37-year-old translation of "Norwegian Forest" Why does 67-year-old Lin Shaohua think he is not suitable for retranslation?

Cover news reporter Zhang Jie

What exactly is literary translation translating? What is the relationship between a literary translation and an original work? Is it necessarily inferior to the original work to read the translation? What is the difficulty of translating between Chinese and other languages? On the evening of March 17, literary translator Lin Shaohua and best-selling translator Li Jihong launched a live dialogue on the theme of "Translation: Dialogue through Time and Space". The two have been wandering in the ocean of literary translation for a long time, and both have their own deep experience in literary translation. There are wonderful insights to share on the above questions.

▲ Li Jihong

As a professor at the Ocean University of China and vice president of the Chinese Society for the Study of Japanese Literature, Lin Shaohua has made outstanding achievements in the field of Chinese and Japanese literature translation: he has translated more than 80 works by Famous Japanese artists such as "Norwegian Forest", "Kafka by the Sea", "Strange Bird Line", "Assassination of the Knight Leader" and other works by Japanese masters, as well as more than 80 works by Famous Japanese artists such as "Heart", "Rashomon", "Snow Country", "Kinkaku-ji Temple", and "Calling for Love in the Center of the World". In the minds of Chinese readers, he is a literary translator with outstanding style. Li Jihong is a very popular translator of European and American literature in recent years, and the translations of "The Little Prince", "The Old Man and the Sea", "The Great Gatsby", "Animal Farm", "Walden", "The Moon and Sixpence", "Pride and Prejudice", "Noise and Turmoil", "Jane Eyre", "On the Road" and other editions are bestsellers.

▲ Lin Shaohua

The more you know a foreign language, the more you have

Translation measures a new world

Since there are a large number of Kanji in Japanese, it should be easier to translate Japanese literary works as Chinese in the imagination of many people. But Lin Shaohua mentioned that it was not only that. There is another difficulty in the conversion between Chinese and Japanese, precisely because there are a large number of Chinese words in Japanese characters, and 60% of the vocabulary comes from Chinese, "The conversion between the two is not so refreshing, not so decisive, not 360 degrees, but 260 degrees?" 180 degrees? In short, the conversion drags mud and water, breaks the thread, and those words are quite a large part of the subtle differences compared with the Chinese origin, and if you are not careful in translation, you will fall into a trap. ”

Lin Shaohua mentioned an example of his translation of Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Forest. At the beginning of the novel, there is such a sentence: "Even after the 18th degree of spring and autumn, I can still remember the scenery of the grassland." In fact, some translations also copy the two words of grassland. Lin Shaohua believes that it is probably not quite right to translate it as "grassland" in the same way, because japan's small island country does not have grassland in the sense of what we call the Mongolian steppe. The specific environment, the specific context is said to be a piece of hillside, the grassland on the hillside, so his translation did not copy the original "grassland", but translated as "grassland", below is a piece of hillside, but also confirmed that the two words "grassland" should not be copied and translated. For example, Japanese has the Kanji for "tea color" to write tea color, which is also easy to copy and translate as "tea color". But in fact, there are many types of Chinese tea, everything is there, what color is The color of Chinese tea, green tea or oolong tea? It should be translated as "brown" to be more accurate. Lin Shaohua said, "These words are the same as the Chinese origin, the same as the Chinese Chinese used in the Chinese, the semantics and meanings are not the same. On the other hand, as the birthplace of Chinese characters, as a Chinese translator, it has a unique advantage in appreciating the Chinese vocabulary in Japanese. ”

After decades of literary translation, Lin Shaohua sighed, "Any language is a world, a world view." The more you know a foreign language, the more you have one more world and one more worldview than someone who doesn't understand. If you translate, you don't just have one more world, you may even measure a new world; you don't just have one more worldview, you even examine and integrate a worldview. ”

Reading a translation is not necessarily one level lower than reading the original

The two have different functions

Many people who read literary works will have such a concept: those who can read the original text should try to read the original text as much as possible, and do not look at other people's translations. In this regard, Li Jihong believes that such an opinion is debatable, "Now there are many foreign bloggers on Douyin who speak Mandarin, and Mandarin is smoother than I can speak." Foreign bloggers can not only speak fluent Mandarin, but also read Chinese character articles, does this mean that they can directly read the original Chinese works without looking at the things translated by the translators? I don't think so, if you show them a copy of Zhuangzi, they may not understand it. In the same way, a person who has studied Japanese for several years and passed the highest level examination of the Japanese language university, but he does not benefit as much from reading the original text as he does from reading Mr. Lin's translation. Because Teacher Lin translated what was not reflected behind the book. By the same token, I don't think that anyone who reads English Level 8 will necessarily understand the original text better than reading my translation of Pride and Prejudice. The original is the original, and the translation is the translation. The two have different functions and destinies, and it is not necessary that you can get more things by reading the original work than by reading the translation. The two can complement each other and also save time for the reader. There are a lot of details in Faulkner's work, even university professors can't figure it out, you look at the translation, the translator has done a lot of research you can see clearly, can save you a lot of time. ”

Lin Shaohua talked about why Haruki Murakami's novel style and style are unique, and why is it different from his contemporary Japanese counterpart writers? One of the reasons for this is that Haruki Murakami himself is a literary translator, not only translating Fitzgerald, but also many of Raymond Carver's books, as well as "The Long Farewell" and so on. "He has translated a new thing in the buffer between the foreign language and the native Japanese language, and that new thing has led to his new style, which is often two languages, and the new style is formed by the fermentation of new elements produced by translation or through reading translation. Chinese writers who can become stylists are generally people who understand foreign languages, Lu Xun, Liang Shiqiu, Lin Yutang, Qian Zhongshu, Zhang Ailing, all of whom understand foreign languages and later become stylists. From the gap between the two languages, or the continuous fermentation between the strange beauty and the mature beauty of the two languages, there is a chemical reaction. ”

Doing literary translation is essentially a kind of literary writing

It is not that a high level of foreign language proficiency will necessarily translate a good work

In the minds of many readers, Lin Shaohua's translation of Haruki Murakami's translation is smooth and fresh, with strong literary character, with a unique "Lin taste". But some people will think that the translation is still trying to translate as truthfully as possible according to the original text. Who is right and who is wrong, come and listen to Lin Shaohua's own insights on literary translation, it may be enlightening.

Lin Shaohua first mentioned that unlike practical translation such as scientific and technological translation or business translation, literary translation is essentially a kind of literary writing. Literary translation is essentially a special kind of literary writing in one's own native language. Literary activities require sufficient literary understanding to do well. "No one in the world would think that a native speaker would be able to write poetry, novels, and essays in his native language. However, many people think that as long as they know foreign languages, they can do literary translation, which is actually a pure misunderstanding. Please ask yourself, do you have a native Chinese language or a literary native language? Do you master a daily or literary foreign language? For most people, the distance between the two is probably no less than from Changbai Mountain to Wuyi Mountain. Without talking about others, how many of us professors can write good articles in Chinese? ”

In some literary translations, every word and sentence may be incomparably correct, but there is no brilliance. Lin Shaohua believes, "It's not because of anything else, it's because the translator lacks literary understanding, and the thing of understanding or spirituality only accounts for 1% of all the translation elements, and this 1% is a bit of a bean soldier." Like making tofu, with a little brine soy milk will soon become a white tender tofu block, without a little brine soy milk is always a pot of liquid, if you say I like soy milk do not like tofu, that is another thing. ”

37-year-old translation of "Norwegian Forest"

Lin Shaohua, 67, thinks he is not suitable for re-translation

In addition to literary understanding, making a first-class translation may also require a life-of-life fit between the translator and the author. Li Jihong read Lin Shaohua's translation of "Norwegian Forest" in his college days, and now he re-reads it after 20 years, or he is inexplicably moved and written really well. Later, I wondered how Teacher Lin could translate so well, in addition to his language skills, spirituality and understanding, there was also a point: Haruki Murakami wrote "Norwegian Forest" at the age of 37. At the beginning of the novel, the protagonist says that he is 37 years old. When Teacher Lin translated this book, he was exactly 37 years old. I think this is conducive to Mr. Lin's good grasp of the stage of the transition period of the protagonist of the novel from youth to middle age. ”

Lin Shaohua agrees with this analysis, he is now past the age of 67, "If I translate now, I may be more mature in skill, almost impeccable." But that passion, that courage to break through the shackles of the grammatical surface structure, will not come anymore, and when I revise it, I want to re-translate it several times, and I think it is not suitable for a 67-year-old to translate this book. ”

(Photo courtesy of Publishers Fruit Wheat Culture)