On Wed, 18 Apr 2012 09:38:52 +1000, Jayne Taylor <[email protected]> wrote:
> When you say "It was actually a decent film; it just wasn't his > book." therein lies the problem. The reader _expects_ it to be his > book. That reminds me problems translators have, just in worse as going from words to movie is a bigger change than going from words to words in another language. Even with this easier job, some translators have been accused of having written another story. I for sure have stopped to read translations of technical books when I found out that I was often trying to guess what was the source which made sense and could be translated in the gibberish I was reading (people knowledgeable enough to translate technical books without such kind of errors are also knowledgeable enough to write their own and probably find it easier and less frustrating than translating). Back to the matter. Translating always loose something, and sometimes add something. Going from book to film will loose something (and adaptators don't have the last resort of "translators footnotes" when they are in an unsolvable situation), and sometimes will add something. Most people understand that. They aren't complaining about that. What they are complaining about, is that what makes for them the core of the book is lost is the translation or the adaptation. And here is the big difference between translators and film adaptators. Most translators will consider a failure the fact they don't keep the core of the book (but they may not agree with you about what is the core). Film adaptators are quite happy to get further, not just because of technical constraints, not just because they disagree with you about the core of the story, but because they think it makes it a better film. It probably does. But the film is no more an adaptation of the book, just as if the translator of a technical book started to do major rework to take into account the latest state of the art the result is a better book, but no more a translation. That brings a question for Ray. Do you speak other languages than English? If you do, have you read the translation of your work in those languages? Yours, -- Jean-Marc
