Why Translation Matters (Why X Matters Series)

Edith Grossman, a translator of many important literary works, including Cervantes' Don Quixote, delivered much of this very fine, easy to read, and informative book as lectures at Yale University. She points out that translations make it possible for people to gain knowledge from other cultures and a wide number of thinkers. She deplores that many publishers diminish the value of translators by hardly mentioning them and reviewers who altogether ignore that the volume is a translation. She bewails that while fifty percent of all books in translation published world-wide are translated from English, English-speaking people are deprived of what they should know because only six percent of foreign language books are translated into English. In chapter 2, Grossman tells us about the two years she took to translate Don Quixote, the things she had to consider and the things she had to do. Should she read all the English translations of the masterpiece? Should she study the scholarly literature about the book? Should she consider the different scholarly views about various passages and add footnotes? Should she approach her translation of this four hundred year old classic as he handled the modern Latin writers that she usually translated? In chapter 3, she discusses how she and others handle translating poetry, and offers many examples. How does a translator capture the rhyme and rhythm of the original, its emotions, and its images, images from another country and, possibly also, a different time. Grossman is certainly correct. Good translators make significant contributions to every book they translate. In fact, some translations are a lively duet between the original author and his or her translator. The great philosopher Moses Maimonides (1138-1204), for example, who spent a decade composing his book on philosophy and was careful in selecting every word, told his translator, who rendered his Guide of the Perplexed from its original Arabic to Hebrew, not to translate his philosophical masterpiece literally. He wrote to him: "The translator who proposes to render each word literally and adhere slavishly to the order of the words and sentences in the original, will meet much difficulty and the result will be doubtful and corrupt. This is not the right method. The translator should first try to grasp the sense of the subject thoroughly, and then state the theme with perfect clarity in the other language. This however, cannot be done without changing the order of words, putting many words for one word, or vice versa, and adding or taking away words, so that the subject be perfectly intelligible in the language into which he translates." (Translated by Leon D. Stitskin in his Letters of Maimonides, Yeshiva University Press, New York, 1977.) Maimonides' use of translations proves Grossman's point about the need for translations to acquire information, for without being able to read translations, Maimonides probably would not have known enough to write his famous philosophical book. Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed is based in large part upon the Greek Aristotle's philosophy. However, Maimonides did not know Greek, the language Aristotle used. Maimonides' knowledge of Aristotle's philosophy came from the translations of the Greek into Arabic, a language he understood. Grossman focuses primarily on novels and poetry, and not on philosophical writings, such as those by Maimonides. However, her thoughts, as can be seen in the above quote, apply to all literature. They also apply to the Bible. Most of the millions of people who read the Bible forget that the Scripture they read is a translation from the Hebrew in regard to the Torah, and the Greek or, according to some scholars, from Aramaic to Greek to English, for the New Testament. They fail to realize that what they are reading frequently, indeed very frequently, is different than what is in the original. For example, should the opening words of the Torah be translated "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," as most translations render the Hebrew words, even though the heaven and earth were not the first creations, as can be seen in the next sentences. Or should the Hebrew be translated "In the beginning when God created the heaven and earth," as the eleventh century French commentator Rashi insisted; the later indicating that heaven and earth were not the first creation. Or take another example, the noun "Lord" as another name for God is well-known, but the fact is that "Lord" is not the name in the text. The Torah has the Tetragrammaton, the four letter name of God. When the Bible was translated for the first time, from Hebrew into Greek in about 250 BCE for Jews living in Egypt who spoke Greek, in a work called the Septuagint, the translators felt it was inappropriate to render God's name into Greek, so they substituted the word "Lord." Most future translations continued this practice. As a result, readers of the Hebrew Bible in translation are reading what the Bible does not say. Grossman's book is important. It raises our consciousness to the role and contributions of translators and how we need to respect their efforts and encourage publishers to use them much more frequently.

Though I am not a professional translator, I couldn't disagree more with the reviewers that found Grossman's "Why Translation Matters" a dry read. She is, first, an excellent essayist, and second, an articulate defender of translation's role in making great writing accessible across cultures, times and languages. In the preface she writes, "My intention is to stimulate a new consideration of an area of literature that is too often ignored, misunderstood, or misrepresented." And in a little under one hundred thirty pages, she does just that, offering a succinct description of translation's role in creating texts, presenting a clear rationale for why translation should matter to readers and describing how the misrepresentation of the translator's role by reviewers and publishers limits access to great writers. She caps the book with a lovely essay on the challenges and joys of translating poetry, presenting examples of other translators along with a bit of her own work. All told, an important work on translation role in literature and within the essay genre, a truly enjoyable read.

In the fall of 1986, I was in a Master's program at Washington University in St. Louis, and taking a seminar in "The Latin American Novel." I have to admit that, prior to the course, I was familiar with (but had not read) only one Latin American novel - "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. (Yes, I was an Anglo-centric cretin). We read "100 Years of Solitude," and we read "The Green House" and "The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa." And Manuel Puig's "Kiss of the Spider Woman." And "The Death of Artemio Cruz" by Carlos Fuentes. And several other works. I wrote my major paper of the seminar on Vargas Llosa's "Conversations in the Cathedral," which seems to have no narrative structure at all until you understand that it is actually four stories being told simultaneously. Think Faulkner on steroids. But I didn't read these works, and many more to follow, in the original Spanish. I read them in translation. And so I met names like Alfred MacAdam, Helen Lane, Gregory Rabassa - and Edith Grossman. "Why Translation Matters" is based upon two lectures Grossman gave at Yale University and an original essay written for this volume. She explains, with all of the artful love of a translator, what the process of translation involves, the challenges it poses (and they are formidable), and why translations are important. And she means translation "not as the weary journeyman of the publishing world but as a living bridge between two realms of discourse, two realms of experience, and two sets of readers." For the fact is that no good translation can be a literal, word-for-word effort. It's simply not possible. Languages are full of expressions, artifacts, histories, nuances, hidden meanings and all of the other components of culture that may - or may not - translate well. And even if they translate well, they can't really ever be exact, because the experience that shaped Spanish, for example, is not the same that created English. The translator faces the task of remaining true to the author's words and intent, but that dedication can mean, and often does mean, continuing to "write" the work in hand. In that sense, translation means that no literary work is actually ever "finished." Grossman tackles these issues head on. And it's because of translators like Grossman that we have anything resembling a "world literature" instead of fragmented collections of "national literatures." Just a few years ago, Grossman translated "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes. She had first read Don Quixote in English, translated by Samuel Putnam - the same translation of Don Quixote I first read and fell in love with. Her translation has met wide acclaim, and she talks extensively about it in her third essay in "Why Translation Matters." I knew her work before I met her in this volume. In fact, I've read at least seven novels she has translated, and I learned that I could see "Translated by Edith Grossman" on a book's title page and know that I was holding a novel that would be well worth my time to read.

Edith Grossman writes very passionately and persuasively about the art of translation. Indeed, I found the passion in her writing contagious. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and feel that the first few chapters lived up to the books title. The final section on poetry translation wasn't too appealing; I felt as though her focus on meter and meaning excluded the most appealing part of Spanish poetry, its sing-song rhyme scheme. Not that translating poetry is ever easy or exact. Great work!

This book is a must read for anyone who reads translated books of any genre!

I'm not a professional translator. I'm just a young person interested in becoming a translator and exploring the possibility of getting a degree in it. I found her book to be absolutely phenomenal: I COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN!!! I read it on my iPhone with the Kindle reader app which came in handy because I found myself looking up words constantly--both new words, and words which I thought I knew, but realized I didn't quite fully understand once they were used in context. Moreover, her passion in talking about books, authors, and translators made me actually look them up; beyond Wikipedia and Google, I even went to the library to check out some books that weren't on Amazon or to get the original edition in Spanish once I saw the ridiculous prices for the English version. She inspired me to read great literature as I was never inspired to read in high school. She inspired me to read more books about translating written by translators. And, she motivated me to actually go and pay for my first translation class--one that she will be teaching in New York this year! I can't wait! Everyone--translators, interpreters, students of English literature--should read this book!

For the subject matter it tackles WHY TRANSLATION MATTERS is an astonishingly easy read (I read it twice: first on a flight from Europe to the US and then at home with a pencil in my hand). The book tells the reader very clearly and convincingly why translation matters and how much effort and insight is involved in the art of translation. What I found particularly admirable about the writer's approach to her work is extensive cooperation with native speakers. Hopefully, publishers will draw more than one lesson from the strong case for translation and translators made by Grossman, to whom I wholeheartedly applaud.

A great book that offers insight into what translators do; however, if book were merely this, it would be a rather narrow focus for many. Unfortuantely, many will not stumble on this book and will therefore lose out on the greater questions Grossman asks. Her defense of translation parallels what good Readers do: interpret written words in ascribing a meaning that makes sense for themselves. To paraphrase Grossman's interpretation of a quote by Octavio Paz: All reading IS translation (of thoughts into language). Book is divided into 4 sections: Intro- Why Translation Matters: Grossman accentuates translation's positive effect on cultures through mutual communication /understanding Part 1- Authors, Translators, Readers Today: Grossman discusses the different roles/tasks each brings into reading a text Part 2- Translating Cervantes: More of a nuts-and-bolts of steps Grossman went in translating "Don Quixote" Part 3- Translating Poetry: (Book waned for me here) Grossman talks about the structural demands (rhyme/meter/etc) of translating poetry, but gets bogged down IMO in defending some of her choices in translating Spanish Golden Age poems. Was a 5-star book until last section. If you are thinking of buying this book, I assume you already know who Edith Grossman is (and probably like Latin American lit); book will further your appreciation of what Grossman (and others like her) do and their contributions to our world-view.