2020 International Booker Longlist: Mac and His Problem

[David]

I've now read about 75% of the book and I think it deserves its place on the longlist but I don't mind that it didn't get shortlisted.

I just stumbled upon a passage that made me wonder why it was translated that way. On page 156 the narrator talks about David Foster Wallace and says "I would so enjoy the infinite joke of those footnotes...". As Foster's novel is called "Infinite Jest" this sentence surprised me. Do you think the translators changed it on purpose? I haven't read Foster's novel but it seems to be a reference that the translators probably wouldn't miss.

[Paul]

Good spot (it passed me by).

The Spanish title of the Foster Wallace book would translate back as infinite joke most naturally, so the translators may well have missed it. It did strike me that this must have been very difficult to translate because of all the references like that, which may explain why there were two translators for what isn't a long novel, and I suspect neither of them is particularly an aficionado of American novels.

[Trevor]

I remember that, but it didn’t cross my mind it was a translating miss. I assumed it was intentional to make it a tad more subtle. I cannot imagine any way that the multiple readers this must have gone through, including New Directions team which could not have avoided the cultural dominance of Infinite Jest, not flagging that for discussion. Could be a little miss, though!

[Paul]

Cultural dominance of Infinite Jest?! That deserves a thread all by itself.

Jull Costa has previously said she reads almost no contemporary English language fiction but instead reads Spanish, Portuguese and (sometimes)French novels. But yes perhaps the US based team (I am not sure who commissioned the translation as both translators are British) might have picked this up.

[Lia]

But DFW’s novel title itself is from Shakespeare (Hamlet):

“ Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs?”

How is that line typically translated in Spanish?

[Antonomasia, Admin only]

Saying "infinite jest" in that context in modern English could be rather too on the nose. Joke, being a synonym beginning with the same letter and having the same number of letters, communicates the reference whilst also sounding more natural.

[Paul]

As far as I can ascertain the Spanish translation used the same title as the DFW book and Shakespeare line (“broma infinita”): if so it was a conscious decision/omission not to translate it back into English as the original.

But I am not sure as have more seen the reference in reviews of the book but can’t find an online copy of the text itself.

[Tony]

Could be an oversight, it happens (check out the last paragraph of my review of Valeria Luiselli's 'Faces in the Crowd', where I found a similar error on the part of Christina McSweeney!):

https://tonysreadinglist.wordpress.co...

OK, slightly less high-brow...

[Paul]

That one is more forgivable in a literary novel! But it must make books like this a nightmare to translate.

[Lia]

Thanks for looking that up, Paul.