(no subject)

So the Japan Lit class has made me notice translations more, and since there's a translation of a JinYong novel (the book and the sword, which incidentally can be found here, mostly b/c he took it down from his website b/c it's been published in 2003... ) But anyway, it's quite obvious that a lot of peripheral story has been chopped off. I mean, 20 chapters condensed into 9. But then, some of it makes sense, especially since a lot of the peripheral characters are used to add "martial arts worldliness" to the story, which people won't get anyway. Plus it's a story written as a newspaper serial, so even though it's undergone editing before the book form, it still shows the original need for a daily chunk of sensational thriller. (although there are some pretty sweet little "side stories" in there, some with foreshadowing aspects, others character development or social commentary) Sometimes it's lucky to have something in a different language, because that allows for multiple reinterpretations dependent on what *you* need. I mean, imagine Dickens translated for modern readers! But then again, truly great works are so well spun that you can't cut anything without losing everything. Cutting ShuJian may not be too hard, but what about something bigger, more intricate, like TianLong? Of course, the story is already complicated as is, with its gigantic cast of major and minor characters, each with 3 different "names". Well, a person is called by their last name, or by an honorific, or by a nickname, or by full name, or by their ranking or occupation.... And then the translator decided the literally translate the monks' names, which makes sense because they're "given", and say something about their status, but it also adds more confusion. Which is why I think this sort of thing works better as a "graphic novel", mostly because you add another descriptive level that can convey info without being cumbersome.
Despite my complaints, however, the parts that *were* translated were well done, and unless some Chinese reading person's around to point out the plot deviations, you wouldn't even be able to tell.

And of course, all this came from the realization that babelfish now translates Chinese (although still can't translate the half-literary-ness of JinYong)

and the visit to babelfish was because I was trying to remember the Spanish for witness, which is testigo.

And the reason for that was the other night "abogado" entered a conversation about sushi and avocados.