The author | investigates the matter
Source | Confucius old book network App dynamics
A few years ago, I bought an old version of the children's literature masterpiece "One-year-old Fawn" (Foreign Literature Publishing House, 1980) at a boss in Zhejiang Book City. Let's talk about this book today's dynamics.
The translator of the book was Li Limin (1919-1991), a native of Zhenhai, Zhejiang. In 1946, he was admitted to the Department of Foreign Languages of Hujiang University, but dropped out of school two years later. During the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, he went to Korea with the army and worked as an interpreter at marshal Peng Dehuai's side. He has been engaged in literary translation work all his life, and has worked for a long time in the Children's Publishing House, Shanghai Translation Publishing House and other units, translating dozens of foreign literary works, with a total of about 6 million words. He wrote in his postscript:
"The One-Year-Old Fawn" is an excellent work of children's literature published by the American writer Mar King Rowlings (1896-1953) in 1938. This Chinese translation is my first full-length translation study on the road of literary translation. From the time it died as soon as it was published until it is now reprinted, its encounter has been quite tortuous.
It was 1947 when I was studying in the English Department of the University, and I used that summer vacation to translate this novel as a textbook. But at that time, in Shanghai under the rule of the Kuomintang, prices soared, the people did not have a good life, and the publishing industry was extremely depressed, and no one was willing to publish this translated novel. Later, I was fortunate to meet a primary school teacher, Mr. Mu Shaoliang (who was the secretary general of the Minjin, who has passed away), who edited "Children's World" at the Commercial Press and worked part-time in a publishing house, which gave the translated novel a chance to publish. At that time, the translated title of the novel was "Deer Boy Tears", Mr. Mu wrote a preface to it, and asked one of his old friends To be Bingru to draw the cover, which I will never forget! But after the book was published in 1948, the publisher quickly closed its doors, and the thousand books printed were probably only sold in bookstores for a few copies before they were doomed to "landing stalls". The so-called "landing stalls" are book dealers who set up old book stalls on the side of the road, buy them from the publishing house at a very low price according to the two pounds, and then sell them on the side of the road at the price of a few dimes a book. At the time, my only hobby was visiting used bookstores. When I stood by an old book stall on Fuzhou Road and saw my first novel translated together with some messy books, my regret could not help but bring tears to my eyes.
...... This novel not only touched me when I first read it as a student thirty-two years ago, but to this day I am a sixty-year-old man, and I am equally touched when I reread it! I wholeheartedly recommend this masterpiece to our young readers and big friends and old friends with a pure heart. ”
After reading this text, I immediately bought back the only Republic of China version of "Deer Boy Tears" by Kong Net. Although the quality is not very good, the back cover is missing, but at that time only 1,000 copies were printed and printed out on the "ground stall", it is not easy to survive until now. Just checked, in addition to the copy, Kong Net is currently only one book on sale, missing the cover cover, the price is 1,000 yuan.
Another Chinese translation of the book, Deer Park Changchun, is more famous because hollywood movies based on it are called this one and won an Oscar in 1946. I bought the DVD of the film a long time ago, it is so touching and tireless, I highly recommend watching it with children.
I found out that Zhang Ailing had also translated the book. She also wrote a special afterword to the translation, saying that the characters in the book are never forgotten. "When it comes to the works of our neighbors, it always seems too early to say 'immortal', but the status of "Deer Garden Changchun" in modern literature has been established. There are more animals than people in "Deer Garden Changchun", deer, rattlesnakes, old bears with figure-eight feet, cows, horses, pigs - like a zoo, but the characters in it, especially the boy Qiao Di, are something that people can never forget. Zhang Ailing copied the last two paragraphs by hand, touching her eyes to the wetness.
Zhang Ailing re-read "Deer Garden Changchun" and was still full of interest: "There is a kind of book that we loved to read when we were teenagers, and it is still very interesting to pick it up after many years, and some places have not been noticed before, and later seeing it will cause many new feelings." Reading such a book can almost be said to be a test of our own maturity. There are not many such books, such as this "Deer Garden Changchun" is an example. ”
I also bought the original English version of The Yearling, which of course is a very ordinary version. The Yearling was first published in 1938 as a novel by American writer Mar King Rowlings. Based on the childhood memories of an elderly man in the Florida Woods, the story is hailed as a classic of "childhood, courage, affection, and dreams", and after its release, the book topped the American bestseller list for 140 weeks, and then won the 1939 Pulitzer Prize for Literature, influencing generations of Americans. The U.S. government also issued a commemorative stamp based on the author and the fawn figure in the book, and behind the portrait of the author was a fawn standing by the lake drinking water and a large tree covered with Spanish moss by the river. According to The New York Times, "No one had created such a lifelike series of characters before Ms. Rowlings." Talking about the original intention of writing "Deer Garden Changchun", Rawlings once said that it was a hymn to children and nature, but after the work came out, it touched readers of all ages. To date, it has been translated into 20 languages and published in 133 countries.
When the book was first published in the United States, it attracted the attention of the painting master of the time, N. C. Weiss, who drew a full set of illustrations for the book. In 2016, Yunnan People's Publishing House published a new edition of "Deer Garden Changchun", which was exclusively authorized by the Weiss family to use the original illustrations in the domestic Chinese edition for the first time. Translator Mei Jing showed, "Rawlings's words are delicate and vivid, full of affection. Translated for six years, this is the book that moved me the most. I only hope that readers can also borrow my hand and read their own feelings. ”
Lingnan Fine Arts Publishing House has adapted a comic strip based on the book, also called "Deer Boy Tears", which is said to be a big missing book and the price is not cheap. In 1985, the Workers' Publishing House published a comic strip version of "Deer Garden Changchun", and Kong Net had two copies for sale, with a price of 300 yuan, which seemed to be a big shortage. I don't understand the world of lianyou at all, and I always feel that I can buy a good version of the original English version at this price.