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 Words of Truth and Wisdom: Return of the Prose Discussion
Written by Alethea and Athena Nibley
Some of you may remember that in our last column, I ended up rambling about prose in something that may or may not have been coherent. Some of you may also remember that I mentioned the Kurodahan Press Translation Prize. This week, we have a special treat in the form of added commentary from Kurodahan Press's own Mr. Edward Lipsett. As there was no comment button (EDITOR'S NOTE: Coming soon! Honest!), he e-mailed us and gave us permission to post what he said, and so I will present it to you all now!
“One crucial difference is that when you're translating manga, there is a lot
of visual information to draw on. In many cases words are unnecessary.
The words you use, then, are often designed to amplify or clarify what is
already obvious in the picture.
Needless to say, translating something that consists ONLY of words requires
a different set of skills. Word choice, sentence structure, the placement of
a comma, can all affect the interpretation, and therefore the picture that
is drawn in the reader's mind.
In a manga, your interpretation is probably pretty close to what the artist
had in mind, because of that shared imagery. In a bit of prose, it may be
wildly different... And some of the translators in this contest had wildly
different interpretations. Most of the entries are now online for you to
read, if you like:
http://www.kurodahan.com/mt/e/khpprize/2009prize.zip.”
Before you click on the link, I should point out that it's a .zip file and you'll be asked to download it (as many of you may have already realized by the “.zip” in the link), but it's definitely a fascinating excercise to compare all the different translations. I'll admit we haven't looked at them yet. Our excuse is busyness, a new Kingdom Hearts game, and the fact that that short story was so hard to translate we're not feeling up to looking at it again yet. Our translation is in there, too, but even if we did know which number it was, we wouldn't tell. We're feeling comfortable in anonymity right now. But discerning readers might be able to guess from our writing style.
Mr. Lipsett makes an excellent point with his comments, too. We'll use the short story from this contest as an example. A good deal of it takes place at Melk Abbey in Austria, so for help to understand the subject matter, we looked up the abbey and found its official website. There were a ton of pictures, and a ton of pictures on various other sites as well, and they were a big help in figuring out what the author was trying to say when describing the colors, the goldwork, the architecture, etc. The story also discusses a fresco in the abbey, but we couldn't find a picture of that anywhere (we do have a sneaking suspicion that it may not actually exist and was made up for the story), so we were forced to use our imaginations. And, as Mr. Lipsett points out, the way people imagine things can vary wildly.
It reminds me of the Harry Potter movies. We know some people who think, “Everything is just the way I imagined it!” while our personal opinion is that they got it mostly right, we guess. We were very disappointed in Fawkes, who should have been much, much prettier. But in manga, you already have that picture, so when a series gets animated, everything looks pretty much the same way it did in the manga, or else the fans would refuse to watch it.
Of course, when translating something, the most important imagination to follow would be that of the original author. Translators who are able to discuss the text with the author will probably have more faithful translations. As freelance manga translators, we haven't gotten anywhere near the point where we're able to do that, but in the meantime, we will be very grateful for the visuals provided.
Our thanks again to Mr. Edward Lipsett for his comments.
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