I wrote a review in Chinese and asked ChatGPT to translate it. Here is our conversation:
Me: Can you please translate the following paragraph in Chinese to English?
G: Of course! Please provide the Chinese text you'd like me to translate.
Me: 刘子超是一个国内的书友推荐的。《午夜降临前抵达》(中欧游记)是他的第一本游记。我的第一印象是好重的翻译腔。不奇怪,作者也是翻译,翻译过 John Updike 的书。书里处处掉书袋,倒也掉得不难看,只是作者的口气模模糊糊像20世纪白男作家,例如:“我买了单,走出门,双手插在大衣口袋里。湿冷的海风忽然迎面而来,像姑娘们凉薄的嘴唇”。我比较喜欢那股兴致勃勃想了解世界的精神。书出版于2015年,有些观察蛮有意思:“相比一个没人关心政治的社会,一个人人都热衷参与政治的社会,反而更可怕—只有集权时代才会出现的情况”。然而,集权社会的政治是从上到下推进的,不想搞也得搞,让你搞什么你就必须搞什么。2015年Trump、Brexit和新冠还没有发生、中国的GDP眼看要超过美国了… 才9年,一个时代已经过去了。又:花了不少时间Google 游记里提到的人名地名的原文。原来的里雅斯特就是Trieste!
G: Liu Zichao was recommended by a domestic book enthusiast. "Arriving Before Midnight" (A Journey through Central Europe) is his first book. My first impression was that the translation felt quite heavy. Not surprisingly, the author is also a translator who has translated books by John Updike. Throughout the book, there are plenty of literary references, which aren't too bad, but the author's tone is somewhat vague, reminiscent of 20th-century white male writers, for example: "I paid the bill, walked out, and put my hands in the pockets of my coat. The damp, cold sea breeze suddenly hit me in the face, like the chilly lips of young girls." I quite like the enthusiasm to understand the world portrayed in the book. Published in 2015, some of the observations are quite interesting: "Compared to a society where nobody cares about politics, a society where everyone is enthusiastic about politics is even scarier—such situations only occur in authoritarian times." However, in authoritarian times, politics is pushed from top to bottom; whether you want to participate or not, you have to. Whatever they tell you to do, you must do. In 2015, Trump, Brexit, and COVID-19 hadn't happened yet, and China's GDP was on the verge of surpassing that of the United States... Only nine years have passed, and an era has already come to an end. Also, I spent a lot of time googling the original names of people and places mentioned in the travelogue. It turns out "里雅斯特" is Trieste!
(Except for a few mistakes and stilted sentences, the translation is not bad!)
Me: 好重的翻译腔 is not "that the translation felt quite heavy"
G: My apologies for the oversight. "好重的翻译腔" can be more accurately translated as "a translation style that feels heavy" or "a heavy-handed translation style." Thank you for pointing that out!
Me: 好重的翻译腔 means the text, although written in the original language, feels like a translation from other languages
G: Thank you for the clarification. In that case, a more accurate translation would be "the text reads like a heavy-handed translation from another language."
Me: In sentence "原来的里雅斯特就是Trieste! " , "的里雅斯特" is the full name, not "里雅斯特".
G: Thank you for the clarification. In that case, the correct translation of the sentence "原来的里雅斯特就是Trieste!" would be: "So the original '的里雅斯特' is actually Trieste!"
(It made it worse. A better translation is: “It turns out "的里雅斯特" is Trieste!)
Me: In sentence "刘子超是一个国内的书友推荐的" , "国内的书友" is not "a domestic book enthusiast."
G: You're correct. "国内的书友" refers to "book friends within the country." A more accurate translation would be: "Liu Zichao was recommended by a book friend within the country." Thank you for pointing out the nuance!
Me: “我比较喜欢那股兴致勃勃想了解世界的精神” can be translated better.
G: A better translation for "我比较喜欢那股兴致勃勃想了解世界的精神" could be: "I particularly admire the enthusiastic spirit of wanting to explore the world."
(“比较” is not “particularly” in this sentence, but I have had enough, so I let it go.)
While reading, I searched for pictures and videos from various places on rednote and looked at the author’s travel route map included with the book. My mind flew to another place, as if I had detached from the mundane life of the present.
The problem is that this book, like the latest Land of Blood and Honey, follows a formulaic writing style: 1. Arrive in a place— 2. Describe the people and scenery— 3. Share related historical events— and this pattern repeats continuously.
When writing about people and landscapes, the excessive use of associations and metaphors gives the writing a greasy feel. It seems that every piece of music, every book, and anything that can be linked to something has to be written down and shown off, making me feel like a pretentious intellectual trying to flaunt their knowledge and experiences while simultaneously hiding their vanity—a contradictory “literary youth.”
However, being able to write book after book in this way, and still gaining recognition from readers, is a skill of Liu Zichao.
So, I switched to a new reading method, skipping most of the historical associations that seem to come straight from Wikipedia. I only read carefully when this content was closely related to the people he encountered.
Aside from the lingering feeling of emptiness, after finishing this book along with Land of Blood and Honey, I pieced together a sentiment from the scattered words in the book:
How inhuman were the ruling parties of these small countries in Eastern and Central Europe during the Cold War? (You know what I mean.) Apart from encountering a young man in a former Yugoslav republic who nostalgically remembered the glory of Tito’s era, Liu Zichao didn’t meet anyone who liked that time.
The remaining relics weren’t places like concentration camps or labor camps used to suppress dissenters and political opponents, they were secret police offices or vacation resorts for senior officials. Reading this makes you clench your fists and want to rewatch HBO’s Chernobyl.
Next, I’ll have some time to read Liu Zichao’s best-reviewed The Lost Satellite and look forward to experiencing his more personal travel insights.
An assessible and suitable read before my travelling to Poland and Czech two weeks later. The extensive knowledge of the author is fervently demonstrated through his quotes and historical commentary. Sometimes it can be a bit too sentimental: it's always about his solitude and then resolving it with a beer. Although there is a pattern for his feelings, what stands out the most to me is his ability to dissect and present a particular essence of each Central European countries. The proudness and extravagance of Austria, the quietness and forgotten Slovakia, the dignity of Czechs, and the nostalgia of Hungary.
The book illuminates how big a gallery the world can be, and to properly examine each canvas, I should read and study the history and the culture beforehand.
From WW2 till the cold war, central Europe's fate is tragically doomed as it rests in the gap between two arrogant superpowers. A quote to keep me enticed for my pending exploration of Europe, and hoepfully, the world: 「進入二十世紀以後,喧囂的革命風潮、殘酷的戰爭、無情的大清洗,席捲並摧毀了一切精巧和珍玩。人類幾乎是在一片貧瘠的沙漠上,重新嘗試學習尊嚴和教養」。
Travel when you have the chance before sickness and idleness catches you my friend!
These feelings about “on the road” really speak to me a lot - that sense of freedom where you can switch between different identities in different cultures, under different social context, yet without the fear of getting lost in them. What if we just have a littttle bit more of them as well when “off the road”?
确实是本用心写就的书,但其中的冷静和虚无仍然有些刻意,感觉直到最终章的里雅斯特整个表达才真正鲜活真实起来,让我体会到了联结。我其实一直不能理解全靠自我驱动义无反顾赶路的人,而他后记中说想做一个writer that travels终于给了我些答案——他在追人生体验。希望未来的他会容许自己放慢脚步乘兴随缘更深切肆意地感受,也期待他未来更优秀的中文书写的世界体验。