The Cubs: original version, nicknames, and a few things that got lost (?) in translation

Reading English translations of literary works always frightens me a little because if you cannot read it in the original language, you get the feeling that you might be missing out on certain nuances that just do not turn out the same, even in the best of translations. There is simply no substitute for being able to read a work in the original version.  For that reason, I deeply regret not having knowledge of French (beyond a single beginner’s course, French “101″ as it were), as I am certain I would have been able to “feel” more deeply many of the works we have read, particularly something such as Notebook of a Return to the Native Land: poetry almost demands to be read in the original.

Now… the Spanish works we have read: that is another story. I have dutifully read all of the English translations. Partly because it is difficult to comment in class or reference page numbers and things underlined for discussion if I do not, and because, of course, that is the common language of the course. But whenever time permitted, I have also read the Spanish version, particularly in the case of books such as Pedro Páramo which I had already read years ago, but wanted to re-read in the light of literary movements and social change that we are discussing in the classroom.  And now we come to the crunch: The Cubs, Los cachorros. 

Without getting into a discussion of obvious translations such as ”P.P.” (very unfortunate) for Pichulita (I would have made his English nickname ‘Willie’ which I think does the trick without sounding too much like kindergarten potty humor), I believe the translation to be quite adequate on the whole. That notwithstanding, I can honestly say I got an entirely different “feel” for the story after reading it in Spanish. 

Without going into nit-picky examples, I would like to point out one very key sentence at the end of the story which I do not believe got quite the right interpretation. It refers to the eventual demise of Cuéllar. The part in question is highlighted in boldface in each version:

(p. 43) “…poor guy, we said at the funeral, how much he suffered, what a life he had, but this finish is something he had in store for him.”  = “…pobre, decíamos en el entierro, cuánto sufrió, qué vida tuvo, pero este final es un hecho que se lo buscó.” 

Here’s the crunch for me: “something he had in store for him,” as I see it, is something inevitable about a person’s future; it implies, for me, a sense of fate over which one has no real control. In other words, if Cuéllar died in an automobile accident, well, it was pre-destined, it was going to happen, just like the dog was going to attack him, it was just one more example of the luck of the draw, and this poor guy drew the short straw once again. 

The original Spanish version leaves a decidedly different taste in my mouth: “es un hecho que se lo buscó.” This, for me, implies active participation on the part of the victim.  My interpretation of the Spanish would have been more like this: ”poor guy, we were all saying at the funeral, he had nothing but a life of pain and suffering, this was probably the ‘out’ that he was looking for/he must have brought it upon himself.” 

Translation is a fine art, and I am not quibbling with the majority of the translated version which I think is quite good. There are many issues that enter into translation, such as the specifics of a particular culture or subculture, which can never be conveyed perfectly, especially where dialogue is concerned.  The lingo used by a gang of African Americans from a poor suburb of Chicago, for example, would be very difficult to put across in a translation from English into any other language; even in the English verison, many native speakers would be at a loss as to what much of the jargon meant.  But when fairly standard language is used, it is a different case.  My point, in these cases, is simply that the feeling you are left with, especially for a critical interpretation at the end of a story or novel, is as important as the punch line of a joke: one false move, and the impact is either lost or misconstrued.  This particular line was something that jumped out at me as ‘not quite what the doctor ordered’ or, if you like, (maybe) not quite what the writer intended.  Since I am not a professional translator, it is clearly not for me to say.  Vargas Llosa would probably say I was making a mountain out of a molehill!  (On the other hand, you might want to read the ‘Translator’s Note’ at the beginning of the book.)

Césaire and the shadow of woman

There is so much use of metaphor and similies in Notebook of a Return to the Native Land; it is poetry that totally blew me away for its strength, depth of feeling, and the sheer beauty of its style.  So much so that it seems an impossible task to comment on the larger aspects of the themes of this novel and the writing style, at least in a blog post.  I am therefore going to focus on one angle, minor for sure, but which intrigued me enough from the onset to start marking passages that alluded to… women.

The very first paragraph contains a line which made me laugh: “Calmer than a woman telling lies…”  [referring to "paradises lost for him and his kin." So is the female sex better at keeping a straight face when necessity dictates that we embellish the truth?  Perhaps we are better actors or have a more innate sense of cunning.]

Describing the throng of the inert town: “This throng which does not know how to throng, this throng, so perfectly alone under the sun, like a woman one thought completely occupied with her lyric cadence, who abruptly challenges a hypothetical rain and enjoins it not to fall…”  [Women know the power of thought, bathed in a "lyric cadence."  Life is a series of small dances, we must find the right steps to follow, and follow them unrelentlessly. Else... it might pour down with rain?]

A fleeting reference: “Christmas was not like other holidays. It didn’t like to gad about on the streets, to dance in public squares, to mount the carousel horses, to use the crowd to pinch women….”  [This made me laugh and feel indignant at the same time, because when I lived in Bahrain, I experienced precisely this technique used by the local males to show 'interest' in foreign women, all of us wanton creatures for not covering ourselves up properly, of course.  Césaire is good at capturing tiny behavioral details, and I believe he does this without any real prejudice.]

On Motherhood:  “and my mother, whose legs pedal, pedal, night and day, for our tireless hunger, I was even awakened at night by these tireless legs which pedal the night and the bitter bite in the soft flesh of the night of a mother that pedals, pedals for our hunger and day and night.”  [Poverty that erases all thought from the soul of a mother except that of how to feed the helpless mouths that must be fed, and she just keeps on and on because... what else can she do?]

Another simile with a sardonic smile: “…but can one kill Remorse, perfect as the stupified face of an English lady discovering a Hottentot skull in her soup tureen.”  [not a commentary on the 'weaker sex' in my opinion, more a case of the powerful juxtaposition of  'English lady' and 'Hottentot skull in a soup tureen.' An image that says reams about colonialism, racism, and the 'dignified' culture of the Old Country.]

More imagery: “No women’s loincloths spread out on their shores…/ one still sees madras rags around the loins of women rings in their ears smiles on their lips babies at their nipples…”  [women's loins are a re-curring image; a gateway to re-birth?]

I will leave you with this image, which is one of the softest in a novel of images that are often harsh and brutal, one that tiptoes through your mind with a subtle strength, and surely one of the most romantic in this beautiful work (from page 21):

voum rooh oh

that the promised times may return

and the bird who knew my name

and the woman who had a thousand names

names of fountain sun and tears

and her hair of minnows

and her steps my climates

and her eyes my seasons

and the days without injury

and the nights without offense

and the stars my confidence

and the wind my accomplice…

[Mother Earth?]

Pedro Páramo and Negative Space

Years ago I read a fascinating book called Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. One of the concepts the author used to teach people to draw more accurately was a well-known technique in art called “negative space.”  The classic example of this is the drawing below:

 

Looking at the “positive space” you see a goblet. But if you study the “negative” or black space, you will observe the silhouettes of two faces.  By concentrating on the background, or the “filler” spaces that surround the subject of a drawing or painting, we often see an entirely different facet of something that we would not have noticed otherwise.

It struck me, in learning that Rulfo eliminated so much of the content of his original version of Pedro Páramo, that his massive pruning of the novel was a way of using negative space in writing.  By removing the guiding authorial voice, as well as countless detailed explanations, he gives readers the license to fill in the gaps with what they imagine might lie among the shadows of the living and the dead, what might be grasped from peering underneath or behind the voices and events that fill this enigmatic work. Whatever the reader comes up with, it seems fair to assume that Rulfo wanted to encourage individual interpretations by not spelling everything out.

One clear example is Padre Rentería. In an article by Julio Moguel in La Jornada Semanal, I discovered that Rulfo eliminated over 100 pages related to Rentería. An interesting fact that disappeared was that Rentería was actually (one of) Pedro Páramo’s illegitimate children.  One more bit of juicy gossip?  Yes.  But had Rulfo left that in his novel, readers might have focused too strongly on the symbolism of the village priest being the illegitimate son of its patricarchal despotic ruler (the “goblet” in the picture) and less on other more personal facets of his character, such as the mental anguish that Rentería suffered in trying to reconcile his religious beliefs with the behavior of his parishioners and vice-versa (the ”silhouettes” in the picture.) What is not said in Pedro Páramo is often more intriguing (and more useful) in constructing this complex story in our minds, and trying to decide where it is leading us. If indeed it even wants to lead us. Perhaps it just wants us to sense the essence of what was, is, and might be within the myriad of negative spaces it offers.