Marlies Bugmann's Blog: My Karl May translations / My Tasmaniana

Fun, fun, fun ...

... and sometimes that's what life should truly be about (you can get serious again at some later date).

Finally! FINALLY! I got my studio all worked out and ready. The easel is standing, the brushes ready, the paint pots open ... virtually - that is! Wacom tablet with intuos pen, ArtRage, Aperture, Elements 11 and my antique PS 5.5, and goodness knows what else - oh, yes, that thing with the 'retina display' the new skinny macbook. It's a life-changing experience.

... just spent a full day 'dabbling' ... can't tear myself away from it.

For the Winnetou projects I have planned I truly need all of that ... and my trusty publisher Lulu.com, of course. Karl May wrote a story about a 'self-made man' ... all I can say is: 'selbst ist die Frau' nowadays; you'll work out what I mean.

Only a short one today, as I've got to get back to my current Karl May translation ... one of the 2014 ones.

Winnetou equals confusion

In 1875 Karl May wrote a short story titled 'Inn-Nu-Woh'. In 1878 he re-titled the story of the Sioux chief to 'Winnetou' and made him an Apache chief. The plot of that story never made a second appearance with Winnetou. That was that. May incorporated the Mississippi steamer incident into 'The Treasure in Silver-Lake' with different acteurs.
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Between 1878 and 1893, Karl May wrote a number of stories in which Winnetou took part, made an appearance, or even died (yes, Winnetou died in 1883 already).
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In 1893 Karl May wrote Winnetou I (sometimes titled Winnetou 1); this volume was an entirely new story, plot and idea. He wanted to create a memorial to a dying race (his own words). And he wanted that memorial to consist of 3 books. But he did not have enough time to write 3 completely new texts to make up the now famous trilogy.
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Winnetou II (or Winnetou 2), consists of two stories he had published earlier; he remodelled them considerably, and made Winnetou II (2) out of them. They were 'Der Scout' from 1888; and 'Old Firehand' (in which Old Firehand had a daughter, and in which he died at the end). Karl May made a boy out of the girl, and let Old Firehand survive for the second half of Winnetou II (2). In neither of the two short stories die Winnetou play the major role - he was a part of the story (each), which sufficed for Karl May to meld them together to become the second volume of Winnetou II (2).
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Winnetou III (or Winnetou 3), consists of two stories May had published earlier; he remodelled them (the first one [amended from 'Deadly Dust 1880] slightly, the second one [In the 'wild West' of North America' 1883] a little bit more by expanding on the drama of the Apache's death), and added an extra bit - the chase after Santer, as well as the loss of the treasure, and made the third volume of his famous trilogy out of them.
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Between 1893 and 1910, Karl May wrote various stories in which Winnetou again took part, or played a role. In 1908, Karl May then visited the US, and two years later published Winnetou IV (also Winnetou's Erben), inspired by his visit.
Winnetou was long dead, and the story deals with the once swashbuckling young heroes as old men, and a new generation of modern young people living their lives according to what Karl May then perceived to be the 'native American way'.
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Enter diligent librarians ... Winnetou equals Winnetou equals Winnetou - no matter what language, or what story, or what novel - they are all the 'same edition', and belong into the same series of Winnetou one to four. Oh, please! Karl May is turning in his grave, wringing his hands in despair, and casting his eyes heavenward!
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No, I'm neither the translator, nor the author of any Indonesian language Karl May translations (tho some librarians would have you believe that). The remarkable fact is that the Indonesian Karl May translations have been translated from the Dutch language books the Dutch colonialists took with them when they became the lord and master in that region of the world. The Dutch versions were already 'adjusted' one way or another - in which direction I'm unable to say, because I don't speak Dutch, either.
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Karl May a 'children's author'? Massacres, scalpings, bloody butchery, explicit descriptions of torture (as well as 'heaving bosoms' in his romance tomes) ... children's books? When classifying an author, please get acquainted with his/her writings first; copying wrong information from somewhere does not turn it into a correct piece of information. Karl May was a novelist who wrote for a 'general readership' with 8 novels specifically written for a boys' magazine (older students), but not children (he did not write twinkle-twinkle-little-star stories). Then again, where is the boundary of 'being a child' drawn? Some societies treat their citizenry as 'unmuendig' until their dying day.

The Romance of Old Shatterhand

Just had an interesting discussion about Old Shatterhand, Old Firehand, and the romance between the young greenhorn (later Old Shatterhand) and Old Firehand's daughter, Helen, on another social channel. A romance between Old Shatterhand and Old Firehand's daughter? http://connect.lulu.com/t5/Shameless-...
Helen is a well-kept secret - a romance that could not be in Winnetou II.
Although Karl May's chronology is just slightly more than messy - as it doesn't really exist - his novels are nevertheless interconnected in one way or another. That's the real romance of Karl May's adventures.

Settling in

Veni, vidi, vici - he said; but unlike J.C. I'm still some ways off the 'vici'. I've managed to give my 50 or so books a proper home on Goodreads, yet I'm sure there's some tweaking to do here and there. And after two days of moving in (the removalists have now left), I'll head over to 'Sketch' and my 'wacom tablet' to see how I can move from pencil on paper to digital pen on virtual canvas. Hm ... never too old to learn. And it'll keep me occupied until I can unveil the latest Karl May translations later in January.

January 2014

This day a year ago, our neighbourhood erupted into what was to become the biggest bushfire disaster in Tasmania since many decades - by 5th January, we were nearly surrounded by a sky-high inferno. We evacuated - and did not know what we would come back to. My computer was in the back of the car, but my research, all of my books, and much more, remained with the house. We were cut off from the rest of the world, friends and family had no way of knowing what had become of us, as the disaster had made headlines around the world. Would I be able to continue with my translations? With the photography, the art, and reconnect with the creative mood needed to render complex works into another language?
Thankfully the flames skirted past us by some 900 metres; however, they destroyed two entire communities within minutes, along their race towards the Tasman Peninsula.
2013 was a year to recover from that shock - no new publications for the first time since 2000. Quietly I worked on several Karl May novels; three of them will be published towards the end of January 2014. The others will become available later in the year.
Two more translations are well underway, as are a couple of related projects ... January 2014 has started quietly, with a bit of rain, a bit of wind, and comfortable temperatures. But this blog is not about weather forecasts - it's about living in a wide, brown land downunder, with flooding plains and searing bushfires, and translating Karl May in the middle of it, and photographing it, and writing about it.