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This week: Gained in Translation Edited by: Robert Waltz  
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A translation is no translation, he said, unless it will give you the music of a poem along with the words of it.
-John Millington Synge
Fantastic writing in English is kind of disreputable, but fantastic writing in translation is the summit.
-Jonathan Lethem
If the dream is a translation of waking life, waking life is also a translation of the dream.
-Rene Magritte |
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LostGained in Translation
A few things I've been doing recently: 1) Finally getting to watch the entire Battlestar Galactica series on DVD; 2) reading a collection of short stories called The Secret History of Fantasy; and 3) reading a translation of a Russian novel called The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. And they got me to thinking.
What they made me think of was translation. The third example above is the most obvious, so we'll start with that and go backwards.
I never learned Russian (unfortunately), so when The Master and Margarita was recommended to me by someone here on writing.com, I looked for translations of it, and learned that several exist. Fortunately, amazon.com has a really good comments section, and I was thus able to discern which translation was the "best;" that is, for my purposes, the one that not only faithfully transcribed the novel, but also rendered the feel of the novel from Russian to English.
Have you ever used any of the many online translation services? I have, and more often than not, the result is close to gibberish. The further the language is from English, the worse the gibberish is. Plug in German, for example (a language which is a sister to English), and it's readable, but the sentence structure is confusing. Plug in Spanish (more like a cousin), and it's still (kinda) readable. Plug in Japanese (the stranger down the street), and good luck. I haven't tried plugging in Russian, but the idea remains: a straight translation, word for word, of another language usually fails.
So I read the Russian novel (I didn't much like it, as it turns out, but it can be considered fantasy, so it's appropriate to discuss here) with an eye toward trying to capture not only the words but the feeling and idioms of a different culture. And as it turned out, some of the words weren't quite translated; certainly not the names, which were, of course, Russian, and also not some of the terms unique to the Russia of Stalin's time.
This struck me as similar to many fantasy or science fiction novels I've read, where some things just don't translate directly - like grok in Stranger in a Strange Land. It's explained what is meant by these words, but like the German schadenfreude, you just end up... well, grokking... what the word means, and adding it to your vocabulary, rather than grasping at an imperfect English equivalent.
So on to the second item above: The Secret History of Fantasy, edited by Peter S. Beagle (yes, that Peter S. Beagle). As noted, it's a collection of short stories, by the likes of Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, and Octavia Butler.
This one, I did like (though there were a couple of stories that I didn't much care for), and I recommend it. But it, too, got me thinking of translations. Unlike the Russian novel, all of these stories were written by native English speakers, but all of them were certainly within the umbrella of the fantasy genre. And in fantasy, there's always a necessary translation.
Not a language translation, in this case. Most of the stories are set in some version of the modern (or nearly modern) world, and not some lost kingdom or faraway star system. And yet, being fantasy, there's always something that's not... quite... in accordance with consensus reality. And I realized that, as fantasy writers, we have to translate that otherness into terms that the readers will understand.
Sometimes that is done with metaphor, and sometimes (again) by using non-English words. But always, we have to take what exists only in our heads and put it down in a way that's comprehensible - and this, I decided, is a process akin to rendering one language into another, because as in language translation, it's important to capture not just the technicalities of it, but the feel.
And that brings me to another kind of translation: the one that doesn't involve language, with the epiphany that came to me while watching Battlestar Galactica.
For those who haven't seen it, I'm not going to spoil it - the point I'd like to make is really independent of the plot, and also applies to many other "space" shows and movies. That point is that language is not the only thing that needs translation - though of course BSG (and Star Trek and Star Wars and Avatar and pretty much every futuristic SF show I can think of) also must translate language (If you think the language they'll speak 400 years from now will bear more than a passing resemblance to modern English, consider written materials from 400 years ago - understandable, sure, but different).
I'll just use one example I noted since I don't want this editorial to go on forever:
In space, of course, there's negligible gravity. A spaceship has, by current thinking, four choices: 1) Weightlessness; 2) Maintain thrust most of the time, flipping the ship over at midpoint to destination; 3) Spin the sucker for centrifugal force, which affects bodies inside the ship in a manner similar to gravity; 4) Artificial gravity, which is at this time not possible (When it is, it will imply all sorts of things about the culture, architecture, modes of transportation, and very fabric of the society - but that's another essay altogether). Further, without gravity, there is no "up." They may pick a direction, possibly normal to the plane of the galactic disk, and call that "up," but us humans won't feel it like we do in a gravity field. This lack of "up" applies even if you take the leap and assume that an individual spaceship has artificial gravity, so there would be no physical reason why the top of each ship in a fleet, for example, would be facing the same direction. The thrusters, maybe, if they're moving, but not the roll orientation.
And yet, SF shows almost all - even Babylon 5, which handled the idea of weightlessness very well - depict people walking in some sort of gravity. Even the smaller ships on these shows, such as the shuttles in Trek and the Vipers in BSG, seem to have artificial gravity. And fleets are usually oriented in one direction, as if they're ships at sea.
Okay. I can accept the artificial-gravity thing because, I'm sure, simulating weightlessness on a weekly TV show would be a budget-breaker. But there's something else going on here, too, and that's the translation thing.
SF shows depict individuals walking around on deck - they assume artificial gravity - for another reason, and that's that it's what we, the viewers, are used to. It feels "right" to us, just as it feels right for them to speak English even though there's no way they would be. And the ship orientation thing has the same effect - it feels right to the viewer, and when we see a fleet of ships - or, hell, even a single ship - with what's logically the dorsal side "up" and what's logically the ventral side "down," it feels like the ship is in good shape, on course, and, at least mechanically, all's well.
There's no logical reason to show the Enterprise (or the Galactica or the Babylon 5 station or, for that matter, X-wing fighters) in that orientation. Assuming a camera hanging there in space (a big enough assumption, but let's run with it), there's an even chance that the camera would capture the ship in any orientation.
And yet, it's always dorsal-up - except, of course, when there's some sort of mechanical failure, or the ship is blowing up in a CGI orgy (always MY favorite part of these shows). They do this because seeing a spaceship turned at some angle to what's perceived as "horizontal" to our Earthly gravitation-bound eyes produces a sense of wrongness - and yet, again, there's no reason to believe that such a roll would really happen. Heck, they've probably done studies to determine exactly what angle produces just the right amount of wrongness to our senses.
Similarly, seeing people floating around in a spaceship would mess up our perceptions right good.
So that, too, is a translation. When you watch some of these shows, you'll see other examples of things that shouldn't be, based on the created world, but work because we expect them to work, just as we expect the people in them to speak, read and write a language we understand.
And okay, I'll do one more example: Generally, if you're standing on a planet, and you see another planet in the sky as a full disk rather than the points of light as we see other planets here from Earth... your world is about to be torn apart by tidal forces. There are exceptions, like viewing a primary from its moon, but things like the scene in Star Trek (the reboot) when Spock sees Vulcan from Delta Vega? Couldn't have happened. And yet... it looks cool.
Perhaps the real takeaway from this is that if you're writing a space story, don't use space shows as your technical research.
But no - this conclusion applies to all speculative fiction: Some things just have to make sense to the reader, whether or not they make sense in the milieu you've created. You can - and should - introduce exotic elements, but in the end, they can't be so exotic that our limited perceptions can't make sense of them.
And doing it right will, perversely, lend an air of realism to your fantasy - and what you're trying to say will be gained in translation. |
Since I'm in a science fiction mood, here's some for you:
And hey, look at this: A Star Trek themed contest I stumbled across! Deadline is soon, so engage your warp drives.
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Last time, in "Fantasy Newsletter (January 19, 2011)" , I talked about ideas and from whence they may come. Y'all had some ideas of your own:
Light  :
Hi Robert:
Great newsletter about where ideas come from. You are right, about 99% come from life just happening, and we put things together. But, after the first idea comes to us, we have some help. I find that we become something of a magnet. When we put enough energy into an idea, we attract other ideas to ourselves. Do you think that makes sense?
Well, yes, in a metaphysical sort of way. No, seriously, yes, I think you're right, but it's probably due to a mindset. Like when you buy a Subaru, suddenly your perception of how many Subarus are on the road changes; you think there are more Subarus than you did before you bought one. So it is with ideas: You've always had them, they've always been there, but you've become more adept at recognizing and capitalizing on them.
BIG BAD WOLF is Howling  :
Where did I get my idea to create my series? I'd have to say, watching Youtube videos, reading stories here, and checking out pictures on Deviant Art.
[Submitted item: "Planet Animalus Books Sums Books 1-5" [18+]]
Deviant Art can be cool. Youtube rots the mind 
mimi97:
my inspiration can pop up from anywhere. sometimes from nowhere, and other times when i'm daydreaming, most likely daydreaming. it's the thing i do most.
Everyone needs a hobby.
B. A. Lupis  :
Well, I have to say I'm impressed. You cleared up something for me. I never knew how to explain how my thinking goes sometime, but I'm there with you when it comes to bagpipes. Thanks a bunch. ~B. A. Lupis
A foul plague that should be banished from society once and for all. But at least they're not mizmars.
THANKFUL SONALI Library Class!  :
"Yes please arrest the bagpipe player!"
You've got to give that line as a prompt in "The Writer's Cramp" - think of the poems and stories that will ensue!
I'd rather another judge did that and I got to judge the results
LJPC - the tortoise :
Hi Robert!
Great newsletter! I loved the idea that your cat gives you ideas - probably about aliens, right? Ideas can come from anything; I get mine from TV. I wonder: What if they would have done it this way instead? The trick is not to watch the whole thing, but to come in the middle and view half a scene and then come up with a whole story based on just those few minutes. Coming up with ideas isn't hard. Coming up with a great idea is a bear. 
-- Laura
Well, that is a good suggestion. I used to do that with books; pick one at random, open it somewhere in the middle, read the first sentence I come to, and expand on that. Been a while since I've done that exercise, but maybe I should pick it up again.
Soulhaven (referring to "Fantasy Newsletter (November 23, 2010)" , the Blue Moon edition):
Hey,
I got behind on my newsletters due to being pregnant, and, now, having a young baby, but I am catching up, slowly! Anyway, love the post about calendars (24 Nov). Most interesting. I would really like to read more about that, from someone who has such a strong interest in the matter. I don't have much time to do a lot of research myself these days, so reading other people's is most enlightening!
I have a question to pose re: fantasy writing. How do you (or does anyone) tend to come up with names for characters, places, races, etc? It is something that I really struggle with in my writing.
Thaniks for being so interesting!
You DO know you'll never actually catch up, now, don't you? Perhaps I'll do another editorial about calendars sometime. As for names, well, hopefully you came up with one for your offspring; many people use baby name books for their characters. Like some other writers, I often try to come up with names whose meanings reflect some aspect of a character's personality or purpose in the book; like naming someone Peter when he's supposed to represent stability ("Peter" is from a word meaning "rock," of course). But sometimes, especially in fantasy, it can be a matter of creating a combination of sounds that evokes some desired emotion or response in the reader. For example, "Frodo" from Lord of the Rings - can you imagine if he'd been named the very similar "Fred?" Or "Demilosquat?" Both those names can be used for the right purpose... and sometimes it is, as I point out above, a matter of translation.
And that'll do it for this month - thanks for all the comments, and keep 'em coming! See you next month, and until then...
DREAM ON!!!
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Fantasy: February 16, 2011 Issue [#4239]
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