Eine Besprechung in der Complete Review, die Interessantes zu Übersetzungsproblemen enthält.
(Anregung: "Übersetzung eine Rilke-Textes gesucht" scheint mir etwas eng gefasst. Spricht etwas gegen "Rilke in Übersetzungen"?)
The Complete Review's Review:
To go to an American or English bookstore and leaf through any of the many different translations of Rainer Maria Rilke's Duino Elegies that are available is among the most depressing experiences one can have. The experience is more than depressing: these renderings stand as proof positive of the impossibility of translation and the horrors that result when it is perpetrated. But no one hears our wails, our anguished howls, when we stand, teary-eyed, leafing through these obscene renditions.
Indeed, translators keep taking Rilke's finely-wrought verses and wringing every last bit of art from them until only these dry, pale, English imitations are left -- and readers apparently continue to be deceived into paying good money for these forgeries.
Oh, the horror !
If one wishes to consider the problems of translation (into English), then Rilke's Duino Elegies are an excellent example to work with. This is what Gass does, as he considers previous efforts at translating them in a useful survey of what translators have done (and why they have done it). Gass also considers the various approaches to translating the Duino Elegies -- and, fatally, he translates them himself.
Translation is a difficult problem. It is essential: we are all illiterates, and even if we know a dozen languages we can't read most of the literature in the world as it is meant to be read. Rilke's poems are among the greatest of the 20th century and the urge to share them with an audience not fluent in German and therefore to render them in English has proved irresistible to a number of writers. But the result is always ... nothing like Rilke and barely like poetry.
Gass at least considers translation critically, understanding that there are problems with it. Most people pick up translations indifferently, barely considering whose version they are reading and the consequences of their choice. But even Gass does not make adequately clear what an outrage translation is and what it does to art -- even though he is working with one of the great recent examples that so clearly demonstrates the complete futility of translation.
We cried and screamed and wailed, flung Gass' book into the corner and then tore it apart in a fury (as we have done with every English translation of Rilke's poems we have ever owned). Days later, soberly, detached, we put the pieces back together and pretend translation and the ruination of poetry doesn't matter and try again:
William Gass' book is many things. It is a study of the great poet Rainer Maria Rilke, offering much useful biographical material and an insightful analysis of man and work. Reading Rilke also offers, as the subtitle suggests, "Reflections on the Problems of Translation", taking specifically the Duino Elegies as an example (though Gass also looks to other works by Rilke). Gass also offers his own translation of the Duino Elegies, appended to the book. And finally -- or perhaps: in sum -- it adds up to a book on reading Rilke, taking into account biography as well as the linguistic and poetic concerns that translation makes most evident.
Gass is especially good in his analysis of the complex man and poet that Rilke was. Without getting bogged down in biographical minutiae Gass manages to capture the poet very well, and Reading Rilke is as good as any of the shorter surveys of the poet currently available (though one can disagree with some of Gass' interpretations of the man).
There is also much reflection on the the problems of translation, though Gass' focus is not solely on this (or rather his conception of what must be brought to a translation is so overarching that a great deal of material is brought in that most might not directly consider a "problem of translation"). Gass considers some fourteen versions of the Duino Elegies (and there are already more), and his comparative analysis of a few of the lines is most useful -- though his criticism can, occasionally, be harsh. (See also, for example, David Young's reader review at Amazon.com, complaining about Gass' approach).
Rilke is, of course, near-impossible to translate, a fact Gass is keenly aware of. Nevertheless, Gass grapples with the poems and explains how and why they might be rendered in some English version (and who has done this well and who has done this badly, and why). It is an often fascinating journey (though here his insistence on relating details of Rilke's biography sometimes gets in the way). It fails, ultimately, because Gass' rendering -- the culmination of the book -- is also not particularly impressive, deflating the arguments and explanations after the fact. The proof is in the pudding, but it's a wobbly, watery, unsatisfactory offering that Gass proudly presents his readers with.
There is something to be said for Gass' claim that "translating is reading, reading of the best, the most essential kind". To translate a work -- especially as Gass does -- is to explore it and consider it fully. Unfortunately, this does not mean the end-product -- the translation -- will be any good. And the problem is that most readers only read translations, rather than prepare them themselves. They do not translate the text, they accept the translated text as given -- and that, we would argue, is reading of the absolute worst kind. Gass provides a service by allowing some insight into his efforts at translation (i.e. trying to engage the reader in the transformative act itself), but it is far too little.
Gass' book is a worthwhile, even significant, study of Rilke. Gass writes engagingly and well, and he handles a great deal of material here without overtaxing the reader. As a study of Rilke and his work (and specifically the Duino Elegies), Reading Rilke is very good. As reflections on the problems of translation it is quite good (though it does little more than scratch the surface of these problems). As a translation of the Duino Elegies it is a curiosity and, since the translation is presented as a summa of the text and its arguments, disappointing.