The author tries to define translation as a wider activity than what most people think of but most of the examples he gives are still focussed on the translation of one national literature into another despite occasional nods in the direction of translations of other types of document such as the output of international bodies and manga. By the end of the book his predilection for coining new terms such as translationality and transadaption just gets irritating. A disappointment. ( )

Reading plans, pshaw!

Every now and again a book turns up in the letter box and I drop what I’m doing and simply sit down and read it. And that’s what happened with Translation, a Very Short Introduction by Matthew Reynolds. It’s a new title in a series called Very Short Introductions and yes, it is very short, only 120 pages not counting the References, Further Reading, Publisher’s acknowledgements and the Index, which takes the book up to 142 pages. I read it in an afternoon.

I was interested in it because the worth of translation per se is a topic that is persistent in the literary world. There are people who loudly scorn translations because they can’t possibly be true to the original, and so they confine themselves with lofty moralising to books in languages that they know. Every now and again there’s a little flurry on Twitter with links to someone or other pontificating about what a distorted experience it is to read in translation, or picking to pieces this translation versus that one and how this is proof that the whole process of translation is a bad idea.

For the opposition there are bloggers like Stu at Winston’s Dad, Tara at Reading@Large (formerly Book Sexy), Jacqui at JacquieWine and plenty of others as well and you will find links to their reviews of books in translations all over this blog. I like to read and review books in translation, because it brings me worlds I cannot otherwise know. I can just about read books in Indonesian and in French, but it is hard work, and I know I’ll never be able to read in all the languages that I’d like to. I can’t imagine life without having read The Great Russians, Zola or Balzac, The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Bible or Thomas Mann, and that’s just to mention ones that come quickly to mind. Orhan Pamuk, Marguerite Duras, Hans Fallada, Irene Nemirovsky, Simone de Beauvoir, Ismail Kadare, Jose Saramago, Herta Muller, Veronique Olmi, Patrick Modiano … once I get started there’s no stopping!

Well, Matthew Reynolds tackles the topic with aplomb. He’s Professor of English and Comparative Criticism at the University of Oxford and his books include The Poetry of Translation: From Chaucer and Petrarch to Homer and Logue (OUP, 2011) and he’s a judge for the annual Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize. So we know what ‘side’ he’s on. And a nicely reasoned argument it is too.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2016/10/22/translation-a-very-short-introduction-by-mat... ( )