This YA novel, written by a 19-year-old (alarm bells!), is narrated by Doria, an Algerian teenager in the run-down, impoverished Paris suburbs. She lives alone with her mother after her father disappears back to Algeria to marry a younger woman who will hopefully bear him a son. Doria is bitter and cynical in exactly the ways you’d expect, with a few glimmers of hope.
I like to think the problem with this book is the translation. It’s stilted, and often doesn’t even make sense. Here’s an example: Doria’s visiting her government-assigned counselor, Mme. Burlaud. Mme. B leaves the room. “She didn’t come back until twenty minutes later…and I noticed she smelled like alcohol. Real strong. Well, that really was nothing… During the session, I didn’t have much to say so at one point she crossed her short little legs and went: ‘Maybe you’ve got a funny story to tell me?’ At that moment I noticed she was wearing garters. I looked back and forth between her face and her garters and thought that this wasn’t bad for a joke.” (Ellipses are the author’s.)
“Well, that really was nothing”? What on earth does that mean? And “thought that this wasn’t bad for a joke” probably means, “The funny story I want to tell you is about your garters, lady.” But it’s clearly been translated by someone who has no feel for English idiom or the feel of English speech — which is deathly for a book that’s written in the narrator’s youthful slang. (I just checked the translator’s name…Sarah Adams. I was expecting a French name. Maybe her English and French are fine but she’s just a terrible writer?)
Of course, it’s possible that the book is badly written in the first place. The first three pages are overflowing with gushy blurbs, mostly from French periodicals, but also from Newsweek International and The New York Times and The Guardian. I’d love it if someone who is fluent in French would read the original and tell me if it’s any good.
3 responses so far ↓
1 colorwheel // May 29, 2007 at 2:09 pm
it’s a hard issue with translations. there have times i’ve given a book a mediocre review and suspected that the problem was its translation; but i can never be sure, and in the final analysis, it doesn’t really matter, because my responsibility to librarians (and bookstore owners, etc.) is to review the product that’s in front of me, however it got that way.
i’ve also had the opposite experience — reviewed a gorgeously lyrical book and been unsure whether the translator was just super at translating art, or actually added her own art. but then again, i’m a little too postmodern to believe in a clear line between those anyway. ;)
-cw
2 scott // May 29, 2007 at 5:53 pm
the two phrases you’re puzzling over are totally well-wrought idiomatic french. “ce n’etait vraiement rien” is, literally, “it was really nothing” is, idiomatically, something like, “that was really no big deal.” same for “this wasn’t bad for a joke” was probably something like, “ce n’etait pas mal pour rigoler” or even “pour une blague.” both of which are less that awful non-english, but rather like, “well, at least it made me laugh.”
hells, even i know that, and i haven’t used my french in years. then again, i could be wrong. but the literal translations take you right back into idiomatic french, so there might be something to it.
3 anna // May 31, 2007 at 6:20 am
a quick glance reveals that she’s done a number of books, won translation awards, been interviewed by the guardian. which makes me apt to believe that she doesn’t suck, so i wonder what more might be going on here.
looks like she’s british, so that might account for some weirdness. and is the teenager supposed to speak french as a second language? does the 19 year old author? that might shed some light on adams keeping the awkward attempts at french idioms (though it sounds like maybe this wasn’t a successful strategy).
also, colorwheel: as a very postmodern literary translator, i salute your insight!
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