I particularly love Marquez's style, but then I have to ask myself: Do I really love Marquez or am I enamored with *Greg, the translator? I mean Marquez uses bigger words like fastidious or prodigious, and I wonder if these instances are condensed ways of saying in English what Marquez says in lots of words or vice versa.
*I'm too lazy to look up the real translator's name, but just know that he's awesome.
It's Gregory Sabassa, and he's fantastic. I've been reading /Don Quixote/ in my downtime (rare), and Edith Grossman did the most recent translation of it (she also translated /Love in the Time of Cholera/). In her introduction, she spells out her process for translating the author into a new language -- it's pretty fascinating. If you have a few spare minutes at a Barnes & Noble one day, you should flip through the DQ introduction (ignore the pompous and verbally-diarrhetic one by Harold Bloom). She mentions her process with /Cholera/ and how she tried to emulate Faulkner, using the biggest word when possible, instead of a more Hemingway approach.
ReplyDeletehaha His name actually was Greg! Also, I wouldn't be in love with Marquez or his translators if it weren't for you Cap'n.
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