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Re: Hector Servadac--Roth

From: <1001~at~atlanticbb.net>
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2007 11:21:48 -0400
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>

Apparently Adam roberts later found out who translated the 1877 Hector Serfadac as in the preface to to his translation he goes into detail of what he had to do to restore "Frewer's translation". Interesting that the Roth and Frewer were published almost simulltaneously. I find it unfortunate that Zvi's site does not carry the available text versions of Roth's translations, and they are not mentioned in bibliographies except the JVE. These are historical records and need to be preserved if only for historical purposes. They are not worse than the Hardwigg version which suffers no such discrimination, and other books translated by "english hands"..
nwolcott2~at~post.harvard.edu
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: mtsaler~at~aol.com
  To: jvf~at~Gilead.org.il
  Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 4:54 PM
  Subject: Re: Hector Servadac--Roth


  Apologies if this blog has appeared in the thread on Adam Robert's _Splinter_ already; I don't recall seeing it, but sometimes I lose messages sent to AOL.

  Mike
  ______________

  Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog - books
  Jules Verne deserves a better translation service
  Adam Roberts
  September 11, 2007 2:31 PM
  http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/09/jules_verne_deserves_a_better.html
  I'd always liked reading Jules Verne and I've read most of his novels; but it wasn't until recently that I really understood I hadn't been reading Jules Verne at all.
  I'll explain what I mean. Verne has been globally popular since the 19th century, and all his titles have been translated into English, most of them soon after their initial publication. But almost all of them were translated so badly, so mutilated that "translation" is something of a misnomer.
  Some of this I knew already. I'd heard that the original translators into English felt at liberty to cut out portions of Verne's original text, particularly where they felt he was getting too "technical" or "scientific"; and I'd heard that one of those early translators - the Reverend Lewis Page Mercier - had bowdlerised any sentiments hostile towards or injurious to the dignity of Great Britain (such as might be uttered by Captain Nemo, an Indian nobleman who had dedicated himself to an anti-imperialist cause). I knew too that the original English translators tended to mangle the metric system measurements of Verne's careful measurements and descriptions, either simply cutting the figures out, or changing the unit from metric to imperial but, oddly, keeping the numbers the same.
  But I didn't understand just how severe the issue was until I set about preparing an English edition of a Verne title myself. It came about because I was publishing a novel of my own called Splinter, a 21st-century and fairly postmodern riff upon one of Verne's lesser-known titles Hector Servadac. My publishers decided to put out a special box set of Splinter and Hector Servadac together, and asked me to sort out copy for the latter. I thought it would be a simple matter of reprinting the original, usefully out-of-copyright 1877 English translation, and blithely said yes.
  But when I checked the 1877 translation against the original my heart sank. It was garbage. On almost every page the English translator, whoever he, or she, was (their name is not recorded), collapsed Verne's actual dialogue into a condensed summary, missed out sentences or whole paragraphs. She or he messed up the technical aspects of the book. She or he was evidently much more anti-Semitic than Verne, and tended to translate what were in the original fairly neutral phrases such as "...said Isaac Hakkabut" with idioms such as "...said the repulsive old Jew." And at one point in the novel she or he simply omitted an entire chapter (number 30) - quite a long one, too - presumably because she or he wasn't interested in, or couldn't be bothered to, turn it into English.
  What I thought was going to be a few days' work turned into a great wodge of new translation. It took me ages.
  Hector Servadac is by no means an unusual case. Whilst a few of Verne's most famous titles have been retranslated by proper scholars (for instance, William Butcher's recent Oxford University Press translation of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea is very good), in most cases the only editions we have of these works are the hacked-about, disfigured, and in some places rewritten versions originally published in the 19th century.
  It's a bizarre situation for a world-famous writer to be in. Indeed, I can't think of a major writer who has been so poorly served by translation.
  So this is what I propose: let's agitate for a mass-translation of the whole of Verne into English, perhaps for e-publication - to make his whole body of work available to English speakers as it actually is. This would be the way to address the common misconceptions about Verne's writings that so infuriate Verne specialists - that he is nothing better than a jumped-up author of two-dimensional juveniles; that he can't do character; that his stories are ineptly handled or clumsily put together. None of these things is true; but until we have a full range of properly translated titles these, and like accusations, are going to continue to dog his reputation. We need more and better translations of Verne. Just don't ask me to do it.



  -----Original Message-----
  From: 1001~at~atlanticbb.net
  To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>
  Sent: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 3:01 pm
  Subject: Re: Hector Servadac--Roth


I have looked at the Roth version slightly, it does not seem to be nearly so
bad as the Moon novels. In fact you have to get to the very end of Chapter 1
before Roth takes off on a gallant extravaganza about Ben Zouf's poetry.
However if you eliminate this part the rest of chapter 1 is pretty literal,
perhaps more so than Frewer. Just shows that Roth was capable of good work
if he wanted to. It also reads a little better than the very choppy Munro
version. Since the novel has nothing to do with the United States, perhaps
Roth was less tempted to verbosity as in the moon novels.
nwolcott2~at~post.harvard.edu
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Moser" <crmoser~at~shaw.ca>
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 8:54 PM
Subject: Re: Hector Servadac


> This is one of the aspects I enjoy about the forum - I would not have
known
> about this book otherwise !! I have ordered a copy and look forward to
> comparing the text to the Sampson Low version or maybe the Rothe version
??
>
> Chris
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Garmt de Vries-Uiterweerd" <g.devries~at~phys.uu.nl>
> To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 12:05 AM
> Subject: Re: Hector Servadac
>
>
> > Adam Roberts, the guy who wrote a short spin-off of Hector Servadac for
> > the Mammoth Book of New Jules Verne Stories, has now written a complete
> > novel based on the same concept: Splinter. The exclusive Waterstone
> > edition also contains an updated translation of Servadac, done by
Roberts
> > himself, who was not satisfied with the existing translation from the
> > 1870s.
> >
> > The cover of "Splinter" is a treat in itself, BTW. See
> >
http://www.uksfbooknews.net/2007/08/23/adam-roberts-on-new-novel-splinter-an
d-re-translating-jules-verne/
> > for an interview with Roberts.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Garmt.
> >
> > On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 00:57:37 +0200, Brian Taves <btav~at~loc.gov> wrote:
> >
> >> Dear Jan, I agree with you "that the novel is too good to be put
aside."
> >> Yet, generally speaking, university presses are most apt to be
concerned
> >> over issues of stereotypes and the charge of perpetuating them. A
small
> >> sf classic press, such as Wildside, could care less about translations
or
> >> accuracy thereof, or updated-annotated editions, and political
> >> correctness. Which sadly leaves Servadac rather stranded again. I
only
> >> hope someone will have the gravitas to spin a new orbit for the novel!
> >> As one of Verne's most undated "sf" stories, it has potential to
intrigue
> >> a wider range of genre readers than all but his best-known works.
Brian

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