The Deceptively Simple Novel

Carla: My guest this morning has spent the better part of two years translating a novel that, by his own admission, he very nearly abandoned in the first month. David, what went wrong? David: Oh, nothing went wrong, exactly. The trouble was that the book is deceptively simple. The sentences are short, the vocabulary is almost childlike, and I assumed it would be a gentle stroll. In practice, it was more like walking a tightrope. Every plain word turned out to be carrying a second meaning, and a translator who isn't paying attention flattens it without ever noticing. Carla: Can you give us an example? David: There's a character who is described, again and again, as careful. In the original, the word hints at both caution and kindness, and the author plays on that ambiguity. In my language, I had to choose one or the other. Whichever I chose, I lost something, and I'd be lying if I said I'd made peace with that. Carla: So a translation is always a kind of betrayal? David: That old Italian pun about translators and traitors is rather overused, and I'd resist it. I'd say it's closer to a negotiation, in which nobody walks away entirely satisfied. What matters, to my mind, is that the loss should be deliberate rather than careless. Carla: And do readers appreciate that? David: Most of them never give it a thought, which is as it should be. If a translation is working, it vanishes. The only people who notice the seams are other translators, and they, of course, are merciless.