The Joy of Reading (Part 4, Edition).
Reading is a healthy and interesting life. The joy of reading is a matter of opinion. Listen to me throw bricks, and slowly lead to the pearl.
The joy of reading lies in the comparative reading of various versions.
The heroine of a work is called Hester Brandy, what is your first feeling?Beautiful, pure, noble, elegant......More than 30 years ago, I walked into Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter with such expectations.
It was the (Korean) Shiheng translation. The beautiful and strong Hester Brandy, who married a pseudo-scholar and old man with a deformed appearance and an ugly heart when she was young, fell in love with a young pastor after her husband ** disappeared, and was imprisoned for the so-called "bad morals" and gave birth to a daughter. Such a person is to carry a red "A" (adultery) on his chest. Bai Lan always refused to confess to her accomplices, and after being punished, she lived alone, endured humiliation and hardship, and supported her daughter alone. Later, Brandy and the priest made an appointment to flee to Europe, but were prevented by her husband, who had come out for revenge, and the priest confessed his affair with Brandy in public. Bai Lan still carried the "A", self-denial and help others, and returned to the pastor's burial place until he was buried next to the pastor after his death.
This is a tragedy of love, but also a tragedy and even a hymn of love, life and humanitarianism.
Formally, the psychological depiction and environmental setting of "The Scarlet Letter" are very successful. In terms of content, the author distinguishes between good and evil, praises life and love, praises the courage to break through the barriers of religion and secular barriers, lashes out at the hypocrisy of the church, and attacks the immorality of human nature, fully demonstrating humanitarian feelings. The white orchid is, of course, the object of the author's praise;The author is sympathetic to the pastor, lamenting his misfortune and angry with himAnd Bai Lan's husband was obviously hated, condemned and whipped by the author.
After Shi Heng's translation, I read Hu Yunhuan's translation again. Both of these books are very good. The two translators understand the author's love and hate very accurately, although the content is very heavy and depressing, and it is not pleasant to read, but because the translation is smooth and natural, the feeling of reading is still relaxed.
The heroine of the work, Hester Prynne, is translated by both translators as Hester Brand. It's a combination of East and West, Hester is a complete transliteration, and Bailan can only be counted as a one-third transliteration, plus two-thirds Chinese ancestry. I like this translation very much. If Hawthorne understood what it meant, he would have been highly recognized. In this way, the name is not only the sympathy of the translator and the author for the heroine, but also the love, praise, and praise, and this feeling is innate. Because the white orchid as a flower is beautiful, pure and fragrant, the heroine who defends etiquette, pursues freedom and love, bravely takes responsibility, and resolutely struggles is also full of beautiful, pure and fragrant temperament, and love, freedom, and humanity should be exalted. As Hu Yunhuan said, "The blood-red 'A' word, the eternal spot of light".
In addition to The Scarlet Letter, Shi Heng's translations include Women's Paradise and The Gambler, while Hu Yunhuan is active in the translation and publishing industry with translations such as Song of Solomon and Seurat, as well as other compilations.
Recently, I read Pan Qingji's new translation of "Scarlet A Letter". Mr. Pan is a senior translator (this title is conferred by the Translators Association of China), and his representative translations include "Main Street", "Walden" and "American Tragedy". I am looking forward to the new translation.
I took these three translations in my hand and read them side by side.
Mr. Pan's translation is as smooth and natural as the translation, and it translates the "Foreword" entitled "Customs" that neither of the aforementioned translators has translated (the preface contains the content of introducing the origin of **, and Hu Yunhuan has excerpted three paragraphs, about 2% of the whole text). But there are also debatable points.
Mr. Pan believes that the translation of "Scarlet Letter" as "The Scarlet Letter" as "The Scarlet Letter" is "unreliable" (Pan's translation of the "Translation Preface"), and it is necessary to "correct the name of the Chinese translation of the title of the book, Scarlet A" (translation preface). I think that retranslation is not unavoidable, and one more translation allows us to have one more perspective of reading comprehension, but the translation of "Scarlet A" obviously does not make sense. "A" is of course a letter, not anything else, translated as "Scarlet A", there is no need to drag the mud and water with the same position of the compound finger, and there is no need to emphasize, the word letter is purely redundant, and the original title does not have "A", from the perspective of being faithful to the original, it is most accurate to translate as "Scarlet Letters". It's just that translating "scarlet" into "red" and "letter" into "word" is not much wrong, and it is not "unreliable". In addition, when the English is converted to Chinese, the letters in English cannot correspond to the strokes of Chinese, and can only be translated as "letters" or "characters" depending on the situation. Moreover, the translation of "Scarlet Letter" has been circulating for a long time, and even has a uniqueness in the minds of readers, so it seems that there is no need for another translation.
I don't know what Mr. Pan's considerations were, abandoning the popular Hester Brand, and replacing it with Heather Prien;However, he also translated the Chillingworth (Hu Yunhuan translated as Chillingworth) as Chillingworth, who the reader is already familiar with. It's a bit inexplicable indeed. In fact, the name that can be contrasted with Chillingworth is none other than Hester Brand, and the two are a perfect match. If the name is chosen in this way, then Mr. Pan's translation is based on his own strengths, making up for the shortcomings of "The Scarlet Letter". "Begging Spirit" or not "Begging Spirit", it doesn't matter, he is not the male number one of the work, but the name of the female number one Hester Bailan can't be changed!Mr. Pan's change, while "begging spirit" increases the reader's disgust for it, it suddenly loses all the beauty of Bailan.
Whoever retranslates "Gone with the Wind" and gives Brad, Scarlett, Wei Xili and Han Meilan another British-style name will inevitably encounter Waterloo. Because the names of these Chinese flavors taken by Fu Donghua have already taken root in the hearts of the Chinese people and have been passed down from generation to generation, who can shake them!
Passing through the long tunnel at the prefectural border, you will find Snow Country. The night sky was white, and the train stopped in front of the signal post. "In the place where I kept Chinese Wang in captivity, I came to Yasunari Kawabata's Snow Country under the guidance of Mr. Ye Weiqu's translation.
Shimamura is cynical and empty, the foal is frank and pure, and the leaves are beautiful and ethereal.
Kawabata is a well-known writer of the New Sensation School, in his writing, the feeling is sincere and delicate, the love is illusory and hazy, the atmosphere is cold and depressing, and the thoughts are negative and decadent. The whole text is soft and cold, full of sorrow, bitterness, bitterness and even pain that cannot be dispersed. Translator Ye Weiqu, a native of Guangdong, was born and raised in Vietnam, and once shared the task of translating Japanese literature with Wen Jieruo. Because his personality and temperament coincide with Kawabata's works, and his academic rigor makes it inevitable that he will become the best translator of Kawabata's works. If a great man from Northeast China were to translate it, I am afraid that it would deviate from the overall atmosphere of Kawabata's literature that is slow, cold, gentle, and gloomy.
Translator Gao Huiqin uses the delicate feeling of women to open another window for us to experience and understand the poignant snow country.
Passing through the long tunnel on the prefectural border is Snow Country. The earth was white under the night sky. The train stopped in front of the signal post. ”
The beginning of Gao Yi's "Snow Country" has exactly the same meaning as Ye Yi, but it is obvious that Ye Yi is superior. "On the county border" is not as neat as the "county border", and Yingbai only translates the color of snow, limiting Yingbai to the earth, but ignoring the boundlessness of snow. I'm not an expert, just a fan of eating melons, and I don't dare to get an axe to the class, but in my opinion, "a white expanse under the night sky" is a unique translation.
Han Shiheng, an older translator who studied in Japan, also translated "Snow Country".
Walking through the long border tunnel is the snow country. The night on the horizon brightened. The train stopped in front of the signal house".
I don't know Japanese, so I can't read and compare it with the original text, so I can only guess that maybe Mr. Han really mistranslated. Read ** It can be seen that the snow country is in Japan, so the need to go to the snow country must not be a border tunnel, not to mention that Japan is an island country, where can the border tunnel come from on land?Mr. Han did not make any annotations on this in the book, which can be understood to mean that the word "border" has no special meaning. According to Ha Weiqu's research, "The long Kan-Etsu Tunnel at the junction of Gunma, Nagano, and Niigata prefectures is said to be 10,962 ......meters longThe exit out of the Kan-Etsu Tunnel is Echigo Yuzawa. In winter, it will be snowy." (Ye Weiqu's "Traveling and Weaving Dreams in the Snow Country" If what Mr. Ye said is true, then the first sentence of Shi Heng's translation of "Snow Country" is a mistranslation.) If the first sentence is not translated correctly, then who will continue to read it!
Of course, I admire Ye Weiqu first of all because his translation can accurately grasp the pulse of Kawabata's characters, and in the eyes of readers, the characters in the book should be the way Mr. Ye conveys them to us. Secondly, because in the late 40s and early 50s of the last century, Mr. Ye worked at the Saigon Branch of the Bank of China (now Ho Chi Minh City Branch) "in order to save some travel funds to return to China" (Ye Weiqu's "Traveling and Weaving Dreams, Footprints on the Mekong River"). Mr. Ye is a senior of the Bank of China, and in front of Mr., I am only a late life. I have a simple co-worker affection for my husband. Former Bank of China employees, later famous translators, and experts in Japanese literature, this can become another brand of Bank of China.
I used to train at Nanjing University for half a month. The teacher said that those who have taken classes at NTU are all NTU people. Of course, this is kind words, how dare I call myself Nan-sama!But this shows the realm and mind of Nanda people. Although Ye Weiqu has not worked at the Bank of China for a long time, and the husband himself did not say the start and end times in the article, he is undoubtedly a member of the Bank of China. Our bank should be proud of Mr. Ye!
What a noble heart has fallen like this!The eyes of courtiers, the eloquence of scholars, the sharp sword of soldiers, and the delicate flower of the country's attention;The mirror of the times, the elegance of humanity, and the center of the world's attention have irretrievably fallen ......Who would have thought that the prosperity of the past would become the dirt of the present!”
This is the sad inner confession of Ophelia after seeing the "crazy state" of the Hamlet he loves deeply.
In the university classroom, both Mr. Li Hongquan and Mr. Wang Fang are required to keep this passage in mind and be able to blurt it out.
Under the guidance of the two teachers, it was Mr. Zhu Shenghao's genius and poetic and energetic language that made me a fan of Shakespeare.
Zhu Shenghao began translating Shakespeare at the age of 24 and translated 31 by the time he died at the age of 32. Zhu's translation of The Complete Works of Shakespeare has always been my favorite.
Shakespeare's plays and poems, biographies and reviews, I bought them when I saw them, bought them to read. Shakespeare's translations by Dai Wangshu, Bian Zhilin, Cao Yu, and Ying Ruocheng, sonnets by Liang Zongdai and Tu An, Heine's Shakespeare's Maidens and Women, Langdon's Reading Shakespeare, Hugo's Shakespeare, ......The two compartments of the bookcase are their territory.
In my opinion, as far as Shakespeare's drama is concerned, Zhu Yi is Mount Everest. Later, Liang Shiqiu's translation of "The Complete Works of Shakespeare" was published, which was compared in English and Chinese, and I bought it to read it, but I was disappointed.
What a noble genius was ruined like this!There is the appearance of a courtier, the tongue of a scholar, and the sword of a warrior;The rising star of the whole country, the mirror of grace, the model of politeness, the object of admiration of the crowd, completely, completely ruined ......I've seen what I've seen before, and I'm going to see what I'm seeing now!”
My English level is very low, and I don't dare to compare it with the original text, so I can only use the translation to judge the length of the text. The first few sentences of the translation have been perfectly crushed by Zhu Yi, and the last sentence is like Master Liang's handwriting!When an elementary school student writes an essay like this, I dare to assert that it must have been the fuse of the teacher's thunderous anger. When I saw the translation of the last sentence above, I would no longer be interested in watching Liang Yisha's drama. Because of the image of Mr. Liang as a language master in my heart, "completely, completely ruined!".”
Zhu Yi is recognized as the best translation in mainland China, and Liang Yi is second to none in Taiwan. Some commentators consider these to be two milestones in Shakespeare's translation. This is the highest rating. Zhu Yi is elegant and majestic, Liang Yi is simple and peaceful, and it is normal for the style to be different, but aside from this, it is still a judgment from a high level.
Mr. Liang's prose represented by "The Sketches of the Elegant House" is full of life and taste, elegant and elegant, unconventional, and unique, but the translation of his Shakespeare is embarrassing. For Shakespeare, it should still end with one (translated by Zhu)!
If you don't have the full text, you can draw conclusions based on just a few words, and you can't escape the suspicion of covering the whole with partiality. It's just an ugly experience. Shang Xi Fang's family advised.
There are often people who publish high opinions in various **, saying that it is best to read the original text to read foreign literature. This seems to be extremely true, but it is not true. I don't know how many Chinese languages this public can speak and how many languages he can recognize. Did he read the original texts of Shakespeare, Sartre, Hesse, Tolstoy, Kenzaburo Oe, Márquez, and Saramago?According to his reading method, how many countries or languages can he read in his lifetime?I only know a few simple English words, which limits my imagination, and "Mr. This Theory" can teach me!The so-called "truth" that does not have a realistic possibility is just correct nonsense for the sake of attracting people's attention, and it is not worth a damn. If you can't read the original text, you can only read the translation. The vast majority of readers can only suck the cheese of foreign literature through this way. Therefore, literary translation will continue to be popular and glorious, and perhaps in the near future it will reach new heights. Let's wait and see.
The interest of reading also lies in the appreciation of the plot, the grasp of the structure, and the ...... in the experience of language"Wen Youduloy" will continue to be updated.
Written in March 2022).