Why translation matters and Cortazar's writing style

Christian David Bauza Gomes

A01375193

English A Group 60

Why translation matters compared with Julio Cortazar’s writing style

Translation is, in no matter what part of the world, an essential tool in literature to understand better an author’s message with his or her novel written in sentences and terms that a reader perceives and manages to analyze better because it belongs in his or her own way of speaking. However, the translation of a novel may not always be keen to what the reader is searching for to experience the message or intention of the author better and thus, decides that the original language is better to read and to know what the editor and publisher don’t want them to know.

In the case of Julio Cortazar, he has stated that the writer has the responsibility to never recede along the path of creativity. This means that if the writer gets an idea to compliment the story he or she is working on, that idea should not be limited because of how complex it can be or how controversial writing it can actually be in a society, any group for that matter. This is one of the reasons Cortazar’s stories of surreal horror are often filled with complex situations where the protagonist finds himself in and describes everything an epic Greek poem (i.e. “The Iliad”), with long sentences of what is going on and constant use of adjectives in the descriptions. He doesn’t hold back on what he says and wants the reader to understand him, most of the time leaving him or her confused about what was the purpose of the whole story and what was the final fate of his characters.

Take “Blow-Up” for example, which is a Cortazar short story recently read by our group, in it Roberto Michel, the protagonist, just wanted to take a photograph of a sight he thought it was fantastic: A romantic situation. When taking the photograph, the man runs away and the woman is left angry with the photographer, who claims he has the freedom of artistic expression to keep the picture. What’s interesting about this particular story is that in the original written in Spanish, the title was “Las Babas del Diablo” (The Devil’s Drool) because the feeling Roberto got when saving the boy from “danger” or from the “Devil” (The woman). And here is one of the issues that come out with translation as I mentioned in the first paragraph: An alternative title gives a whole new meaning to the text with the words the reader gets from it and expects something from it based on what it is written in it, which may also be translated for the reader to get a feeling similar yet not the same that the author intended to have with his work. In this case, the translated text misses out on a lot of the complexity of Cortazar’s writing style and leaves his ideas limited to avoid much confusion from the reader and get a more deep analysis from him or her and getting a message that might not even be close to his original purpose.