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baihe_mediaSomewhat overshadowed by the kerfuffle over the lack of a basic plot summary over At Her Mercy/At the World's Mercy (我为鱼肉, pinyin: wo wei yurou) was the fact that Rosmei also released a translation preview (the translator is Shigure) for the first chapter of their other licensed baihe title, near-future sci-fi thriller The Creator's Grace (造物的恩宠, pinyin: zaowu de enchong). I read the preview, mainly to see if they seemed likely to do my favourite baihe novel to date justice. On present performance, I don't think they will.
Overall, the chapter to me reads rather stiff and stilted. This is sub-optimal (to say the least) for a fast-paced thriller. The translator also has a tendency to go for convoluted sentence structures and wannabe-ornate language where the author relies mainly on simple, forceful, effective language: think Patricia Highsmith; This is especially evident for the most emotionally significant lines (as an aside, translators often don't seem to recognise that some lines are particularly load-bearing, and to treat them with the extra care they deserve).
Below, I will set out a fairly detailed analysis of the first quarter of the translation preview. I will attempt to be a generous reader and to give the translator the benefit of the doubt, being all too aware of the challenges of translating long-form genre prose. I will try not to be overly nitpicky. However, I find many of the choices quite puzzling, and there are some that really negatively affect the reading experience and the overall dynamic the novel is attempting to convey. As we'll see as we go along, the translator has a tendency to deviate from the literal meaning of the original text for reasons that are not clear to me and don't improve the final translated text at all. I would be in favour of deviating from the strict, absolutely literal approach on the word level if that helps convey the overall meaning of the passage or sentence more effectively, or improves the flow substantially.x_los can certainly provide testimony as to how unwedded I am to a strict, literal word-by-literal word approach to translation. But I deviate for good reasons (mostly), and I don't think that's the case with most of the deviations I'm seeing in this translation preview. There are also at least a couple of things that appear to be outright mistakes. If you would like to refer to the Chinese source text for this chapter, it's here.
The novel is mostly (though not wholly) told from the perspective of protagonist Chi Yu, who has just returned to China after receiving news of her sister Chi Li's mysterious death. We start off with this absolutely terrible description of love interest Ran Jin — which, bear in mind, is the first description of Ran Jin we encounter in the whole book. This made me cringe when I read it:
The original text is as follows:
Moving now to the next bit of text, which is less of an outright howler, but which I think demonstrates the translator's infelicities with prose:
An easy edit for tightening up the prose would be to delete either 'king-size(d)' bed or 'measuring one an a half metres wide' — having both is redundant (for what it's worth, the original text says 'one and a half metre wide bed', but king-sized conveys the same meaning more efficiently to my mind). I would have also gone with 'not even a television/TV' instead of 'such as a television', which both flows more smoothly and is a more literally accurate translation of the original text.
On to the next section:
Original text:
Having both 'comfortably share' and 'feeling cramped' together is redundant (the aim here is tight, fast-paced prose). It also doesn't mirror the literal meaning of the original text, which explicitly contains the 'feeling cramped' element — 不容易伸展开 — only, and not the 'comfortably share' element. Again, to be absolutely clear, 'comfortably share' is implicit in the text, so I would have no problem if the translator chose to add it for effectiveness/flow reasons, but it's completely unnecessary here. I'm also slightly puzzled as to why the translator has chosen to move 'her sister, someone she believed enjoyed the finer things in life' into the middle of a sentence, when in the original text it was a stand-alone sentence. I personally would have rendered some of this roughly as:
I think that makes it all somewhat tighter and cleaner. Also we might quibble over whether we should incorporate 起码 (at least) as an element into the sentence, and whether 会享乐 is truly equivalent to 'enjoying the finer things in life', but moving swiftly along to the next section:
A glaring issue for me was 'temporary haven'. This is translated from 临时行宫 in the original text. 行宫 in the literal sense is a sort of temporary or secondary royal residence that the emperor and his entourage would stay at while travelling through the realm or paying a visit to the provinces. There's no 'safe haven' or 'shelter' implication in it. What I'm saying is, if the translator had been aware of the term 'pied a terre', this sentence could have been translated much more happily. There are other things in this passage that I think are sub-optimal, not structured/worded simply enough, and deviate from the literal meaning of the text for no obvious positive reason, but I can't go too much into them or we'll be here until 2025.
Next we come briefly to this:x_los is always picking me up on! There's been no previous mention of a chair, or of Chi Yu sitting down in one, and all of a sudden she's leaning back and swivelling? Again, to be fair, this is how it's presented in the original text — but Chinese is a lot more tolerant of chairs and sitting and swivelling happening out of nowhere. In English, the translator ideally needs to write a couple of bridging sentences, otherwise the reader gets confused.
On to the penultimate section we'll be looking at in this post:
That first sentence has too many clauses to achieve the clean, tense, fast-paced effect we want in a thriller. 'Single-handedly expanded' reads poorly and would be better replaced with something like 'built single-handedly', which again hews closer to the language of 打拼 in the original source text. Translating 伏 as 'towered' is an... interesting choice, as 伏 means quite the opposite — crouched, or slumped, or something like that. 'Squat' would have been a better choice, and also emphasised the 'creature-like' nature of the building.
And now to the last section we'll be looking at in this post:
For the first line, 'Like a ravenous beast, the Chi business empire had swallowed up vast swaths of the energy industry' is once again both cleaner and tighter and hews closer to the literal meaning of the original text (which doesn't explicitly have 'appetite' in it). 'Nowadays' would be better rendered simply as 'Now'. The final part of the passage would be more effectively rendered as 'had fallen into the hands of', which is both more dynamic and also (again!) hews closer to the literal meaning of the original text, which does have 落 (fall) explicitly in it.
I think this sufficiently illustrates my overall point about what I consider to be the main weaknesses in the translation. I'm not going to repeat this exercise for the second part of the analysis (again, otherwise we'd be here until 2025) but will focus instead on the mistakes and infelicities that strike me as particularly glaring.
Overall, the chapter to me reads rather stiff and stilted. This is sub-optimal (to say the least) for a fast-paced thriller. The translator also has a tendency to go for convoluted sentence structures and wannabe-ornate language where the author relies mainly on simple, forceful, effective language: think Patricia Highsmith; This is especially evident for the most emotionally significant lines (as an aside, translators often don't seem to recognise that some lines are particularly load-bearing, and to treat them with the extra care they deserve).
Below, I will set out a fairly detailed analysis of the first quarter of the translation preview. I will attempt to be a generous reader and to give the translator the benefit of the doubt, being all too aware of the challenges of translating long-form genre prose. I will try not to be overly nitpicky. However, I find many of the choices quite puzzling, and there are some that really negatively affect the reading experience and the overall dynamic the novel is attempting to convey. As we'll see as we go along, the translator has a tendency to deviate from the literal meaning of the original text for reasons that are not clear to me and don't improve the final translated text at all. I would be in favour of deviating from the strict, absolutely literal approach on the word level if that helps convey the overall meaning of the passage or sentence more effectively, or improves the flow substantially.
x_los can certainly provide testimony as to how unwedded I am to a strict, literal word-by-literal word approach to translation. But I deviate for good reasons (mostly), and I don't think that's the case with most of the deviations I'm seeing in this translation preview. There are also at least a couple of things that appear to be outright mistakes. If you would like to refer to the Chinese source text for this chapter, it's here.The novel is mostly (though not wholly) told from the perspective of protagonist Chi Yu, who has just returned to China after receiving news of her sister Chi Li's mysterious death. We start off with this absolutely terrible description of love interest Ran Jin — which, bear in mind, is the first description of Ran Jin we encounter in the whole book. This made me cringe when I read it:
Lifting a necklace with her fingertip, Chi Yu examined it briefly before releasing it. The design of the necklace reminded her of Ran Jin — dull and predictable.
The original text is as follows:
迟遇用指尖挑起一条项链，端详了片刻后随意放下。To be absolutely fair to the translator, 'dull and predictable' is not, on its face, an objectively incorrect way of rendering 单调 and 多年如一日. Those phrases are, in different contexts, capable of carrying those meanings. However, that choice is completely inappropriate in the present context. You do not want the reader's first impression of the love interest to be 'dull and predictable'. And in the overall context of describing Ran Jin, 'dull and predictable' are far from the correct terms: she's neither. I would have rendered 单调 as 'severe/austere' (this is an accurate description of Ran Jin's dressing style and also the way she initially presents herself) and 多年如一日 as 'never-changing/unchanging', because that's how she's been presenting herself for years.
款式和冉禁这个人一样单调，多年如一日。
Moving now to the next bit of text, which is less of an outright howler, but which I think demonstrates the translator's infelicities with prose:
Apart from the king-size bed measuring one and a half metres wide, the bedroom lacked any other source of entertainment, such as a television.Original text:
卧室里除了一张一米五的床外，没有任何娱乐设备，甚至连电视都没有，
An easy edit for tightening up the prose would be to delete either 'king-size(d)' bed or 'measuring one an a half metres wide' — having both is redundant (for what it's worth, the original text says 'one and a half metre wide bed', but king-sized conveys the same meaning more efficiently to my mind). I would have also gone with 'not even a television/TV' instead of 'such as a television', which both flows more smoothly and is a more literally accurate translation of the original text.
On to the next section:
Moreover, the bed turned out to be considerably smaller than Chi Yu had expected. She could hardly imagine how her sister, someone she believed enjoyed the finer things in life, could comfortably share this bed with another woman without feeling cramped.
Original text:
而且这张床的大小有点出乎迟遇的意料。
想像不到以前姐姐和她是如何睡在这么一张不容易伸展开的床上。
迟遇一直以为起码姐姐是个会享乐的人。
Having both 'comfortably share' and 'feeling cramped' together is redundant (the aim here is tight, fast-paced prose). It also doesn't mirror the literal meaning of the original text, which explicitly contains the 'feeling cramped' element — 不容易伸展开 — only, and not the 'comfortably share' element. Again, to be absolutely clear, 'comfortably share' is implicit in the text, so I would have no problem if the translator chose to add it for effectiveness/flow reasons, but it's completely unnecessary here. I'm also slightly puzzled as to why the translator has chosen to move 'her sister, someone she believed enjoyed the finer things in life' into the middle of a sentence, when in the original text it was a stand-alone sentence. I personally would have rendered some of this roughly as:
The bed was much smaller than Chi Yu had expected. She couldn't imagine her sister sharing it without feeling cramped. Chi Yu had always thought of her sister as someone who enjoyed the finer things in life.
I think that makes it all somewhat tighter and cleaner. Also we might quibble over whether we should incorporate 起码 (at least) as an element into the sentence, and whether 会享乐 is truly equivalent to 'enjoying the finer things in life', but moving swiftly along to the next section:
To Chi Yu’s knowledge, her sister had purchased this apartment five years ago for its proximity to her workplace. It served as a convenient place to rest after late-night work sessions, allowing her to easily return to her office the next morning.Original text:
Today, any remnants of her sister’s presence in this temporary haven had vanished without a trace.
据迟遇所知，这处公寓是姐姐五年前买的，因为距离公司近，工作太晚的话会直接在这儿休息，第二日早起去公司也很方便。'To Chi Yu's knowledge' is, to my mind, an overly formal and cumbersome way of saying 'as far as Chi Yu knew', or 'Chi Yu knew', or even to omit it altogether (given that we're in Chi Yu's POV at the moment). I would also personally simplify a lot of this language, e.g. 'her sister had bought the apartment five years ago because it was close to her office' ('workplace' sounds a bit too formal and health-and-safety as well).
如今看来，这个临时行宫里，姐姐的痕迹已经不复存在。
A glaring issue for me was 'temporary haven'. This is translated from 临时行宫 in the original text. 行宫 in the literal sense is a sort of temporary or secondary royal residence that the emperor and his entourage would stay at while travelling through the realm or paying a visit to the provinces. There's no 'safe haven' or 'shelter' implication in it. What I'm saying is, if the translator had been aware of the term 'pied a terre', this sentence could have been translated much more happily. There are other things in this passage that I think are sub-optimal, not structured/worded simply enough, and deviate from the literal meaning of the text for no obvious positive reason, but I can't go too much into them or we'll be here until 2025.
Next we come briefly to this:
Chi Yu leaned back in the chair and swivelled slowly.Ahahaha, this is the kind of thing
x_los is always picking me up on! There's been no previous mention of a chair, or of Chi Yu sitting down in one, and all of a sudden she's leaning back and swivelling? Again, to be fair, this is how it's presented in the original text — but Chinese is a lot more tolerant of chairs and sitting and swivelling happening out of nowhere. In English, the translator ideally needs to write a couple of bridging sentences, otherwise the reader gets confused.On to the penultimate section we'll be looking at in this post:
Beyond the sunlit window, the nearby U.P Tower seemed almost within arm’s reach as it jutted into the bright azure sky. This magnificent edifice, reminiscent of alien architecture, housed the business empire single-handedly expanded by her older sister, Chi Li. Like an extraterrestrial creature, it towered over the tangle of highways, establishing itself as one of the megacity’s most iconic landmarks.Original text:
如同外地建筑一般雄伟的U.P.大厦，是姐姐迟里一手打拼出来的商业帝国。
大厦像一只外星生物，伏在纵横交错的高速公路之上，是这座超级都市最醒目的地标之一。
That first sentence has too many clauses to achieve the clean, tense, fast-paced effect we want in a thriller. 'Single-handedly expanded' reads poorly and would be better replaced with something like 'built single-handedly', which again hews closer to the language of 打拼 in the original source text. Translating 伏 as 'towered' is an... interesting choice, as 伏 means quite the opposite — crouched, or slumped, or something like that. 'Squat' would have been a better choice, and also emphasised the 'creature-like' nature of the building.
And now to the last section we'll be looking at in this post:
With the appetite of a ravenous beast, The Chi family’s empire swallowed up swaths of the energy industry. Nowadays, the company to which Chi Li had dedicated her blood, sweat and tears rested in the hands of her former protégé and ex-lover, Ran Jin.Original text:
迟氏帝国是一只饥渴的猛兽，贪婪地侵吞着能源产业。
如今，姐姐多年的心血落到了她一手培养起来的昔日恋人冉禁的手里，
For the first line, 'Like a ravenous beast, the Chi business empire had swallowed up vast swaths of the energy industry' is once again both cleaner and tighter and hews closer to the literal meaning of the original text (which doesn't explicitly have 'appetite' in it). 'Nowadays' would be better rendered simply as 'Now'. The final part of the passage would be more effectively rendered as 'had fallen into the hands of', which is both more dynamic and also (again!) hews closer to the literal meaning of the original text, which does have 落 (fall) explicitly in it.
I think this sufficiently illustrates my overall point about what I consider to be the main weaknesses in the translation. I'm not going to repeat this exercise for the second part of the analysis (again, otherwise we'd be here until 2025) but will focus instead on the mistakes and infelicities that strike me as particularly glaring.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-23 07:20 am (UTC)I'm really enjoying the notes since I'm still not well-versed in connotations + how other people approach the text.
"Dull" doesn't seem particularly bad when it's coming from a character's POV (though "severe/austere" definitely paints a clearer picture that I would likely prefer as a reader), but in conjunction with "predictable" it does come off as overly negative which doesn't appear to be the intention.
"Temporary haven" definitely jumped out with me even just skimming the translation preview.
Again, to be fair, this is how it's presented in the original text — but Chinese is a lot more tolerant of chairs and sitting and swivelling happening out of nowhere. In English, the translator ideally needs to write a couple of bridging sentences, otherwise the reader gets confused.
I actually didn't realize this!!!!!! And I wonder this is why I struggle with the blocking in some of the cnovels I read haha (though I'm not sure this was quite the problem)???
no subject
Date: 2024-03-23 07:42 am (UTC)Another, similar issue in Chinese-English prose translation is the English taboo against repetition of the same significant word in close proximity. Due to English poetic traditions, if you use 'blackbird' three times in a sentence people will really NOTICE that, whereas Chinese readers would find it neutral. The natural English formulation there would be to work around it or sub in synonyms. This is actually an issue for ESOL learners in educational settings, who are not only working with a relatively limited English vocabulary, they also haven't absorbed and internalised the repetition taboo because it probably has no strong local equivalent in their home language(s).
This is the sort of translation issue we can talk about when we're not wasting all our time with cleaned up MTL and false economy bs like hiring translators you don't trust to summarise the book they are translating.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-23 09:22 am (UTC)To be extremely honest, I'm not sure how many people working on translations of these novels are actually capable of having craft conversations at the level we want. But even some awareness that these conversations are out there to be had would be nice.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-23 11:22 am (UTC)I studied English formally as a second language and don't recall the taboo in repetition, but I do remember internalizing redundancy (of words) as a concept in English, but not so much in other languages I know—granted, I didn't study those as formally or learn to write in those.
Yeah I really wish the conversations about translation were more interesting than the ones about correctness or accuracy, usually from people who don't understand how language works or have been so inoculated to MTL and translationese that that's the standard they have for translations.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-23 09:26 am (UTC)Yes, the blocking/background details thing has turned out to be a major issue, as
no subject
Date: 2024-03-23 11:38 am (UTC)Honestly the mystery to me is not that the translator did it, but that the marketing team has agreed that this preview is not only good enough to post as an official preview but also—until getting enough pushback—good enough to be a stand-in for an actual summary. You'd think they'd at least smoothen out (with a lot of very basic fixes, as you pointed out) these excerpts.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-23 08:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-23 09:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-23 09:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-23 09:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-23 09:52 am (UTC)Anyway, it feels extremely unlikely that they are Singaporean 🤣 Might be native Chinese speakers.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-23 12:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-23 11:47 am (UTC)Thank you for saying this so I don't have to haha I'm so salty about the decision to drag in the rest of Asia to use as a shield for their bad decisions
no subject
Date: 2024-03-23 11:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-24 05:45 am (UTC)I skimmed the preview and boy do I also have a lot to say about it... different translation views apply but even then I really didn't think it read well. Coming from a on-hiatus fic writer, it reads worse in terms of flow than other writers I've seen, and it's basically all because of the translation, not because of the original prose (not that I really have any expertise on the matter, but!) There are better ways to adapt prose flow, so I'm disappointed to say the least. I wish that I had more time and energy without getting bogged down by school so that I could do more books and their translations justice, alas...
I really relate to your anger and overall feelings of disappointment, unfortunately I feel like there's not much I can do, which makes me even more annoyed at this situation.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-25 06:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-25 03:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-25 06:49 am (UTC)