"No matter how cautious a person is, he said to me, when he was young, he would inevitably say some things, and even do some things, but when he thought about it later, he felt that his heart was not a taste. I wish I hadn't said those things, I hadn't done those things. But he had no need to regret it. Because he must go through all the stages of life, before reaching the final stage, through all kinds of ridiculous and even abominable stages, it is possible to become a wise man to a certain extent. A few days ago, Shanghai translator Zhou Kexi appeared on the stage of CCTV's "Readers" and read a description of life choices in Proust's "Tracing the Lost Time" for the audience. 17 of Proust's 51 years of life experience have been writing "Tracing the Lost Time", and Zhou Kexi has spent 12 years building a bridge to Proust for Chinese readers.
Influenced by his father, Zhou Kexi initially embarked on the path of mathematics. After graduating from the Department of Mathematics at Fudan University in his early years, Zhou Kexi entered the Department of Mathematics of East China Normal University to teach, but he always had literary dreams in his heart. From 1980 to 1982, the study of the Parisian Master opened a new door for Zhou Kexi. "When I arrived in Paris, I seemed to have become bolder, and suddenly I felt that there was nothing wrong with changing careers." Jin Dequan, a graduate student of translator Liu Mingjiu, invited Zhou Kexi to translate a novella by Beauvoir, and Zhou Kexi experienced unprecedented happiness in translation.
During the day Zhou Kexi studied geometry, and in his spare time, he indulged in Dumas's writings, and such a double life overlapped for 10 years. He became an associate professor in the Department of Mathematics and also had his own early translation masterpieces, The Count of Monte Cristo and The Immortal. Zhou Kexi, who was halfway out of the house, always felt that there was not enough time, and For him, Sunday was Seven. Zhou Kexi would not go to the bathroom until he had to, "I'm afraid that some things in my head will disappear all at once." ”
Under the double life, Zhou Kexi's insomnia became more and more serious, and he could only use sleeping pills to help sleep. At first, he was afraid that he would make Parkinson stupid, but the enlightenment of the translator Lu Gusun made him unload the big stone in his heart. "He's been eating for more than ten years, and I think it's okay to be stupid like Mr. Lu." At the age of 50, Zhou Kexi decided to say goodbye to mathematics and become a professional translator. "I've been in the making for ten years and this decision wasn't hard for me." This decision made his old colleagues and friends not understand, and even the editor-in-chief of the Shanghai Translation Publishing House at that time advised Zhou Kexi to think carefully, but Zhou Kexi had already made up his mind.
The path of translation is fraught with loneliness, especially when he began to translate Proust independently. Proust was deeply thought- and often devoted a great deal of length to long sentences describing simple things. In the whole set of "In Search of Lost Time", a quarter of the sentences have more than 10 lines, with small subordinate clauses nested in the large subordinate clauses and small subordinate clauses wrapped in homotopies. At that time, after Participating in the translation of "Remembrance of The Watery Years" as one of the 15 translators, Zhou Kexi smiled and told his family that he would never touch Proust again. But when he was invited to translate again, he did not hesitate to agree.
When translating Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo, Zhou Kexi could translate 4,000 words a day, but in the face of Proust, he could only translate 400 words a day, less than a page. Zhou Kexi recalled that during that time, he was like walking alone in a tunnel, unable to see the glimmer in front of him, but he had to slowly move forward. For 12 years, he rarely traveled, rarely socialized, and spent all the time he could use on translation, but he felt that it was not enough.
Translation is like chemistry that needs catalysts, and Zhou Kexi's "catalyst" is the true love of literature. Although the wish to translate 7 books has not been completed, the translation of more than 1.1 million words in the first, second and fifth volumes has become a bridge for Chinese readers to understand Proust.
In the early years, "In Search of Lost Time" was named "Remembrance of the Lost Water Years", which was based on the title of the book translated into English, but Zhou Kexi felt that it was more important to follow Proust's ideas than to listen well and remember. "He's not just reminiscing, he's pursuing." In "Tracing the Lost Time", many details were finalized after Zhou Kexi examined them one by one. From the title of a supporting role to the description of an environment, Zhou Kexi will carefully ponder. He joked to the host Dong Qing during the recording of "Readers" that the person he contacted the most in those years was the Proust researchers in France, and he was almost out of friends. "In front of Proust, there is no room for distraction."
Behind Proust's fame, not many people know about Zhou Kexi's efforts. But Zhou Kexi himself didn't care. In his mind, the ideal translation had to be written like the original author's Chinese. He believes that translation is like glass, the finer the glass processing, the less impurities there are, and the less likely it is for people to feel its presence. Translators should also make the reader feel the presence of the translation and see the author directly.
Zhou Kexi told Dong Qing that even if "Tracing the Lost Time" has few readers, he will not be concerned. "What about a small number of readers?" Good work, you put five years and ten years, it's still there. ”