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Monk came upon the big love scene in "Magic Mountain" today between Hans Castorp and Clavdia Chauchat on Carnival Night. Through about a half-dozen reads, this scene has been a source of irritation and frustration. You see, pages of it are written in French!
His first paperback did not provide an English translation of this heated and climactic episode. Monk was hoping that his new hardback edition might provide one, perhaps in an appendix or something. But, no, nothing! It is almost as if the translator found the job of translating from the German arduous enough that he just threw up his hands at going from the French.
As Monk got ready to go into the scene today, feeling a little upset that he will still have to go without knowing how Mr. Mann works out this love match, he is inspired to surf the Net for a translation, googling in 'magic mountain french.' He was not optimistic about this first attempt, but it actually brought up his best answer: "A computer translation of some French in Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain."
Monk was ecstatic at first, as he printed a copy, falling ever deeper in love with the Internet. It will do everything but swallow!
Neverthemore, this translation is not all that one could have hoped. I gather that Russell Bell is the man who put this translation up, and what he did was run a straight computer translation using the program Babelfish. The translation is hence a bit rough in parts. Moreover, Mr. Bell only writes out the phrases translated from a text in which the French is mixed in with the German/English, which means that the needy reader has to go back and forth between print-out and book. It is very inconvenient.
Be that as it may, as I do not know a better effort, I am still only grateful for Mr. Bell's enterprise. I have at least been able to get a lot more from that scene than I ever have before. Though, there is still that unquenched appetite to have that love scene rendered in its full artistic glory. Why it should be difficult to enjoy that is beyond me.
xXx
Monk came upon the big love scene in "Magic Mountain" today between Hans Castorp and Clavdia Chauchat on Carnival Night. Through about a half-dozen reads, this scene has been a source of irritation and frustration. You see, pages of it are written in French!
His first paperback did not provide an English translation of this heated and climactic episode. Monk was hoping that his new hardback edition might provide one, perhaps in an appendix or something. But, no, nothing! It is almost as if the translator found the job of translating from the German arduous enough that he just threw up his hands at going from the French.
As Monk got ready to go into the scene today, feeling a little upset that he will still have to go without knowing how Mr. Mann works out this love match, he is inspired to surf the Net for a translation, googling in 'magic mountain french.' He was not optimistic about this first attempt, but it actually brought up his best answer: "A computer translation of some French in Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain."
Monk was ecstatic at first, as he printed a copy, falling ever deeper in love with the Internet. It will do everything but swallow!
Neverthemore, this translation is not all that one could have hoped. I gather that Russell Bell is the man who put this translation up, and what he did was run a straight computer translation using the program Babelfish. The translation is hence a bit rough in parts. Moreover, Mr. Bell only writes out the phrases translated from a text in which the French is mixed in with the German/English, which means that the needy reader has to go back and forth between print-out and book. It is very inconvenient.
Be that as it may, as I do not know a better effort, I am still only grateful for Mr. Bell's enterprise. I have at least been able to get a lot more from that scene than I ever have before. Though, there is still that unquenched appetite to have that love scene rendered in its full artistic glory. Why it should be difficult to enjoy that is beyond me.
