Translation #3 – Translation of Excerpt from review of “L’amica geniale”

Anita Hotchkiss

October 25, 2019

Translation #3: Excerpt of review of L’amica geniale

Revisions and Changes

The audience for this translation is the readership of the book review section of a newspaper. With that in mind, I have attempted to choose colloquial words for the translation that will convey the meaning but make it read smoothly for an audience in somewhat of a hurry.

Title – re-write – Machine translation is poor English
Change “romances” to “novels” – “novels” is the correct translation for “romanzi” in English when describing a book or books
Change “an element” to “one thing” – better expression in English
Put a period after “within” – Sentence is clearer and reads better in English when subordinate clause is separated into separate sentence.
Change “surface to the surface” to “rise to the surface” – image is better of stories rising to the surface
Re-write and entire clause beginning “buried stories” – the machine translation doesn’t make much sense. However, I am still not 100% sure that I understand the reviewer’s description or what he/she is trying to say. I have interpreted it as best I can to make sense to a reader, given my knowledge of the novel.
Change “the turn of” to “time for” – meaning is better conveyed through this expression than through a literal translation.
Change “first of a series” to “first in a series.” – Either word really works to convey the meaning but I believe “first in a series” is more commonly used.
Add “The first” before “To notice” – the literal translation doesn’t convey the meaning.
Change description of Rino – the words “idle and not very attentive to what happens” don’t really convey an accurate description of Rino.. I changed “what happens around him” to “what goes on around him” – either works well enough, but I thought that “what goes on around him” is more colloquial and more in keeping with the tone and purpose of the review.
Re-word description of Rino’s discovery of his mother’s absence – the word “never” is not appropriate in English when associated with an absence of 15 days.
Change “narrating ego” to “first-person narrator” – “narrating ego” is not an English term for one who tells a story.
Change order of words in sentence beginning “Elena” to comport with English grammatical usage.
Change “wanted” to “voluntary” – voluntarily is what is meant in English. “Wanted” is used when referring to what others want.
Change hyphenated sentence beginning “Elena, l’io narrante” into two sentences, adding “bridge” words to increase fluency.
Change “his” closets to “her closets” and “he has taken everything” to “she has taken everything” – machine translation uses wrong gender.
Change “up to the last pin” to “up to the last hairpin.” One would not say “up to the last pin” in English – people do not pack pins. “Hairpin,” although perhaps not meant literally, coveys the meaning of someone who has taken everything.
Originally, I intended to change “introduces” to “induces” because “introduce” is the wrong verb in English. However, I later decided to translate “induces” to “prods,” and then to “spurs.” The meaning is essentially the same, and “spurs” increases the fluency of the English text.
Change “put herself to the computer” to “sit down at her computer” – One doesn’t “put oneself to the computer” in English.
Change “pull out of the distant storage” to “resurrect” from distant memory….” Storage would be a strange word to use in English when describing memories resurrected from the distant past. One could use “pull up out of distant memory” but we usually speak of “resurrecting” memories. One could say “cold storage,” but that would be a harsh term to use when describing memories of a long-past friendship.
I added the words “her journey” to describe her resurrection of memories into the novel because using simply the word “it” (“ci porta,” translated as “who takes us back” or “it takes us back”) didn’t seem “rich” enough to me to describe the process, and “the process” (of resurrecting the memories) is too “cold” a description.
Change “in a suburb and poor” to “in a poor suburban”…..There is no reason to separate suburb and poor – “poor suburban” reads better.
Change “neighborhood” to “quarter,” to avoid repetition of the word “neighborhood.”
Eliminate the word “the” from before “affluent.” It’s not needed and is indeed an inappropriate article in English.
Change “municipal usher” to “bailiff” or “court official” – “municipal usher” would not convey the occupation to an English reader.
Change “they study a while, playing on opposite sides” to “they study each other for a while, playing on opposite sides” – this translation better conveys the initial “acquaintance dance” of the two girls.
Change “they will make friends” to “become friends.” To “make friends” refers to becoming closer to other people; when two people get closer, they “become friends.” One could say “they make friends with each other,” but I felt that is more stilted.
Change “ogre of fairy tales” to “fairy-tale ogre.” This is shorter and still conveys the meaning. Short is almost always better in English, especially in a review which readers may be just skimming.
Italicize “The brilliant friend” as it is italicized above because it is the title of the book.
Change “boils over” to “spews” – the metaphor of boiling over is not equivalent to an eruption. “Spew” is a better word to describe a sudden gush like an eruption, rather than “boiling over.”
Change “he stops at” to “It ends with” – the machine translation is not grammatically correct when describing a book’s ending.
Change “salumiere” from “cured meat maker” to “pork butcher,” but one could also use “grocer” or “delicatessen owner.” The best is probably “pork butcher,” as it emphasizes the cruder side of the profession, more so than “grocer.”
Eliminate “the usurer” because don Achilles has already been identified, and “don Achilles’ son” reads more fluently than “the son of don Achilles.”
Change the last sentence to read more fluently in English: “To reach the conclusion with which the book begins takes exactly fifty years.”

AH Translation

Elena Ferrante is back among the secrets of Naples

The novels of Elena Ferrante have one thing in common: they come from within her. They are buried stories of characters that, thanks to her writing, rise to the surface and bubble on the page as from a sort of powerful well-spring while at the same time recognizing the constraint of oppressive legal obligations – a duality that infects and unnerves the reader. Now it’s time for a new Neapolitan story – one that promises to be the first of a series. Entitled L’amica geniale, it begins with a disappearance, that of Sra. Lila Cerullo. The first to realize that she has vanished is her son, Rino, a 40-year old ne’er do well who pays little attention to what’s going on around him. In fact, he doesn’t even realize for over two weeks that his mother hasn’t come home and he decides to telephone her dearest friend, Elena Greco, who for many years has lived in Turin. Elena, the first-person narrator, understands immediately that Lila’s disappearance is voluntary and, in fact, she had expected it for some time. She invites the son to look inside his mother’s closet and he, with amazement, discovers that she has taken away everything, down to the last hairpin. This is the premise, the void that spurs Elena to sit down at her computer and resurrect long-buried memories to calmly reconstruct the history of her friendship with Lila. Her journey takes us back to Naples, to a poor suburban quarter, separated from the rest of the city and from its rich neighborhoods, like Little Italy was from affluent New York.

[…..] We are in the fifties: Elena is the daughter of a court bailiff, Lila of a cobbler. They study each other for a while, playing on opposite sides of the courtyard, and then become friends when they decide to go to the house of the most feared man of the neighborhood, a real fairy-tale ogre, the usurer don Achille.

[…]L’amica geniale is a book that spews from the soul like an eruption of Mount Vesuvius. It ends with the marriage of Lila, sixteen, to the pork butcher Stefano, don Achilles’ son. To arrive at the conclusion with which the book begins takes exactly fifty years.