Xu Jun, Bi Feiyu, etc
【Editor's Note】
Milan Kundera is one of the most influential writers today, born in the Czech Republic, whose life was full of ups and downs and legends. People have various contradictory understandings and comments about Kundera, who is immersed in literary creation, deliberately avoids the public, and "covers up" his personal history; there are also various paradoxical interpretations of his novels.
Recently, biographer Brie's Milan Kundera: A Writer's Life was introduced by Yazhong Culture and launched Chinese edition, which examines Kundera's personal artistic, literary, political and spiritual journey in the context of capital history, and at the same time explores Kundera's writing life with the help of some public and hitherto unpublished materials and conversations provided by writers, translators and critics who have direct contact with Kundera.
On the evening of January 15, translator Xu Jun, writer Bi Feiyu, scholar Wang Lixing and translator Liu Yunhong held a dialogue on the life of Milan Kundera writers around the new book at the Wutaishan Main Store of Nanjing Pioneer Bookstore.
Wang Lixing: Kundera is a very famous writer, he has long been widely read in the world literary circles, widely controversial, misunderstood, and widely praised, such a biography of a writer, anyone who has read his works will be interested in reading, the author of this biography is called Brie, is a journalist, he has a special sensitivity to news and materials, know what kind of information he needs, what to find. As a writer, Brie has written several biographies before, including Bob Dylan's, and it is very exciting for him to write a biography as a writer and journalist. The translators of this biography are Xu Jun and Liu Yunhong, who are here today.
Everyone saw that there was a sentence on the cover of the book called "the first biography of Kundera imported in China", which I was a little surprised to see, because in China since the mid-1980s, scholars have introduced Kundera, in 1987, Han Shaogong, Han Gang sisters and brothers translated "The Unbearable Lightness of Life", and by around 2000, Shanghai Translation Publishing House published 13 works of Kundera in two years, which is one of the few in today's Chinese literary world. How did the hottest writer imported from abroad introduce his first biography until now, and I would like to ask Mr. Xu Jun to answer this question, that is, publishing such a biography, what is the value of our current china?
Xu Jun
Xu Jun: The translation and publication of this book, I think it is a bit fateful, in 2002, the Shanghai Translation Publishing House came to ask me to translate "The Lightness of Life That Cannot Bear", after its publication in 2003, it did set off a wave of enthusiasm in China, at that time, the media wanted to know a lot of information, very interesting is that ms. Fang Yuchen, the head of the yazhong culture of the publisher of this book, at that time she had not yet established Yazhong, she came to me in Nanjing, she said she wanted to ask me to write a Kundera commentary, Because at that time, Nanjing University Press had a set of commentaries that were very popular, in fact, I couldn't write it, Kundera I only translated his book, knew his novels, and had no understanding of his life, and as a result, 18 years later, in November 2019, Fang Yuchen came to me again, she said we bought the copyright of Milan Kundera's biography, wanted to ask me to translate, and she hoped to let the book meet with readers as soon as possible, because Chinese readers waited too long, Kundera was very mysterious, some people said that he had been an informer, saying that he had done this and done that Kundera herself never came out to clarify these things. Such a person is more than 90 years old, still doing things for literature, I think Chinese readers are indeed waiting for this book, I said that line, but I could not translate it for a few months, so I looked for Professor Liu Yunhong, because she has translated a lot of books, and the text style is still relatively close to me. We started translating almost in January last year, and it took more than three months to translate, and we handed it over in April, which should be said to be relatively smooth.
When Brie wrote Bob Dylan's biography, Dylan had not yet won the Nobel Prize in Literature, it was he who wrote it after Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature the following year, so his biography is very famous in France, and then he wrote Kundera, I personally feel that his work can allow us to fully grasp Kundera's writing life, which is very precious and very distinctive.
Wang Lixing: Mr. Bi Feiyu, you have seen a lot of Kundera's works, does this biography meet your reading expectations?
Bi Feiyu
Bi Feiyu: I haven't seen a lot of it, but I'm very happy today, I thought that the people who came today should be mostly people around 50 years old, because when Kundera fever rose, it was when we were in our 20s, but today when I saw so many young people, I knew that Kundera's influence was not limited to this generation, he was sinking, and I was very happy for him.
Back to this book, I would like to make an analogy, this biography is really a good trolley box, no matter what kind of life Kundera is, no matter what kind of poetry, short stories, long stories, scripts he wrote, whether he wrote in Czech or French, after you get the biography in hand, pull the trolley box, the whole Kundera you can pack, the explanation is very clear, Brie not only does the information well, his literary theory and literary generalization ability is very strong, for example, he summarized Kundera's poetry sources have two points, Soviet Futurism and French Surrealism. For example, as to how complex Kundera was, he made a comparison between him and Kafka, and explained how the basic spiritual structure of Milan Kundera came from music, how it came from philosophy, how it was explained by the Movement of the Communist International at that time, you see, just a few words at once can tie this one Milan Kundera very solidly, and it can be taken away in his pocket, so Brie summed it up very well, this biographer is really good.
Wang Lixing: Just now Teacher Xu Jun also mentioned that in fact, there are many difficulties in translating this book, and I would like to ask Teacher Liu Yunhong to talk about your feelings and experiences in the process of translation, and what places you have encountered that are more difficult?
Liu Yunhong
Liu Yunhong: I think that as a translator with translation experience, everyone will feel that translation is actually not simple, translation is very difficult, so for this book, first of all, I think it has a very important feature, which is to put Kundera's life in a capital history to re-examine. So the first difficulty we encounter is that there are many historical facts, including some regime changes in the Czech Republic and the big world pattern in which he is living, etc. I think as a serious translator, first of all, we can't make mistakes in some historical facts, so the first thing we do is to find relevant information as much as possible on the basis of reading, restore relevant facts, and be able to do it at the level of the large narrative background, without making mistakes or mistakes.
The second is that the book encountered a lot of proper nouns, personal names and place names, and many journal names, book titles, this work Xu teacher also paid special attention to, we also asked the relevant experts in the Czech language, these proper nouns are not only translations, Xu teacher also made some relevant notes, so that we can start from the names of people and places, to have a better understanding of the content in this book.
The third aspect is that the biography involves a lot of Kundera works, which is also what Teacher Xu reminds me from time to time, there is a very close intertextual relationship between the content of the biography and Kundera novels and other types of works, and we will always encounter the situation of consulting Kundera's works in the process of turning over, so that we can accurately understand the content written in the biography and the situation explained. Moreover, Kundera's works have many very famous translations, such as Yu Zhongxian, Dong Qiang, Yuan Xiaoyi, etc., they have all turned kundera's works, so it exists in the process of translation, whether to transplant the expressions in their existing translations into our translations, or do we do a new translation, personally, I still choose to use my own expression to translate.
Finally, I think there should be a problem of style fit for any work that is translated by more than one translator. Because I am a student of Teacher Xu and have followed Teacher Xu Jun for more than 20 years, I feel that the concept of translation between the two of us is very compatible, and in the style of text expression, I also try to get as close as possible to Teacher Xu, and we have always paid great attention to the problem of style fit in the process of translation.
Four guests at the event (Wang Lixing, Xu Jun, Liu Yunhong, Bi Feiyu from left)
Wang Lixing: Next I would like to ask Teacher Xu Jun, you have translated more than one kundera's works, and in teaching and scientific research, Kundera is also an important writer for you, so you must have a complete image of Kundera in your heart.
Xu Jun: To tell you the truth, for Kundera, I approached him step by step, I was a bit strange, when everyone was particularly admired and fascinated by him, I kept my distance and did not chase him, so when the Shanghai Translation Publishing House came to me for translation, I did not immediately agree, I thought he was a second-rate writer.
But in fact I think that judging a writer, you don't listen to what the history of literature says, you still have better read him first, so I have an experience later, I have not read his book, you better not evaluate him, Kundera, I later because I read his French version, English version, Chinese version (Han Shaogong's), I found that these three texts are not the same. Fortunately, Kundera recognized the French version, and he had the same authentic value as the Czech version, and he wanted to translate it from French, so I later translated his work. In fact, before the publication of this book, I directed a doctoral dissertation called "Kundera's Translation, Reception and Interpretation in China", which made a very comprehensive exposition of how Kundera came to China, how he was translated, how he was accepted, and then how he was disseminated.
So what kind of image was Kundera originally? I think Kundera was a writer who wandered between cultures, Eastern European culture is not the same as Western European culture, he went to France, why was he welcomed? In that doctoral dissertation, I found a very important phenomenon, that is, why Kundera was not paid attention to in the first place, that is, Kundera's works were easy to be abridged, and France also abridged him. It is his ideology, the artistic thing, the ideology that he wants to highlight.
The early translations on our side also have abridgements, and the abridged retrieval is an art form thing, what do we want to highlight? Highlighting its artistry and poetry, the fate of a writer in two different worlds is abridged, but the abridged things are different, that is to say, our reading of Kundera is not the same. Well, the same image of Kundera, I can imagine, is certainly not a complete one, nor is it the same. Kundera in France is certainly not the same as Kundera in China. I understand, I think how we can really see a kind of thinking about his life through his novels, this book makes me more clear.
The scene of the event
Mr. Bi Feiyu just said that through this book, the basic Kundera's life has been packaged and can be taken away in its entirety, the word "complete" I especially like, Kundera is 92 years old this year, basically his life is here, but I don't know how he will have a possibility, because Kundera's life, he regards life as infinite, he is always in the pursuit of expansion, so I think so far, in different regions, different historical stages, his image is blurred, It's polyphonic like his novels. Kundera was born on April 1st, he said that the birth of April 1st may have some metaphysical significance for his life, with some metaphysical significance, Kundera is not a test, he is a real person, so we have to think further through the text about his life footprints, his pursuits, his characteristics, from this point of view, this biographical translation is just a presentation of his life.
Wang Lixing: In the process of reading this biography by Mr. Bi Feiyu, is there a constant dialogue between the Kundera in your mind and the Kundera depicted by the author? Does this biography reveal any aspects of Kundera that you haven't noticed before or haven't noticed enough?
Bi Feiyu: Absolutely. I not only noticed it in the process of watching it, but it also made me particularly excited. In the Czech Comintern movement, you know that many of the more artistically radical artists of that time went through a very low period, so what was Kundera doing at that time? Studying astrology, studying Capricorn, Scorpio, Pisces, and then putting it in the journal, relying on that thing to cheat on the fee to support myself, this I did not expect, you don't look at this point, as if it is similar to a game in the whole work, he can actually provide us with something, we can't say that Kundera is a person with a mystic life, or we can't say that Kundera is a novelist who believes in destiny. But when he was young he did this kind of thing, I can almost conclude that something mystical is embodied in him, so if you compare him with Javier in his work, his personality, his style, you will find that Kundera is actually much more convinced, and in a way, Kundera is much more sleek, so he can protect himself very well between several different cultures, between different ideologies, which is an intuitive impression of him after reading it.
Xu Jun: Kundera writes novels, what we call misunderstandings is actually part of an understanding, for example, many people say that they have read "The Unbearable Lightness of Life", the politics and sex in this novel, in fact, Kundera said very clearly, he said that I write politics, my purpose is not politics itself, it is the things behind politics, I write sex including writing metaphysical things, he said that I am not interested in that, he is at that stage, his mentality, what he encounters, That is to say, behind his back he is interested in human things.
So many people read Kundera's novels and feel as if they have written a lot about sex, do you think you understand or misunderstand? So for Kundera, how do you explore some of his reflections through his text to the back of the text, I think it is particularly important, so for his work, I think every different period, in different countries, may read different things.
I think that the misunderstanding itself is part of the understanding, it is all kinds of misunderstandings added together to make it possible to penetrate step by step into the corners of Kundera's novel that may still be hidden to this day, then when you look at this biography, you will have some misunderstandings, or there may be a perspective on some hidden things, but what he provides you with is a higher level, that is, Kundera provides only a writer's life, it is not all.
Editor-in-Charge: Fang Xiaoyan
Proofreader: Yan Zhang