Another one to go

Fabio Lastrucci’s story is translated and awaiting revision.

It is the right moment to publish the author’s bio in his own words.

Fabio Lastrucci was born in Naples in the last century, at the beginning of teh roaring sixties. Take-away sculptor, illustrateor, cartoonist and scriptwriter in his loose time, he published his stories in the magazine «Strane Storie», Lo Stregatto Editore and in the anthologies Oltre il reale, edizioni Malatempora, and in Fata Morgana 6.

Case & chance gave him a first and a second placement in the «Cosseria Galactica» award, 2000 e 2003, two runner-ups for the«Douglas Adams» Award 2002 e 2003,e and in various other prizes. Provoked by such successes, currently he is fightinig the subjunctives of his first novel. The subjunctive are currently winning.

Syntax as Style

Two thirds into Fabio Lastrucci’s summer alienation story, and boy is this a workoout.
And one of a completely different genre.

Fact is, Lastrucci’s prose is a clear example of what’s been described as “syntax as style”.

It’s not just what he writes – it’s the way he writes it, the order in which he lays the words on the page that is significant, more, decisive to the development of the story.
It would be extremely easy to translate Fabio’s story in the standard, direct way – focusing on getting the meaning across and good riddance.
But that would be just part of the story, and the end result would be lame, incomplete, faulty.

Hence, the problem – replicating as faithfully as possible the author’s phrase construction, without sliding into the sort of English Tarzan used to speak in Johnny Weissmuller movies.
Preserving both grammar and syntax.

This sort of considerations and concerns forced me to scrap my first attempt at translating the opening of the story – and that’s how I’m proceeding now: first I do gramatically sound, concise translations, then I scrap them and do a rewrite mimicking Lastrucci’s phrase construction.

Does it work?
It seems so.
And the story’s so fun, reading and writing it twice is no great effort.

Kitty, Mousy and Good Year – finished

Wow!
Now was that fast or what?!

OK, so Consolata Lanza’s story is only 3000 words long, but that’s not the point.

Not the only one, at least.

There is the fun factor – the fact that I am actually enjoying myself translating the story, finding the right turn of phrase.
That normally makes me go a lot faster.

And there is the quality of the writing.
This one helps a lot.
Maybe that’s why it’s taking me so long to finish translating my story.
Or Max’.

Anyway – now I’ll let the story rest for a few days and then I’ll revise it, before inflicting it on my revisors.
Nice and smooth.

I somewhat changed the tito to Kitty, Mousy and Good Year, which I hope better conveys the fact that these are not just names, but terms of endearing.

OK, time for a short break.
Who’s next?

Northern Dream – Ezo

Some minimal historical annotations.

Max’s story is set against the background of the Ezo Republic, a democratic state set up by former Tokugawa personnel (including French military advisors) in the cold north of Japan’s Hokkaido.
A short lived political experiment – the sort of thing the winners call “revolt” – Ezo never questioned the Imperial power, but was designed as a second state loyal to the crown, guarding the northern gate of the nation…

The farmers and merchants are unmolested, and live without fear, going their own way, and sympathising with us; so that already we have been able to bring some land into cultivation. We pray that this portion of the Empire may be conferred upon our late lord, Tokugawa Kamenosuke; and in that case, we shall repay your beneficence by our faithful
guardianship of the northern gate…

As it was to be expected, the subtlety escaped most Meiji politicians, and Ezo was in fact shut down by brute force by the Meiji government – while the rest of the world sat back looking.

This gives the story a steampunkish and vaguely political flavour, which is good.
It does not add to nor subtract anything from the translation, and is a fine piece of antiquarian finesse – not many know about Ezo outside of Japan.

It’s now two years, almost, that we talk about jotting down a few notes and writing a learned booklet on the subject – but so far our engagements have been too many.
And yet, it would be another worthy pursuit.

Northern Dream – local flavor

One arm badly injured, so my translating work is slowing down but not stopping.
I’ve made a commitment.
And what the heck – this is fun.

One of the things that make translating Max Soumaré’s stuff fun is his penchant for peppering the text with Japanese words.
Now, as he’s telling a story set in Japanes, it is pretty obvious some Japanese names should come up, but there’s more than that.
Max uses well-placed Japanese words to give the reader an extra portion of local flavor, deepening the sense of place.

It is the sort of quick-and-dirty technique that can turn easily into a cheap trick, a gimmick.
Authorial discipline must be applied – in cartloads – not to overdue the thing.
Max is a pro because he knows when enough is enough, and being a good translator, he uses the Japanese to convey in a single word those multiple, multi-layered meanings that cannot be summed up in as briefly in Italian, or in English.

The translation must of course adapt to this technique, somehow supporting it, and letting the phrases unfurl so that the single exotic word causes the expected vibrations.
It’s tricky, but that’s why it is fun.

On the down side, this practice sometimes requires notes – something I normally accept only from Jack Vance in fiction.
But then again, there are ways to sidestep the need for notes – a good witty afterword, for instance.
We’ll see….

Northern Dream – first chapter

First steps translating Max Soumaré’s short but thick story.
As I already said, you won’t find an author farther from me in terms of style – and in fact the first chapter opens on a slow beat and with no dialogue.
Just a man walking in the woods and history unfolding around him, and in his past.
Details are sparse.
Sensations come and go.
A solid mix of data-dump and atmosphere, the scene has a the sepia-tones of old photographs, and is a great mood-setter.
What will come next… well, we’ll see.
For certain, this will not be a comedy.

But right now is just long phrases, passive forms and the sensation of a great storm gathering.

Translating such a diverse style of prose is an exercise in both translation and writing.

I’m currently going slow due to a problem with the articulations of my right arm.
But I’ll see this book transalted if I have to type with the tip of my nose.

Clad in Steel and Thunder – final chapter

The last chapter of Clad in Steel and Thunder is the longest and most complicated.
The action moves around a lot, point of view following the survivors from the previous chapters as they take part to the final siege of Bellegarde – my own belated, mecha-oriented version of the battle of Crecy.

Past and present meet on the ramparts of Bellegarde.
This spells the end of the chivalry andallows this world to enter a more modern, hopefully more democratic phase.
Gundam-style, is time to scrap the battle suits and think about reconstruction.

Once the deed is done, the action sort of unwinds.
I do not believe in Star Wars-style throne room scenes and triumphs – after the battle come fatigue, desperation, sense of loss for all those that were lucky or fast enough to survive.
I tried to put some of that in the story, without giving in to angst.

By monday, the story will be done.
I’ll pass therefore to the next in the line – about which, see the next post.

The way I do it

Writing styles, translating styles.
I just found out my friend Massimo Soumaré (more on him as his story comes up for translation), usually does a paper review of the pieces he has to translate – marking out in pencil words or phrases that need particular attention or care.
Of course, he normally translates from Japanese, so I guess some dynamics are different.

I normally work directly on file.
I do not use any hip translator helper – like memories for oft-used words or stuff.
I just make a copy of the original and replace the text as I read it on the screen, one phrase at the time.
Working like this makes for fast going – hands on my keyboard, I am actually reading and writing the same page, instead of jumping between an open book, say, and the computer screen (sometimes I have to work like that and it is pretty uncomfortable – and very bad for the book spine and pages).
This technique also has a strange effect on names – which act like some kind of hardpoints in the page.
The temptation to let them be altogether, and work around them is strong, but often, shifting from the Italian structure to the English or vice-versa the whole sentence has to be completely rewritten and rearranged on the page.

To make a weird simile, it’s like the page was a wooden board with lines and lines of holes – one line per line of text. Some holes are occupied by peg-like names, dates and other elements that do not change, do not need translation. Each phrase is like a piece of string connecting those pegs.
The game is changing the old string with the new one, moving the pegs around as needed.

Which probably does not make sense at all, but at least I’ve invented some strange boardgame to use in a future story.

Authors list

The first translation is almost finished, time to pick the next.
It will probably be the turn of my old friend Massimo Soumaré.
But ho knows….

And as I am at it, I can publish the preliminary list of authors that will be printed in the English-language Alia anthology.

In no particular order…

• Danilo Arona (website)
• Alessandro Defilippi (interview)
• Davide Mana (blog; website)
• Massimo Citi (blog)
• Silvia Treves (blog)
• Mario Giorgi (profile)
• Consolata Lanza (blog; website)
• Massimo Soumare’ (blog; website)
• Fabio Lastrucci (profile)
• Vittorio Catani (profile; wikipedia)

A few others are waiting in the wings, but the line-up above should represent the backbone of the anthology.

7000 words – Chapter Five

Chapter Four was fast, much faster than anticipated, but it will need revising.
The text is ok, but something came up as I was translating, and I want to follow it up.
I’m working on Brock’s speaking patterns, to make him sound more German, but I don’t want to end up using the usual accent cliches. Something pretty good can be achieved by using slightly longer words than usual, and arranging the words in a slightly unusual, old-fashioned order, so that they still read all right but sound… foreign.

Cheap tricks.

In the meantime, on to chapter five.
Casale Monferrato has just revolted and a band of Flemish mercenaries are trying tomake themselves scarce with a minimum of fuss.
The last pieces of the puzzle fall into place – courtesy of Leonardo da Vinci, who comes center stage but remains incognito.
Leonardo also serves as sort of a clear-headed anchor in this whole story.
Which is pretty needed, considering that the moral compass of the narrative is debatable and the ethics of most of the characters are uncertain.

By the weekend, this story will be translated, and I’ll send it along to the proofreaders.