains/scraps/spoils above The novel interweaves a high art of vivid, finely the crust [surface of the earth] to which they had once wrought description with varying degrees of been delivered) recreates nicely a rhythm similar to the substandard discourse of mountainfolk in what English and demonstrates either his learned amounts to a southern Appalachia hillbilly baroque background or his capacity for researching and style, as polished and complex as it is plain and earthy. surmising what “odds of morkin” might be.19 Examples abound of descriptive passages that “Morkin” is “a beast that has died of disease or by cumulatively pose insurmountable problems for the mischance” (www.dictionary.com); “odds” might best translator, who has no choice but to compensate, be understood as a manner of referring to “odds and compensate, compensate within the TL. We read the ends” or to a pluralized something peculiar, “odds” for following: “Night fell upon them dark and starblown “odd,” which can also mean remaining, unmatched, or and the wagon grew swollen near mute with dew” unpaired (the possibility of mathematical or gambling (77), translated as “La noche cayó sobre ellos oscura y odds or probabilities seems farfetched for the estrellada y el carro pareció dilatarse, mudo bajo el circumstances, but not beyond McCarthy); and in the rocío” (70). The coined compound “starblown” cannot context of the full scene being described, that of a be similarly recreated in idiomatic-sounding Spanish wagon bearing wooden caskets with decaying bodies — it is idiomatic-sounding in English, as in (remains/scraps/spoils of the earth) dug up by perverse windblown — and is rendered simply as “starry” (BT). “grave thiefs” from a church cemetery, Murillo’s The image of a wagon grown “swollen near mute with translation into Spanish makes explicit what dew” is difficult to grasp in English, and the Spanish McCarthy’s bizarre wording in English conveys only transforms it via the translator’s interpretation into a obliquely, that “odds of morkin” are an instance of wagon that “seemed to expand [in size], mute beneath McCarthy’s human roadkill in the novel. This is an the dew” (BT). If we add punctuation to McCarthy’s excellent example of the exegetic byproduct of sentence, marks and signs that he eschews in his translation whereby the text in the target language

Translation Review 15 clarifies for the bilingual reader what he might not in which the reader is invited to imagine what words to have fully apprehended in the exocentric source- best use in the blank spaces below: language text. It also shows that the interlingual Emaciate and blinking and with the wind among translation is very similar to the intralingual exercise her rags she looked like something _____ by with which we began. _____ miracle from the ground and sent with In the following descriptive passage, “Emaciate tattered _____ and _____ corporeality into the and blinking and with the wind among her rags she _____ of sunlight. looked like something replevied by grim miracle from Only McCarthy would and could have chosen the the ground and sent with tattered windings and halt words “replevied,” “grim,” “windings,” “halt,” and corporeality into the agony of sunlight” (97), the “agony,” and their eccentricity is difficult to match in average reader is stopped in his tracks by the the language of the translation, although attempting to appearance of a legal term, replevy, “to regain do so is a crucial to the task of the translator. Readers possession of by a writ of replevin” (“writ of replevin” and translators always anticipate meaning because being a procedure or “action to recover personal what they are reading in a text builds upon what they property said or claimed to be unlawfully taken,” have read previously in the text, such that an www.dictionary.com). Murillo’s translation of the understanding of what follows is determined not only passage reads as “Demacrada y pestañeando y sus by the words being read but also by what came before. harapos agitados por el viento parecía un ser devuelto But McCarthy startles and mocks his reader with a la tierra por un milagro siniestro y enviado al semantic surprises.21 suplicio del sol en su astrosa mortaja y su claudicante corporeidad” (89) (BT: Emaciated and blinking and II her rags shaken/rustled by the wind she appeared [to Although McCarthy’s descriptive passages teem be] a being returned to the earth by a sinister miracle with difficulties, it is the dialectal discourse between and sent to [into] the torture of the sun in her shabby his characters that most confronts us with the limits of shroud and her abandoned corporeality). The image of translation. Dialect is full of the “noise”22 created by the woman’s meagerness and misery comes across its very surface structure because what for some is an clearly, but the language is loaded differently. The ordinary situational discourse becomes exotic and word “replevied” is an example of specific, specialized unknown, a distortion, for those who are outsiders. vocabulary, lost in the Spanish rendition as the The characters in Outer Dark, “set in an unspecified commonplace “devuelto” (simply “returned”), which place in Appalachia” (from the book jacket), “most is not strikingly charged, within the narrative context, likely East Tennessee” (from the Cormac McCarthy with the legality of a claim for restitution. “Grim Society website), speak in an idiolect that unfolds miracle” might be rendered more accurately as within a socio-dialect. That is, the socio-dialect comes “milagro nefasto” (or “sombrío” or “lúgubre”) rather from the foothills and mountains of East Tennessee23 than “milagro siniestro,” but it is never easy for the (Knoxville and east into the mountains), an exotic translator who has so many choices, so little time. And setting for those unfamiliar with this part of the United the other phrasing that gives pause to the reader of States, and the idiolect is McCarthy’s creation of a English, “tattered windings and halt corporeality,” is literary dialect based on the socio-dialect of that likewise translated into a less distinctive choice of geographic location, which itself now is also a literary words in Spanish. “Windings” is an unusual word creation for him.24 The Appalachian Mountains are an choice in English to evoke the image of the woman old range that runs “from Newfoundland and wrapped in her tattered clothing, and “halt” suggests Labrador, Canada, 1500 miles south-westward to that the corporeality of the woman is incomplete or central Alabama.” The term Appalachia, however, “is that, following the archaic meaning of the word, she is often used more restrictively to refer to regions in the walking as if crippled or lame. The point is that the central and southern Appalachian Mountains, usually Spanish translations do not bring the reader to a halt including areas in the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, like the English lexicon, syntax, and punctuation do; Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina” the need to revisit and reread is not nearly as great in (Wikipedia). For most Americans, the word the Spanish version. McCarthy’s startling imagination Appalachia is associated with a rustic, poor, and can be demonstrated through a brief cloze exercise,20 backward region and people who speak substandard English — hardscrabble southern hicks and hillbillies.

16 Translation Review

The geographic location of the dialect and sociolect in Outer Dark is indicated in the following maps:

http://www.knoxville-tn.com/maps/

Culla Holme, one of the main characters of the you no more of your business (…) You can wash up novel (with his sister Rinthy, who has borne their child now if you’ve a mind to” (48). The American English of incest, taken away and abandoned by Culla used by the squire is regional, but only slightly immediately after its birth), is addressed by a substandard in the context of the novel, as it is uttered landowner in the following East Tennessee English: by a person of some rank in its social hierarchy. The “All right Holme, the squire said. I ain’t goin to ast socio-dialectal quality is apparent in the grammar,

Translation Review 17

“ain’t” and “no more of,” orthography, “ast,” and “earmark” for the reader the fact that these characters lexical mode of expression characteristic of parts of will have, must have, a regional way of speaking. Appalachia, “wash up” and “you’ve a mind to.” This is Rather than translate what is impossible to translate indeed how common folk speak in this part of the adequately, he leaves this aspect of the job to his United States. It is as if McCarthy has transcribed readers in Spanish, now co-workers and collaborators, from recorded speech, which lends his characters an whose act of reading complements, compensates for, authenticity that is rooted firmly in the place where the and completes the translation. The reader of La speaking occurs. The Spanish translation of this oscuridad exterior becomes an unwitting accomplice snippet of conversation is: “Muy bien, Holme, dijo el to the commission of translation, or at least an patrón. No voy a hacerle más preguntas (…) Puede unwitting accessory after the fact. lavarse ahora si le apetece” (44) (BT: All right, Holme, In the short passage above, another interesting said the boss. I’m not going to ask you any more challenge for the translator is how to translate the word questions […] You can wash yourself now if you feel “you” into Spanish. It is a single, simple, like it). What happens in the translation is that it multifunctional word in English, whereas in Spanish, standardizes in Spanish that which is not standard in “you” must indicate either the formal form of address 27 the English-language source text; the Spanish text (usted) or the familiar form (tú), it must indicate turns the squire’s words into a six-o’clock-evening- number (singular “tú” or “usted” vs. plural “vosotros” news expression of Spanish, a Spanish that is universal or “ustedes”), and in the plural it will indicate gender rather than marked by regional usage. The problem (“vosotros” for all male or male and female together, here for the translator is enormous because language “vosotras” for all female). The familiar form of usage that is completely place- and people-bound is address, “tú,” is conventionally used by people who incapable of being exported to a different people in a are on a first-name basis with one another; the formal different location. The kind of speech that McCarthy form is conventionally used when they would use the has his characters use can only be used by them in the last name, usually accompanied by a title such as Mr., setting in which he has placed them. There is no Mrs., Dr., etc. The formal usage also denotes respect, southern Appalachia other than in the mountains of deference, as in a younger person addressing Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina somebody who is considerably older or a subordinate (and a small portion of South Carolina and Georgia); or person of lesser status addressing a superior. It is there is no East Tennessee other than in the Bristol to often used between strangers upon first meeting, as Knoxville area; and there is no other setting for Outer they do not yet know one another well enough to use Dark. There is no adequate system substitution, no the familiar form of address. By convention, then, a viable change in identity. This renders fruitless any character who is called by his first name would be notion of transferring the regionalism of the American addressed as “tú” in Spanish, and if by last name, as English text into a parallel regionalism elsewhere — “usted.” The squire addresses Culla Holme by his last there is no Spanish parallelism, no dynamic name, “All right Holme…” Perhaps this is out of some equivalence of speech beyond McCarthy’s consideration for the stranger he has just met, despite Appalachian Mountains.25 If one did try to the squire’s older age and higher socioeconomic transculturate and find a suitable dialectal “parallel” in status, which by convention (also in English) would Spanish, so as not to translate away the fact that the allow him to just as easily call him by his first name, reader of the ST is confronted with an English that is Culla.28 The issue of Culla Holme’s name (which the already regionally “foreignized,” within which of the Spanish reader will pronounce mentally as Cooja or twenty Spanish-speaking countries would it be Cooya Olmay) had been broached with humor a few located? Whose Spanish would be selected as the pages earlier: parallel dialectal vehicle: would it be the Spanish used What’s your name? in Spain, Mexico, a Central American country, an Holme. Andean country, one of the Southern Cone dialects, or You ain’t got but one name? perhaps one from the Caribbean? How does one avoid Culla Holme. incongruity?26 Murillo’s strategy has been to avoid What? such entanglements by translating the speech of Culla. McCarthy’s characters into standard modern Spanish, All right, Holme. I like to know a man’s name allowing the setting and descriptive passages to when I hire him. (42–43)

18 Translation Review

Murillo has the squire address Culla Holme using the she said, I like to help.) formal form of address, “usted,” from the first of the Pues ojo con ese escalón. (BT: Well, watch encounter between the two men. But the decision to do out for that step.) so should not have been an easy one, an automatic Bien. De todos modos he de irme enseguida. response to a simple equation of “last name = formal (BT: Okay/Well. In any event I need to leave address” according to traditional norms of usage in right away.) Spanish. An interesting feature of the familiar vs. Esta noche no vas a ninguna parte. (BT: formal form of address in English is that in the Tonight you’re not going anywhere.) southeast of the United States, people may often be The message is conveyed in its entirety, but where called simply by their last names, without the use of a the English is a socio-dialectal substandard discourse title, as if the last name were merely a substitute for — “set down,” “I don’t care to help,” “yander,” “got to the first name. So “Holme” can be used by the squire get on,” “ain’t goin nowheres” — the Spanish is the same as if he called him “Culla,” “John,” “Buddy,” standard, devoid of the orthographic and phonetic or “Mac.” “Culla” and “Holme” can be synonyms elements that make the speaking voices pleasurably without differentiation in terms of formal vs. familiar distinctive in English. There is no way to hear in the form of address. Murillo just as easily (and Spanish translation the dialect that the native-language appropriately) could have used the familiar “tú” reader hears during his reading of the English. The instead of the formal “usted,” for reasons tied to Appalachian hillbilly slang has been cleaned up. language usage in the American South and not to Vocabulary, spelling, and word order are the conventions of usage in Spanish.29 means by which McCarthy affixes his regional The dialogue throughout Outer Dark is daunting signature on page after page of Outer Dark. “They for the translator. A conversation between Rinthy and Lord” (102) (short for “The Lord be praised/Praise the a woman who is providing her shelter for the night Lord/Thank the Lord”) is translated as “Por Dios” goes as follows: (103) (By God/For God’s sake/Good Lord); although Here honey, give me them and set down and rest. Spain’s Catholic history has provided the Spanish She held the plates stacked against her breast. language with a rich repository of exclamations and It’s all right, she said. I don’t care to help. expletives, it is not at all the same as the influence of Well mind the step yander. the protestant church (southern Baptist, etc.) in All right. I got to get on directly anyhow. Appalachia. “Goddam it to hell” (70), an expletive You ain’t goin nowheres tonight. (61) heard frequently enough in southern Appalachia and Murillo’s translation (p. 56) reads as follows: environs, is transculturated as “La madre que me Dame eso, querida. Siéntate y descansa. (BT: parió” (63) (BT: the mother who bore me, short for Hand me that, dear. Sit down and rest.) “Me cago en la puta madre que me parió,” “I shit on Ella entregó la pila de platos que llevaba en the whore mother who gave me birth”). The following los brazos. No se preocupe, dijo, me gusta brief list shows how McCarthy’s regional ayudar. (BT: She handed [her] the stack of distinctiveness is translated away into a properly dishes she carried in her arms. Don’t worry, spelled generic Spanish:

When ye get done and get abed (62) Cuando hayas terminado y estés acostada (56–57). (BT: When you have finished and are in bed)

Hidy, he said. (63) Hola, dijo. (58) (BT: Hello, he said.)

Thisn’s right pretty, she said. (67) Yo esta la veo muy bonita, dijo ella. (60) (BT: I see this one as very pretty, she said.) don’t black it to where nobody won’t have it (67) no me la ensucies, que luego nadie querrá comprarla (60) (BT: don’t get it dirty on me, because later nobody will want to buy it)

Translation Review 19

Well, I hope ye luck. Pues le deseo suerte. (BT: Well I wish you luck.) I thank ye. (75) Gracias. (68) (BT: Thank you.)

Where’s your family at? ¿Dónde está su familia? (BT: Where is your family?) I ain’t got nary’n. Ceptin just a brother and he run off. No tengo familia. Bueno, un hermano pero se marchó. (102) (93) (BT: I don’t have any. Well, a brother but he left)

You ort to have knowed one’d do ye dirt (102) Debió imaginar que ese hombre le jugaría una mala pasada (93) (BT: You should have imagined that that man would play a dirty trick on you.)

It’s faired off to be a right nice day ain’t it? (105) Al final parece que hará buen día, ¿verdad? (96) (BT: In the end it looks like it’s going to be a nice day, doesn’t it?)

Used to be a spring just back of here but it dried up or Antes había un manantial ahí detrás pero se secó o se sunk under the ground or something. Sunk, I reckon. hundió bajo la tierra, no lo sé. Supongo que se hundió. El Year of the harrykin. Blowed my chimley down.” (118) año del huracán. El viento me voló la chimenea. (108) (BT: Before there was a spring back there but it dried up or sank/sunk below the ground, I’m not sure. I supposed it sank. The year of the hurricane. The wind blew my chimney down.)

In an attempt to confirm more objectively a despojos sobre la capa a la que habían sido mapping of the difference between Murillo’s Spanish entregados una vez. and McCarthy’s English — so as to see more clearly The sun was squarely on top of them. It seemed to hover what is difficult to translate, untranslatable, and what there in a brilliant stasis, as if in a state of shock to see once again those corpses on the place/sheet where they is lost in translation — three bilingual and bicultural had once surrendered into each other’s arms. (Batista) colleagues backtranslated into English several of the The sun was exactly above them Spanish renditions above.30 They were not given the [people/animals/things?]. It seemed to be floating there context of the passages (a McCarthy novel that had in a blinding motionlessness, as if stunned to see again been translated into Spanish, the text of preceding those remains [people/animals/things?] on top of the layer/coating/crust [more context needed] to which they pages or the full page in which the short selection had been turned in once. (De Godev) appears, etc.); they were simply asked to translate The sun was just upon them. It seemed to float up there face-value into English what they read in Spanish. The in a shining stillness, as if surprised to see again those results are the following, with the difficulties of remains on the same surface on which they had been surrendered once. (Pujol) McCarthy’s original text highlighted: The sun stood directly over them. It seemed hung there La noche cayó sobre ellos oscura y estrellada y in glaring immobility, as if perhaps arrested with surprise el carro pareció dilatarse, mudo bajo el rocío. to see above the earth again these odds of morkin once The dark and starry night fell upon them and the car, commended there. (McCarthy) silent under the dew, seemed to slow down. (Batista) Hola, dijo. The night closed in upon them, dark and covered with Hello, s/he said. (Batista) stars, and the wagon/bandwagon/car [more context Hello, s/he said. (De Godev) needed to decide on the right word] seemed to stretch, Hello, (the sun ????) said. (Pujol, trying to follow the silent under a cover of dew. (De Godev) context from the previous sentence) The dark and starry night fell upon them and the car, Hidy, he said. (McCarthy) quiet under the dew, seemed to dilate. (Pujol) Yo esta la veo muy bonita, dijo ella. Night fell upon them dark and starblown and the wagon I find this one very nice, she said. (Batista) grew swollen near mute with dew. (McCarthy) This one, I find it very nice, said she. (De Godev) El sol estaba justo encima de ellos. Parecía I think this one is very pretty, she said. (Pujol) flotar allí en una inmovibilidad deslumbrante, Thisn’s right pretty, she said. (McCarthy) como pasmado de ver de nuevo aquellos No tengo familia. Bueno, un hermano pero se marchó.

20 Translation Review

I do not have a family. Well, a brother who is gone. dialectal perfect pitch systematically applied. The (Batista) question is: Does a translator try to turn McCarthy’s I don’t have family. Well, a brother but he left. (De Godev) rotgut moonshine into Spanish wine or Mexican I do not have any family. Well, just one brother, but he tequila? Can s/he? Should s/he? How and to what went away. (Pujol) extent?35 Murillo’s translation strategy of transforming I ain’t got nary’n. Ceptin just a brother and he run off. McCormac’s East Tennessee Appalachian dialect into (McCarthy) standard Spanish, also because of the different Debió imaginar que ese hombre le jugaría una parameters of the genius of the Spanish language and mala pasada. what it will and will not allow, means that the reader S/he should have imagined that the man would play a dirty trick. (Batista) in Spanish misses out on so much of what the native- S/he must have imagined that that man would play a language reader of English is able to enjoy. Yet dirty trick on him/her. (De Godev) reading McCarthy in Spanish, La oscuridad exterior, (S/he) should have guessed that that man would play a is also enjoyable, just not in the same way. What is dirty trick on her. (Pujol) You ort to have knowed one’d do ye dirt. (McCarthy) missing in Spanish is the seamless suturing of speech Al final parece que hará buen día, ¿verdad? to landscape, of discourse to narrative description. To It seems it will be a good day after all, right? (Batista) translate is to enter a contest of words and usage After all, it looks like will have good weather, won’t we? between source and target texts, each writer — the (De Godev) original author and the translator — responsible to his It seems that at the end it will be a nice day, right? own readers. But in the end, McCarthy in his own (Pujol) It’s faired off to be a right nice day ain’t it? (McCarthy) English is a far greater writer than he is in Spanish These backtranslations into English confirm that it is translation, or could be in translation into any other impossible to trace McCarthy’s textual footprints back language. The effort itself to have it be otherwise to Appalachia East Tennessee via Murillo’s would push the translation endeavor beyond science or translation. In the end, the Spanish translation leads us craft toward a matching and impossibly high art. full circle back to the intralingual translation exercise McCarthy’s writing in Outer Dark allows us to we began with — the Englishing of the English for the intuit the deeper, greater potentialities of the English sake of comprehension — only Murillo’s words are in language — its Appalachian genius. Our encounter Spanish instead of English. To translate counter to the with his “whole new style seeking expression” forces convention of moving substandard dialect into us to confront how little we really know about our own standard discourse is a much more ambitious, Gordian, English language and how much we take it for and risky proposition, yet it would provide that granted. The prestigious literary and cultural arbiter El difficult Steinerian restitution to the enterprise.31 País has recognized McCarthy in Spanish as One way the Spanish translation could have “sinónimo de grandeza literaria” (synonymous with 36 retained some of what McCarthy does with his English literary greatness). As such, he is a writer who must would have been to “eyemark” (and thereby be translated even while defying translation, the “earmark”) it with occasional substandard spellings of paradox of the craft. Outer Dark (1968) is indeed words, such that “ye”32 might become “uté” or “uhté,” corporeal in Spanish as La oscuridad exterior (2002). “hidy” (variant of “howdy”) might be written as “jula” Spanish with the translated McCarthy is certainly all or “quiubo” (or something similar), and “harrykin” the better for it than with no McCarthy at all. But the might take on a new form as “uracán” or “harucán.” Spanish Cormac McCarthy is never the Cormac Such misspellings would be artificial but in a generic McCarthy he is in Appalachian English. He is not way, not as a transculturation that would tie to a himself, nor can he be, by definition, nor should we specific region in a Spanish-speaking country.33 And expect him to be. Because his “grandeza literaria” is misspellings could be combined with the strategic not nearly as palpable in Spanish, the impact that planting of ungrammaticalities, such that “thisn’s right McCarthy could and should have in Spanish is pretty” might be expressed as “yo ehta la beo mú diminished, his place within Spanish literature is not as bonita”; “to where nobody won’t have it” as “que influential as it should be. La oscuridad exterior is an luego naide querrá la comprá”; or “I ain’t got nary’n” offspring, immediate family; it bears a striking 37 as “No teingo ningú familia.” Or a certain mountain likeness to Outer Dark, but it can never be a clone. Spanish dialect could have been adopted.34 Attempting The reader of both languages, when reading McCarthy to do so would require a very good ear, a kind of in Spanish, feels nostalgic for his English. Emanating

Translation Review 21 from within the genius of his dialectal American Rabassa, Gregory. If This Be Treason. New York. New English, the genius of McCarthy lies inevitably Directions. 2005. beyond what any other language is capable of doing _____. “If This Be Treason: Translation and Its for him. McCarthy is what he truly is only in the idio- Possibilities.” Translation: Literary, socio-dialect of his fictional East Tennessee Linguistic and Philosophical Perspectives. Ed. William Frawley. London and Toronto. U. of Delaware Press. 1984. Appalachian landscape and characters. Luis Murillo 24. Fort, engaged in doing the impossible, the hard labor Raffel, Burton. The Art of Translating Poetry. University of the good utopian, helps us to better understand the Park, PA. The Pennsylvania State Sisyphean nature, possibilities, and limits of University Press. 1988. translation, such that we proclaim with Ortega: Robinson, Douglas. “Hermeneutic Motion.” Routledge “Translation is dead! Long live translation!” Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. Ed. Mona Baker. London and New York. Routledge. 1998. 97–99. Schleiermacher, Friedrich. From “On the Different Methods of Translating.” Trans. Waltraud Works Cited Bartscht. Theories of Translation. Ed. Rainer Schulte and John Biguenet. Chicago and London. The University of Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. Chicago Press. 1992. 36–54. Trans. Justin O’Brien. New York. Steiner, George. After Babel: Aspects of Language and Vintage Books. 1955. 89 and 91. Translation. New York and London. Oxford University Dictionary.com. www.dictionary.com. Press. 1975. Gibson, Mike. “He Felt at Home Here: Knoxville gave The Random House Dictionary of the English Language Cormac McCarthy the raw material of his (Second Edition Unabridged). New York. Random art. And he gave it back.” Metro Pulse [Knoxville] 1 March House, Inc. 1987. , Vol. 11, No. 9, as it appears in the Official Website of Venuti, Lawrence. The Translator’s Invisibility: A History the Cormac McCarthy Society, of Translation. London and New http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/. York. Routledge. 1995. Hervey, Sandór, Ian Higgins, and Louise M. Haywood. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Thinking Spanish Translation: A Course http://www.wikipedia.org/ in Translation Method, Spanish to English. London.

Routledge. rpt 1998. Jakobson, Roman. “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation.” Footnotes

Theories of Translation. Ed. Rainer 1 Schulte and John Biguenet. Chicago and London. The From McCarthy's novel Suttree (339), hailed by critics as a University of Chicago Press. 1992. 144–151. masterpiece. This line aptly describes McCarthy's writing from the very beginning. Knoxville-Tn.Com. http://www.knoxville-tn.com/maps/. 2 Maps.com. http://www.maps.com/. His first four novels are set in or near the Appalachian McCarthy, Cormac. La oscuridad exterior. Trans. Luis mountains: (1965), Outer Dark (1968), Murillo Fort. Barcelona. Random House Mondadori, S.A. (1974), and Suttree (1979). His last five novels 2002. are set in the desert southwest of the Texas-Mexico border: McCarthy, Cormac. Outer Dark. New York. Vintage , Or the Evening Redness in the West International. 1993. (1985), All the Pretty Horses (1992), The Crossing (1994), _____ Suttree. New York. Vintage International. 1992. Cities of the Plain (1998), and Nabokov, Vladimir. “Problems in Translation: Onegin in (2005). For more on McCarthy and his works, visit the English.” Theories of Translation. Ed. excellent Official Website of the Cormac McCarthy Society at http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/. Rainer Schulte and John Biguenet. Chicago and London. 3 The University of Chicago Press. 1992. 127–143. In his essay “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation,” Nida, Eugene A. and Charles R. Taber. The Theory and Russian linguist Roman Jakobson identifies the first of Practice of Translation. Leiden/Boston. Brill. 2003. “three ways of interpreting a verbal sign” as “intralingual Official Website of the Cormac McCarthy Society. translation or rewording (. . .) an interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs of the same language” (145). http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/. 4 Ortega y Gasset, José. “The Misery and the Splendor of The Official Website of the Cormac McCarthy Society Translation.” Trans. Elizabeth Gamble contains a “Translations” section in the “Resources” link Miller. Theories of Translation. Ed. Rainer Schulte and which provides translations into English of the Spanish- John Biguenet. Chicago and London. The University of language passages that McCarthy incorporates in his novels Chicago Press. 1992. 93–112. Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain. In this article I am interested in the

22 Translation Review problems of translation proper, Jakobson's interlinguistic understanding of the source text” because the aim of correct translation, of McCarthy's American English into Spanish. translation is “to make certain that [the average reader for 5 This image of a “guttural dialect” is given by Mike which a translation is intended] is very unlikely to Gibson: “In an article that seems destined to become misunderstand it” (viii and 1). The focus of this classic work something of a classic, Knoxville Metro Pulse writer Mike on translation theory and practice is the Bible “because this Gibson looks at McCarthy's non-Western canon as well as has been a major concern for interlingual communication his life in and around Knoxville; the article includes for an exceptionally long period of time, (2) involved more interviews with several people who knew McCarthy during than 2,000 diverse languages, (3) is concerned with a range his East Tennessee days.” of cultures, and (4) represents a broader range of literary 6 In his essay “Problems of Translation: Onegin in English,” structures than any other type of translating” (vii). Vladimir Nabokov, an advocate of fidelity as literalism in 13 The word “sawgrass” is itself a challenge to find in translation, prescribes “translations with copious footnotes, English-language dictionaries, and does not appear in tomes footnotes reaching like skyscrapers to the top of this or that such as The Random House Dictionary of the English page,” as compensation for the translator's (reader's) Language (Second Edition Unabridged) or in sites such as ignorance. www.dictionary.com, although through the latter's link to 7 For example, even to an American such as me, who was Encyclopedia, “sawgrass” is defined and illustrated by raised and has lived, worked, and traveled in the Wikipedia. Appalachian piedmont and mountains of Virginia and North 14 One can think of a humorous anecdote or joke told by a Carolina, and who has visited neighboring East Tennessee. good raconteur or comedian; put the same words in the 8 In his essay “The Misery and Splendor of Translation,” the mouth of another, and there is no longer anything funny Spanish thinker José Ortega y Gasset writes that “it is about it. utopian to believe that two words belonging to different 15 An internet search shows that his numerous translations languages, and which the dictionary gives us as translations range from literature (e.g., McCarthy's Outer Dark and of each other, refer to exactly the same objects” (96). The Blood Meridian, Nicholson Baker, etc.) to contemporary essay discusses translators as either good or bad utopians: world affairs (Seymour Hersh's Chain of Command: The “The bad utopian thinks that because it [translation] is Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib trans. as Del 11 de desirable, it is possible,” while “the good utopian, on the septiembre a las torturas de Abu Ghraib). other hand, thinks that because it would be desirable to free 16 Nida and Taber state that “each language has its own men from the divisions imposed by languages, there is little genius. That is to say, each language possesses certain probability that it can be attained; therefore it can only be distinctive characteristics which give it a special character achieved to an approximate measure” (96, 98-99). By (. . .) To communicate effectively one must respect the Ortegian, I refer to the “good utopian” translator who genius of each language” (3-4). Raffel, in his book The Art recognizes the impossibility of translation while at the same of Translating Poetry, expresses this same notion in the time proceeding to translate with this full awareness, the following manner: Sisyphean consciousness of Camus. 1. No two languages having the same phonology, it is 9 Friedrich Schleiermacher: “Either the translator leaves the impossible to re-create the sounds of a work writer alone as much as possible and moves the reader composed in one language in another language. toward the writer, or he leaves the reader alone as much as 2. No two languages having the same syntactic possible and moves the writer toward the reader” (42). structures, it is impossible to re-create the syntax of 10 Rabassa writes in his essay “If This Be Treason: a work composed in one language in another Translation and Its Possibilities,” that “Some books are very language. mulish about being 'led across'” (24). But moving the reader 3. No two languages having the same vocabulary, it is toward a mulish source text that is alien to begin with is also impossible to re-create the vocabulary of a work very problematic. composed in one language in another language. (12) 11 Dynamic equivalence is the “quality of a translation in 17 Renowned translator Gregory Rabassa takes “Professor which the message of the original text has been so Horrendo” to task in his article “If This Be Treason: transported into the receptor language that the response of Translation and Its Possibilities,” in which he writes: the receptor is essentially like that of the original receptors.” The bane of the translator more often than not is the The focus is on message and meaning transfer, as opposed critic who does know the other language; he is usually to formal correspondence or literalness (200-201). an academician who has done his homework and 12 In their seminal book, The Theory and Practice of checked out the English against the original. If there is Translation (1969), Nida and Taber describe “the set of a mistake or slip, he will surely find it, and he is not processes that are actually employed in translating,” stating above suggesting alternate possibilities, some of which that “in the first place a translation must make sense” (vii). are as cogent as that exasperating last entry on multiple- Their “new” approach to translation is one in which choice exams, 'None of these.' Sarah Blackburn has “techniques of translation are always secondary to the dubbed this fellow Professor Horrendo, and he is too

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much with us as he brings the nastiness of the academic over, but it is absurd and outlandish to have a Brazilian ninguneo (Mexican for put-down) into literary sertanejo talking like an Appalachian mountain man” (24), criticism. But it is his mood that offends, for in truth he which would also obtain for an Appalachian mountain man is often right: there have been mistakes, they should be being made to sound like any other thing but what he is. corrected, which is why it is impossible for a translation Rabassa concludes that “The transfer of local or regional ever to be final. (27) idiom into another language, therefore, must be listed as 18 Backtranslation, or translating the Spanish translation another of the impossibilities of translation” (24). In back into the English language from which is was originally Thinking Spanish Translation, Hervey, Higgins and translated, will be abbreviated as BT. The backtranslations I Haywood write that “the further down one goes on the provide are communicative translations, that is, translations social scale, the more necessary it is to take social and that strive for natural communicative expression in English of regional considerations together” (114), which is what the message first, then somewhat the form, of the Spanish text. Outer Dark then requires by definition. 19 In a 4-5-07 email to me, Murillo confirmed that although 26 Hervey et. al. write that “rendering ST dialect with TL he does not know Cormac McCarhty personally, or dialect is a form of cultural transplantation. Like all cultural communicate with him directly, he does send queries to transplantations, it runs the risk of incongruity in the TT” (113). Cormac McCarthy's editor, Gary Fisketjon, in order to seek 27 Also possibly “vos” in the Southern Cone region clarification of problematic passages. If Fisketjon is unable (Argentina, Uruguay) and in parts of Central America. to provide an answer, he will occasionally forward 28 From the Gaelic name Cullach, meaning “boar,” which in Murillo's queries to McCarthy. Spanish would be “cerdo,” “macho,” “verraco,” or “jabalí” 20 Cloze technique is defined by Nida and Taber as “a for wild boar. Rabassa writes that “Names are one of the technique for testing the degree of difficulty of a text by bugbears of translation and usually illustrate its deleting every fifth word and inviting persons to guess at the impossibility (. . .) By not translating names we can at least missing words; the fewer the errors, the easier the text” maintain a certain aura of the original tongue and its (198). In this cloze exercise for McCarthy, I am deleting culture” (14). In the novel Culla Holme is a boar, a pig, a five words to illustrate the eccentricity of his lexical macho who has had intercourse with his sister, and he is a imagination. wild product of his Appalachian mountain environment. 21 A longer cloze example helps us to see the unrelenting 29 In informal Spanish discourse somebody may also be difficulty of anticipating and keeping up with McCarthy's called by their last name, e.g., García or Gómez, and be descriptive imagination: addressed by the familiar “tú” form (e.g., between friends, What _____ vespers do the tinker's goods _____ or as in “Hey, García”), but this usage differs from the through the long twilight and over the _____ forest culturally more generalized southern usage of southeastern road, him stooped and _____ through the windy _____ American English that I am describing above. of day like those old exiles who _____ of _____ and 30 Accomplished colleagues in the Department of Languages enjoined _____ of heaven or hell wander forever the and Culture Studies at the University of North Carolina at middle ______and _____. Hounded by Charlotte: Dr. José Manuel Batista (from the Dominican grief, by guilt, or like this cheerless vendor _____ at Republic), professor of Latin American Literature; Dr. _____ through wood and _____ by his own _____ and Concepción Godev (Barcelona), professor of Spanish _____ wares in perennial ____ malediction (229). Linguistics; and Dr. Anton Pujol (Barcelona), professor of Answer key: discordant, chime, brindled, hounded, Translating and Translation Studies and Spanish Literature. recrements, divorced, corporeality, ingress, warren, Pujol's interesting email comment to me afterward was that spoorless, increate, anathema, clamored, heel, fen, “para leer a este autor tienes que haber nacido aquí” (in querulous, inconsolable, tin. Two interesting reading order to read this author [McCarthy] you have to have been exercises, always useful for the translator, would then be to born here [in the United States, in the South, in fill in the spaces, as in a matching quiz, or to take the list of Appalachia]). words and try to create a sentence with coherence and sense. 31 In his fourfold hermeneutic motion for translation - trust, 22 Nida and Taber define “noise” as “any factor (. . .) which aggression, incorporation, and restitution - the latter, a hinders effective understanding” (203-204). compensatory “enactment of reciprocity” (300), refers to a 23 The state of Tennessee is traditionally divided into East restoration of balance between the source text and the target Tennessee, Middle Tennessee, and West Tennessee. text: “Where it falls short of the original, the authentic 24 Born in Rhode Island on July 20, 1933, McCarthy moved translation makes the autonomous virtues of the original to Knoxville in 1937, where his father was employed as a more precisely visible” (302). As Douglas Robinson says, lawyer for the Tennessee Valley Authority until 1967. For “The translator, for Steiner, must be willing to give back to more on his life, see The Official Website of the Cormac the SL as much as s/he has taken - for example, by McCarthy Society at http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/. transforming the TL through pressure from the SL 25 Rabassa, in his essay “If This Be Treason: Translation and phrasings” (98). Its Possibilities,” writes that “Rustics are rustics the world

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32 Being from the foothills of Blue Ridge Mountains of within his culture and still make it our own” (7-8). Hervey Virginia, part of the same Appalachian range in which Outer et. al. write about this difficulties and possible solutions in Dark is set, I have thought long and hard about the spelling chapters 9 and 10 of Thinking Spanish Translation: “ye” for “you,” and spent much time reading McCarthy “Language Variety in texts: dialect, sociolect, code- aloud, mouthing the pronunciation of his characters. switching” (110-117) and “Language variety in texts: social McCarthy's spelling does accurately reflect the register and tonal register” (118-126). pronunciation of “you” in these general parts of Appalachia 36 El País is Spain's equivalent of The New York Times. The (east Tennessee might be more distinctive), which might quote appears on the back jacket of La oscuridad exterior. also be spelled “ya” or “cha” (as in “How ya doin?” or Similar praise abounds in English: e.g., from the jacket and “Whatcha doin?”), but “ye” does seem more appropriate. inside flap of Blood Meridian, “Blood Meridian. . . seems The problem is that in reading we tend to over-pronounce clearly to me the major esthetic achievement of any living mentally, turning “ye” into a “yee” rather than a “y_h” American writer” (Harold Bloom, The New York Observer); (“How yee doin,” “Whatchee doing,” as opposed to “How “without parallel in American writing today” (Alan Cheuse, y_h doing?” and “Whatch_h doing?”). USA Today); “McCarthy is a writer to be read, to be 33 Hervey et al write that “the safest decision may after all admired, and quite honestly - envied” (Ralph Ellison); be to make relatively sparing use of TL features that are “MCarthy is a born narrator, and his writing has, line by recognizably dialectal without being clearly recognizable as line, the stab of actuality. He is here to stay” (Robert Penn belonging to a specific dialect.” Further, “it would be even Warren); or from the jacket of No Country for Old Men, safer, with a ST containing direct speech, to translate “Like the novelists he admires - Melville, Dostoyevsky, dialogue into fairly neutral English, and, if necessary, to add Faulkner - Cormac McCarthy has created an imaginative after an appropriate piece of direct speech some such phrase œvre greater and deeper than any single book. Such writers as 'she said, in a broad Andalusian accent” (113). wrestle with the gods themselves” (Michael Dirda, The 34 Certain well known writers in Spain - the Miguel Delibes Washington Post Book World); “With each book he expands of Las ratas and the Ana María Matute of Historias de la the territory of American fiction” (Malcolm Jones, Artámila - come to mind as somewhat parallel possibilities Newsweek). of narrative discourse in their portrayal of rural and 37 Rabassa, in his musings on the kinds of treason always at mountain settings and characters, and their regional way of work in translation (traduttore, traditore), specifies that speaking in Spanish, but the mountain regions of Castile are “even if a thing can be cloned the word that designates it not those of southern Appalachia - they don't look the same cannot and any attempt to reproduce it in another tongue is and they don't feel the same, and Spanish hillbillies are not betrayal” (6). He goes on to say that “In even the best Appalachian hillbillies. examples a translation cannot get to the marrow of what has 35 Rabassa warns that “Nowhere is translation more dubious been said in the original. A piece of writing cannot be than here as we try to translate into our own language and cloned in another language, only imitated” (20). culture something that the author is translating into words

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