On Again, Clif Again

The very thing that drew me to the analysis of literary translations is the question of how humor and irony make it through the process. In my previous work I've used a number of passages from throughout a work to investigate this question.

Though I had previously done that very thing for this old translation of Arrowsmith, I had missed what is now, by Chapter 7, turning out to be a theme: Clif Clawson is very difficult to translate. 

In Section IV, Clif says this to Leora: "Honey, I think a lot of Mart, and one time I was afraid the old kid was going to get tied up to -- to parties that would turn him into a hand-shaker. I'm a hand-shaker myself. I know less about medicine than Prof Robertshaw. But this boob has some conscience to him, and I'm so darn' glad he's playing around with a girl that's real folks and -- Oh, listen at me fallin' all over my clumsy feet! But I just mean I hope you won't mind Uncle Clif saying he does by golly like you a lot!"

Now, you can imagine the pitfalls for a translator. In this case, the idiom 'think a lot of' ended up rendered literally. That's doesn't change things terribly, but then 'this boob,' which clearly must refer to Martin, is taken to mean Robertshaw. Now the rest of it ends up as though it refers to the professor, which is to say, the rest of it is now nonsense.

Well, of course I fixed it. I'm writing a lot more Japanese from whole cloth than I ever expected. It's pretty darn fun, and a bit scary. Maybe someday some Japanese person will blog about all the mistakes that silly gaijin (foreigner) made when he tried to fix the original translation.

Clif and Simolea

In Chapter 7, Section IV, Clif has this to say to Martin and Leora: "Gosh, it's fierce I had to miss the select pleasures of an evening with Anxious Duer and associated highboys, and merely play a low game of poker -- in which Father deftly removed the sum of 6 simolea, point ten, from the foregathered bums and yahoos."

Now imagine you need to translate Clif's nonsense into another language. Actually, if it were pure nonsense it would be easier, since nonsense is nonsense. But, in the case of Clif, if one parses carefully, there is always sense buried amongst the non.

To get this into Japanese the translator had to first figure out what Clif was trying to say, and then convey that message, perhaps surrounded by culture appropriate nonsense. 

How'd he do, in this case? Actually pretty well, but in the passage above Father, which I think is clearly a reference to Clif himself, comes out as the priest, and the tenth of a simoleon comes out as a game called point ten. The word simolea itself comes out as wild boar, but one has the sense that the translator really did understand this to be money, and that was the nonsense term chosen to represent it. 

Still, in my research it's not clear that wild boar ever had anything to do with money in Japanese, whereas simoleon is, of course, a well established term in English. So, in an effort to not lose the underlying meaning, I went with the usual word for dollar and let other bits of nonsense remain. I can only hope Red would approve.

Strangle Leora With Her Scarf

Early in Chapter 7, Martin has taken Leora to the medical school dance. Things start off slowly and at first he frets that she won't get a dance. Then, as she's out there dancing with one person after another, he begins to feel ignored, and comments to himself that she's out there having a good time, and he's left standing there holding her scarf.

Somehow the original translation came out as "I'm going to strangle her with her scarf!" 

Could the translator have thought Martin was holding the ends of the scarf Leora was wearing as she danced? But that doesn't make a lot of sense either. Well, anyway, don't worry. I've fixed it in my version.

"Leora Bleated"

Near the end of Chapter 6, in Arrowsmith (page 69 in my Signet Classic edition), Martin and Madeline have met Leora at the Grand Hotel for lunch.

Shortly he will surprise them both, but for now they're sizing each other up, and Madeline is asking nurse-to-be Leora if she knows a certain doctor at her hospital...

      "'No, I don't think I've met him yet,' Leora bleated."

I wasn't sure I liked the word used in the translation for 'bleated.' It generally means 'wince,' but can also be taken to mean 'falter.' 

I set out to find an alternative, but the problem is that these kinds of words, describing either animal cries or human voice varieties, tend to be onomatopoeic in Japanese, and my study of both English and Japanese thesauruses doesn't leave me with anything I like better than the original translation.

I do find this general question interesting. Exactly what did Lewis mean by 'bleat?' I grew up on a farm and am plenty familiar with the bleats of sheep. But I really don't think Leora's voice sounded like that so much as it sounded sheepish. Even then, the Japanese approximations denoting meekness, shyness, embarrassment, docility, humility and so forth, seem to assume too much. Which leaves us back at 'falter,' at least for now.