Translating Kafka / Kafka auf Englisch
am 13.06.2007 von Transblawg
My attention has been directed (thanks, Trevor) to an entry in a Guardian Unlimited blog by Lee Rourke, headed 'What goes into a great translation?' and dealing with Michael Hofmann's new translations of Kafka.
The difference is noticeable from the very first line, so immediate are Hofmann's translations. For instance, and to use Kafka's most famous opening sentence, here's Hofmann's offering:
“When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself changed into a monstrous cockroach in his bed.”
Compare this to any previous translation, and you'll see, for a start, that there is no dilly-dallying with style; the prose is swift, direct and without obfuscation, as, one presumes, Kafka intended.
Now a new translation every couple of decades may be a good idea, but the way this is phrased does tend to throw a ripple through one's BS detectors. Kafka writes a plain sentence - were those other translators so wide of the mark? And the praise of the term cockroach also seems misplaced.
It is the word “cockroach” that tickles me the most. At first it seems incongruous (as pointed out in Nicholas Lezard's recent Guardian review). But it is clever. In the original Prague-German, Kafka uses the word “ungeziefer” which literally translates as “vermin”. Kafka wanted to denote the marginalised, detested individual. Hofmann could have used the word “vermin” but, though still denoting something to be looked down upon, it would have taken us away from the crucial image of the insect (although it is interesting to note that when …
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» Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog - books: What goes into a great translation?
» Franz Kafka - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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