TRANSLATIONS OF - FOREIGN BOOKS [To the Editor of the
SPECTATOR.]
8111,—In the notice of Tales from Balzac, published in the Spectator of August 27th, your reviewer states that the transla- tions contain few errors ; and, as he has expressed this opinion, I should be interested to know the nature of the errors in question, because I am assured by my " readers " that the volume has not so much as a comma out of place.
Your reviewer observes that " Balzac might gain readers in England if a really good prose artist would devote some years to making him, too, into an English classic." Yes, that is possible ; but the projects and activities of publishers are underestimated if it is thought that some of us have not at times tried to obtain translations of foreign books by recognized prose artists ; and, in this connexion, I remember hearing my friends Joseph Conrad and Cunninghame Graham discussing at a luncheon-party the badness of the translation of one of Blasco Ibafiez's novels. I said to them : " Suppose I had a Polish novel, or a Spanish novel, to translate, would either of you do it on the terms you receive for original work ? " " Certainly not," they replied emphatically ; by which they meant to convey their surprise that I should suggest they might put aside their work in order to render into English a book by a foreign author.
This shows the attitude of two prose artists towards translations, and I think reviewers might bear this in mind before commenting adversely, as they often do, on the professional translator's work ; for we do not appear to have in England any man of letters like Prosper Merimee to perform this service for foreign authors, as he did for Turgueniev and others.—I am, Sir, &c., EVELEIGH NASH.
[Our correspondent is scarcely fair to Mr. A. Teixeira de Mattos and to Mr. Scott Moncrieff, who have made Maeterlinck and Proust available to the English-speaking world.— ED. Spectator.]
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