Kevin's Watch

Edelaith here.
As a preamble to this, I'd like to say that mistranslation of an authors' work is a desecration of that authors' work (I learned that term from Donaldson.) I'm guessing Donaldson would agree with me, especially concerning the mistranslation of his work into French.
We have seen ghastly translations of other works, such as the poor translation to Japanese of the film Fellowship of the Ring, which hurt the film sales there, as well as cheating the Japanese out of a beautiful experience (permanently, with no chance to ever set things right again, since the Japanese had already seen the visuals.)
It's a bad thing. It's a REALLY bad thing. It is unfortunate it happened to Donaldsons' 1st Chronicles, the result being the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Incredulous.

And yet, on onering.net, they offered some of the mistranslations of pirated copies of LOTR for the ENJOYMENT of the reader.
Of course, the mistranslations of the pirated copies were worse than the poor translations of the legitimate Japanese versions. Much worse, apparently. Some really strange things happened in those translations.
Reading those ghastly mistranslations, I found most of them simply sad. However, a few of them were funny: darkly funny (not funny funny, but That's Disgusting Funny, or OMG That's Crazy, How Could They Do That? funny.)
I'm guessing that if Thomas Covenant the Incredulous was retranslated into English, mistranslations and all, we'd get a laugh out of some of the gaffes. Some of them: the rest would be saddening, or maddening, or just plain infuriating. (Obviously, the French were cheated out of something beautiful, with no way to ever rectify the disaster. There is nothing funny about that!)

Consider a piece of music that you do not listen to, do not want to listen to, do not appreciate, and do not want to appreciate.
If you sat down and heard that piece, you probably would not care that much, would you, if the musicians made mistakes in their rendition of the music?
On the other hand, what about a piece of music that you greatly love, greatly appreciate, and which you listen to constantly? In this case, if they play the piece even slightly differently than you are accustomed to hearing it played, it can ruin or at least change the entire piece; in my case, I consider it to be an entirely different piece of music!
A single misplayed note can ruin the music. Deliberate and major changes in interpretation can be infuriating or frustrating.
And in a few rare instances, they can be funny (not funny funny, but ridiculous funny.)

Well, Stephen Donaldson is like that, for me.
So I am morbidly curious as to what they did to his works in their mistranslation to French.
Does anyone have one of these horrors? (mistranslated books.) Can anyone cite passages, retranslating from French to English? (I cannot read French.) Can anyone out there show us examples of what happened in that bad translation?

I'm guessing most of the mistranslations are simply disgusting or sad. But perhaps a few are darkly funny.
We can poke fun, at those who made the poor translation, if nothing else. For the burden of doing it right fell on them, and they failed and cheated the French people. They failed the author. If anyone deserves to have the finger poked in them, humorously or otherwise, it is those who mistranslated the books.

I intend no disrespect here. There ARE people who disrespect the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, but not me. If I did, I would never have such a morbid curiosity for hearing about this mistranslation.

Anyone out there? Anyone have the mistranslated books? Can anyone give quotes from them?

Well, I do know that in one version of the books somewhere Saltheart Foamfollower was translated to Briny the Pirate.... heheheh....

I enjoyed reading the first two Chronicles in english; at first I thought my english vocabulary was so inept... but later realised most native english readers were also strugling!

When I first saw a french translation in a bookstore (the year was maybe 1987), I was of course very curious at how the translator would have rendered the richness of SRD's language.

The first book's title's translation didn't hurt me: Thomas l'Incrédule does sound better than Thomas l'Incroyant — this last one, in french, has much more religious overtones, so the first one, incrédule, is more appropriate in this language, imho. I don't find it to be a mistranslation.

Nevertheless, the titles for the next two volumes leave me quite perplexed: Le réveil du titan for The Illearth War, which translated in english to The Awakening of the Titan (or ...of the giant); and L'éternité rompue for The Power That Preserves, which translates to Broken Eternity...

I haven't read the translations extensively.
But I did browse through the french LFB in the bookstore then, and was appalled at the true disrespect for SRD's work: I wanted to know how the poem Something there is in beauty (LFB, ch.5) was translated, since for me this poem is so important in the book and series... only to find out it had been left out! It was nowhere to be seen, and I understood: although I can't comment on the translation itself — not having read it — I know they butchered the book, probably to cut down on what might be considered too long-winded content... This is much worse than mistranslation

Anyways... you can find here a proper review (in french) from those who've read the books in french, and can witness about not only bad translation, but also about the butcher job that was done.

A few translated comments in the above review:

... the three volumes were butchered. This edition is scandalous. Even the inattentive reader can feel it from the difference between the fast rythm of the story and the slower one for the narration, especially in the first book. But the worst comes in the second volume, for which the third part has simply been cut after the first chapter, leaving the reader with a feeling of unfinished business. So when the reader goes on to read the 'what has gone before' part in the third volume, he is confronted with events not present in the second volume (!!!!!)

Need one say more?

Maybe this:

for many are the blights
which may waste
the beauty
or the beholder

The Covers..the French Covers.
Who is the half naked red-haired chick?

I can't read or speak French, but the French covers speak volumes about the mistranslation of the Chronicles!
The women of the Land fought and died in the Chronicles. However, I am quite certain they did not fight and die naked.
And Saltheart Foamfollower was not blue.

LOL
that's hilarious. My french is veru rusty (in Canada you are taught it, but unless you use it...)
Those covers made me laugh out loud (not entirely appropriate at a bank). They just stuck on some 'Boris' paintings to make it appealing to the 'masses'.
Sex sells, but what a let down for those expecting the covers to hint a the content.
"Can't tell a book by its cover"...? Yah, somewhat...

Edelaith wrote:The women of the Land fought and died in the Chronicles. However, I am quite certain they did not fight and die naked.

LOL! Beautifully put. Now, if they were Robert Jordan women, they'd spend a significant amount of their lives being naked, parading around naked in front of other women (& sometimes men), being spanked while naked, etc.

Edelaith wrote:And Saltheart Foamfollower was not blue.

Exactly. We have it on Darrell K. Sweet's authority that Foamfollower was green.

I haven't read it in years, but Mark Twain was so outraged by the bizarre translation of his story, The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, that he restranslated the story back into English from the mangled French and published the result. It makes for entertaining reading.

This Smiley had an animal which the boys called the nag of the quarter of hour, but solely for pleasantry, you comprehend, because, well understand, she was more fast as that!

Huh. I like the Mordant's Need jackets, especially the third (third?!!) one where Terisa is naked and wearing a large starfish on her head.

Well, at least there's strong sexual overtones in that book. Of course, there aren't any strong sexual overtones relating to starfish... where can I see these book jackets anyway?

If you follow the link in Revenant's post, it'll take you to the French review site.

That's a little odd... I guess we'd have to assume that's terisa... O,O <wide eyed
dear heavens.

Edelaith wrote:... the French covers speak volumes about the mistranslation of the Chronicles!

In fact, it's kind of a 'tradition' in the french SF/Fantasy genre books to have these kinds of covers that almost always got some valkyrie-like slightly-clad warrior-grrrrrl, or humongous hyper-steroid-muscled he-man, usually riding some beast... and of course having mostly nothing to do with the story, or very slightly.

The artists themselves are not that bad... Vallejo for example... but they probably never read the stories.

I learned quite early in my youth to not judge the books by their covers... especially french translations

I do kinda get the impression they just say "okay, we need covers for three fantasy books" and take whatever comes back.

Is there anyone out there who HAS one of this horrors? (that is, the mistranslated French books)
In which case, can they retranslate excerpts of the MIStranslationed French directly back into English, still in mistranslated form?
I have read the mess (mess isn't the word) they made out of Mark Twains' book, but a page or two of Thomas Covenant the Incredulous would be enlightening, and darkly humorous.
I cannot read or speak in French, but some of you can. Can you pull this off?

I intend no disrespect to the author, Stephen Donaldson. I've been his fan since 1977. But since his works are so very serious, I think I could get a laugh out of the ridiculous translation of Thomas Covenant the Incredulous.
After all, sometimes things are just so silly and stupid you gotta laugh, and this sounds like one such case.
I mean, from the tidbids I read above, there must be hundreds if not thousands of moments in the mistranslation where the reader would say: how could even the most stupid idiot possibly turn THAT into THAT?!

I mean, when you truly like and appreciate the Chronicles, it makes it all the more outrageous, infuriating, and occasionally humorous to hear such desecration. And you thank your lucky stars you got the right translation the first time!

Just a request.
Anyone?

I'll try to find it at a local library... But I think the most dammage is done to the structure.
I don't remember the french name given to Foamfollower: I'm looking forward to see what it is, and to try to see what the translator though he/she was doing.

Check here for a review of the translation and some examples. (search for the word "Chroniques")

To get back to "Thomas l'Incrédule", i.e. "Thomas The Incredulous"... That first name was surely chosen/inspired by the Thomas in the gospel, the one who didn't believe right away, had to have some proof... In french this Thomas was called "Thomas l'Incrédule" (your "Doubting Thomas" in english) long before the Covenant trilogy, and thus the translator made a good choice for the name, recognising the reference. Litteraly retranslated to english it might sound a bit odd, or mistranslated, but I don't think it is (sorry to repeat myself )

As Murrin and Revenant said, I often get the feeling that cover-artists don't actually read the books that they do the art for. At best, they may get a publishers brief about the story, but in the case of those french covers, it looks like even that didn't happen.

--Avatar

Revenant wrote: I don't remember the french name given to Foamfollower: I'm looking forward to see what it is, and to try to see what the translator though he/she was doing.

I believe you'll find that it's "Briny the Pirate."

"Briny the Pirate."

are you serious?

Sadly, yes.