El modesto misterio

Karla, your husband Jilmar is dead. His body was found at San Fernando ranch, next to your younger brother, your brother in law as well, the three of them assassinated, three out of the seventy two dead. How many more died with them? Your life broken into pieces, you should have died also, although i hope you wouldn’t have died, not forever, because you’re children need you,and life, broken into pieces, is still life. You are somewhere in California with your children. You might hide your pain int he same way that you hide perhaps without documentation, and with more reasons than that to not grab attention over your family. Isn’t it strange to think that Jilmar in California, and probably you as well had and still have way more to fear than the agents of ICE and the United States authorities than what the Mexican authorities that held Jilmar can fear? Finally, what are “Los Zetas?” The night falls, the desert full, the universe full, and there are only Zetas and ICE in all the horizon. The Zetas and ICE are simply the most disposed weapons of the man of darkness.
Fortunately Jilmar’s brothers are with you. It looks as if Jilmar was a chef in a successful restaurant in California,I don’t know what your brothers do, what you do, and perhaps it is better to remain in silence and keep it a secret. Perhaps in California it went well for you guys? Jilmar must have told Lizardo and Hermelindo something quite promising, so that they can take on that dangerous trip to California with him, and with barely two hundred and fifty dollars to share between the three of them. There was the forty two inch flatscreen television in Jilmar’s fathers home in Agua Caliente, a gift from his kids residing in the U.S, the outcome of his work. Much isn’t needed so that California can look more promising than Guatemala. But who wouldn’t be happy hiring Jilmar? Jilmar a handsome guy, with muscular biceps, and a smile that would easily make anyone return it. He crossed frontiers propelled by love. First of all, its been five years after you left to California before him, when you were sixteen and were pregnant Jilmar went for you, and hew as arrested. He spent one month in jail, and he achieved his goal in the next intent. In May he decided to return to Guatemala to see his parents. Because he wanted to see us alive,not dead, and his father. Only a pure and courageous heart makes such a trip for such reason. His father said he returned very different and very loving, which meant that he had not been like that before, Karla, if not until he went with you to California. When you guys were practically children. Now you wait for sleep, how you waited for Jilmar’s hugs before, to be able to sleep, because only in dreams you get to see him, he and your younger brothers. Even nightmares are welcome, because at least Jilmar was alive there, and the terror isn’t worse than what you usually feel when you’re awake. What advice can I give you? I who has also lost the beloved wife. Let people be giving with you, including when at first it seems to make no difference. It will be a long, long trip. Take your love with you from now to the future in a manner that will help your kids grow, and will help yourself. Look for beauty anywhere you can find it, think that this is the way in which he can give you a small sense of relief, just like when a father takes an infant from the tired arms of his wife.

It was very interesting to explore four different translation of the same text during our class discussion.  I took this class because of the importance of proper translation of a text in the current trends of business globalization.  Don Quixote is one of the most important texts to refer when we talk about world literature.  This text has hundreds of years and I never realized before this class how important is to properly translate this text to understand it in different languages.  I clearly noticed that the first two translation of Don Quixote the English words pick for the translation of the text were more complex and many of the words, I had difficulties to understand.  As we discussed in class, that was caused by an important fact about how languages evolve thru time. The first two translations were written in 1985 and 1949 by two American translators. Even though, they were from the United States, the translation looked different but it is because of the time they were written.

The other two translation of Don Quixote were both written in 2003. However, what made these texts different wasn’t the time; it was the place where they were written what made the difference in this case.  This was another key factor when someone wants to translate a text.  You have to make sure that your target audience would be able to understand your translation of a text. In the case of the last two translations of Don Quixote, they were on point for their target audience, the European and the American Markets. 

Las cartas

Son para ti, dijo ella. Devuélvemelas cuando tus palabras sean sinceras. Eran las cartas que le había escrito, envueltas en una cinta rosada, escritas en tinta negra a lo largo de semanas que se convirtieron en meses. Desesperadamente enamorado, decían. Pero nunca dudes, decían.

Todavía las tengo.

The Letters

These are for you, she said. Give them back to me when you mean it. They were my letters to her, wrapped in a pink ribbon, penned in medium black ink, written over weeks that turned into months. Hopelessly devoted, they said. But never doubt, they said.

I still have them.

****

The Fatal Lapse

The stage lights went out  and a long wave of applause broke the silence. Before the audience’s rapt gaze, the young magician had just vanished. The illusion was inexplicable, and never before achieved by anyone. It was his last performance; he never managed to remember the second part of the trick.

El olvido fatal

Se apagaron las luces del escenario y un aplauso prolongado quebró el silencio de la sala. El joven mago acababa de desaparecer en escena ante la absorta mirada del público, consumando una ilusión inexplicable y nunca antes lograda. Fue la última función del ilusionista, que jamás logró recordar la segunda parte del truco.

*****

Before the Red Dawn Comes

I’ve discovered that at night I become a serial killer. As soon as I fall asleep, my sleep-walking body is possessed by an evil force that drives me to attack the first person who crosses my path and torture him or her  to death. I wake up every morning with my hands covered in blood and sometimes with marks on my body that prove my victims resisted me. I don’t know where their dead bodies end up or why my unconscious mind behaves in this morbid way while I sleep. Please, I need your help. Tie me tighter to the bed and pour me another cup of coffee. It’s late and I don’t want to fall asleep next to you.

Antes que llegue el rojo amanecer

He descubierto que durante las noches me transformo en un asesino serial. Apenas concilio el sueño, mi cuerpo sonámbulo es poseído por una fuerza maligna que me lleva a atacar al primer sujeto que encuentre en mi camino, utilizando crueles técnicas de tortura hasta provocar su muerte. Me despierto cada mañana con las manos envueltas en sangre y, en algunos casos, con marcas en mi cuerpo que indican que existió cierta resistencia. Desconozco el destino de los cadáveres de mis víctimas y la razón por la cual mi inconsciente dormido actúa de esa forma enfermiza. Por favor, necesito tu ayuda. Atame más fuerte a la cama y dame de tomar otra taza de café. Ya es tarde y no quiero quedarme dormido junto a ti.

****

The Last Passenger

The first drops were already starting to fall on the vessel, but there was still one item on the list that hadn’t been checked off. Before it was too late, the man climbed down the improvised ladder to the vast plane below and left the ship behind  to search for the lagging traveller. After a few minutes that felt like hours, before the astonished eyes of all the other species, Noah came back to the ark, drenched and cursing, carrying the turtle by the scruff of its neck.

El último pasajero

Las primeras gotas comenzaban a golpear el receptáculo y la lista aún tenía un casillero sin tildar. Antes que fuera demasiado tarde, el hombre descendió la improvisada escalera hasta la extensa llanura y abandonó la nave en búsqueda del viajero rezagado. Tras unos minutos que parecieron horas, ante la atónita mirada del resto de las especies, Noé volvió al arca empapado y blasfemando, cargando a la tortuga por el cogote.

During class it was said how the language is in a constant change. It is the only invention from men which evolved throughout time. In the authors’ interpretations about Cervantes’ Don Quijote is evident how language has changed to improve even translations.

Roughly 200 years later of the original publishing, John Ormsby writes a translation very close to a “literal” interpretation. However, at that time English language was still at a level of long sentences. I couldn’t help feeling heaviness in his style. More than a century after Ormsby, Samuel Putnam translated Cervantes’ work and did a much better job at smoothing the text. I could see more resembles with the flow of sentences used in modern language.

My favorite interpretation was the one provided by John Rutherford. He opts to replace some long phrases for contemporary expressions and used better synonymous words like “recall” and others. It was written in 2003 and, contrary to previous translations, has almost the same flow of words as Cervantes’s Don Quijote emanates. The last interpretation was similarly fluid but the use of the phrase “I do not care to remember” gave me a rather negative impression that the narrator didn’t “care” about his narration. The actual interpretation should be closer to Rutherford’s translation.

Andres Rivera

Miguel Ángel Carcamo

I learned about Miguel Ángel Cárcamo when he was already dead. I understood a part of his story, because like almost every Mexican, I have friends and relatives who are immigrants. Forty years ago, Miguel Ángel was born in El Guante, a town of Cedros, a municipality of the Francisco Morazán State (Honduras). He was accustomed to seeing that only those who had gone north could escape poverty. Thus, aside from the temporary jobs he was working, he managed to gather $150 and headed for the United States. He left with two of his brothers-in law and little after entering Mexico the officers arrested him to deport him. He tried to cross again, and days after, he was murdered in Tamaulipas. He left four kids behind: Petrona, 16; Angel Rogelio, 13; Jessica, 5 and Luis Miguel, 3 years old. On Thursday September 2^nd 2010, his wife Marleny Suárez, 34, whom he had married two decades ago, led the wake in her house and the funerals at the community cemetery of El Guante. Miguel Ángel’s grave is now next to his mother’s grave who passed away a little more than 20 years ago. And I am filled with outrage and shame, because in my country the Zeta took  his life away and also ruined his family’s .

Victor Núñez Jaime.

Translated by Fathia Ben Tahar

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes has been one of the most translated texts in the history of Spanish language. The translators carefully try to choose the right words to keep the magic created by the author in the original text. However, as we discussed in class, all the translators are indirectly influenced by their place of origin and the period of time they are living in. The translations starting with the one by John Ormsby done in 1885 all the way to the more modern and simple language used by Edith Grossman on 2003. It is worth to mention that out of the four translations, Grossman’s is the one that dared more to get out of the ordinary and create a version much easier to read and understand of Don Quixote, than the other translators. Her choice to start the story with “Somewhere in La Mancha” rather than “In a village in La Mancha” already makes the story more engaging and makes me want to keep reading it.

 Another point to note is that all four translators decided to keep the title in a shorter version than the original by simply stating Don Quixote. It would be awkward to say Mr. Quixote from La Mancha or Mr. Quixote of La Mancha. The word Don is not used in English instead we use Mr. Besides, by the time the book was being translated, it was very famous and known so the title did not have to be catchy at all, rather it had to be something short and easy to remember. Also, we discussed in class how the place where the person comes from plays a very important role in the diction of the translator. All the translators we compared were English native speakers who learned Spanish, so I think the story could sound much different if a Spanish native speaker had translated it instead. In any case, the four translations we compared help us see that to translate something is like creating a completely new product but always trying to maintain the essence of the original, although the translators are not always successful.

Many translations of Cervante’s Don Quixote have been released since the first time it was translated in 1612 from English to Spanish. Here, we have four translations from different countries, times and authors. The most different is the oldest from John Ormsby (1885).

In fact, Ormsby is writing in 1885 and is of British origin, in his translation he uses words pertaining to a British vocabulary from the 19 th century. Also, the author takes the stand to stay closer to Don Quixote original text. For instance, while other translators choose simply to replace the term by “stew”, Ormsby voluntarily decides to keep the word “olla” -referring to a pot holding a stew-. The word “olla” can be confusing for the English speaking reader (British or American), as it might send him back to footnotes in the original translation. Ormsby translation is very much romantic and classic. He strove to represent Cervantes voice. Thus, we find a lot of similarities with the Spanish text in terms of phrase construction: “ a pigeon or so extra” is a very similar formulation to“algún palomino de añadidura”. Throughout this extract we feel the tone of the time period in which Ormsby is trying to write: The Golden Age.  And this, from the first sentence to the last, where “lugar” (place) is referred as village and where Cervantes sense of humor is depicted – “ it will be enough not to stray a hair’s breadth from the truth in the telling of it”. All these efforts make the version a bit difficult for the average reader.

On the other hand, the translations of Putnam (1949), Rutherford (2003) and Grossman (2003) bring modernity to this extract written in 1605. The language used is simple and adequate. Out of the three authors Edith Grossman presents a very appealing translation to the modern reader, example-“lamb” instead of “mutton”, “light woolen tunic “instead of “broadcloth greatcoat” or“doublet”, and “man-of-all-work” for “jack” and “lad”. She was also the only one to interpret “ En un lugar “ as “ Somewhere in”. La Mancha is in fact a region of central Spain, we can guess she finds of no importance (not relevant to the events taking place as Cervantes himself says it) to specify if it is a village. As villages are places, she goes on with “in a place whose name I do not care to remember…”

It is then a matter of interpretation. Besides, all these details and differences show that translation works depend on other variables such as the time period, the writing style, and the background of the author. These four versions of a same text are perfect examples.

Fathia Ben Tahar

Each author has there own method of writing in there unique ways.  In class we have read the different translations of Don Quijote.  From these comparisons we were able to compare and contrast the various readings given. In the readings we realized how each of the translations had a very different beginning compared to the original one.  For example “En un lugar de la Mancha” was translated into many different ways. We were able to realize from this how one phrase or even one word can translate into many forms.

The reason in which there are probably many ways to translate it is because of the different time periods. In each time period many as the time changes languages evolve into more complex and comprehensive tools. Reading each of these passages not knowing they were translations I would of never thought they would be Don Quijote translations.

Janitza Solarte

Hemos leído diferentes versiones de la lectura “Don Quijote” y podemos notar que cada versión o cada escritor utiliza un estilo diferente en cuanto a su escritura y como expresan sus ideas.  Es importante resaltar que cada versión fue escrita en tiempos diferentes y por eso cada una usa vocabulario distinto. Por ejemplo: John Rutherford es un escritor Británico mientras que Edith Grossman es una escritora Americana.

Cuando una obra o una lectura quiere ser traducida en diferentes países y por diferentes escritores, lo que se busca es que esa traducción se asemeje lo más posible a la original pero el conflicto aquí es que cuando se traduce de un idioma a otro es difícil encontrar las palabras exactas para que la lectura traducida no pierda la esencia de la lectura original. Podemos notar que la traducción de Rutherford es más épica que la traducción de Grossman. Mi opinión sobre estas traducciones con diferencia a la lectura original es que ninguna tienen fluidez ni concordancia como la tiene la original.

Daisy Mordan

Al comparar las distintas versiones de la novela escrita por Miguel de Cervantes, se puede notar la diferencia en el vocabulario que utilizan los autores, y como este mismo afecta la percepción de la audiencia de la novela. Esto se debe a las distintas etapas en las que fueron escritas, al igual que el origen del escritor. La versión de John Ormsby fue escrita a finales de 1800’s, mientras que la versión de Samuel Putnam fue escritas a mediados del siglo XX. La diferencia mas grande entre estas dos versiones es simplemente el uso de sinónimos, pero en general están escritas de una manera muy similar. a diferencia de estas versiones anteriores, las traducciones de John Rutherford y Edith Grossman tienen diferencias mas destacadas. Rutheford se enfoca en una narración mas poética que la de Grossman. Por ejemplo, al describir la edad de Don Quijote el dice: “Our Hidalgo himslef was nearly fifty…” mientras que Grossman, de manera mas coloquial, dice “Our gentleman was approximately fifty years old.” Aunque las dos frases se pueden usar en ingles sin problema alguno, al decir “Our Hidalgo himself” uno suena mas teatral ya la palabra Hidalgo esta siendo utilizada como un nombre propio en ingles, aunque esta es simplemente un sustantivo común en español. Por el otro lado, Grossman hace un énfasis en la manera correcta de explicar la edad en ingles “fifty years old” y tambien utiliza la palabra “approximantely” que, aunque pueda significar lo mismo que “nearly,” es bastante mas formal cuando se esta utilizando para hablar de edad.

Por otro lado, algo que todas las versiones traducidas al ingles tienen en común, es la falta de fluidez del texto y redundancia, de la ‘ultima frase con la cual el autor concluye esta introducción, al eesta ser traducida al inglés: “pero esto importa poco a nuestro cuento; basta que en la narración de el de se salga un punto de la verdad.”  A pesar de las distintas maneras en que se escribieron estas versiones, y las grandes diferencias que yacen entre ellas, ninguna de las cuatro logra el efecto que tuvo la misma en el texto original en español.

Ana R.