Just as businesses need to regularly deconstruct themselves if they are to keep functioning well and stay ahead, so do selves if they are to remain vital thinking and feeling beings amidst the many threats and crises they live through.
Translation is a difficult art, even if it is often scorned by writers themselves as something less than an art. One of my favourite quotes on the subject of translation comes from Nicholas de Lange, who translated Amos Oz’s 1968 novel My Michael (the original Hebrew title was מיכאל של) in collaboration with the author. de Lange opens his Translator’s Note with the following gem: “The translator’s task is not simply impossible, it is also extremely difficult”.
de Lange then refers to the novel as one whose essence consists in the texture of the language. Presumably he is referring to the resonances and associations of a language network that are so difficult to render into other languages whose words exist in thoroughly different constellations. These resonances and associations are like a parrallel layer of ‘meaning’ (or perhaps it would be better to say ‘significance’) alongside the semantic meanings of words. They add a level of richness to languages in that they seem to directly trigger emotions, often bypassing what we believe about ourselves. It is this level that is reached in the best works of fiction. In this sense the challenge of the translator is to makes sense of this most interesting and most difficult level of linguistic significance.
One problem that de Lange didn’t have with Oz’s My Michael was how to translate the title. Some titles can only be directly translated. Even though specific resonances may still be lost (Michael in Hebrew means ‘one who is like God’; how many English speaking readers would get that implication?), there is no option but to use the direct translation. Then there are novels that seem like they must be directly translated but are not. An example is Proust’s À La Recherche du Temps Perdu, which seems like it must be translated into English as In Search of Lost Time (as it now is) but was for one reason or another translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff as Remembrance of Things Past.
Then there are titles that are outright untranslatable. One is the strange word that adorns the cover of Herta Müller’s 2009 novel Atemschaukel. As far as I know the rights to the English translation have not yet been sold. All we have is a segment translated online here (http://bit.ly/dYkn4u), which has been given the title Everything I Possess I Carry With Me. In German that made for a good first sentence within a brilliant opening four sentences. I’ll quote them to give you a feeling for the novel:
“Alles, was ich habe, trage ich bei mir.
Oder: Alles Meinige trage ich mit mir.
Getragen habe ich alles, was ich hatte. Das Meinige war es nicht.”
A wonderful opening. If you don’t speak German, don’t worry too much about the meaning. Read the sentences over and over again out loud until you get the feeling of the rhythm and repetition. Simple, artful sentences, with strong rhythms; the pondering and repetitive language creates an echo of the protagonist’s pondering reflection of his impending narrow, repetitive existence in a Russian prison camp.
But no matter how good the opening, you don’t need me to tell you that Everything I Possess I Carry With Me is not a good idea for a title. Nor is it even a good translation for the opening sentence. It will take a brave translator to take on this novel.
So what is Atemschaukel? And why is it untranslatable? Well, first of all it is not even a word in German. It is a fusion of two words. Alone they are not difficult. Atem means breath or respiration. Schaukel means swing. But Schaukel is better than swing, because Schau, kel, Schau, kel, Schau, kel carries the rhythm of something swinging back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. It has similarities to the English word see-saw: See, saw, see, saw, see, saw, schau, kel. And a see-saw in German is a kind of Schaukel, a Schaukelbrett. A rocking horse is a Schaukelpferd. Think the rhythm of ‘Rock-a-bye Baby’. Swaying on the tree-tops. Now that you’re in the mood, what would it be if your breath did that? That’s Atemschaukel.
The swinging of the breath could be the rhythm of the constant breath-in, breath-out, breath-in, breath-out. But to me it also suggests something like a quivering, a fluttering of the breath, like the wings of a butterfly or a large bird. What would it be if your breath did that?
It is interesting that the biting cold air occupies an important space in the novel. When the protagonist is taken from his home in Siebenbürgen, the German name for Transylvania, it is 3 am. He is escorted outside by the Russian patrol. It is -15 degrees. The air hits him. By -15 degrees you can see your breath. It wobbles; it quivers, it flutters; it ‘schaukels’. The cold is a strong character in Müller’s novel.
So what about a translation for the title? The option remains open to find a sentence with particular importance other than the opening sentence. A likely candidate is, “Ich weiss du kommst wieder”. I know you’ll return. I know you’ll come back. This is what the protagonist’s grandmother says to him, the last words he hears, at 3 am as he is taken by the Russian patrol. This sentence is his constant companion in his five years in the prison camp. He says, “Because I made it back, I can say this: such a sentence keeps one alive.” The power of language to shape reality, told by words put into the mouth of her character by a virtuoso artist of language. This is probably what the translator will go for.
Let’s look at the passage in the novel where the idea of Atemschaukel is first introduced. It is on page 87 in a chapter entitled “Vom Hungerengel”. “On the Hunger Angel.” Hunger is also a major character in the novel, in particular its embodiment as the Hunger Angel. In the backdrop of the repetitive work of the protagonist shovelling coal, we are given a very physical description of the work of the Hunger Angel:
I am at breaking point, my sweet palate is swollen by the suppository. And the Hunger Angel hangs himself in my mouth, on my palate-sail. It is his scales. He puts my eyes on and the shovel becomes giddy, the coal blurs. The Hunger Angel stands my cheeks on his chin. He makes my breath sway. The swaying breath is a delirium and what a delirium it is.
“Er lässt meinen Atem schaukeln. Die Atemschaukel ist ein Delirium und was für eins.” The Atemschaukel occurs in a moment of extreme exhaustion, at breaking point, amidst a burning hunger which brings on delirium.
The breath sways; it shudders; it flutters; it wobbles; it falters. On a myjmk.com forum (http://bit.ly/ge0XIl), Wanchel writes that there is a possible title in French: La Balançoire du souffle. That sounds pretty good to my ears, but my French is not good enough to know how that resonates with a native French speaker. In Spanish, Wanchel remarks that this would be El Columpio de la respiración. That’s not much better than Everything I Possess I Carry With Me.
So have we arrived at a title? I have a suggestion. When The Breath Falters. With this we gain the sense of exhaustion in the original passage and we communicate the sense of physical vulnerability that is so immense in the novel. Another benefit of When The Breath Falters is that we juxtapose two words that sit powerfully together. Just like Atem and Schaukel in the German. Breath is so automatic that it just doesn’t falter. It can’t. Faltering breath implies death, the shadow of which looms within Atemschaukel.
We also gain a rhymthic advantage. With ‘falter’ we retain the original rhythm of Schaukel. We only lose out in the literalness of the ‘swinging’ Schaukel.
