Translation Effect on Cortazar´s writing style

Diego Alejandro Cabrera Zúñiga.
A01375114.

Translation Effect on Cortazar´s writing style

4rd Entry

Comparative Essay

Julio Cortazar is an Argentine writer that is considered to have enlarged literary tradition with a consistent inventiveness of style, language and theme. He combined fantastic with commonplace events in his stories and much of his fiction is a reaction to the Western tradition of rationalism to represent reality. That´s why he has a unique style since his representations of a surreal, metaphysical, horror-filled world have certain rhythm, humor, syntax, diction and tone. The translator should be very careful while translating any of the works of Cortazar. His way of describing things and his writing purpose in each short story reflect his special way of writing which always include a serious theme.

Translation is a complex subject because the translated work must have the same structure, form and specific stylistics but in another language. How does translation affect Cortazar´s work?
Surrealism is a challenge in terms of translation and search of equivalence; translating a surrealist work would involve keeping the linguistic aspects, which, in the case of Cortazar writing, his translated works are implausible and inaccurate because do not follow the grammatical rules. Compared to Spanish, the reader might enjoy those surrealism experiences.

Among the changes at the semantic level, which concerns with the meaning of words and how those meanings come together to give meaning to a sentence, when a Cortazar work is translated into English, is notable for being loaded with specifications. When the translator focuses more on descriptions it delivers a less broad view of the original text, which guides the reader to a particular interpretation version, but not from the original one. When it´s, for example, translated into French, however, does not present a remarked trend towards a particular type of transposition. French has the advantage of belonging to the same family as the Spanish and its structure and vocabulary are comparatively closer than the English. This allows certain segments to be translated more literally. Otherwise, the original work shows Cortazar´s ambiguity to express what may exist beyond humanity's rational perceptions. In the other hand, the alteration of sentences that involves addition, omission and radical changes in meaning is an important factor that concerns and may affect the overall idea of each paragraph, especially translating into English. Such errors can be attributed to the constant repetition of words and bad punctuation that does not follow the grammatical rules. Moreover, this can be associated to the apparent meaninglessness of surrealism as a vanguard movement, common in these stories of Cortazar, which might suggest the readers that truncated phrases or misplaces ideas throughout the reading are expected in the English version. An example of this can be noticed in Cortazar´s story “Historias de Cronopios y de Famas” which was translated in French and English. Both versions present translation errors and the attempt to clarify the text causes an unintended nonsense in both translations. This may affect the way Cortazar contrasts elements between the fantastic and commonplace, his concerning for political and human rights, the projection of human constellation or the concept of figures, and the way he portrays extraordinary events in the lives of his character that might change the meaning of things and give a different interpretation from the original one. In the translations the reader may not find Cortazar´s writing style since these things are modified. 

“Translation is, in fact, a powerful, pervasive force that broadens and deepens a writer’s perception of style, technique, and structure” (Grossman Edith, 8). So translators must be very careful, especially with Cortazar´s stories, because they might change some elements that are part of his writing style.

Bibliograpghy

From Why Translation Matters. Copyright 2010 by Edith Grossman. Published 2010 by Yale University Press. By arrangement with Yale University.