6 ms·
Not to be pedantic, but the Rabassa translation reads: "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant a
by sahhhm 12y ago
Not to be pedantic, but the Rabassa translation reads:
"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
- psychometry 12y agoPrefacing pedantry with "not to be pedantic" doesn't make what you're about to say not pedantic.
- sahhhm 12y agoFair enough. My intention was to avoid attacking the original quotation while still maintaining the actual translation.
- omegant 12y agoI agred this translation gives a better idea of how old timer sounds the original.
- guelo 12y ago"Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía habría de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo." I think rjtavares' quote is more faithful. Except for "conocer", it should be "know ice" or maybe "know about ice", not "see" or "discover". But the thing about translating poetic literature is that the translator also needs to be a poet.
- mc32 12y agoI think "see ice for the first time" might work.
- ramses 12y agoYou just provided the best translation :-) Now I'm wondering if the translators were intentionally trying to avoid multiple words, or if they didn't realize how much meaning they were losing.
- jes5199 12y agoSometimes you have to just leave meanings implied to avoid being very discursive. Why would you take a child to see ice? Why would it be significant? "See" doesn't usually carry that connotation of "for the first time", but really the sentence can't possibly mean anything else.
- matnewton85 12y agoExactly. The sentence in English is translated perfectly in this instance - the underlying implication of 'to see ice' carries the exact same meaning as the Spanish.
- brunorsini 12y agoNot really. "to see ice" in English is more dubious than the phrase in Spanish, as you don't really know whether or not the character is doing it for the first time. A translation closer in meaning would be "to get to know ice".
- dasil003 12y agoThis whole debate is why the translator chose "discover". It's a bit awkward because it can be interpreted two ways, but in one of the ways it carries the connotation of seeing for the first time, without the lengthy phrase "to get to know" or "to see for the first time" disrupting the rhythm of the prose. The crux of the problem, of course, is that the word "meet" in English only applies to people.
- djKianoosh 12y ago"The crux of the problem, of course, is that the word "meet" in English only applies to people." Says who? The last time I met with danger, I won! ;-)
- ternaryoperator 12y agoThis is a more accurate translation of the Spanish, although slightly less elegant than the previous one IMHO.