Posted by Terry on June 29, 1999 at 12:18:44:
In Reply to: A question for our bilingual and multilingual friends... posted by Jim Gust on June 27, 1999 at 08:17:15:
As I recall, there is an interesting discussion in one of the Vance Philes on Remy's page with a lady who translates into Dutch. Recall she complained about the editing of the *English* versions, as they needed more work in her opinion. She certainly seemed to pour a lot of herself into the work.
There is also a question of the eveness of the translations across the several languages. I suspect that the popularity of Vance in Hungary now (seems to be several new editions), Holland (always) is a credit to the translators skill.
I must take exception to the comment about the relative ease of translating Vance into foreign tongues, however. In fact, I believe that except for rare souls, such as Nabokov and Conrad who seem to have a better grasp of English than almost every native speaker, it is impossible to tell whether the translation is successful or not. I certainly am in no position, being nearly monolingual, to tell if there is real facility in the translation or not.
But I believe that the niceness of phrase and beauty of the word in English must be a daunting challenge to a translator. One would need to be a SF/Fantasy fan, be completely conversant in English and a native speaker of the tongue into which the translation is done to have any chance at excellence.
Surely the mere *story* can be translated and comparable idioms, names and details often found, but the magic? I can't see how anyone can begin to tell.