Sue Burke's Blog, page 59

How should we review translations?

I weigh in briefly on that question, along with Maia Evrona. I conclude that being invisible -- completely ignored by reviewers -- might not be so bad. Maia says there are two kinds of readers and two kinds of reviewers, some who ignore translators and some who feel cheated by them.

Read all about it in this entry in the Asymptote Journal blog:

http://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2015/10/21/the-tiff-how-should-we-review-translations/

-- Sue Burke

Go Ahead — Write This Story: Transitions

These days writers often indicate a transition simply by leaving a blank line (or in manuscripts, three asterisks) between paragraphs, but there are other techniques that can substitute for or strengthen the blank line transition.

• An expression like “today” or “the first time” or “when summer came” can indicate that time has passed.
• A word, concept, or object can appear in one scene and in the next one, but something about it has changed.
• Just a hint of foreshadowing (“I’ll meet you there”) can prepare the reader for the next scene.
•  An activity taking place in one scene can be completed at the start of the next scene.
• An evolving emotion in a character can show a change in time or place.

If you want to try out techniques, here’s a few story ideas you can use:

• This is a Hollywood blockbuster in which a terraformer plans to speed her work along by knocking a water-laden comet toward Mars, while someone else wants to aim it somewhere else as a weapon.

• This is a martial arts movie about a sorcerer who accepts the challenge to end a drought caused by a hallucinating mountain spirit.

• This is a magical realism story about someone who feels naked walking down the street while everyone else is wearing the rules of their lives for all to see.

— Sue Burke

How do you read?

Not long ago, I picked up a magazine, started reading, and the words made no sense.

I stopped, confused. I have magazines in both English and Spanish in my house, but I know those languages. There should have been no problem. I took another look. The magazine was in English, but I had been reading it in Spanish.

Then I remembered something I learned in typographical design. In English, we read mostly by the shape of the word, not by the letters one at a time. The letters themselves don’t always signify a lot: every rule of spelling and phonics has too many exceptions. Words are what matter, and English-language readers naturally learn to decode whole words at a time.

But Spanish is written phonetically. I can look at any word, even if I’ve never seen it before, and pronounce it correctly. When I read, I sound out the letters one by one because that’s the most efficient reading strategy for that language. The sounds naturally add up to the word.

That’s what I was doing with English: reading letter by letter as if it were Spanish. The result was gibberish. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized that I used different techniques for different languages. I just read.

I wonder how it works for other languages – say Japanese, which uses adapted Chinese characters, two kinds of syllabaries, and occasionally the Latin alphabet. How do its readers approach the complex task of decoding that kind of text?

— Sue Burke

Feathers on the sidewalk

I once heard that a feather on a sidewalk means that an angel has passed overhead. My neighborhood must be full of angels, then – or molting birds, but I think angels are more likely.

Why so many angels? This quiet little neighborhood has a reason to be quiet: old folks.

Decades ago, a massive apartment complex was built across the street as a cooperative for military families. But now they’re old and retired: grandparents and even great-grandparents. Every New Year’s Eve, the streets are triple-parked as their children and grandchildren come home for dinner.

Old. Decrepit, in fact. They go for shuffling walks with caretakers propping them up or pushing their wheelchairs. Others get regular pickups from ambulances and senior citizen services.

Not that I’m complaining. They’re fine, friendly, well-behaved, quiet neighbors. Actually, I worry for them.

These feathers prove the presence of specific angels: angels of death come to take away my elderly neighbors. Divine presence seems reasonable, since my neighbors are religious. Their apartment complex even includes a chapel.

In the final moments of their lives, they might actually see the angels that I can only imagine based on the evidence of feathers. They’re hovering here now above the streets and rooftops because they know someone’s time is near. Not mine, I presume, although I don’t know the date of my own end.

I do know someone’s last breath is near, and that person will be well-attended on the way to the afterlife. All those feathers prove it.

— Sue Burke

Also posted at my professional website:

“Why Computers Suck At Translation”

Today, September 30, is International Translation Day.

In this five-minute video, Tom Scott explains what translators really do, and why machines can’t do it: “...The problem is that language relies on intent, on shared secrets, on group identity, on hidden knowledge....”

The job involves knowing much more than words.

https://youtu.be/GAgp7nXdkLU



P.S. This is also worth watching: “The Speed of Outrage: Tom Scott at Thinking Digital 2015.”

Things are going to get a lot faster soon. But will they be better? I’m worried.

https://youtu.be/jE2PP7EowdM



— Sue Burke

Go Ahead — Write This Story: Bad Behavior

What makes people behave badly? Many motivations are possible. One is a desire to fulfill wants (discussed here) with disregard or even with contempt for the rights and feelings of others. But ethical, legal, moral, and social shortcuts made out of thoughtless or ruthless egocentrism have destructive consequences. The resulting conflict fuels stories. If you need a story involving bad behavior, here are a few ideas:

• This is a young adult story about a student who does not want to cheat, but the ghost of a friend who committed suicide over bad grades insists to the point of coercion on “helping avoid another tragedy” by providing correct answers.

• This is a time travel story about our buddy Bukowski, who wanted to go back five years and “get what I deserve.” We all told him it wouldn’t work, but does he ever listen?

• This is a satirical story involving a company selling love potions over the internet that might work or might not work: they don’t know and don’t care as long as sales are good.

— Sue Burke

Today we celebrate Saint Mary of the Head

Today is the feast day for a Madrid saint, Santa María de la Cabeza – yes, that translates as Saint Mary of the Head. Why “head”? It’s a strange story.

María Toribia lived in Madrid about 900 years ago, and she was the wife of Isidro de Merlo y Quintana, a farm worker who is now the patron saint of Madrid. Both were very pious, and throughout their humble lives, they performed a variety of miracles. After their son Illán grew up (he’s also a saint), she became a hermit at a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

After she died, she was interred at the hermitage, but for some reason, her head was separated from her body and placed in a gilt reliquary. As such, many miracles were attributed to it, especially ending droughts and curing headaches. She became considered a saint locally well before she was beatified by Pope Innocent XII in 1697. A major street here in Madrid is named after her, Paseo de Santa María de la Cabeza.

As far as I know, no public festivities are planned for today, although the date will certainly be observed at the San Isidro Church, where her remains now rest.

I hope to celebrate by having a headache-free day.

— Sue Burke

“Prodigies” by Angélica Gorodischer

The Argentine author Angélica Gorodischer writes more than science fiction, although that’s what she’s known for. In fact, out of thirty books, only four or five are science fiction. And this book, Prodigies, is like none of her other books.

“It was hard to write,” she told me in an email after I had finished translating it.

The book’s spark was ignited by a conversation she had with a colleague. “She claimed it was impossible to write a novel contrary to one’s own tastes, one’s own inclinations. I said it was, and not only was it possible, but from time to time it ought to be done. At least, it was healthy to go against yourself and write purely as a writer.”

Gorodisher decided to try to write that kind of novel. “And sooner rather than later, I began to write Prodigies. And I repeat: it was hard. It was hard but I liked it.” According to some readers, it is her best novel.

Translating Prodigies was hard, too, the kind of difficult task many translators yearn for: lush prose and delightful turns of phrase. Translation never substitutes language word for word. Instead, it substitutes meaning for meaning, essentially rewriting the book in a new language. But how could I rewrite something I could never have written myself?

I did it sentence by sentence. Some sentences took a long time or several tries, but I seem to have succeeded. Kirkus Reviews says, “Gorodischer writes a poetic, vigorous prose.” (She does, but so did I!)

NPR says: “Run-on, garden-path-style sentences meander, they move sharply to one side or another, and misdirect, and then always land somewhere unexpected. ... The right audience will have a willingness to savor, to double-back over sentences, to bob along to wherever the author and characters wish to take you. If you are ready for the experience of Prodigies, it is definitely ready for you.”

The story takes place in the late 19th century in the most elegant boardinghouse in a city in Germany. Everyone is changed when a new boarder arrives. Some must embrace or flee from their deepest selves. A maid sees fairies and a old man wreaks dark sorcery. Yet the house itself holds power beyond the dreams and aspirations of its inhabitants.

The story begins:

“On the day Madame Nashiru arrived at the boarding house on Scheller Street, a brief tremor passed through the house, unnoticed. ... the wood was what felt it the most since it had never stopped living, or fossils, coal or ashes, never: in the beams and the doorframes, in the lintels and the parapets and the banisters, in the baseboards and the parquet, in the floors and the windowsills, in the framework, in the cheap pine of the attic, the imperfect lignin fibers twisted, created a tiny space between themselves, then stretched and returned sadly to their places, searching for each other, fitting a convex curve into another’s hollow, obedient. ... Nothing returned to the way it had been before, nothing held the same place as it had.”

— Sue Burke

Cover art by Elisabeth Alba.

Also posted at my professional website,

Hugo thoughts

Just after I got up today, I turned on my computer and caught the end of the live stream of the Hugo Awards, a fun way to start the day.

The results mostly coincided with my votes. Congratulations to the winners! But I am dismayed to have been hoping for “No Award” so often.

I’m still angry that my time was wasted reading a lot of bad writing placed on the ballot for no reason that holds water besides malice. A look at the Hugo statistics show what a feast for the mind we could have had.

Worse, the Puppies plan to be back next year, and the voting statistics show there are enough of them to repeat this tragedy, but next time it will be a farce. Those of us who love literature face another ugly season.

But love is stronger than hate.

— Sue Burke

Go Ahead — Write This Story: Wants

At their most basic, stories are usually about a person or people who want something and can’t get it easily. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs suggests five categories of wants, which are interrelated:

Physical: food, shelter, survival, sex, etc.
Safety: freedom from war or natural disaster, health, money, etc.
Love: from family, partner, social group, etc.
Esteem: respect, independence, status, etc.
Self-actualization: ability to accomplish a goal, understand the world, be creative, etc.

If you need an idea for a story where your protagonists can’t always get what they want, here are a few:

• This is a one-act comic stage play with no fourth wall that begins as a bride at the altar is waiting and hoping that someone will object.

• This is a disaster novel in which the story bifurcates at major survival decisions by the protagonist, and only one outcome is successful.

• This is a dark suspense story about someone raised in a cult preparing for the end of the world, and who, after a crisis of faith, decides to destroy the cult from within to prevent the end of the world.

— Sue Burke