Every good translation comes to an end

Finishing a translation is always a big relief - I DID IT! And WITHIN the deadline!, but this time it is definitely combined with a sense of loss. The presence of Alma, Henry - yes, we are on first name basis now - Ambrose, Tomorrow Morning, Hanneke de Groot, Prudence, Reverend Welles, the Hiro contingent, Roger, the dog, Uncle Dees, and all the others - became such a significant part of my day, that they will all be sorely missed.

On the other hand, sending in a translation means that soon a lot of readers can welcome these characters into their lives, and I hope they will love them as much as I did.

One book leads to another

What I really appreciate about being a literary translator is that I never really know where my next assignment would lead me. For No One You Know (by Michelle Richmond) I had to dive into Fermat's last theorem - just to be able to translate a sentence that was like Greek and Chinese combined to me. For Against All Enemies (by Tom Clancy) I was leafing through assault rifle catalogues and for the Confessions of Catherine de Medici I was contemplating the prophecies of Nostradamus.
And now, because of The Signature of All Things, I am finally reading The Origin of Species.
It is longer - and more enjoyable - than I expected....And as an added bonus I also got the Voyage of the Beagle from the library.

Low on words

Still.

High on words

I am such a sucker for exquisite words, so translating The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert is like being on a constant high.

Helice. Ignomity. Insouciance. Inveigle. Unguent. Supercilious. Woebegone. Discomfiture. Scrivener. Mawkish. Sarsaparilla. Gallimaufry. Milliner. Salutrious. Thimbleful. Erudite. Stevedore. Prurient. Compendium. Innocuous. Antediluvian. Travertine. Temerity. Accretion. Marauder. Impecuniuous. Deuce. Ebullient. Halcyon. Torpid. Raiment. Thaumaturge. Lackadaisical. Arbalest. Marplot. Mandrake. Salcious. Audacious. Remonstrance. Languorous. Louche. Duplicitious. Quim.
Mackerel-backed shaver. Jack-weighted hob. Prick-fed donkey. Dunderhead.
Useful little fingerstink.

Still Radnóti

Miklós Radnóti - Hesitant Ode

How long I have been preparing to tell you
about the hidden constellation of my love,
if only in a picture, and only its essence.
But you are overflowing in me like life,
and sometimes so stable and everlasting,
like a fossilized snail shell in a stone.
The night streaked by the moon shifts above my head
and is hunting for small, rustling dreams.
And I still cannot tell you what it means to me when I work
and I feel your protective glance on my hands.
Similes worth nothing. They surface and I cast them away.
And tomorrow I start the whole thing again,
because I only worth as much as the words within my poem,
and it exites me until nothing is left of me
just some bones and some locks of hair.
You are tired, and I also feel: the day was long -
what else can I say? The objects glance at each other
and praise you, a half cube of sugar sings
on the table. A drop of honey is falling,
and like a pure golden ball shines on the tablecloth,
and an empty waterglass is echoing by itself.
It is happy because it lives with you. And maybe I will still have the time
to tell you how it is when it waits for your arrival.
The falling darkness of dream lightly touches you,
flies away, then returns to your brow,
your sleepy eyes cast a last farewell towards me,
your hair is coming untied, ripples and sprawls out,
and then you fall asleep. The long shadow of your long lashes is flapping.
Your hand falls on my pillow. A twig of birch falling asleep,
but I sleep within you also, you are not a different world.
And I can hear how the mysterious, thin, wise lines
change in your cool palm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ_DF07JNzQ

On a stormy Sunday morning

Miklós Radnóti - Enchantment

I am sitting in the light
with blinking eyes
a rosetree is leaping
over a hedgegrow
the light is leaping also
as the clouds grow
lightning flashes
and thunder answers back
and clashes with thunder
high up in the sky
the blueness of the lakes
is whithering
and their water
is rising
come into the house
take off your clothes
it is already raining outside
raining outside
take off your shirt
let the rain wash
our hearts together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcPmokVbz3A (by Szabó Balázs Bandája)

Create your own dictionary

In my experience, literary translators are - by default - in love with words, phrases and ingenius sentences. And the same way as "Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night" (as Woody Allen pointed it out) being bilingual (or at least being fluent in two languages) doubles your chances of stumbling upon memorable sentences or expressions that give you at least as much pleasure as a date on Saturday night, if not more.

For years I have been collecting little snippets from books - usually reading the original and the translation side by side - in simple spiral notebooks. Now that the stack of them starts to resemble the Leaning Tower of Pisa I decided to succumb to modernity and go digital. Leafing through a dozen notebooks to find one particular phrase started to look like a daunting challange.
So what you can do is open a simple Excel file, and start filling in the rows - in alphabetical order - with the hundreds of memorable quotes and their translations - and voiliá! - you have your own, personally edited dictionary with entries like "bro's before ho's", "check out my new squeeze" "handlebar mustache", "vertically challanged" - entries that are curiously missing from a "normal" dictionary.