I Don't Get It...

"I was attentive to my knife and fork, spoon, glasses, and other instruments of self-destruction." - Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

As you may have noticed, I love quotes. Maybe it's because I lack eloquent expression, but part of the joy of reading is finding little pithy gems of wisdom. The quote above is taken from a scene in which Pip still finds himself awkward in London aristocratic society. To the English speaking reader with an awareness of the time period of the novel, this line is mildly amusing. Even if one didn't have a concept of the exact time period, most in Western culture will admit to feeling intimidated and threatened at fancy meals with multiple spoons, forks, and knives. But to gain any humor from the line or to even gather Pip's awkwardness in his setting, the reader needs to have concept of what that culture is like.

Here's another one: There was a sign on the lawn at a drug re-hab center that said 'Keep off the Grass'.

Some might say it's a bad pun, others may laugh, but in order to understand it or to make sense the reader must know the colloquial term for marijuana is "grass."

Most bibliophiles will have either successfully read or attempted to read Leo Tolstoy's epic work, War and Peace. I began to read it one summer. The novel itself is a good read. Tolstoy brings the reader into 19th century, French influenced Russia in the middle of Russia's fight against Napoleon's advances toward Moscow. From context cues, I began to notice Tolstoy was making satirical and sarcastic pokes at Russian society and mores, but it was not coming across in the English translation that I was reading.

As demonstrated above, the translators job is not easy, and there is debate in the translator profession as to whether translations should be word for word or foreignized. When selecting a translated work, it is something to consider in order to either get the author's message, to understand the writer's culture, or both.

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