On Bilingualism and Translation: Poetry as an Example

Despite the tireless effort translators put to make their translation as close to the original as possible, a lot gets lost in translation. This seems to be especially true in poetry where a lot is expressed in a relatively tiny room-- where every word counts.

I have been lucky enough to speak an unlikely combination of English, Arabic and Russian. This gives me the pleasure of being frustrated by bad translations (and I'm not even using "pleasure" sarcastically).

To give you a glimpse into the wonderful world of bad translation, I shall give a classic ("classic" as far as I'm concerned) example of Sergie Yesenin's "Goodbye My Friend".

Here's the English translation:

Goodbye, my friend, goodbye
My love, you are in my heart.
It was preordained we should part
And be reunited by and by.
Goodbye: no handshake to endure.
Let's have no sadness — furrowed brow.
There's nothing new in dying now
Though living is no newer.

And here's the original, in case you read Russian. If you wanna hear how it sounds click here for a Youtube short video.

До свиданья, друг мой, до свиданья.
Милый мой, ты у меня в груди.
Предназначенное расставанье
Обещает встречу впереди.
До свиданья, друг мой, без руки, без слова,
Не грусти и не печаль бровей,-
В этой жизни умирать не ново,
Но и жить, конечно, не новей.

Let's start at the very beginning with the word "goodbye" which launches the bad translation successfully. The word actually used in the original literally means "until we meet again" which already gives a massively different feel to the poem from the English gloomy "goodbye".

"My love you are in my heart" is possibly the line that bugged (and delighted) me the most. For a start, the friend is addressed by an expression which I can think of no English equivalent for. It's somewhere between "cute" and "darling". It is an expression that does not only manifest the love and care one bears for the addressee but also pays them a compliment of sorts. It is much more tender than the overused "my love". And speaking of clichés, "you are in my heart" is actually "you are in my chest". It gives a feeling of a kickass brotherly connection that contrasts with the tender "my darling". This whole dynamic between the tender and the kickass is totally gone in English.

"It was preordained we should part/And be reunited by and by" is more like "inevitable parting/ promises a meeting to come" which is quite different. I'll leave it for you to decide which is better and why.

"Goodbye: no handshake to endure./Let's have no sadness — furrowed brow" is more like "until we meet again, my friend, without hands, without words/ do not be depressed and do not furrow your brow." The difference, needless to say, is that the translation loses the very personal tone of the poem. If the original is addressing a friend (almost looking him straight in the eye, saying "I'm looking through you. Stop frowning!") the translation is more vague, addressing no one in particular. Perhaps it even includes the speaker of the poem himself among the people who should not be sad -- which is kinda ridiculous.

"There's nothing new in dying now/Though living is no newer" would be more like "in this life, to die is nothing new/but to live is, of course, no newer". 

I am no translator; merely a picky amateur. But over all, my rough translation of the poem would sound something like the following:

Au revoir, my friend, au revoirMy darling, you are in my chest.
Inevitable parting
Promises a meeting to come.
Until we meet again, my friend, without hands, without words,
Do not be depressed and do not furrow your brow--
In this life, to die is nothing new,
But to live is, of course, no newer.

Yesenin wrote this poem with his own blood addressing a friend apparently just before committing suicide. It is most remarkable (even mind blowing) how hopeful-- almost cheerful the topic of death is discussed in this short poem, especially given it's history. And I hope that my rough translation stuck, if only a little, more closely to the original capturing its tone. (As a side note, the guy who reads it on that Youtube video also reads it quite sadly. I, though, stubbornly refuse to see it as a gloomy poem).

The point of this lengthy rant (aside from talking about Yesenin, which I can do all day) is to comment on how privileged I feel to have access to the original material in different languages. To be able to understand it. Appreciate it. Compare it to translations, which are, despite their inaccurate-ness (and perhaps precisely because of it), very illuminating.

For example, I did not initially notice (or consciously appreciate) the contrast created in the second line until the translation threw me automatically off and made me wonder what exactly bugged me and why.
Similarly, translations open your eyes to the limitation one language faces and the potential another provides.

If you are bilingual, I would encourage you to read literature, both in its original form as well as in translation. You will find the process long, tiring and perhaps boring (especially if it's a long text) but it will more often than not be an overall rewarding experience.
If you are not bilingual, don't worry. We've got your back!


P.S. The picture is a Soviet stamp, featuring Yesenin. Source.

The Graveyard Book

Inspired by The Jungle Book as well as his (then two-years-old) son Michael who rode a tricycle in a graveyard, Neil Gaiman wrote a fantasy book targeting children and wanna-be children (like myself). 

The story kicks off as a one-year-old kid escapes a murder. While his whole family gets killed, he gets out of the house, up the hill and into the Graveyard. There, (to make a long story short,) the ghosts hold a conference of sorts by which the boy is granted Freedom of the Graveyard - meaning he can walk in and out of tombs and see in the dark. He is also named Nobody Owens. Nobody, because he is like nobody and is entirely unique; Owens, because that is the last name of the ghost couple who adopted him. The pun, I'm sure, is perfectly intentional. 

Seeing that I'm still navigating my way through organizing this blog, I'm not entirely sure how the posts will be laid out yet. However, for now they will run something like this:

Overview-- One of the best things about this book, is that growing in a graveyard, Nobody (Bod, for short) is offered a bear minimum of the material comforts that other people seem to take for granted. This illustrates how one needs very little to (happily) survive. Interestingly enough, of the very few things Bod was offered were books. It ranked among things like food and drinks - he did not bother with clothing until much later in the plot and even then he kept them to a minimum.


On a slightly different note, the Graveyard's an ancient thing. There are graves that date far back to pre-history. The most recent grave was dug 30 years before the events of the book took place, after which the Graveyard became a natural resort. This allowed for a diversity among the ghosts so interesting, giving each ghost his/her own personality and back-story. 

Characters-- Gaiman recognized the potential that an ancient graveyard offers and made use of it. For instance, one could find anything from a witch (victim of the medieval witch-craze) to an ancient Roman soldier. Each of these characters reflected his/her era and social rank. 
For example, there was a Romantic poet (yes, capital R-- Look the difference up) that encouraged Bod to do something reckless filling Bod's head with Romantic ideals. On the other hand, Mr. Owen would beat Bod up if he did something wrong, seeing corporal punishment was fine back in his days. 

So did Bod discover the world and learn about it. Despite his virtually non-existent interaction with all things non-Graveyard, Bod was relatively ready to face it when he got older. There is, it seems, some constancy to the human race that allows the upbringing of different cultures and times past to prepare one for the contemporary world. Maybe (just maybe) we did not change/"progress" as much as we seem to think. And, maybe (just maybe) that's not too bad.   

Other stuff-- Aside from ghosts, the Graveyard is full of other creatures who are also interesting and quite a bit mysterious. It would have been nice to know more about them -- what they are, what they do, and so on (especially since one of the main characters belongs to this group). As it is, they feel a little out of nowhere - there is but little depth to them, despite having a lot of potential. 

Overall, I gave The Graveyard Book 4 out of 5 stars. Check it out!