Late Sunday night I had horrible trouble sleeping. The hows and whys don’t matter here, nor are they something I want to share, but suffice to say I only got about two hours of sleep that night. So when instances happen to come up that rob me of my sleep, I take part in one of my favorite activities and that’s browse through Wikipedia clicking link after link after link to see where I can get.
That night I decided to look up Rumi of all people. He’s a Sufi mystic who has been a major cultural and philosophical influence in both the Middle East and Asia. Many people in the west know him quite well too, though chances are if you bring up Rumi while socializing at a wedding or something, there’s a good chance people won’t know who you’re talking about. I like Rumi. I like his works. Or at least, I thought I did. You see, I have in my collection of books “The Essential Rumi: Translations by Coleman Barks.” I fucking love this book. It strikes me as warm, insightful, perplexing, and a ton of other adjectives. Turns out, what I thought I loved is a total, fucking, lie. Upon clicking the link to Coleman Barks’ Wikipedia page, I find this passage under “Criticisms.”
- Barks does not speak or read Persian; his 'translations' are therefore technically paraphrases. Barks bases his paraphrases entirely on other English translations of Rumi which include renderings by John Moyne and Reynold A. Nicholson.[5] In addition, while the original Persian poetry of Rumi is heavily rhymed and metered, Barks has used primarily free verse. In some instances, he will also skip[6] or mix lines and metaphors from different poems into one 'translation'.
WTFF? WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?!
How the FUCK can you title a book “THE ESSENTIAL RUMI: TRANSLATIONS BY COLEMAN BARKS” when the fucker doesn’t know a lick of Persian? Better yet, how come this is literally the only book of Rumi I’ve come across in bookstores, repeatedly, when there damn well must be better translations by more reputable sources. Do you know how long I’ve had this book? Almost a decade. Do you know how often I crack it open to read something random to inspire me for the day? Almost weekly. I got dog eared pages, of favorite poems, and they’re practically lies.
If that’s not bad enough, it gets better. As big of a fan of Rumi as I am, I’m even a bigger fan of Hafiz. The writings of his I’ve found have given me the impression that he’s warm, playful, and so very, very deep. The books I have of his have all been translated by Daniel Ladinsky. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about him . . .
- In early 1990s, under the guidance of one of Meher Baba’s close disciple, Jessawala, Ladinsky' started working on English renderings of poems of Hafiz, a 14th-century Persian mystic poet.[4] Since he did not know the Persian language, he based his "renderings" on an 1891 English translation of The Divan of Hafez by Henry Wilberforce-Clarke.[3] Eventually, he published I Heard God Laughing in 1996. Thereafter he published more works on Hafiz, The Subject Tonight Is Love (1996) and The Gift (1999). Since the release of his first publication I Heard God Laughing,[6]
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Critics point out that Ladinsky's poems are originals, and not translations or interpretations of Hafez.[16][17][18] Christopher Shackle describes The Gift as "not so much a paraphrase as a parody of the wondrously wrought style of the greatest master of Persian art-poetry."[19] That his poems are neither written nor intended to fall under the purview of literal and/or scholarly translations of Hafiz' work, Ladinsky states in each of his volumes.
Lord. Mercy. Shame on me for not reading the boring shit in the front and back of books. But, maybe, here’s a thought. If you’re not gonna be translating actual poems by the man, maybe you shouldn’t be attributing them to him.
Now I’ve got myself a dilemma. I have in my book collection, three different translations of Beowulf, by Seamus Haney (who is my favorite), Robert Nye, and Burton Raffel. I have an anthology of Haikus edited by Faubion Bowers, a collection of Ryokan’s poetry translated by John Stevens, The Epic of Gilgamesh translated by Maureen Gallery Kovacs. And that’s just what I pulled off my bookshelf in the matter of a few minutes. I have anthologies of Japanese folktales, Chinese folktales, Norwegian folktales, Irish folktales and on and on and on. One of the collections of Irish tales is actually collected and edited by Yeats and has works from people like William Carleton and Lady Wilde, so at least I know that one is legit.
Now though? Every time I pick up a book, I gotta ask “How authentic is this?” Without jumping to Google or Wikipedia every minute, I don’t know. In fact, I don’t know if I want to know. These books touch me. They move me. They make me feel like a bigger person in a strange and confusing world. What if they’re all like this. Who the hell goes around thinking it’s okay to publish books without actually making sure what’s in the books is actually legit?
Fucking well read my ass. I feel like I’ve bought the literary equivalent of a fake Rolex. At best now, the only books I have that I know are written by their authors are modern western literature, like Twain and Steinbeck and shit. Which is fine. Cause they’re good, but I never remember half the stuff I read anyway. Which, I guess is a plus. I can re-read the same 30 books and it’s like something new all over again.
Fuck. At least I know Victor Appleton isn’t a real guy.
Edward Said's Orientalism is the seminal work in which Western scholars and audiences are criticized for viewing the East through a lens of 'otherness' wherein the fact that things are not Western is the only important characteristic they have. I know plenty of people who know Rumi; few of them have particularly deep philosophical leanings. Here's the thing: the "otherness" of Persia was a big selling point, then as now. If you derive pleasure from what you read, derive pleasure from what you read. If you want to dive deeper, by all means find a better translation. This isn't my wheelhouse but I reckon by now there are probably a few choices. Translations are always sticky. It's difficult to find one without bias, and even when the bias is known people are likely to argue about how important it is. Here's Reza Aslan on two different translations of An-Nisa 34 in the Koran: Men are in charge of women, because Allah has made some of them excel the others, and because they spend some of their wealth. And for those [women] that you fear might rebel, admonish them and abandon them in their beds and beat them [adribuhunna]. Because of the variability of the Arabic language, both of these translations are grammatically, syntactically, and definitionally correct. The phrase qawwamuna ‘ala an-nisa can be understood as “watch over,” “protect,” “support,” “attend to,” “look after,” or “be in charge of” women. The final word in the verse, adribuhunna, which Fakhry has rendered as “beat them,” can equally mean “turn away from them,” “go along with them,” and, remarkably, even “have consensual intercourse with them.” If religion is indeed interpretation, then which meaning one chooses to accept and follow depends on what one is trying to extract from the text: if one views the Quran as empowering women, then Ali’s; if one looks to the Quran to justify violence against women, then Fakhry’s. Here's what I know: even now, the "otherness" matters far more than the thought. I've met several people who love to quote the wisdom of "Osho", despite the fact that he and his followers committed the only known act of biological terrorism in the United States.Men are the support of women [qawwamuna ‘ala an-nisa] as God gives some more means than others, and because they spend of their wealth (to provide for them). . . . As for women you feel are averse, talk to them suasively; then leave them alone in bed (without molesting them) and go to bed with them (when they are willing).
I kind of like Japanese, Chinese, Persian, Arabic, and East Indian writing for a kind of "otherness," so I think that's a fair criticism there. I feel compelled to defend myself a bit here, for fear of sounding like a hipster. There's "otherness" in everything I read in the sense that stuff written in 19th Century England is very different from stuff written in mid-20th century America, which is very different from something from someplace that doesn't speak English and is far removed from our time. Poetry, fiction, religious and philosophical writings, and on and on. It's all very different. The interesting thing is, there's a lot of similarity as well. There's a lot of common elements in philosophies across culture (be good and honest is a basic human tenant after all) to very similar myths (flood myths, fear of darkness, etc.). That said, one of the appeals to oriental writing for me is that it often has a very different tempo, both literally as well as emotionally and intellectually. I'm gonna have to dig deeper, cause between my discovery Sunday and yours and Odder's responses, I'm starting to question how much of that might actually be artificial. Like readers are being sold a concept of an otherness that is familiar and unthreatening. You also bring up a very good point about religious texts and I'm glad you touched on it. A very common conversation that we'd have in the religious history/theology classes I'd take was that A) the father removed you are in time from the source of the writings, the more they've been affected by politics and cultural changes and the changes are often over a slow period of time that they often happen unnoticed and B) many languages are open to interpretation, like you just pointed out, which means people often turn to scholars for guidance on interpreting said texts, and since the opinions of scholars are often malleable and subject to their time and environment, this just exacerbates point A. The thing is, for guys like Rumi and Hafiz? They're old, but they aren't ancient. Chances are there are verifiable written copies of their work somewhere that people can go back and reference. At least I can take comfort in that.
Sadly this happens a lot, especially with stereotypically "Eastern" or "mystical" writings. You've got to be careful if you want authenticity, which is why I personally do not generally read this kind of book in translation. There are some exceptions, such as the dao de jing (although even then I try to compare different renderings), Rumi and Hafez, or Kierkegaard. But even then, you just have to accept the fact that either (a) you're going to have to learn the language, or (b) you're not going to get the whole thing. And that's without going down the rabbit hole of whether you can truly appreciate a work as well as a native speaker, but for me that just comes back to our own unique perspectives as individual readers. There's a reason I've never really studied the Bible until now that I'm learning Greek (and even then, you could devote your life to Biblical textual criticism), or that I refuse to read Cervantes or García Márquez in translation, or that I'm waiting to read Dostoevsky until I can get my Russian to a literate level. That said, it all depends on how much you want to dig into a given text; do you want to just take it as you are, or try to learn more about the cultural and historical context? It's really up to you. I do dislike translations that aren't really translations, and I think that's dishonest and it would make me seriously question how much I wanted to listen to the speaker. And thankfully there are good translations of any of the works you mention. But as I said, you have to go into it being okay with not getting the whole thing. I translated a couple H. P. Lovecraft short stories into Spanish for publication a couple of years ago, and it was really frustrating how much I had to leave out. I always find the English subtitles on Spanish-language movies to be depressingly bland, by way of another example. My first encounter with Dostoevsky was the Constance Garnett translation of Crime and Punishment, which turned out to be terrible. Once I had enough Russian to read a little bit of Dostoevsky (which I no longer do), it was unrecognizable to me. I later found out that Garnett has a reputation for poor rendering (even to the point of totally guessing on words or phrases she didn't know), and that more recent translations are much better. But still, why trust them? Maybe I'm missing out on something in a foreign language that I'd enjoy, but at the same time I'm never going to run out of stuff in the languages I can read, so what's it matter? At the end of the day you just have to decide for yourself how much that "authenticity" matters. To me it matters a great deal, others not so much (after all, some people base their entire spiritual life around a 400-year-old translation of the Bible). Just as we bring our own life experiences, thoughts, and feelings to a book in our native language, I think those things inform our degrees-of-removal tolerance too.
As long as you enjoy studying and practicing language, so much the better. But Gabo himself said that the English translation of Cien años de soledad "improved on the original." A good translation prepared for a foreign reader might also include helpful supplemental material missing in an original text. I am slogging through The Count of Monte Cristo and was too dumb to realize who "the emperor" was until I was clued in by a footnote. The Pevear and Volokhonsky version of The Brothers Karamazov was much more interesting than Garnett thanks to all the notes.I refuse to read Cervantes or García Márquez in translation
more recent translations are much better. But still, why trust them?
100 years of solitude is one of my favorite books. Someday, perhaps I'll learn Spanish enough to be able to reread it and compare the two. But it's hard to imagine it being much improved. I found it to be damn near perfect.
Yeah, notes are good, but that's not exclusive to a translation (both my Spanish copies of Don Quijote and One Hundred Years of Solitude are annotated).
That's the one I have! I got it on a lark from the local college bookstore while I was in high school. I find the "interpretive" notes or whatever super annoying, but the historical context and definitions for more obscure words are quite helpful.
Have a shit ton of random thoughts. The majority of people of authority I've talked to say The NIV is legitimately reputable and is the result of a thorough and balanced translation process. The KJV is my go-to Bible when I want to read for the sake of beauty, the NIV is my goto for when I want to read for the sake of study. I once had a real good NIV study Bible and I'm almost sure it was this one, though I've discovered in the past year it's missing and I have yet to replace it. Learning Greek to read the Bible strikes me as super admirable. At the same time though, I think you can trust the NIV translators to give you a more accurate product than what you come up with through your own studies. That said, keep doing what you're doing, cause your own work might produce satisfying results you might not get otherwise. I'd like to also say in defense of my image here, while I like the idea of reading the works of guys like Rumi, Hafiz, Lao Tse, etc., I'm personally not into mysticism. Things like qi, chakras, etc., not my thing. What I get out of these things is "Wow. That's a really creative way to say 'Be nice to that guy next to you' or 'Work honestly so your work brings good results.'" Don't take too much stock in that statement though, cause one, I think you can find messages like that from everywhere you look, no matter the time or culture, and two, I'm not a deep guy. You could literally write on a piece of paper that says "Don't be a jackass" and I'll be like "Okay, cool. I'm gonna run with that." I think authenticity matters a lot when it comes to translations, whether we're talking about translating "Three Blind Mice" or "Frankenstein" or "The Bible." I think there's different merits to translations, focusing on literal accuracy, aesthetics, etc. There's a whole spectrum there and I've read Odder's response a second time today and I can kind of understand that maybe sometimes it's okay to translate something with more of an ear to making it sound nice. The thing is though, if someone said "So and so doesn't know that language very well, there are better translations out there" I'd think that's not so bad. I can look into better things. But to read "So and so made stuff up," that's not a bad translation. That's something worse. One of the interesting things about texts, religious or otherwise aside from laws, is that they often can be open to interpretation by the reader in so many ways. I think that's partly by design. It allows people to take what they read and figure out how it applies to them as a an individual at that point and time in their life. It allows them to make a profound connection to what they're reading. When this type of reaction is applied to something people put a lot of value in, such as religious texts, that sense of profoundness is probably even more powerful. So even if people rely on an outdated translation, there's still something there for them to draw from and it can still be good. That said, a lot of times, a little extra background and context in what you're reading can make a huge difference in how you perceive it and absorb it. Sometimes why something is being said in just ad important as to what is being said. So in that sense, a good background can be very helpful. There are a lot of denominations of Christianity that really embrace that mentality. Off the top of my head, I recall Presbyterians are pretty enthusiastic about making a lifelong commitment to deepening their religious knowledge.
This reminds me of editions in music. I suppose the biggest difference in music is that at some level editors of music are allowed to add in their own opinions of how the music is supposed to work (Hence why editions by famous musicians - the Elgar Cello Concerto edited by Jacqueline Du Pre for example - can be popular), whereas in literature this is somewhat less sunshine and roses. Take, for example, a very famous piece of music with many editions - the 6 Cello Suites by J.S. Bach. There's a reason this piece has so many editions - We don't have a version in Bach's own hand. the closest we have are two editions - One by his wife, Anna Magdalena Bach, and another by Johann Kellner. They're Pretty close in terms of dates (the Kellner likely being a few years earlier), but so much is different. Bowings, Rhythms, even notes are different in these two editions. Because the two closest manuscripts to Bach's own hand are so divergent, a great deal of other editions have been spawned over the years. It's almost given people free reign to interpret. I wonder if you could view translation outside of native language in the same way? because words can have multiple meanings and subtexts, it almost gives people free reign to interpret and edit because it's impossible to get to the "truth" of what someone meant hundreds of years ago in another language.
This is fucking interesting and I would love to know more. Question 1. How do we know these Bach manuscripts aren't forgeries? Question 2. Do people actually try to pass of forgeries of classical composers? Question 3. People seem to think doing covers of songs in various new styles as something that's nifty. For example, maybe a country cover of a pop song. Is this something that was done in the time of Bach, Listz, etc.? IS THERE A A GUY OUT THERE THAT HAS TRANSLATED LISTZ TO BANJO OR SOME SHIT? PLEASE SAY YES. ::Ahem:: Pardon me. I got carried away for a moment there. Question 4. Has this problem pretty much resolved itself with the introduction of recording equipment or is it still an issue today? Question 5. Seriously. If someone took Mozart or something and moderned it up, that'd be some pretty cool shit. Question 6. Did you know Question 5 was actually a statement or did you only realize that after I pointed it out?
forgive me if I have to answer this tomorrow. my music nerdery literally cannot be kept in once let out and I need to sleep so i can work at 6:30am answers to all your q's. I promise.
OK! Here we go. 1.) How do we know that the manuscripts aren't forgeries? well, we know for sure that the people I named are the people who wrote these manuscripts out. we've got lots of samples of these people's handwriting. They were both prolific copiers for Bach - Anna Magdalena as a way to help out her Husband who had a ton of jobs, and Kellner because he was a big fan and fellow keyboardist. With that in mind, it's pretty clear that they are what they say they are on the tin. 2.) there HAVE been forgeries, though. I wrote an essay about this, actually. there's this dude from the turn of the century named Henri Casadesus and he (with his brother Marius) are infamous for forging pieces. most famous are a Mozart Violin sonata and a J.C. Bach (J.S. Bach's son) Viola Concerto. I actually have a pet theory that Marius and Henri didn't even write this music. I figured out that someone (most likely Henri) copied some pieces by Luigi Borghi, arranged them as a sonata for viola and Bass, and marketed as by G.B. Borghi. It's possible that the Casadesus brothers did the same with the Mozart and J.C. Bach. 3.) Two videos for you: and alternatively 4.) Well, in my opinion, it hasn't - for example: and same composer, different editions. which one is the "correct" edition. Should you try to play it exactly like either of them? if you didn't, you would create your own "edition", right? what if your edition of an earlier work becomes more known and more popular than the original? ( it's possible that this is not even a Leadbelly tune, and may indeed be older). 5.) see 3. 6.) no, i didn't. but i think it's because even though there's no questin mark, it still asks a question in its way.
Maybe you should learn Persian? The whirling dervish state of mind might appreciate some transferring of value ;) One thing people, especially those practiced in translating and mediating value, will not tell you, is their bias directly influenced how they receive the information. ESPECIALLY in faith. This has happened throughout history. The best thing you can do is (I can't believe I am saying this of all people, get ready for the rage-quotes), look at the data, who (or what) is presenting the data, with an open mind, without over-exposing your position internally or externally. Ok enough crazy talk. I enjoyed what you shared though
Just because those poems weren't written by ancient Persians, does that make them any less good? You've been misled about the source, fine, but if you like the poems, I don't see why this would make you like them any less. Yesterday I found out that the melody to "Don't Think Twice, it's Alright" was lifted from a Paul Clayton song. That doesn't make it any less good.
If part of the value you place in something is the trust that it's authentic, finding out otherwise diminishes the value. If for example I picked up "The Essential Rumi: Poems as Interpreted by Coleman Barks," and "The Gift. Poems Inspired by Hafiz," I would better know what I have in my hands from the very beginning. I would look at them from a different angle and appreciate them from that angle. The thing is though, I'd also be less likely to read them, let alone buy them because I'm interested in the original works of the original authors. By being told I'm buying something I'm not, I've been taken advantage of. By realizing I'm being taken advantage of, my emotional value in the works has dropped to near zero, souringy taste for them and making them near worthless.