mardi 6 décembre 2022

Different sizes, different vigour of ticking (Sebastian Knight, 2bis)

 Michael Leddy me rappelle opportunément que l'an dernier, il avait déjà eu cette idée: poster sur son blog quelques impressions laissées par la lecture (dans le texte original) de La vraie vie de Sebastian Knight. Opportunément, car, je l'avoue à ma confusion, ça m'était complètement sorti de la tête; ou plutôt, ça avait dû, par quelque lent processus psychique, se transformer en une sorte d'injonction hypnotique (accompagnée d'amnésie post-hypnotique?): "Poste des billets sur Sebastian Knight! Poste des billets sur Sebastian Knight!" Justement, voici le texte anglais dont je ne connais que la traduction française citée dans ce billet: nous pouvons à présent juger (favorablement, aurais-je dit, jusqu'à ce que Michael me fasse remarquer, en commentaire, une inexplicable disparition) de la fidélité de la traduction d'Yvonne Davet. Merci Michael!

Vladimir Nabokov: The Real Life of Sebastian Knight,   New Directions Publishing, 1941

3 commentaires:

Michael Leddy a dit…

I notice that the cat at the very end of the passage is missing — “as a cat has nine” (the old saying that a cat has nine lives). I wondered whether “un chat a neuf vies” is a familiar saying in French. I tried Google Books, and it’s there in French texts. I wonder why the translator left it out. The mystery of the missing cat!

Tororo a dit…

Cat ways are mysterious ways.
However, I'm as surprised as you are. In a time when there was a shortage of paper, French publishers asked from translators to make small, barely noticeable cuts in their translations from English, for saving on paper (!), as English is more concise than French and English words are often shorter. It was a well-known habit of crime novels publishers, such as Le Masque or Fleuve Noir: some French Chandler novels issued back in the 50s lack 20% of content! (recent issues got revised translations). But Gallimard?

Michael Leddy a dit…

I never knew that. I suppose the publisher trusted that the reader wouldn’t know what was missing.