The Art of Translation, pt. 1

As I’ve mentioned before (or as you’ve surely guessed by now, if you’ve even read only a couple other posts on this site), I’m particularly fond of Asian literature (especially Japanese, though not exclusively). Considering that I don’t speak any Asian languages, though, I have to experience it all second-hand via a translator. It’s unfortunate, but I’ve no one to blame but myself (at least until I learn to speak Japanese).

So what’s the deal with translations? Why are some so great, while others seem to fall flat?

Or, the more interesting question (which will be the focus of this series on Translation):

If you don’t speak another language, how can you know whether it’s the translation that’s flat, or the author’s original writing?

What a great question! I’m glad you asked.

In this first post, I’ll give you an example by using Spanish (which I speak with about 8% fluency; maybe 8.5% if I’m feeling extra confident one day).

In English, when we’re trying to get someone to believe a funny story that isn’t true, we might say we’re “pulling their leg.”

Spanish has a similar sentiment: Tomar el pelo a alguien. What this actually translates to, though, is “Taking the hair of someone” (in other words, “pulling someone’s hair.”)

It’s the same idea, but in English we say “leg,” and in Spanish they say “hair.” (I leave it to you to decide if one of these makes more sense than the other.)

So then. Let’s suppose a person is commissioned to translate a book from English to Spanish. They come across “You’re pulling my leg!” When they go to translate it, which word do they use: “leg” (pierna) or “hair” (pelo)?

Of course they use “hair” (pelo), right? – that’s how the Spanish variation of this phrase works.

In this case, the word “hair” is technically less literal, but, by being less literal, it actually becomes more accurate.

(At this point, the side of me that loves the topic of spirituality would love to take this into an enormous digression about people taking the Bible literally, but I’ll spare you that here. It’s worth thinking about, though.)

Now let’s imagine this example starting from the other direction. Our translator friend comes across “!Estas tomando mi pelo!”

Ideally, when we pick up the English translation of this book, we’ll see, “You’re pulling my leg!”

If instead, though, we see, “You’re pulling my hair!” (and, from context of the passage, we know that this is a prank story being told, etc.)…well then: we have a bad translation on our hands. The translator should have changed “hair” to “leg,” right? – since that’s the English expression and all.

Surely you see what’s interesting about this:

Reading this, we can tell there’s something wrong with this translation even if we don’t speak a word of Spanish.

For all you grammar-lovers, you’ll know that what I’ve just described is called an idiom (a commonplace expression that has a meaning other than the literal definition of the words).

And idioms, it turns out, are a good clue when identifying the strength of a translation, even when we aren’t familiar with the work’s original language.

Neat.

REVIEW: The Stories of Ibis - Hiroshi Yamamoto

• Year first released:  2006 (Japan), 2010 (US)
• ISBN of the edition I read:  9781421534404
• Publisher of the edition I read:  Haikasoru
• My rating (out of 5): 4

When Ray Bradbury decided to pool a bunch of his already-published short stories together to give us a compilation, he picked 20-something of his stories that take place on Mars, gave them just a hint of an overarching story, and called it The Martian Chronicles. The problem with Chronicles is that it felt like exactly what it is: a bunch of disparate, older stories which Bradbury tried to tie together in a cohesive way. The stories are all good. The binding of them – the new frame story – was a mess, and didn't actually bring the pieces together in a meaningful way. 

The Stories of Ibis follows a similar structure: seven stories total, five of which were already published (two written newly for this book), with a narrative thread in between each that ties them all together.

Unlike The Martian Chronicles, though, Ibis comes together brilliantly. Reading through each of the stories, we can easily believe that each of them belongs in this collection, and that each of them actually holds weight in the frame story. Yamamoto accomplishes this through a deceptively simple means: rather that trying to pretend that each of the short stories is a literal, historical story for this universe, they are pieces of fiction which one character - an android named Ibis - tells to a human wanderer. Then, in between each telling, Ibis and the wanderer discuss the stories - their themes, their implications, how they would work (or not work) in their current reality. 

Is it cheating for Yamamoto to have approached it this way? Maybe. But it absolutely works. 

Each of the seven short stories – as well as the overarching thread – deals extensively with the theme of Artificial Intelligence: What is it really? Is it even worthwhile? Will we ever be able to create it? If so, will it be our undoing?

Yes, the topic of AI is one of the most oft-tread grounds in sci-fi. Despite this, Yamamoto’s humanistic approach and broad-reaching empathy give us a fresh perspective on the matter, with a plethora of insights - sometimes wonderful, sometimes tragic - along the way. 

Of course, as with any short story collection, some of the stories hold up better than others.

• The first story in the collection, The Universe In My Hands, is an intriguing beginning to Ibis' nights of storytelling, with a fun, meta- setup. 
• In its pure form, Black Hole Diver is probably my favorite of the collection, considering its beautiful imagery and philosophical depth. 
• The Day Shion Came (one of the two new stories) unfolds the most slowly, but about halfway through we realize that it's one of the most important pieces of the collection. 
• And, as might be expected, the final story, AI's Story (the other of the two new stories), displays the heaviest implications of the collection, tying all the pieces together in a moving, meaningful - and surprisingly optimistic - way.

Though I'm not often a fan of sci-fi, Ibis hit all the right notes for me. It is sci-fi in its most ideal form: here are stories with a purpose that wrestle with ideas beyond mere alien invasions and laser swords. Yamamoto has given me much to think about - more so than most other books I've read recently. 

Types of Short Story Collections

(One note, before this whole thing gets started: this post is focused on collections of short stories by just one author. I’m not going to be discussing the “Year’s Best Horror Short Stories” or “The Best American Short Stories of 2017” or anything of the sort here – just single-author collections.)

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read an article written by an author – or, at least, an interview with an author – who says that their preferred medium of writing is actually the short story (as opposed to the novel). From the publisher’s standpoint, though, short story collections simply don’t sell as well, and so they’re wary of publishing too many of them. It’s an unfortunate discrepancy, which is basically our (consumers’) fault. *Big sigh.*

But, luckily, many short story collections still see the light of day. Yay! (Sometimes yay, at least.)

We can generally sparse these single-author collections into one of four main categories (and with one sub-category, to boot):

• Unrelated – As this sounds like, this is a collection of short stories that don’t have any relation to each other. They might all be in the same genre, but even if so, that’s the extent of their similarities. A recent example is Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang.
• In-Universe – These stories all take place within one literary universe, and may or may not feature any of the same characters, settings, etc. A popular example is The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling.
• Single Protagonist – This is a sub-category of In-Universe, the difference being that all of these stories feature the same main character in a variety of scenarios. A fantastic example of this is Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino, which all feature the character Qfwfq in a series of unrelated misadventures.
• Thematic – In a thematic short story collection, the stories are connected by literary themes, rather than by plot, characters, or even literary universe. My personal favorite such collection is Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges, all the stories of which somehow relate to the idea of – you guessed it – labyrinths (whether physical, psychological, mythological, etc.).
• Frame Story – This is a collection of short stories which also have an overarching frame story that ties (or at least attempts to tie) them together. Perhaps the most common example of this is The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. Often for these collections, the author will combine various stories s/he’s written over the years and try to link them all together into a single narrative. (By the way, you may have already thought of it, but: this is how most television shows are structured.)

Of course there’s no way to definitively say that one type of collection is better than another. They all have their strengths and weaknesses; there are many popular examples of each type.

That said, personally, I’m most likely to pick up a Thematic collection or a Frame Story collection, but that’s mostly because I like feeling as though there’s some sort of motive to the collection, rather than just being a collection of whatever stories the author just so happened to write recently.

What about you, friends? 

What types of short story collections do you enjoy reading? 

Any specific collections you like to recommend? 

REVIEW: One of Us Is Lying - Karen M. McManus

• Year first released: 2017
• ISBN of the edition I read: 9781524714680
• Publisher of the edition I read: Random House Children’s Books
• My rating (out of 5): 3

Five high-schoolers are sent to after-school detention. The teacher steps out of the room just long enough for one of the five kids to drop dead. This is going to be a hard semester for the other four, all of whom are suspects in his murder.

One of Us Is Lying has plenty of twists to keep you hooked. Nearly every section includes – or ends with – some sort of new tidbit, factoid, or event, begging you to dive deeper into the mystery of who really killed Simon. It’s certainly an effective approach, and many of the twists were quite unexpected.

In a vacuum, this would be good. When butted up against the point of view(s) in which Lying was written, though, it proved to be a bit more of a challenge than I’d have preferred.

The narrative alternates between the other four kids who were in the room when Simon died: nerdy, overachiever Bronwyn; popular baseball player Cooper; pretty trophy-girl Addy; and troubled delinquent Nate. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more cliché cast of high-schoolers. This isn’t necessarily troublesome or distracting (except in the case of Addy, who is downright annoying for at least half of the book), but McManus certainly won’t win any awards for her characters.

What is distracting, though, is the shifting first-person point of view. We spend a few pages in Bronwyn’s head, getting her take on the situation, adjusting to her personality, etc., before switching over to Cooper. After a few pages with him, realigning ourselves with his viewpoint, we then move into… etc.

In principle, I’m not against this sort of approach in writing. Certainly each of the four characters’ viewpoints added to the intrigue and complexity of the mystery.

And though the book announces whose mind we’re in each time, the shift was often abrupt enough that it took me a good page to readjust to the new character’s mindset. Several times I had to re-read a few paragraphs when I remembered that I was actually in someone else’s mind now.

Wait a second: Why would Nate say this?

- oh, right. He wouldn’t. Now the “I” is Addy.

When you have to work to keep track of this frequent, abruptly-changing viewpoint, then mix it in with the constant twists of the plot, it can be a little overwhelming.

I fear I’m making the book sound bad; I certainly don’t feel that way. The plot was legitimately interesting. I enjoyed the amount of/the level of twists (when I was able to keep them straight, anyway). It took me quite awhile to catch on to the secret behind everything. (I got there a little before McManus directly says it, but not too much before.) And the slow-growing relationship between two of the four characters (I might as well not say which two) was warm to read, and a nice change-up from many of the more screwed up relationships that books so often include.

If you’re going to read Lying – which is recommendable, at least if you’re into twisty YA books – make sure you’re ready to pay close attention. I only wish the book demanded attention for the sake of noticing fine details, as opposed to for the sake of keeping straight who is who. 

Sex in Books

My recent post Abandoning Books has a list of a few books I’ve given up on over the past few years, as well as a quick look at the reason why I abandoned them. If you read the list, you may have noticed something about it: of the eight books I listed, three of them were because they were “too sexual.” Also, on the “Do You Take Suggestions?” page of this site, the first item I mention in the list of books I will not read is “Erotica – Or even books that are just highly and/or explicitly sexual.”

There must be something to this then, you’re thinking. And you’re right.

To explain this, I’ll use the example of 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (which I included in the list of books I gave up on because it was too sexual).

1Q84 was highly interesting. It had a very mysterious, intriguing plot, and the way the mysteries were slowly unveiled as the book progressed was well-done. I read 700 pages of the book, and it honestly felt like much less.

One of the two main characters was a single woman named Aomame. There was plenty to find intriguing in her character – her motives, her personality, etc. She also had a quirk: about once a month or so, she would get desperate to have sex with a stranger. So she’d go to a bar, scan the crowd, pick a man (always middle-aged and with a receding hairline, even though she’s in her early thirties) whom she thought would please her for the night, and approach him to get things going.

I actually don’t really care that she has this quirk. Characters have quirks; sometimes that’s what makes them more realistic (even if their quirks are a bit abnormal, such as Aomame’s taste in men). That’s fine.

What I mind is how much time Murakami spends – and the heavy, explicit detail he uses – showing us this quirk. I just explained to you Aomame’s sexual quirk in three sentences. That’s really all it takes. I wouldn’t mind a scene in which Aomame goes to the bar, chats up a man, and they decide to go to his hotel room. I wouldn’t even mind seeing this scene a few times throughout the book. This all makes sense; I can see why Murakami would want to include these scenes. They help paint a bit of the picture of Aomame’s personality, conversational style, thought processes, etc.  

That’s really all we need though, isn’t it? Once Aomame and her lover enter the hotel room, there’s really no reason for any more detail than that. The reader doesn’t need to enter the hotel room with them.

And yet Murakami spends pages upon pages explaining everything else: the look the characters get in their eyes as the other undresses, the shape and size and color of all the anatomy involved, how long the encounter lasts, the exact feelings that Aomame experiences during intercourse – sometimes good, sometimes bad – the ideas she has as she studies the man’s naked body as he’s asleep afterward.

My goodness. Absolutely zero of these things are relevant to the story. They do nothing whatsoever to enhance or propel the plot. They don’t give us insight into Aomame’s character or motivations. They’re just explicit sex scenes for the sake of…who knows, really.

Again, I don’t care that Aomame has her sexual quirks. I don’t mind how often she has sex, or who she has it with. I wouldn’t care if it was twice as often or twice as quirky. What I mind is that it’s described in such irrelevant, unnecessary, explicit detail.

(By the way, the other main character, Tengo, has his share of unnecessarily detailed sexual encounters as well, about which I can say all of the same things. I just figured it’d be a little easier to explain using Aomame as the example.)

When a writer chooses to give us these unnecessary sexual scenes and details, I can only assume they’re included because, frankly, sex sells. They have no literary merit. They don’t enhance the book in any meaningful way. But, unfortunately, they sell the book.

So it is that, in most cases, I can only assume these explicit sexual encounters in books are really just a gimmick, a sell-out.

No thank you. I’ll take my literature with a serving of literary value, not dirty tricks.

HALF-REVIEW: This Book Will Save Your Life - A.M. Homes

I’m calling this a “Half-Review,” because, as I mentioned in my last post, This Book Will Save Your Life (2006) has been officially exiled to my Abandoned Books pile. That said, I don’t think it’s completely fair to give you a “full review” of the book. And yet, if I read enough to know I don’t want to finish it, I must still have some strong feelings about it, right? So let’s explore those…

My first problem with This Book actually begins on the very front cover, with its title.

THIS BOOK WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE

Um...thanks(?)

That’s quite the promise. In fact, it seems as though Homes forgot that there is no such thing as a book that could possibly, truly be for everyone. We’re all much too different to assume that EVERY PERSON EVER could possibly enjoy this ONE special book or could possibly get something meaningful out of it.

Atop that, the title commits a cardinal sin of writing/naming:

The book is written from the third-person point of view. Normal stuff, really. So WHY ON EARTH is the title 1) in second-person, and 2) breaking the fourth wall? What?! This is crazy, and completely out of step with everything else about the book.

A pro tip for you writers out there: A title should always represent the book, not try to make a statement about the book. Always always always.

Ugh. Anyway. Let’s move past the title.

Much like I explained in my post about the book Nod, This Book Will Save Your Life suffers heavily from the Premise v. Story conundrum.

Premise: A man, Richard, has some sort of heart attack-ish episode. After leaving the hospital, he decides to turn his life around.

All that is totally fine. (Rather over-done, but oh well.)

Moving past the premise, though, why did Homes choose this series of events and this cast of characters to move the story along?

I bring this up because This Book is, frankly, incredibly ludicrous. It is a ridiculous farce of completely unrealistic characters having deeply implausible conversations, all revolving around a series of absurd scenarios that are too improbable to appreciate.

Here’s just a partial list of the characters from the 104 pages I read:

• The 911 operator who is extremely blasé and doesn’t bother getting around to the point – you know, the fact that our protagonist is having a heart attack and calling 911 in the first place – for an entire page’s worth of dialogue.
• The “counselor” whom the 911 operator then transfers Richard to so that he can talk about his life and his feelings while he waits for the paramedics to arrive. Did I mention this is while he is having a heart attack?
• The doctor’s receptionist who is more interested in validating Richard’s parking than treating him as a patient. (And, when he calls the receptionist again 80 pages later, the first thing she asks is if he got his parking validated last time.)
• The woman who hits Richard with her car (while he is on foot), and is flabbergasted that anyone could possibly think that this is her fault, and can’t be bothered with the time it takes just to make sure he’s okay.
• The woman crying in the grocery store because people don’t like the salads that she makes. No, really. She’s in there.
• The guy who answers the phone when Richard calls to order a pizza, and almost immediately launches in to a list of EVERY SINGLE topping the pizza place offers without even being asked. Really: who doesn’t know what choices there are for pizza toppings?
• The second 911 operator (starting on page 61) who is incredibly insulting to Richard, calls him “Dick,” and accuses Richard of making a prank call.
• The movie star who owns a helicopter but not a television, and somehow magically knows the right way to help a horse get out of a hole. (Oh, by the way, did I mention that Richard has a sinkhole growing in his yard, and one morning he looks out the window to see a horse just hanging out in it, and so the next many pages are devoted to people – including this yes-helicopter/no-TV movie star – trying to get the horse out? Why the heck is there a horse in a sinkhole in Richard’s yard?)

And no, these aren’t all of the ludicrous characters I came across in my 104 pages; this is just a sampling.

Who on earth are these people? And why does every single one of them lack the power of normal, meaningful conversation? And why is there a horse in a sinkhole in Richard’s yard?

Can people act like this? – sure. But every interaction Richard has is like this. What this leads us to is a troubling fact about This Book: None of the characters in it are people – they’re vehicles. They’re simply a bizarre, shallow cast of figures that Homes created in order to convey her message.

This Book isn’t a cohesive, meaningful story. It is a string of absurd, empty, improbable situations and characters who are blatantly nothing more than thin veils attempting to vainly cover Homes’ true motive for writing this book, which she herself tells us point-blank in the book’s fourth-wall-breaking title: Homes wants to “save our lives,” apparently.

Thanks, Homes, but I’ll pass on your salvation. 

Abandoning Books

I used to think that it’s unacceptable to abandon a book before you reach the end. If you started it, you must finish it. How can you call yourself a reader if you just give up when times are tough? Et cetera, et cetera.

I realize now how crazy the idea is, though. Of course it’s okay to abandon books partway through! Why wouldn’t it be?

To me, reading serves two purposes: Entertainment and/or Education. That said, though, since this blog is focused on fiction (in other words, mostly on Entertainment), I’m only going to discuss that side of things.

So then.

If I’m reading a book at all, it’s because, before going in to it, something about it seems like it’s going to interest me. Sure, you can’t really know until you start reading it. But I’m certainly not going to start reading a book that seems like it’s going to be boring, right? Who would do that?

And since reading is for Entertainment, why would I read a book that doesn’t entertain me? It’s not like I simply MUST finish this or that book, right?

Of course that’s all very simple to say. I may be making this sound easy. But for me personally, it can sometimes be a rather difficult decision to make. There are a lot of questions to consider:

• What about the book do I not like? Is it boring, poorly-written, unbelievable, offensive?
• Could there be something about the book that I’m just not understanding properly?
• If a lot of other people like the book, what do they see in it that I don’t?
• Why did I pick up the book in the first place? Was it on a whim? Is it an author I usually like? Was it given to me as a gift, recommended to me by a friend, etc.?
• How much of the book have I already read? Is it really worth throwing away all the time I’ve already put into it? Is there a threshold (say, by page count) that, if I pass, I can’t bring myself to give up on the book?

I haven’t given up on too many books along the way – maybe 50 or so (out of the hundreds I’ve actually finished reading). I’m certainly not quick to toss books aside. But sometimes, it’s just got to be done. And, as you might suspect, there are many times when I should have given up on a book, but saw it through to the end against my better judgment. (I’m looking at you, This Is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kent by Aidan Chambers – worst book I’ve ever finished. Seriously. Please never ever ever go near it.)

If you’d like a few examples of some of the more prominent books I’ve given up on:

• This Book Will Save Your Life by A.M. Homes (read about 100 out of 370 pages). Ridiculously absurd, even beyond the levels of Existential Absurdism. (Oh, and I literally only just now decided to abandon it – hence what inspired this post.)
• Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood (read about 1/3^rd of it). Great form. Boring as heck content. Usually great form is enough for me to keep reading anyway, but this was really boring.
• Shogun by James Clavell (read about 100/800). Way too unnecessarily sexual – which is too bad, because I was liking it otherwise.
• Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan (read about 1/4^th of it). Only tried it because it’s John Green, but it’s much more Levithan than Green.
• The Gunslinger by Stephen King (read about 1/5^th of it). Sorry, but it was just too weird for me.
• The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffeneger (only read about 30 pages). Way too sexual.
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (read about 2/3^rds of it). Didn’t like the main character at all. Why is this book so legendary?
• 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (read about 700 out of 1300 pages – yeah, this one stung A LOT to finally set aside). Among other things, it was far too sexual – again, this is unfortunate, because there were some really great things about it.

Friends: How do you feel about abandoning books? What are some books that you’ve ultimately given up on (and why)?