Margarita's Hammer - Молот Маргариты

I was recently asked by my friend, the writer Kelley Dupuis, to translate a poem of his. This is what he had to say about it:

"The poem ... is called Margarita's Hammer. It celebrates the scene in Bulgakov's novel in which Margarita is flying around the Arbat smashing windows"

Here it is, coupled with my translation, which I enjoyed doing - nearly as much as I enjoyed the poem.

           I celebrate this drunken moment,
Я праздную хмельной момент,

            this ecstatic release, this letting go:

Отказ от собственного дара,

            becoming her bright instrument,
У ней я яркий инструмент,

            the force ahead of the shattering blow.
Я сила страшного удара

  

            Mysteries abound on earth,
Загадок много на земле,

            more mysteries define the sky.
Немало их и наверху

            But to be her bright instrument,
Но вот я яркий инструмент,

            I wouldn’t ask a single ‘why.’
Я ей клянусь как на духу.

 

             Joy would overcome this stammer,
Несвязен я, но это голод

            if I could serve the Master’s wife,
Лишь Мастера жене служить,

            and become Margarita’s hammer,
И быть как Маргариты молот,

            smashing her way back into life.”
Чтоб дать ей способ вновь зажить.

Native vs Non-Native Translation

“The British are so bad at foreign languages that the European commission has had to recruit linguists from Spain and Greece to translate documents into English.”
From The Sunday Times
August 10, 2008
Brussels puts out English mayday
By Marie Woolf, Whitehall Editor
(http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4493286.ece)

It is a popular belief that one should translate into one’s native language. This belief is so widespread that most translation agencies won’t even consider using non-native translators. This is undoubtedly a valid premise and it does hold true for certain types of translation where authenticity of expression is a must, such as in fiction.

When dealing with other translation material, however, such as legal or engineering documents, it becomes clear that what takes precedence is the ability to grasp the idea being conveyed and render it without distortion or loss of meaning into the target language. In the latter case, proficiency in the specialist area involved, whether in terms of technical expertise or native command of the source language, becomes paramount. A native English speaker translating such a document may well miss a significant point or fail to realize, e.g., that a certain word is misprinted or misused in the context due to the author’s imperfect command of his or her native language (after all, they are just lawyers or engineers, as the case may be, and can hardly be expected to be perfect in this respect) and translate it “as is”, rendering the translated sentence (and maybe even the whole text) nonsensical or, worse, misleading if the translator is clever enough to paper over his or her lapse by doctoring the problem sentence to make it look OK.

On the other hand, a competent non-native translator will certainly succeed in adequately conveying the meaning implied in the source text. There may well be some stylistic faults with his or her translation but these are easily corrected by the customer if the latter is a native speaker of English or by an editor if not.

Naturally enough, one is advised to shop around for a non-native translator whose output would be easy to read for an English-language audience and would not require extensive editing, which might be costly and time consuming.

And last but not least, we have the economical aspect to consider. Outsourcing translation work to non-native translators can save costs - even with the editor’s charges factored in – and this is the bottom line, isn’t it? Why else would they set up call centres in India to serve customers in the US?

Native Reader of English

Letter to Kelley Dupuis, 20 March 2009.

Kelley, I have no ear for languages like N., for example. But what sets me apart from her and almost everybody else is that I am a native reader of English without being a native speaker of it. I started reading in English while not yet in my teens and I have kept at it (though now it's mostly audio books). In fact, I haven't read a novel in Russian since my late teens. This is why my mind functions like that of a native writer of English: when I put pen to paper, I think in English and am more or less incapable of "writing like a foreigner". When I translate, I read a sentence in Russian, grasp the idea behind the wording, think of it as a "pure idea" and then render it into English, using whatever English clichés come to mind. Most other translators (and all computer programs) translate the words.
So there's no real merit in my achievements (unlike in your creative output, for example). In a way, I'm just an idiot savant.

My raisons d’être as a Russian-to-English translator

I am a freelance Russian-to-English translator based in Moscow. Naturally enough, I can do English-to-Russian translations, but I choose not to pursue this as my core activity for the following reasons:

1) I have near-native command of English, at least as far as writing goes (I speak fluent English, but I do have a bit of an accent, which, oddly enough, is not readily identifiable as Russian).

2) I enjoy writing in English.

3) I do not enjoy writing in Russian. I can churn out decent copy in Russian on technical/academic subjects, having penned quite a few research papers when doing my postgraduate studies and working as a researcher. I have kept my hand in since then by doing occasional English-to-Russian jobs and I pride myself on my Russian grammar, including punctuation (and I can type fairly fast by touch in Russian as well as in English). If truth be told, I haven’t read a single novel in Russian since my late teens. I have read a lot of textbooks, etc., to be sure, but otherwise my reading has been centred almost exclusively on English literature. I have read enough books in French, German, Spanish and Italian (and even a couple of books in Latin) to be a fluent reader in these languages, but I gave up on languages other than English some five years ago. In fact, now that I work full time as a translator I have stopped reading anything other than the translation source material. I still occasionally read books on translation, English grammar and style, subject matter of my translation work, such as petroleum, law, etc., but mostly because I simply enjoy reading stuff on my Sony Reader PRS-505. What I do instead of reading is listening to audio books, putting in as many as 4-5 hours of listening experience a day during my workouts, meals, etc.

4) I prefer to stay out of the niche of English-to-Russian translation in Russia because I neither want nor need this kind of work and feel reluctant to steal bread from other translators who have nothing but English-to-Russian service to offer.

Opening Statement

This is to promote myself as a freelance Russian-to-English translator. I am based in Russia and my native language is Russian but I have near-native command of English so I want to go international and offer my services worldwide.