“To translate, one must have a style of his own, for otherwise the translation will have no rhythm or nuance, which come from the process of artistically thinking through and molding the sentences; they cannot be reconstituted by piecemeal imitation. The problem of translation is to retreat to a simpler tenor of one’s own style and creatively adjust this to one’s author.” — Paul Goodman.
Translators have a vital role in the publishing industry. They also have a precarious one. They are the gatekeepers between cultures. They forge a link between countries and continents. They take a text in its original language and prepare it to be introduced to an entirely new readership in new attire, making them a sort of faction of literary hosts or even fairy godmothers. They are often underappreciated in their efforts, and have more often than not gone uncredited for their services to literature. They are policed and monitored very closely. Readers are often attentive and sensitive to translations that stray too far from what the first author wrote. As a result, many translators throughout history have lost their credibility, and the readers’ trust, in their campaign to weave their own style and thoughts into their projects.
Here are three translators who took the task of reworking a great text in hand and stirred up major controversy in the process. These writers/translators were not satisfied with the source material and made it their responsibility to render it more palatable to the audience that shared their language, or alter it to suit their own tastes. As a result, they’ve been accused by the literary world of abusing, misrepresenting, or disrespecting their position.
They do have their defenders, readers who maintain that the changes were necessary for the work to speak more clearly to a different culture or language. The disagreements carry on as long as the books themselves carry relevance. Whether or not these translators failed in their personal enterprise or succeeded in executing a risk is a matter of opinion.
1. Mary Wollstonecraft, Elements of Morality.
“It is not because I have written this book that I expect it will do much good, but from the nature of things, for I cannot help thinking that it has advantages which the generality of books designed for children have not. If I do not deceive myself, it is calculated to catch their attention, and fix ſound principles in their hearts.”
English-born Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) was a feminist with an agenda. When London-based publisher Joseph Johnson, recognizing her extraordinary abilities and work ethic, took her on as a reviewer for his journal the Analytical Review and a translator for his firm, she understood that her role was to push her progressive philosophy at every possible opportunity for the sake of improving society. When she was assigned the task of translating, from German-to-English, Christian Gotthilf Salzmann’s Elements of Morality, for the Use of Children, she wasn’t going to let her limited language skills or Salzmann’s blatant misogyny—tragically typical of the time period in Europe—stop her. She virtually repurposed the book into a radical feminist treaty, which was obviously the opposite of Salzmann’s intention. But she didn’t care.
What Salzmann had written was an instruction manual for rearing children that preached the importance of girls being trained for domestic servitude and undisruptive ornamental status in social circles. Wollstonecraft blank-point refused to bring it into the English-speaking world in this condition. According to her biographer Charlotte Gordon, Wollstonecraft slipped in entirely new scenes and morals about women’s rights. The reason she got away with it? In her lifetime, she never claimed credit for the translation. Gordon writes in her Romantic Outlaws: “What better way to enter the debate over the limitations placed on women than under the cover of a foreign male author’s identity? Salzmann himself never found out.”
Nowadays, Wollstonecraft probably would have faced more severe consequences for changing the book so much and mangling the author’s messages. But this was the eighteenth century and she was able to be sneaky. Luckily, she also had the talent to produce her own literary works, and her reputation in the modern era rests mainly on her 1792 A Vindication of the Rights of Women rather than her translating transgressions.
2. C.K. Scott Moncrieff, Remembrance of Things Past.
“There is no man...however wise, who has not at some period in his youth said things, or lived a life, the memory of which is so unpleasant to him that he would gladly expunge it. And yet he ought not entirely to regret it, because he cannot be certain that he has indeed become a wise man...”
This notorious French-to-English translation of À la recherche du temps perdu, though highly regarded in some circles, remains to this day one of the translations most likely to spark arguments. This is due to the many liberties C.K. Moncrieff took in reconstructing and remolding Marcel Proust’s seven-volume magnum opus. Even the title is a bold change. “Remembrance of things past” is a line actually borrowed directly from Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 30.” Moncrieff believed this title was more loyal to the spirit of the novel than “In Search of Lost Time,” the more literal translation.
The long novel series itself follows a nostalgic and philosophical narrator’s nineteenth-century childhood and succeeding twentieth-century ambitious adulthood, where the rules of high society are changing along with the societal norms. He, like everyone else, is simultaneously trying to rise up in the world while seeking authentic love and fulfillment. It’s a challenging read, and a daunting challenge, for any translator, but Moncrieff accomplished it, albeit with his own flair. Not everyone was impressed by the results, though. Moncrieff has been accused of being an opportunist who latched on to Proust’s success in order to promote his own writing. His translation contains many stylistic alterations that are considered by many to be self-promoting and betrayals of Proust’s vision.
Thomas Moore Devlin, writing for Babbel, positions Remembrance of Things Past as something of a base-breaker between hardcore Proust followers and more lenient disciples of literature. He writes: “For people who want to experience Proust’s writing without having to learn French, knowing that this translation deviates from the original can be infuriating. But there are also those who say that Remembrance of Things Past is a work of brilliance.”
3. Deborah Smith, The Vegetarian.
“She was no longer able to cope with all that her sister reminded her of. She'd been unable to forgive her for soaring alone over a boundary she herself could never bring herself to cross, unable to forgive that magnificent irresponsibility that had enabled Yeong-hye to shuck off social constraints and leave her behind, still a prisoner. And before Yeong-hye had broken those bars, she'd never even known they were there.”
Han Kang’s The Vegetarian came out in South Korea in 2007 and was an instant hit, speaking to many modern-day anxieties about environmental sustainability, personal responsibility, and mental illness treatment. The main character, Yeong-hye, suffers from horrific nightmares about animals being killed for subsistence. The gory dreams cause her so much distress that she begins neglecting her work, family, and health maintenance duties. She decides to forfeit eating meat for good and dramatically reduces her food intake. As a result, her controlling and conservative family demands their own set of behavioral patterns from her, and her mental state rapidly deteriorates. Her vegetarianism is her downfall.
British-born translator Deborah Smith’s infamous English translation launched the book into the Western world, shocking and fascinating many a new reader, but (debatably) at a price. Critics have pinpointed the many thematic changes Smith made to the book as revisions that sabotaged Han Kang’s work. Smith, at the time of translating, had only just become a fluent speaker of the Korean language, and investigators have found numerous inaccuracies that resulted in many subversions. The majority of readers, unless they are completely competent in both English and Korean, cannot make a comparison between the two books and decide which version to stand beside.
Devlin, who also analyzed The Vegetarian in his article, brings up the possibility that Smith’s critical error was improving the book through her translation and therefore hijacking Kang’s fame for herself, a major trespass for a translator, who is traditionally supposed to take more of a backseat role in the process of publishing a book. What Smith did was controversial because she, essentially, overstepped herself. “This case is difficult because again it calls into question what exactly the role of a translator is,” Devlin writes. “The Vegetarian is still the same story in Korean and English, and it’s gone on to phenomenal success. But if the translation doesn’t retain the original voice, is it the same book or a retelling?”
