Literature cannot be translated. How should I understand this passage?

[I'm Stark]

Hello my friends of UE,

English is not my mother tongue. I'm reading this passage written by a scholar about James Joyce:

"Literature cannot be translated, only the appearance of literature, the arrangement on a page of words which do a minimal job, that of describing action, feelings, and dialogue of a fairly easily translatable kind"

How should I understand this passage?

This is my attempt:

1- Literature cannot be translated.

2- Only the appearance of literature, (which is) the arrangement on a page of words, which do a minimal job, that of describing action, feelings and dialogue can be translated

3- "Of a fairly easily translatable kind" => What does this mean? Can you please elaborate for me why this stands at the end of the passage? It made no sense to me at all.

Big thanks.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Hello my friends of UE,

English is not my mother tongue. I'm reading this passage written by a scholar about James Joyce:

"Literature cannot be translated, only the appearance of literature, the arrangement on a page of words which do a minimal job, that of describing action, feelings, and dialogue of a fairly easily translatable kind"

How should I understand this passage?

This is my attempt:

1- Literature cannot be translated.

Yes, that's exactly what it says.

2- Only the appearance of literature, (which is) the arrangement on a page of words, which do a minimal job, that of describing action, feelings and dialogue can be translated

Yes.

3- "Of a fairly easily translatable kind" => What does this mean?

It means you can't truly translate a James Joyce book into another language. You can only translate its most superficial aspects. It's impossible to fully recreate it in another language.

Can you please elaborate for me why this stands at the end of the passage?

It made no sense to me at all.

Even most native English speakers have trouble understanding Joyce. His word choice, puns, and allusions were specific to his time, place, education, and religion. To understand any of his books, you need to be familiar with Irish Catholic culture, politics, and history of his era. And having a classical education helps. (You can Google classical education.)

To appreciate Ulysses, you need to know your Homer. And to fully understand Finnegan's Wake, you need be multi-lingual, as well, because his word play crosses several languages.

For example, in Ulysses he uses the word dogsbody. That's not really an English word. So why did he invent it? Notice that it's an anagram. You can rearrange the letters in several ways:

- dog's body
- God's body
- S.D., God boy (Stephen Dedalus - S.D. - is a character in the book. Now Google Dedalus if you don't know who he was in Greek mythology.)

Every page of Ulysses has word play and literary and cultural allusions. Could any translator capture it all?

Big thanks.

You're welcome!

I took a one-semester James Joyce course in college. It took the entire semester to study just three books. And all the students were native English speakers.

 

[TheParser]

1- Literature cannot be translated.

NOT A TEACHER

Hi,

I thought that you would like this quotation that is attributed to the scholar Okakura Kakuzo [the first name is his surname]:

"Translation is always a treason and, as [an author during the Ming Dynasty] observes, can at its best be only the reverse side of a brocade -- all the threads are there, but not the subtlety of color or design [my emphasis]."

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Exactly! I love that!