Voluptuous Maiden

Late in Chapter 12, Gottlieb has just been dismissed from the university when his wife falls ill. He calls Dean Silva who graciously makes a house call. Looking around the room the Dean sees, among other things, "the color-print of a virtuously voluptuous maiden."

This phrase conjured, for me, an image which I have seen numerous times before: a curvaceous but well-covered young lady. But the translator has turned this into "modest but lust inducing." Not at all the kind of picture I expect to be hanging there near the crucifix. 

The word voluptuous, in English, does have this latter meaning too; in purely linguistic terms, the translation is not wrong. But it's a cultural cue that I think the Western reader would use to disambiguate. We've seen that picture before, where, perhaps our translator was used to the Japanese version of a beautiful maiden, slender, with any hints of curves carefully concealed in a kimono. No wonder he got it wrong. 

For me this project began as an effort to preserve a good but dated translation of a beautiful work. All along I have shown deference to the original translator, allowing him his own interpretations to the extent that I felt fidelity to the original work would allow. 

In the case of brass bands, discussed previously, I was able to use other research to verify that Lewis meant what I thought he did. Here I cannot, and yet I feel fairly confident that I know what he meant. So I did change the translation, and in doing so, I realized that I've begun to allow myself a bit more latitude. 

Certainly I will always keep it faithful to Lewis, and I will continue to admire the tremendous accomplishment of the original translator. But, in the end, I think they'll both forgive me if I do leave behinds a few breadcrumbs.

My Best Friend is a Dead Guy

In a recent conversation, it was pointed out that I seem to like Lewis because he's "deep and complex." 

I responded, "Yes, my best friend is a dead guy!"

That sounded clever so I wrote it down, but then felt obligated to analyze it. I have sometimes lamented that I don't think Lewis and I would have been friends had we met in life. I definitely still would have respected his talent, and probably would have enjoyed at least some of the time spent in his presence, had such an opportunity been available. But he also had his share of less admirable traits that certainly would have detracted.

Don't misunderstand, though, I'm not assuming he'd be in a hurry to spend a lot of time with me, either, unless he was researching for one of his sillier characters. Babbitt comes to mind.

But as I plow through Arrowsmith, scrutinizing every word in both Japanese and English, my love and admiration for the man, which was already tremendous, continues to grow in fits, starts and semi-occasional bursts.

That's the extraordinary thing about literature. Authors have left us distilled pieces of their greatness to analyze, scrutinize, accept or reject as we will. It's like having friends with infinite patience for our impertinence.

Plausibility

At the beginning of Chapter 12, Part IV, Gottlieb has a plan for a scientific medical school. "He tried to be practical about it; oh, he was extremely practical and plausible!" 

Here our friendly translator has rendered the meaning of 'plausible' as though it were 'laudable.' But, as I began to to re-translate it, it occurred to me that 'plausible' does look like a word that could mean that, think of the word 'applause,' for example.

Looking it up I found evidence that indeed 'plausible' originally had such a meaning. Nevertheless, from context, it clearly seems as though the modern meaning is intended. Still, I couldn't help wondering what the word meant in 1924. With further research I found that there is evidence of the modern usage from the 1500s. OK, add that to context and it seems pretty clear.

But then, as one thinks about the word 'plausible,' there are clearly a couple of modern meanings: 1) a plausible story, for instance, and 2) a plausible person. The latter, of course, is someone who tells the former. 

Since the adjective is being applied to Gottlieb himself, and not to his plan, the latter meaning is intended. But this one is more difficult to translate into Japanese. 

As is my way, I worried less about shoe-horning into the sentence some equivalent of a direct translation of the word 'plausible,' and focused instead on rendering the appropriate meaning, ending up with a translation of the word 'persuasive.'

And now I'll admit I'm a word-nerd to the core. (Only now?) The Japanese word I used is a form of 'settoku,' and it thrills me that one could contrive to read it tokutoku. (The first character can take either reading.)

Now do you see why this project is more fun than golf?