Let's talk translations?

[takethewatch]

Does anyone have Opinions and/or Advice about translations to share? It's been a few years since my initial read-through of the Brick, and now that I have relapsed with a vengeance into this fandom, I am about due for another one (as soon as Life permits). I know not to read Denny--but I would love to see some discussion of the other translations out there (especially the new Donougher one) and their relative merits.

Comments

[tenlittlebullets]

If there's a school edition, it's probably abridged. :( The Bibliothèque de la Pléiade edition is heavily annotated, but mostly with historical/classical references and errata from the rough drafts. It's also gorgeous, leatherbound and printed on Bible paper, and predictably expensive.

I guess what I'd recommend for getting into the French is to find an online edition and read the scenes you already know pretty well in English, which should allow you to get back into the swing of the grammar and vocabulary enough to start on the less-familiar scenes + a WordReference tab. Then gradually wean yourself off the dictionary tab and move to a print edition. That, plus translations of short scenes from the rough drafts that had never existed in English before, was pretty much how I learned French (so I am biased in recommending it, but hey, it worked for at least one person!).

Donougher, which is the translation I'm currently reading, handles T/V distinction both via footnotes and in text, with phrases like "...was no longer being insultingly familiar with him." It's awkward, but it's impossible to make it not awkward, so I'm glad she's at least being thorough about it.

[esteliel]

Oh my god, you shouldn't have mentioned that - that edition looks gorgeous! And it's only 57€ on amazon.fr, and there are a few auctions on ebay.fr... Maybe something that gorgeous will be incentive enough to get me to read a French novel again after 17 years - or at least the chapters most relevant to whatever I'm writing at the time.

And the Donougher way still sounds somewhat awkward, but like the better alternative - after all, I am already aware that I am reading a translation, so just give me all the footnotes!

I've been thinking about this quite a bit because I really do like the way vouz/tu is at once so simple and so powerful in the way it denotes shifts in respect - going from the formal to the informal is such a slap in the face if it is done without invitation to do so or as a sign of affection. And usually with fic in English there is no need to think about that at all for me, but since I enjoy the way Hugo utilizes it so much, I also don't want to ignore it, which leaves the same sort of problem all of his translators face, I guess. But I experimented with Hapgood's "thou" once, and that's just not an alternative, I think it's really the most awkward way of dealing with it (maaaaybe, if it is just one sentence... but an entire conversation? Never again). In the end, the Donougher way of using phrases to describe changes in the mode of address probably is the least awkward you can get in a text.