Translating Samuel Beckett around the World (New Interpretations of Beckett in the Twenty-First Century) 3030717291, 9783030717292

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Praise for Translating Samuel Beckett around the World
Contents
Editors and Contributors
List of Figures
List of Tables
Part I Northern Europe
1 Embraces – Empty Spaces: Translation and Reception of Samuel Beckett in Iceland
B
E
C
K
E
T
T
Appendix: Works by Beckett Translated into Icelandic
Works Cited
2 Beckett in Sweden Then and Now: (Re)Translating Waiting for Godot
Figures of Translation
Source Text/s
Textual Changes
Translation and Transfer
Appendix: A Selection of Beckett’s Work in Swedish Translation
Works cited
3 Stopped in Holland: Samuel Beckett in Dutch Translation
Starts
Still Waiting
Alongside Van Velde
After Van Velde
Watt: A Short Statement
Stops?
Appendix: Samuel Beckett in Dutch Translation, 1961–2021
Works Cited
Part II Southern Europe and South America
4 ‘Half in Love’: The Translation and Reception of Samuel Beckett in Spain
Introduction
Beckett & Spain
Beckett in Translation
Authorised Translations?
Lost After Translation?
Conclusion
Appendix: Selection of Works by Beckett Translated into Spanish
Works Cited
5 ‘My Italian is not up to more’ : Samuel Beckett, Editor of ‘Immobile’
‘An extensive and rather confused holograph’
‘[I] seem to have forgotten more Italian than I thought’
‘Maledetta scarpa. Accidenti, non ce la faccio. Non ce la faccio a togliermela’
‘Such writing lends itself with but an ill grace to your reasonable language’
‘First person throughout: absolutely impossible’
‘My Italian is not up to more’
Appendix
Works Cited
6 Translations of Beckett’s Work in Argentina
Translating and Performing Waiting for Godot: How the Country Road and the Tree Reached the Pampas
Translating and Publishing Beckett in Argentina After 1954
Roberto Juarroz’s Act Without Words: A Poet’s Translation
Appendix: Translations of Beckett’s Work in Argentina
Published in Book Form
Published in the Journal Beckettiana
Published in Other Journals
Works Cited
7 The Meremost Minimum: Beckett’s Translations into Brazilian Portuguese
Apppendix: Brazilian Translations and Secondary Sources
Plays
Prose
Essays
About Beckett
Works Cited
Part III Middle East and Asia
8 Translating Samuel Beckett into a ‘Non-Western’ Culture: The Journey of Waiting for Godot in Turkey
Staging Waiting for Godot in Turkey in 1954 and in 1963
From Locality to Universality
The Apparent Cultural Challenges of Presenting Waiting for Godot to a Turkish Audience
The Linguistic Challenges of Translating Beckett into Turkish
A Comparative Analysis of the Two Major Turkish Translations of Waiting for Godot
Conclusion
Appendix: A Selection of Works by Samuel Beckett in Turkish
Works Cited
9 Beckett in ‘A Distant Place’: Early Translations in Hebrew
First Love: Introducing Beckett to the Israeli Audience
‘Gloomy Idiotism’: Waiting for Godot in Hebrew
Domesticating Godot
Opening Windows: Krapp’s Last Tape in Keshet
Domestic Beckett, Foreign Beckett
Appendix: Selected Translations of Samuel Beckett’s Works into Hebrew
Waiting for Godot
Endgame
Krapp’s Last Tape
Other Plays
Prose
Works Cited
10 Domesticating Beckett: The Religious and Political Complexity of Pakistan and Waiting for Godot
Insha ka Entezaar: Localisation and Modernisation
The Women’s Issue in Insha ka Entezaar
The Religious Intertexts
Conclusion
Works Cited
11 Translating Samuel Beckett into Hindi
Appendix: List of Indian Translations of Waiting for Godot
Hindi
Bengali
Marathi
Punjabi
Kannada
Assamese
Rajasthani
Works Cited
12 From Bits and Pieces to an Ensemble: Translating Samuel Beckett in Mainland China
Appendix: A Chronology of Beckett’s Works Translated into Chinese
1965
1980
1981
1983
1984
1992
1999
2002
2006
2011
2012–2013
2016–2017
Works Cited
Index

Citation preview

NEW INTERPRETATIONS OF BECKETT IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Translating Samuel Beckett around the World Edited by José Francisco Fernández Pascale Sardin

New Interpretations of Beckett in the Twenty-First Century

Series Editor Jennifer M. Jeffers, Department of English, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH, USA

As the leading literary figure to emerge from post-World War II Europe, Samuel Beckett’s texts and his literary and intellectual legacy have yet to be fully appreciated by critics and scholars. The goal of New Interpretations of Beckett in the Twenty-First Century is to stimulate new approaches and develop fresh perspectives on Beckett, his texts, and his legacy. The series will provide a forum for original and interdisciplinary interpretations concerning any aspect of Beckett’s work or his influence upon subsequent writers, artists, and thinkers.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14737

José Francisco Fernández · Pascale Sardin Editors

Translating Samuel Beckett around the World

Editors José Francisco Fernández Almería, Spain

Pascale Sardin Talence, France

New Interpretations of Beckett in the Twenty-First Century ISBN 978-3-030-71729-2 ISBN 978-3-030-71730-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71730-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our gratitude to all contributors for their enthusiasm towards the project and for their patient cooperation with the revisions of their chapters. We would also like to acknowledge the University of Almería’s support of this publication, in particular we are indebted to CEI Patrimonio for their help. Finally, we would like to extend our thanks to Lindisfarne research group, especially to Germán Asensio Peral for being our copyeditor; his professionalism was much appreciated.

v

Introduction

In 2015, En attendant Godot was performed in France starring two Ivory Coast actors: Fargass Assandé played the part of Estragon and Michel Bohiri played that of Vladimir. Directed by Jean Lambert-Wild, Lorenzo Malaguerra and Marcel Bozonnet, the production modernized the play written in the aftermath of World War Two as it was made to tell the story of two African migrants caught up in today’s European refugee crisis in a postcolonial globalized context. Some years before that, in 2007, Paul Chan, in partnership with Creative Time and the Classical Theater of Harlem, had staged four outdoor performances of Beckett’s Godot in New Orleans, just two years after the passage of Hurricane Katrina. The play was performed in two of the neighbourhoods worst hit by the devastating hurricane, in places where the sense of hopelessness was acute, and at a time when authorities were under intense criticism for their slow, and sometimes inadequate, response to the crisis. These examples illustrate both the universality of Beckett’s first performed – and most famous and oft-performed – play worldwide, but also the desire that is felt by present-time directors to see the works of the Anglo-Irish playwright address topical issues. Such is also the case around the world, in places and territories that are sometimes greatly distant from Paris, London or Berlin where Beckett’s plays often premiered, and where neither English nor French are the official languages in use. This book explores by whom, how and when Beckett’s work has been translated in a number of countries and continents all over the globe, but also how it is received and

vii

viii

INTRODUCTION

currently performed in contexts different from those of the English or French originals in which the author composed his novels, plays and poems. In What is World Literature? David Damrosch writes that ‘world literature encompass(es) all literary works that circulate beyond their culture of origin, either in translation or in their original language’, and that ‘a work only has an effective life as world literature whenever, and wherever, it is actively present within a literary system beyond that of its original culture’ (Damrosch 2003: 4). That Samuel Beckett’s oeuvre is part of world literature thus defined is now largely accepted: Beckett has become a ‘global’ artist be it from the vantage point of his texts proper, which question the very concept of the ‘world’ (Connor 2008; Pearson 2017), or from that of the scope of his reception which has become international (Brater 2003; Perloff 2007; Gontarski 2008; Feldman & Nixon 2009; McDonald 2016; McNaughton, Doshi and Engelberts 2019; Chakraborty and Tobirio Vázquez 2020). As Rónán McDonald has noted in ‘Global Beckett’, an entry of The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Theatre, ‘Beckett is inextricably caught up in a globalized culture, branded and consumed around the world’ (2016: 590). This ‘global turn’ in Beckettian studies had already been acknowledged a decade earlier, in a volume titled Transnational Beckett (2008), where S.E. Gontarski reflected upon the surge of interest in Samuel Beckett in a vast array of countries at the turn of the millennium. And recently, Thirthankar Chakraborty and Juan Luis Tobirio Vázquez have edited a volume entitled Samuel Beckett as World Literature (2020) that investigates what it means for Beckett to be part of a global literature. As noted by Renata Vaz Shimbo and Fábio de Souza Andrade in this volume: ‘Beckettian studies have become progressively more open to globalized readings of Beckett’s drama and fiction, no longer taken for an exportable formula of avant-garde art, a way into experimentation which could be replicated in different places as an internationalist handbook, but as a corpus encouraging emergent cultures to reinterpret the legacy of Western modernism according to the premises of their own histories and needs’. Beckett scholars cannot but rejoice at this vast interest in the writer in that it is bound to enrich our understanding of the work, as it renews interpretations of it. Nevertheless, as McDonald remarks in ‘Global Beckett’, there are also possible detrimental effects of globalization in that such a disseminating process often goes along with processes of standardization on the one hand, and domestication on the

INTRODUCTION

ix

other, the risk being that Beckett’s texts lose their countercultural power in late capitalism’s marketing forces (McDonald 2016: 591). This collection of essays differs from previous ones in that it focuses on issues of translation, posing theoretical and practical questions about the art of translating Beckett texts in languages other than English and French, the languages in which Beckett created his works. In doing so, it takes into account Beckett’s own bilingualism, and explores how the issues of translation and reception and influence are interconnected. As noted by Nixon and Feldman, the act of translation is ‘necessary before any kind of sustained national reception can take place, and the quality of translations largely determinates the nature of that reception’ (Nixon and Feldman 2009: 6). Beckett’s career was involved from the beginning with translation, either when he translated the work of others, a task that he began in the late 1920s with fragments of James Joyce’s Work in Progress, or when he translated poems for avant-garde magazines, and his gradual adoption of the role of exclusive translator of his own work in his mature period has been thoroughly studied (Van Hulle and Verhulst 2018: 21). Recent research has shown the extent of the author’s involvement in the translation of his work by other translators and scholars, or has dwelt upon the extraordinary event of his translations affecting the content of the original work by means of changes implemented by the author in new editions of old texts. The study of (self)translation as a line of research in its own right has also become a fruitful and productive field in recent times (Collinge 1999; Louar 2018; Louar and Fernández 2018; Montini 2007; Mooney 2011; Oustinoff 2001; Sardin-Damestoy 2002), becoming the centre of a whole poetics, where Beckett’s bilingualism is seen to take a prominent part in his aesthetics of failure. As a result, Beckettian selftranslation has ceased to be a curiosity, almost an anomaly associated with the author, and as any other feature related to his style (like the ghostly presence of Ireland in his writing, his penchant for prosthetic bodies or his raids into a yet unknown but imagined posthumanistic world), it has become a central concern to interpret his oeuvre. The last unexplored frontier in this endeavour pertains to the study of how Beckett has been translated in languages other than French, English and perhaps even German. There is plenty of evidence of the kind of interaction that Beckett maintained with Elmar Tophoven and his wife Erika, both the ‘official’ translators of his work into German. His collaborative work with the German translations of his work, therefore, is well documented (see Tophoven 2011 and Tophoven 2016). In

x

INTRODUCTION

his lifetime, Beckett often recommended that translators have a look at the German authorized version of his texts. To Christian Ludvigsen, his Danish translator, when explaining textual allusions pertaining to All That Fall , Beckett wrote that the French translation, written by Robert Pinget and ‘revised’ by him, may be of help and that there is a ‘good German translation’ the translator might want to have a look at (Letter dated 6 Aug. 1957, Beckett 2014: 59). He was perfectly aware of the importance of providing ‘good’ translations and acted accordingly. But little is known of what happened with Beckett and his interaction with other languages beyond the safe area around English, French or German. What can be gathered from what translators into third languages have said is that he kept an open mind and encouraged inventiveness. Polish director and translator Marek K˛edzierski once complained to Beckett that he did not know how to render into Polish the line from Endgame ‘The bastard! He does not exist!’: ‘I explained that in Polish there is a word cham meaning an uncultivated, rude person, derived like Hamm’s name from the biblical Hamm, just spelled differently. Would Hamm calling God Cham, pronounced like his own name, be too much? Beckett seemed amused, said it’s a good idea’ (K˛edzierski 2016: 120). Beckett was also very keen that in the third language, as far as possible, the same register, sound pattern and rhythm of the original should be maintained. On one occasion, Spanish scholar Antonia Rodríguez-Gago sent him her translations of Rockaby, Ohio Impromptu and Catastrophe, which Beckett ‘returned … very quickly including one of his little cards saying: “I have annotated your text to the best of my poor Spanish and I hope my suggestions – for they are nothing more – may prove of some help.” All his “suggestions”, though they [were] not many, refer[red] to structure, none to meaning’ (Rodríguez-Gago 1999: 234). In a way, the investigation on Beckett around the world that is carried out in this volume simply expands on what Beckett did during his lifetime when his daily writing was inextricably bound to revisions of translations in other languages, as he frequently wrote to correspondents such as Barney Rosset: ‘Have just read the Spanish so-called translation of Godot. Bad. German ditto of Molloy is coming in for revision (pretty shaky from the extracts I have seen) and I begin on Malone in German with the translator of Godot, in Paris fortunately. Then there is Bowles’ (Beckett 2011: 448). It would not be completely true to say that Translating Samuel Beckett around the World is the first and only attempt towards moving beyond the comfortable boundaries of familiar

INTRODUCTION

xi

languages in Beckett. The publication of The International Reception of Samuel Beckett (2009), edited by Mark Nixon and Matthew Feldman, was a major landmark in Beckett Studies in the twenty-first century. In this deeply engaging collection of essays, Beckett was, for the first time, understood as a global phenomenon. It also showed the skills and ambition of a second generation of Beckett scholars who took over from those who had created Beckett Studies. The International Reception of Samuel Beckett showed the credentials of the next generation, characterized by a truly international spirit, as it is testified by the establishment of the Samuel Beckett Society annual conferences that started soon after (2015) and which stepped outside traditional centres of Beckett scholarship. The present volume is indebted to Nixon and Feldman’s bold and inspiring project, although it presents a marked difference in its being focused on translation and thereby reflects upon how his work has been adapted and transformed in an assortment of cultures around the world. Some such territories have by now been well charted by Beckett scholars – this is the case of Beckett’s place in German-speaking countries, a topic explored as early as 1984 by Jack Zipes, and further elaborated upon in two chapters of the Feldman and Nixon collection of essays, and in a volume of the Journal of Beckett Studies in 2010, among others. On the other hand, other countries, sometimes whole continents, like the Indian subcontinent, where a wealth of languages are spoken, are just beginning to be explored in relation to Beckett’s influence (see Mahmood 1993; Chakraborty 2017). This collection, with its opening up to countries such as Pakistan or India seeks to redress this situation and fill a void. It could also be argued that the volume shows a strong preference for Europe (5 of the 12 chapters deal with European countries) and therefore the opinion that a Eurocentric perspective is still very much associated with Beckett studies would have some ground to stand on. When The International Reception of Samuel Beckett was published, reviewers considered inevitable that Europe should carry such weight: ‘This is understandable since Beckett was more closely connected to Western Europe than to the rest of the world, and because of his fluency in several European languages …, he was more involved in the production and translation of his works in Western Europe than he was elsewhere’ (Kager 2012: 181). Although we start from Europe in this journey around the world – and even if it is for obvious reasons impossible to be exhaustive in the exploration of all the countries of the world – we have included areas on the fringe of continental Europe (Iceland

xii

INTRODUCTION

on one side, Turkey and Israel on the other), and have paid attention to translations of Beckett in South America (Argentina and Brazil) for the first time in Beckett Studies. As for the spectacular surge of interest in Beckett in China in recent years, it has been made necessary to revisit this country from that first approach in Nixon and Feldman’s book in 2009. The reason for the extraordinary expansion of such a concrete field of knowledge in the humanities is to be found in the inexhaustible questioning provoked by Beckett’s work about essential issues on human existence on this planet, as well as by the variety of topics that Beckett addressed in his literary production. As noted by Peter Fifield: ‘For all its talk of impossibility and failure, [Beckett’s oeuvre] remains remarkably responsive to interpretative approaches, and appears to grow even more fertile as shown by the research and performance it attracts’ (Fifield 2013: 7–8). And as Jean-Michel Rabaté remarks, ‘the complete works of Beckett, which fit snugly in four volumes, occupy a much vaster cultural space’ (Rabaté 2016: 7). Translating Samuel Beckett around the World examines this cultural space from the vantage point of some of the languages into which Beckett’s works have been adapted up to this day. It examines how Beckett texts have been appropriated, and re-territorialized, but also circulated, received and performed. It looks at issues of influence, fertilization, repercussion, approval, rejection and disruption in countries and linguistic territories that are sometimes quite far from the centres of ‘the world republic of letters’ (Casanova 2004) such as Paris, London or New York, which are arguably privileged places of global literary consecration and legitimization. If this collection of essays proves anything, it is certainly that globalization and internationalization hide a variety of local and national situations and tableaux. The translation of Beckett texts abroad is the story of an uneven success that depends much on the historical contexts of the countries taken into consideration. Indeed translation cannot be isolated from historical factors and from the specific cultural and political backgrounds of the territories investigated. For example, translations into Mandarin Chinese are rather recent, and one can easily understand how Chinese authorities have been instrumental in delaying the circulation of Beckett’s oeuvre in this otherwise huge market. Surprisingly enough, this is not only the case of distant, non-Western cultures; in Spain for instance, the Francoist regime has had a long-lasting effect on the reception of Beckett. Types of censorship actually vary from one country to another. Up until the early 1950s, Beckett books have generally suffered abroad

INTRODUCTION

xiii

from a ‘market censorship’ (Schiffrin 2001: 106) that was lifted in many areas of the world by the succès de scandale of En Attendant Godot in 1953, and by Beckett’s association with Nouveau Roman writers in the following years. While this situation totally ended in most countries in 1969 when Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize, state censorship in some countries continued. As for cultural self-censorship, it is something that translators do not necessarily implement consciously when they cater for a target audience and seek to make their texts acceptable to them. One may perhaps even speak of a form of aesthetic self-censorship in the case of Icelandic literature, which has long resisted the importation of Modernist literature in general and of Beckett writing in particular, because Beckettian narrative experimentalism did not quite agree with the Icelandic tradition of the narrative epic. While some elements of Beckett aesthetics resist importation, others on the contrary seem to have been facilitators, like the non-mimetic dimension of his theatre, which resonated closely with an ancient Turkish theatrical tradition. The papers collected here seek to understand where and why Beckett was translated first and why Beckett texts sometimes were on the contrary long to be deemed acceptable literary material. They demonstrate that there is a strong correlation between the power fluctuations in the sociopolitical environment of a country and the success of a foreign writer and playwright. Collective conditions – the presence of a democratic government or of a publishing industry open to experimentalism and avant-garde art – and/or individual efforts like that of Victoria Ocampo in Argentina, who had strong ties with European Modernism, are often necessary to make linguistic transfer happen and then enable translated texts to be accepted and successful. The case of Godot is particularly interesting in this respect. A recurrent problem in countries with (past) authoritarian regimes is the passivity of characters in Godot, which is difficult to accept. Likewise, Beckett’s apparent apolitical stance sometimes proved a problem for some national audiences; in Israel in 1955, for instance, reviewers attacked Godot for its lack of direct meaning and political commitment. Although various Beckettian texts are analysed in depth in this volume, namely Endgame, Act Without Words , Krapp’s Last Tape, ‘Immobile’, Worstward Ho and ‘what is the word’, many authors actually dwell on Godot. This should not surprise us as Godot – which has become an international classic – is by far Beckett’s best-known work and often the first one to have been translated in the countries explored here. It is also probably the most oft retranslated text in the Beckettian corpus.

xiv

INTRODUCTION

The volume also proves that ready-made dichotomies about translation need to be reassessed. As illustrated by some of the authors in the book, the process of ‘domestication’ – usually connoted negatively in translation studies (Venuti 2008) – can actually conceal politically progressive and subversive appropriations of Beckett texts. What is more, questions of acceptability (moral, political or aesthetic) often go hand in hand with questions of accessibility; because of its hermetic dimension and because Beckett’s writing is rooted in European culture, it is quite often distant from some of the receiving audiences considered in the following pages. The linguistic and sociocultural challenges of translating Beckett into languages other than French, English and German are at the core of the investigations conducted by the authors of the essays collected here. Do Pakistani translators maintain Beckett’s puns in his theatre? How is the stylistic experimentalism of later prose or poetic texts like Worstward Ho rendered in different international variants of the Portuguese language? Alongside such sociopolitical and aesthetic issues, the authors of the following essays underline the importance of biographical factors in the translating history of Beckett’s texts around the world. Beckett’s individual friendships with some translators have shaped the landscape of translation of his work in some languages. This was the case with Dutch in the Netherlands, due to the strength of Jacoba van Velde’s relationship with the author. The serendipitous agency of Avigdor Arikha in bringing Beckett’s texts to Israel is also explored. In the following pages as well, translation appears as a critical process of interpretation and negotiation that keeps evolving in time as retranslations of Beckett texts are felt to be needed by publishers or performers. The issue of language is also central to many of the papers presented. Translation as a linguistic transfer between different languages containing inbuilt differences, is an art in essence doomed to ‘incompletion’ and ‘imperfection’ (Derrida 1985: 165–166). It presented Beckett both with an ordeal and a blessing, a perfectly imperfect means of (re)writing. In that, it strongly echoes his own paradoxical sense of linguistic deprivation and predicament, and presented him with a fertile means of expression that pushed him to continue creating until his death. In seeking to create his ‘literature of the unword’, a kind of writing exploring the gulf between signified and signifier, Beckett already performed a form of translation and disrupted referential models of communication. Thus the difficulty for translators is to reproduce this radical rhetoric in their respective languages, a rhetoric, what is more, that evolved greatly during his career.

INTRODUCTION

xv

As stated before, what we are concerned with in this collection of essays is what happens when the process of translation continues, by other hands, beyond the usual languages in which Beckett wrote, English and French. Yet, partaking in a bilingual oeuvre, Beckett’s texts actually thrive on the intersection between English and French. Beckett indeed favoured a dynamism or continuous movement back and forth between languages that translation in multiple settings all over the world is constantly reenacting. The rationale behind this volume of essays is that the intermediate space in Beckett’s writing where things happen is, in fact, occupied by the languages and cultures of the world, all of them effectively contributing through translation to creating the far distant murmur which is so familiar to readers of his work. The act of translation into a third language, in this particular case, could be aptly considered a continuation of the denaturalization of language that the author himself implemented when he started writing in French: ‘“sinning” against a foreign language’ writes Erika Myhálycsa, ‘becomes a necessary step towards the creative misuse of the mother-tongue, a transgressive, demystifing linguistic practice’ (2013: 347). French, explains James McGuire, had a ‘weakening effect’ on the language of his birth. When he in turn translated back into English, the same effect was duplicated, producing a strained language: ‘That is to say, Beckett’s English becomes estranged, no longer native … It has acquired its own, original signifying potential, which has been twice distanced from the Queen’s English’ (1990: 259). When the text is repeated again by means of its translation into a third language, one more step in the same direction is made, a linguistic act connected to the original estrangement devised by the author. Language was always foreign to Beckett. Thus the Beckettian text finds itself at home by being abroad because it is never removed from the crossroads of languages where it was originated. Of course, translation is a process fraught with external (societal, cultural and political) and internal (linguistic and personal ability of the translator) constraints that affect it. In the different chapters of Translating Samuel Beckett around the World the reader will have the opportunity to witness instances when the translator(s) could do nothing but acknowledge defeat and reach a compromise. But going back to the paradoxical condition of the Beckettian text in translation, there is an a priori set of qualities in Beckett’s writing (its indeterminacy, its fragmentation and its continuous self-questioning nature) that is particularly fruitful when observing translations in other languages. Beckett was

xvi

INTRODUCTION

always haunted by what could not be said and he always advocated the impossibility of saying, together with the imperious need to say. In this context, the study of the translation (diverse, uncertain, inchoate and subject to multiple contingencies) of his works into other languages suddenly appears as the ideal training ground for Beckett scholarship, as two factors are conjoined in a way that is not found together anywhere else – the necessity to make Beckett known in a third country through versions in a new language, on the one hand, and the impossibility to render his work with the same precision that the author conceived it, on the other. Because they themselves translate a self-translator, translators of Beckett into languages other than French, English (and German), arguably have sometimes up to three source texts at their disposal. The enormous potential in terms of availability of resources that Beckett’s bilingualism presents to the translator of his texts into a third language has not been lost for scholars working in the field: ‘Contrary to what has been frequently said’, Rodríguez-Gago writes, ‘I have found Beckett’s bilingualism a great help, for one can always turn to the author and see how he, as translator, has solved a particular problem and, if possible, follow his example’ (Rodríguez-Gago 1999: 232). Finding a compromise between precision and a thorough knowledge of Beckett’s work, together with the recourse to a certain audacity when stuck with a problem, seems to be an adequate way to approach the transfer of languages when it comes to Beckett’s literary production (Fernández 2018). But despite Beckett’s example, which can be of great assistance to translators, the professionals in this field do carry out their work in sometimes complicated circumstances, as all kinds of pressures (political, societal and commercial) impinge on their task. The main force towards a good translation lies in the very handling of language on the part of the translator. The fragmented, obsessional and sometimes ‘queer’ (Beckett 2011: 356) quality of Beckett’s discourse can put a great strain even on seasoned translators, who might find themselves tempted to domesticate the text they are working with in order to bring it closer to the reader. This situation is doubly complicated in the case of languages that bear little relationship to the original English or French in which Beckett wrote. As Mariko Hori Tanaka remarked, some ‘words in English have more meanings than the equivalent in Japanese’. Considering with dismay the expression ‘to and fro’ at the beginning of Beckett’s poem ‘Neither’, she realized that the phrase simply was not possible in her language: ‘So to make sense I

INTRODUCTION

xvii

had to use verbs instead’, she lamented (qtd in van der Weel and Hisgen 1993: 353). Even the title she found impossible to translate: ‘We have no words for “neither”, so I had to explain it by saying something like “not knowing which is the way”’ (Ibid.). At the end of the day, translating Beckett is like walking a tightrope and one of the aims of the present volume is to examine some of the solutions found in different languages to overcome such trial. This book is divided into three sections: reception of Beckett in Northern Europe (Iceland, Sweden and the Netherlands), reception in Southern Europe and South America (Spain, Italy, Argentina and Brazil) and reception in the Middle-East and Asian countries (Turkey, Israel, Pakistan, India and China). An appendix with the list of main translations of Beckett into the language studied in each case is also included at the end of the chapters. Section I opens with an essay by Astradur Eysteinsson entitled ‘Embraces – Empty Spaces. Translation and Reception of Samuel Beckett in Iceland’. Surprisingly enough, Beckett translations started in Iceland in 1958 with the publication of Acte sans paroles published in an Icelandic literary journal. Waiting for Godot was not staged until 1960 at the Reykjavik City Theatre. Because of its lack of identifiable topics and its inherent nihilism, Beckett drama was difficult to accept by Icelandic audiences used to epic narratives. But this first production of a Beckett play was one further step in the introduction of European modernism in Iceland. Godot was followed on stage by Ionesco’s Rhinoceros in 1961 and Pinter’s The Caretaker in 1962, and further paved the way for a novel non-realist, experimental vein in Icelandic drama that began in the 1960s and continued into the 1980s. Strikingly, Beckett in Iceland has been more accessible as a playwright than as a prose writer. If some of his short stories were published in 1987, Molloy, the first Beckett novel to appear in its entirety in Icelandic, came out only in 2001. The translation did not attract much attention, perhaps because the epic tradition was still too strong and the literary culture still too resistant to such experimental writing. In ‘Beckett in Sweden Then and Now. (Re)Translating Waiting for Godot ’, Charlotta Palmstierna Einarsson explores how in her country Beckett’s oeuvre is well known, and how, if most of his works have been translated, few people actually read them. To account for this paradox, the author of this chapter firstly surveys the modes of consecration of Beckett in Sweden after the first Swedish production of Waiting for Godot took place in 1954 in a peripheral theatre, and traces the trajectory of Beckett

xviii

INTRODUCTION

plays from periphery to centre. Translations being without doubt one of the main channels of legitimization of an author and a work, the focus is secondly on the translation process itself, and on how it is likely to change the value of a text. Two translations of Godot are compared: the first 1954 one and a translation produced in 1990, which is in current use today. The translation process is examined from the vantage point of the respective translators, who did not translate Godot in the same era, and who did not share the same views on the act of translating. While the first translation was based on the French 1952 Minuit text, and was essentially skopos-oriented, the 1990 Swedish translation took into account Beckett’s later English editions of Godot, as well as his theatrical notes. To the source-oriented retranslator, Beckett’s interventions as director should be considered improvements to the text, which a translator must take into consideration. Onno Kosters’s ‘Stopped in Holland: Samuel Beckett in Dutch Translation’ traces the chaotic history of translations of Beckett texts in the Netherlands. This is intimately linked to the biography of the author and to his friendship with Jacoba van Velde. Van Velde, who occasionally served as an agent for Beckett and was instrumental in getting his first full-length plays to the Dutch stage very quickly, translated his drama and some of his prose works into Dutch until her death in 1985. Ever since the early fifties, Beckett, and the Estate after him, have defended van Velde’s rights over her translations; and even if these are now outdated, full of flaws and based only on the French versions, they have never been revised. In the 1990s the newly founded journal of the Dutch Samuel Beckett Foundation became an important venue for new translations. And since 2000, next to such literary journals, small publishing houses and private presses have continued to publish Beckett’s texts in Dutch. As a result, only More Pricks Than Kicks remains untranslated in the Netherlands to this day. What is more, the effect of Beckett translations on Dutch national literature was significant, especially in the late 1970s and 1980s, when interest in Beckett among avant-garde writers in the Netherlands surged. Finally, Onno Kosters discusses his own 2006 rendering of Watt , which he based on the two authorized source texts. Opening Section II, Robert Patrick Murtagh’s paper is entitled ‘“Half in Love”: The Translation and Reception of Samuel Beckett in Spain’. Despite the geographical and cultural proximity between France and Spain, despite Beckett’s friendship with Spanish dramatist Fernando Arrabal and despite the fact that Waiting for Godot was translated into

INTRODUCTION

xix

Spanish as early as 1954, Beckett’s work has incompletely permeated Spanish culture to this day and the influence of his theatre is only marginal in Spain. The purpose of this chapter is to expose the political, historical and cultural reasons behind this surprising relative indifference to Beckett drama. Following the Spanish Civil War, foreign works were rejected by the Francoist regime to protect the state from possible subversive antiSpanish sentiment. As a result, under Franco, Final de partida, Luce Moreau Arrabal’s translation of Fin de partie, was performed in a heavily bowdlerized version, which rendered the play at times senseless and did not reflect well upon the playwright. When state censorship ended in the mid-1970s, new translations did arrive, but the ‘Beckett moment’ had passed, and the problem of translation remains to this day. Beckett texts in Spain suffer from being published by many different publishing houses, and a majority of translations are but poor reflections of their originals. There is also a pressing need for secondary sources, such as James Knowlson’s authorized biography, to be rendered available in Spanish. Antonio Gambacorta explores Beckett’s collaboration with an Italian translator in ‘“My Italian is not up to more”: Samuel Beckett, Editor of “Immobile”’. As is well documented, Beckett showed interest in translations even into languages he did not master, and would proofread translations in the languages he knew like German and Italian, which he had studied as a young man alongside French, or in which he was self-taught like Spanish. But, as Antonio Ganbacorta reminds us, Beckett’s involvement with the Italian translations of his work was not a norm, and it was generally far from reaching the level of engagement he had with the Tophovens. One counter-example of his involvement with an Italian text is provided by ‘Immobile’, the translation of which is carefully examined in this chapter. The Italian text was done by Luigi Majno, the owner of a Milanese art gallery, when he took it upon himself to translate ‘Still’ for a livre d’artiste he was preparing with Stanley William Hayter in the early 1970s. On this occasion, Beckett adopted an editing role that impacted heavily on what would become ‘Immobile’. This chapter examines the ‘corrections and suggestions’ Beckett provided. They show a concern to maintain the identity of the text, and represent a rare example of the author’s involvement in the translation of his work in Italian. In ‘Translations of Beckett’s Work in Argentina’, Lucas Margarit and María Inés Castagnino show how Beckett has been present ever since the 1950s in Argentina, where interest in his theatre has influenced the revival of the theatre scene. Waiting for Godot was performed many times from

xx

INTRODUCTION

1956 to 1975 by the troupe that premiered it, and after the restoration of democracy, from the mid-1980s, Beckett plays have been even more present all over the country. In the late fifties and early sixties, Molloy and Malone muere were published by Victoria Ocampo’s publishing house Sur, which also introduced Woolf and Faulkner to the South American public. Another important early translation was that of Act Without Words as Acto sin palabras by poet Roberto Juarroz in 1962, which is evoked at length in this chapter. More recently, Argentinian translations of Beckett texts have been authored by academics such as Laura Cerrato and have appeared, after 1992, in the journal Beckettiana. Finally, the author turns to Esperando a Godot translated by Pablo Palant in 1954 and published in Buenos Aires; this was the first Argentinian translation of a Beckett text. A playwright himself, Palant was linked to the Argentinian avant-garde of the first half of the twentieth century. He mainly did his version from the French text with an eye on the English one, which had just come out, making it accessible to a national audience, but also readable by Spanish speakers at large. In the next chapter, entitled ‘The Meremost Minimum: Beckett’s Translations into Brazilian Portuguese’, Renata Vaz Shimbo and Fábio de Souza Andrade study Beckett’s influence in Brazil, a country where Beckettian reception began relatively soon. Since the late fifties, there have been many memorable Brazilian productions of Beckett plays, even if the translated play texts were not necessarily printed. As for Beckett’s novels, they found their way into Brazilian Portuguese in the 1980s. Nevertheless, serious gaps in the translation of his works persist in Brazilian Portuguese, and Brazilian readers of Beckett sometimes only have access to translations made in Portugal, while differences between the spoken language in Portugal and in Brazil are more important than usually acknowledged. This fact is illustrated by the detailed comparative analysis of the two available versions of Worstward Ho in Portuguese – one by the Brazilian translator Ana Helena Souza and the other by the Portuguese translator Miguel Esteves Cardoso. Cardoso’s Pioravante marche was published in 1988, while Souza’s Pra frente o pior, came out in 2012. While Cardoso’s translation seems to pay greater heed to the book’s strangeness, which results in a rather hermetic Portuguese text,

INTRODUCTION

xxi

Souza’s version of Worstward Ho occasionally recreates the text’s obscurities, while also, at times, mitigating its enigmatic dimension. Each translation presents us with a unique interpretive appropriation or reinvention of a text in which Beckett ‘forces words into unforeseen grammatical instability’. The first chapter in Section III, by Mehmet Zeki Giritli, is entitled ‘Translating Samuel Beckett into a “Non-Western” Culture – the Journey of Waiting for Godot in Turkey’. Waiting for Godot premiered in Istanbul in 1954 to great acclaim. However, the play, which was blamed for being communist propaganda by the authorities, was quickly banned. This chapter studies the historical, sociocultural and linguistic challenges that presided over the introduction of Beckettian drama into Turkey and contains the first-hand testimony of U˘gur Ün, Beckett’s main translator in this country. As it happens, local tradition was rather propitious to Beckett aesthetics: the Turkish theatrical tradition is derived from unwritten theatrical sources and is based on improvisational storytelling, while the founding fathers of the new Turkish Republic of 1923 championed Western theatrical forms as part of the modernization ideals of the new state. Mehmet Zeki Giritli further compares two translations of Godot, a 1963 one based on the 1952 French original, and a 1993 one based on the 1965 English edition, and reflects upon the rendering of the specific national voices present in each text in a third language. Next to discrepancies due to the choice of source texts, adaptations are to be noted, that make the translations either more accessible or more acceptable to the Turkish public. Einat Adar and Ronen Sonis, in ‘Beckett in “A Distant Place”: Early Translations in Hebrew’, examine two early translations of Beckett plays into Hebrew in the decade following the creation of the State of Israel. The chapter questions the permeability of Israeli culture to Beckettian experimental theatre in the context of the shaping of a national literature. Waiting for Godot , with its lifeless and fatalistic characters seemingly at odds with the vigorous self-reliant figure of the ‘New Jew’ established by Zionism, got mixed reviews in 1955 when it premiered under the title Anu Mehakim Le’marel, ‘We Are Waiting for Mr. God’. As suggested by the clarification introduced in the title, and despite its flaws, this first translation brought a new spoken language to the Israeli stage; after that, the play went on to become a classic, and some of the most significant new productions of the play are examined in the light of the tension between the strategies of domestication and foreignization that they evidence.

xxii

INTRODUCTION

Likewise, a similar tension can be detected in the first, somewhat hasty translation of Krapp’s Last Tape. This appeared in 1958 even before its first production in London thanks to Avigdor Arikha who passed on the text to the founder of Keshet , a literary magazine whose aim was to ‘open windows and bring fresh wind into the rooms of Hebrew literature’. In ‘Domesticating Beckett: The Religious and Political Complexity of Pakistan and Waiting for Godot ’, Muhammad Saeed Nasir notes that very few discussions of Beckett have been undertaken from the angle of Muslim cultures. This chapter attempts to fill this void by analyzing a Pakistani adaptation of Waiting for Godot . Pakistan, founded in 1947, is an Islamic republic and Islam is a pervasive religious force in the country where blasphemy is punished against any recognized religion. In this context, the Beckett play, with its noticeable religious subtext, could seem quite unacceptable. In 2008 an NGO focusing on women’s rights produced the play under the title Insha ka Entezaar, which makes the word ‘God’ explicit. Beckett’s text was both localized and modernized, as the free adaptation evoked the plight of women and the sociopolitical situation of Pakistan at large. What is more, the Pakistani text avoided many of the religious allusions found in the original one, which were either domesticated or self-censored. Nevertheless, the evasion of Beckett’s religious material ironically made the religious subtext even more present as it pointed to how the exploitation of religion has radicalized Pakistan by befooling the masses. Thus, it provided the Pakistani audience with food for thought. In his chapter ‘Translating Samuel Beckett into Hindi’, Thirthankar Chakraborty starts his analysis of Beckett in India with the earliest translations of Waiting for Godot (1953) into Bengali and Hindi in the late 1950s. He argues that Samuel Beckett’s works have circulated increasingly through India’s rich theatrical scene, with further translations and adaptions into the major languages that occasionally have more than a single variation. In his essay, Chakraborty lists and briefly discusses a selection of these translations across the various Indian states, then analyses the variations between these translations that reflect the political scenario of the country. Furthermore, the study presents a close look at two recent Hindi versions of the play, adapted by the critically acclaimed theatre directors Satyabrata Rout and Mohit Tripathi, while exploring the universality of Beckett’s chef-d’oeuvre and divulging the salient features that make these translations successful in the Indian context.

INTRODUCTION

xxiii

Finally, in ‘From Bits and Pieces to an Ensemble: Translating Samuel Beckett in Mainland China’ Aiying Liu shows that the engagement of scholars and literati with Beckett’s works in this part of the world was very slow in coming for political reasons. With the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, the translation, publication and circulation of any foreign literature had to cater for the political agenda of the new government, and Samuel Beckett was not among Western authors favoured by the Chinese Communist Party. Waiting for Godot was translated in 1965, but still the play remained inaccessible to the general public, and the translations really commenced after the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), when the need to learn from outside literature was championed by the Chinese government. But if Beckett attracted more and more critical attention from the 1970s onwards, progress in translation was still actually quite slow. Only very few of Beckett’s works were available in Chinese before the early 2000s, and there was also a lack of variety in terms of genre. 2006 was a critical year: Beckett scholars organized a series of events to celebrate Beckett’s centenary, and decided to publish Beckett’s complete works. Since then, a team of nineteen academics has joined forces to translate all of Beckett’s texts into Mandarin Chinese, which came out in twenty-two volumes in 2016–2017. The translation of Beckett around the world tells the story of an uneven expansion and reception: only in the last decade has a full translation of Beckett’s works been completed in China, while Godot in Argentina was a success from the very beginning. It was in Buenos Aires that the first translation ever of a Beckett text was published in the Hispanic world (Fernández-Quesada, Fernández, Santano Moreno 2019). By offering a panoramic view of the intricacies and negotiations that Beckett texts have undergone in a variety of languages and parts of the world, this volume offers revealing case studies of foreign literature at the crossroads of a globalized culture, even if more countries have inevitably been left out than actually included. We have highlighted in this volume countries where Beckett-related events are happening and being documented, whether in the field of literary criticism or in the field of new publications and translations, and also where scholars have interrogated the reception of Beckett in their respective countries. This means that there is much room for more research, be it in mega-languages like Arabic or about continents like Africa where studies are only, for the time being at least, few and far between (Rabeh 2017; Saddiki 2008). With its apparently rootless characters, Beckettian texts resonate strongly in parts of

xxiv

INTRODUCTION

the Arabic world, where Beckett had strong ties – his wife’s father was a former French Colonial officer in North Africa and he had made a habit of sojourning in Tunisia and Morocco after he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1969. Godot has for instance been translated into Berber and Algerian Arabic, and is performed regularly in Maghreb. Indeed, among other topical issues, the play speaks to a new world order that is throwing more and more displaced people onto the roads, people who desperately seek refuge in former colonial powers like Britain or France. This study is thus of paramount importance if we believe in Beckett as a referent for mankind in our uncertain times. Hopefully, the reading of Translating Samuel Beckett around the World will trigger research in areas of the globe not covered in the following pages. Almería, Spain Talence, France

José Francisco Fernández Pascale Sardin

Works Cited Beckett, Samuel. 2011. The Letters of Samuel Beckett, Volume 2: 1941–1956, ed. George Craig, Martha Dow Fehsenfeld, Dan Gunn and Lois More Overbeck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2014. The Letters of Samuel Beckett, Volume 3: 1957 –1965, ed. George Craig, Martha Dow Fehsenfeld, Dan Gunn and Lois More Overbeck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brater, Enoch. 2003. The Globalization of Beckett’s Godot. Comparative Drama 37 (2), Summer: 145–158. Casanova, Pascale. 2004. The World Republic of Letters, trans. M. B. DeBevois. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Chakraborty, Thirthankar. 2017. Samuel Beckett and Indian Literature. PhD thesis, University of Kent. Chakraborty, Thirthankar, and Juan Luis Tobirio Vázquez (eds.). 2020. Samuel Beckett as World Literature. London: Bloomsbury. Collinge, Linda. 1999. Beckett traduit Beckett, de Malone meurt à Malone Dies. L’Imaginaire en traduction. Genève: Droz. Connor, Steven. 2008. Beckett and the World. In Beckett and Ethics, ed. Russell Smith, 134–146. London: Continuum. Damrosch, David. 2003. What is World Literature? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Derrida, Jacques. 1985. Des Tours de Babel. In Difference in Translation, ed. Josepth F. Graham, 165–205. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

INTRODUCTION

xxv

Fernández-Quesada, Nuria, José Francisco Fernández, and Bernardo Santano Moreno. 2019. Samuel Beckett en español. Bibliografía crítica de las traducciones de su obra. Almería: Editorial Universidad de Almería. Fifield, Peter. 2013. Introduction. In Samuel Beckett: Debts and Legacies. New Critical Essays, ed. Peter Fifield and David Addyman, 1–18. London: Bloomsbury. Gontarski, S.E. 2008. Viva, Sam Beckett, or Flogging the Avant-Garde. In Transnational Beckett. Beckett at 100: New Perspectives, ed. S.E. Gontarski, William Cloonan, Alec Hargreaves, and Dustin Anderson, 1–11. Tallahassee, FL: Jobs Books. Fernández, José Francisco. 2018. Between “Little Latitude” and a “Discreet Liberty”. Beckett’s Bilingualism and the Translation of His Work into a Third Language. Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui 30 (1): 127–141. Fifield, Peter. 2013. Late Modernist Style in Samuel Beckett and Emmanuel Levinas. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Kager, Maria. 2012. Beckett and the World. Journal of Modern Literature, 35 (4), Summer: 181–183. Kedzierski, Marek. 2016. Bothering Him with My Questions…. Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui 28 (1): 116–127. Louar, Nadia, and José Francisco Fernández. 2018. Introduction. In The Poetics of Bilingualism in the Work of Samuel Beckett / La Poétique du bilinguisme dans l’œuvre de Samuel Beckett, Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui, ed. Nadia Louar, José Francisco Fernández and Sjef Houppermans, vol. 30 (1), 1–2. Louar, Nadia. 2018. Figure(s) du bilinguisme beckettien, Caen: Michel Minard, ‘Archives des Lettres Modernes’. Mahmood, Shaheen M. 1993. Beckett in Bangladesh. Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd’hui. Beckett in the 1990s, vol. 2, 59–66. McDonald, Rónán. 2016. Global Beckett. In The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Theatre, ed. Nicholas Grene and Chris Morash, 577–592. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McGuire, James. 1990. Beckett, the Translator, and the Metapoem. World Literature Today 64 (2), Spring: 258–263. McNaughton, James, Neil Doshi and Matthijs Engelberts (eds.). 2019. Beckett’s Political Aesthetic on the International Stage / L’ esthétique politique de Beckett sur la scène internationale Samuel Beckett Today /Aujourd’hui, Volume 31: Issue 2. Mihálycsa, Erika. 2013. “Writing to the Self-Accompaniment of a Tongue that is not Mine”: The Figure of Translation in Beckett’s Work. Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies 19 (2): 343–374. Montini, Chiara. 2007. “La bataille du soliloque.” Genèse de la poétique bilingue de Samuel Beckett (1929–1946), Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. Nixon, Mark, and Matthew Feldman (eds.). 2009. Introduction: “Getting Known” – Samuel Beckett’s International Reception. The International Reception of Samuel Beckett, pp. 1–8. London: Continuum.

xxvi

INTRODUCTION

Oustinoff, Michaël. 2001. Bilinguisme d’écriture et auto-traduction. Julien Green, Samuel Beckett, Vladimir Nabokov, Paris: L’Harmattan. Pearson, Nels. 2017 [2015]. Irish Cosmopolitanism: Location and Dislocation in James Joyce, Elizabeth Bowen, and Samuel Beckett. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. Perloff, Marjorie. 2007. Presidential Address 2006: It Must Change. PMLA 122 (3): 652–62. Rabaté, Jean-Michel. 2016. Think, Pig! Beckett at the Limit of the Human. New York: Fordham University Press. Rabeh, Amani. 2015. Le Rire de Samuel Beckett en arabe. Traduire [Online], 232. https://doi.org/10.4000/traduire.700. Accessed 6 Apr 2020. Rodríguez-Gago, Antonia. 1999. Beckett’s Voices in Spanish: Translation as an Aspect of Adaptation. In Beckett and Beyond, ed. Bruce Stewart, 231–238. Gerrards Cross, Bucks.: Colin Smythe. Saddiki, Tayeb. 2008. En Attendant Godot. Horizons maghrébins. Le théâtre arabe au miroir de lui-même et son contact avec les créations des deux rives de la Méditerranée, N°58, pp. 195–198. Sardin-Damestoy, Pascale. 2002. Samuel Beckett auto-traducteur ou l’art de l’empêchement. Arras: Artois Presses Université. Schiffrin, André. 2001. The Business of Books. London: Verso. Tophoven, Erika. 2011. Glückliche Jahre: Übersetzerleben in Paris. Gespräche mit Marion Gees [Happy Years: Our Life as Translators in Paris, Conversations with Marion Gees ]. Berlin: Matthes and Seitz. ———. 2016. Happy Years Translating Beckett with Beckett. Beckett in Conversation, “yet again”/Rencontres avec Beckett, “encore”. Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui 28 (1): 11–17. Van der Weel, Adriaan and Ruud Hisgen. 1993. Unheard Footfalls Only Sounds: Neither in translation. Beckett in the 1990s, Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui 2: 345–364. Venuti, Lawrence. 2008. The Translator’s Invisibility. A History of Translation. London and New York: Routledge. Zipes, Jack. 1982. Beckett in Germany/Germany in Beckett. New German Critique 26, Critical Theory and Modernity, Spring–Summer: 151–158.

Praise for Translating Samuel Beckett around the World

“It is an unpreceded critical journey around the world that José Francisco Fernández and Pascale Sardin present in this rewarding collection of essays. Translating Samuel Beckett around the World offers an inclusive foray into the art of translation beyond the confines of French and English. The bold series of linguistic explorations chronicles the shifting geography of the translations of Beckett’s works and probes into the cultural and political resonances of the rewriting practices in their various national contexts.” —Nadia Louar, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, USA “That Beckett’s work is now treated as ‘world literature’ is largely thanks to translations into the most diverse languages, from Icelandic to Chinese. Fernández and Sardin have done a brilliant job in assembling this rich and timely volume of essays, drawing attention to the challenges of translating an author who was a self-translator himself and foregrounding the important work of translators around the globe.” —Dirk Van Hulle, University of Oxford, UK

xxvii

Contents

Part I Northern Europe 1

2

3

Embraces – Empty Spaces: Translation and Reception of Samuel Beckett in Iceland Ástráður Eysteinsson Beckett in Sweden Then and Now: (Re)Translating Waiting for Godot Charlotta Palmstierna Einarsson

19

Stopped in Holland: Samuel Beckett in Dutch Translation Onno Kosters

41

Part II 4

5

6

3

Southern Europe and South America

‘Half in Love’: The Translation and Reception of Samuel Beckett in Spain Robert Patrick Murtagh

63

‘My Italian is not up to more’ : Samuel Beckett, Editor of ‘Immobile’ Antonio Gambacorta

87

Translations of Beckett’s Work in Argentina Lucas Margarit and María Inés Castagnino

109

xxix

xxx

7

CONTENTS

The Meremost Minimum: Beckett’s Translations into Brazilian Portuguese Renata Vaz Shimbo and Fábio de Souza Andrade

Part III 8

9

10

127

Middle East and Asia

Translating Samuel Beckett into a ‘Non-Western’ Culture: The Journey of Waiting for Godot in Turkey Mehmet Zeki Giritli

151

Beckett in ‘A Distant Place’: Early Translations in Hebrew Einat Adar and Ronen Sonis

173

Domesticating Beckett: The Religious and Political Complexity of Pakistan and Waiting for Godot Muhammad Saeed Nasir

191

11

Translating Samuel Beckett into Hindi Thirthankar Chakraborty

12

From Bits and Pieces to an Ensemble: Translating Samuel Beckett in Mainland China Aiying Liu

Index

213

229

255

Editors and Contributors

About the Editors José Francisco Fernández is a Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Almería, Spain. His most recent work focuses on the narrative of Samuel Beckett and his reception in Spain. He recently coedited (with Nadia Louar) vol. 30 of Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui (2018) devoted to the poetics of bilingualism in Samuel Beckett. He has also translated into Spanish three novels and three short stories by Samuel Beckett, together with Stories and Texts for Nothing (2015). Pascale Sardin is Professor in English studies at Bordeaux Montaigne University, France. Her research focuses on issues of translation, feminism and on twentieth-century British and Anglo-Irish literature and theatre. She has published several books on Samuel Beckett, as well as articles in Palimpsestes, French Studies, Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui and the Journal of Beckett Studies. She is currently working on a literary biography of Barbara Bray, the main translator of Marguerite Duras into English and long-time collaborator of Samuel Beckett.

xxxi

xxxii

EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Contributors Einat Adar is a Lecturer in English Literature at the University of South Bohemia. Her research interests include Samuel Beckett, Irish modernism and philosophy. Her essays appeared in Flann O’Brien: Gallows Humour (Cork UP, 2020), and the journals Estudios Irlandeses and Partial Answers. She is also the co-editor, with Galina Kiryushina and Mark Nixon, of Beckett and Technology (Edinburgh UP, 2021). María Inés Castagnino holds a Ph.D. from the University of Buenos Aires, and works as a Lecturer and Tutor for the chair of English Literature in the same university. She has also conducted seminars on the British academic novel there, and teaches drama translation at postgraduate level regularly. She has participated in research projects about different aspects of Samuel Beckett’s work, and co-directs the academic journal Beckettiana with Lucas Margarit. Other research areas include English utopian writings of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, and treatises on poetics in the English Renaissance. She has published translations of works by Oscar Wilde, Tom Stoppard and Edward Albee, and is the author of the book Tom Stoppard. Las voces del camaleón (Buenos Aires: Atuel, 2005). Thirthankar Chakraborty is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Liberal Arts at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bhilai, India. He holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Kent, UK. He co-edited the Samuel Beckett as World Literature volume that was published by Bloomsbury in August 2020. He has won various scholarships and awards, including a 50th Anniversary, University of Kent, Doctoral Scholarship, a British Centre for Literary Translation bursary and the Samuel Beckett Summer School’s international bursary in 2014. His research interests focus around comparative and world literature, modernism and literary theory. Fábio de Souza Andrade is an Associate Professor of Literary Theory and Comparative Literature at the University of São Paulo. He has published extensively on Brazilian and European Modernism, reviewing regularly fiction and poetry for Brazilian cultural periodicals. His publications on Samuel Beckett include ‘Facing other Windows: Beckett in Brazil’, in Gontarski, S.E. (ed.) The Edinburgh Companion to Samuel Beckett and the Arts (Edinburgh University Press, 2014); ‘Echoes, rags and bones: A few Brazilian Becketts on the way’, in Chakraborty, T. and

EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

xxxiii

Toribio-Vasquez, J. L. (ed.) Samuel Beckett as World Literature (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020); and Samuel Beckett: o Silêncio Possível (Ateliê, 2001), as well as many articles. He has translated Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Happy Days, Murphy and Watt into Brazilian Portuguese and is presently working on the translation of Beckett’s complete dramatic works. Charlotta Palmstierna Einarsson is a Senior Lecturer in English literature at Mid-Sweden University, Sundsvall. She is the author of A Theatre of Affect: The Corporeal Turn in Samuel Beckett’s Drama (ibidem 2017), and her research interests include modernist literature, drama and dance studies, aesthetics, reception theory, philosophy and phenomenology. Ástráður Eysteinsson is a Professor of Comparative Literature (since 1994) and former Dean of Humanities (2008–2015) at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik. He has worked mainly in the areas of literary and cultural theory, modernist studies and translation studies, and is a practising translator. His publications include co-translations of most of Franz Kafka’s narrative works into Icelandic, numerous articles in the areas of literary, cultural and translation studies and four books: The Concept of Modernism (Cornell University Press, 1990), Tvímæli (on translation and translation studies, University of Iceland Press, 1996), Umbrot (on literature and modernity, University of Iceland Press, 1999) and Orðaskil (on literary translation, University of Iceland Press, 2017). He has edited several books, including The Cultural Reconstruction of Places (University of Iceland Press, 2006), Translation – Theory and Practice: A Historical Reader (with Daniel Weissbort, Oxford UP, 2006) and Modernism (with Vivian Liska, 2 vols., ICLA/John Benjamins, 2007). Antonio Gambacorta is a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Reading, UK. He is completing a thesis titled ‘Cities Bereft of Light’, which explores self, metropolis and complexity in Samuel Beckett’s prose. A writer and a translator, he is one of the founders and general editors of ¯ ¯ the multilingual literary magazine LONGITUDIN ES. Mehmet Zeki Giritli graduated from Bo˘gaziçi University Western Languages and Literatures department and holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature granted by Istanbul University. He is a Lecturer at Koç University/Istanbul and a professional theatre actor/director and translator based in Istanbul/Turkey. His fields of research include but are not

xxxiv

EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

limited to twentieth-century theatre, Turkish theatre, theatre and politics and anti-realist theatrical movements. His latest publication is a translation (from English to Turkish) of collected plays of Harold Pinter by Kırmızı Kedi Publications. His upcoming publications are the translations (to Turkish) of Macbeth, King Lear and Richard III . He has presented papers at various international conferences, has conducted research at universities around the world including Trinity College/Dublin, Aarhus University, American University of Beirut and Malmö University and has been publishing art/theatre reviews in newspapers/magazines. He has recently been invited by King’s College London to conduct his post-doc studies between the years 2021 and 2022. He is currently working on a book project on post-WWII theatre around the world, adapted from his Ph.D. dissertation. Onno Kosters is an Assistant Professor of English literature and Translation Studies at Utrecht University. His teaching and research fields are English and Anglo-Irish literature (1700–present), and literary translation. Kosters wrote his doctoral dissertation on James Joyce (Ending in Progress: Final Sections in James Joyce’s Prose Fictions, 1999). He has published widely on literature and translation discussing Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Joseph Baretti, T.S. Eliot, e. e. Cummings, Seamus Heaney, Weldon Kees, Derek Walcott and many others. His translation into Dutch of Beckett’s novel Watt was published in 2006 and awarded the annual Filter Translation Award. To date, Kosters has published five collections of poetry; selections from his creative work were translated into English, German and French. Aiying Liu is a Professor of English at Sichuan International Studies University, where she has been teaching Literary Criticism in Practice, Advanced English, Advanced English Writing to postgraduate and undergraduate students since 1989. Her recent major publications include monographs: Samuel Beckett: The Body Matters (2013), Interpreting Beckett’s Drama (2012); essays: ‘Tracing Beckett in the Avant-garde Theatre of Mainland China’, ‘Literary Culture, Decolonization and Literary Utopia: The Canonization of Samuel Beckett in Irish Literary Culture’, ‘Entering Beckett’s World’, ‘Critique of Early Criticism of Samuel Beckett’s Drama’, ‘Critique of Late Criticism of Samuel Beckett’s Drama’, ‘Samuel Beckett’s Writing: The Modernist and Postmodernist Debate’, ‘Samuel Beckett Criticism in English, Yesterday and Today’; translations: five critical essays on Beckett in A New History of Foreign Literature

EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

xxxv

(2008) and translations of S. E. Gontarski’s ‘Introducing Beckett’ as general preface as well as Beckett’s Short Plays (I) and Happy Days in The Complete Works of Samuel Beckett (2016). Lucas Margarit holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy and Letters by the University of Buenos Aires. He is a Poet, Professor and Researcher at the same University in Buenos Aires. He has published the following poetry books: Círculos y piedras (1992), Lazlo y Alvis (2001), El libro de los elementos (2007), Bernat Metge (2016) and Elis o teoría de la distancia (2020). He is the author of the essays Samuel Beckett. Las huellas en el vacío [Samuel Beckett. The Traces in the Void]; Leer a Shakespeare: notas sobre la ambigüedad [Reading Shakespeare: notes on ambiguity]. Among his translations and critical editions some titles stand out: Enrique VIII [Henry VIII ] by William Shakespeare; Poemas atómicos [Atomic Poems ] by Margaret Cavendih (1653); La isla de los Pines [The Isle of the Pines ] by Henry Neville (1668); and La defensa de la poesía [A defense of Poesy] by Sir Philip Sidney. Robert Patrick Murtagh is an independent researcher. He graduated with a First Class Honours Bachelor of Arts International degree from University College Dublin, majoring in Spanish with a minor in English. He was awarded the Bachelor of Arts Ad Astra Scholarship in the 2011/2012 Academic session. He holds a Master’s Degree in Modern English Literature from the University of Edinburgh. His research interests are located in the field of Modern Literature with an emphasis on the work of Samuel Beckett, his reception in Spain and Translation Studies. Muhammad Saeed Nasir is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the School of Language and Literature, University of Aberdeen, UK. His current project attempts to explore literary imbrications of the concept of God in Beckett’s works vis-a-vis Islamic Sufi thought. Previously, he completed his doctoral thesis on the cross-cultural approximations of the divine in Samuel Beckett’s oeuvre. His thesis broadly deals with Muslim reception, perception and response to Beckett’s work in the overtly religious context of postcolonial Pakistan. Also, it attempts to connect Beckett with the Muslim World tracing the rich undercurrent of Beckett’s works. Before embarking on his Ph.D., he had been working as a lecturer in English at the Higher Education Department, Pakistan. Along with Beckett studies, his research interests span Sufism, translation studies, literary theory, sociolinguistics and a variety of indigenous languages of Pakistan.

xxxvi

EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Renata Vaz Shimbo is a Researcher from Brazil currently living in Florence, Italy. Her research approaches the humour in Samuel Beckett’s works, especially in his novel First Love. In her master’s research, she discussed the work of Paulina Chiziane and the female writing from Mozambique. Nowadays she is also interested in the relation between the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari and Beckett’s works. Ronen Sonis teaches translation in the creative writing programme at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he graduated with a Ph.D. thesis on translations of English and Russian poetry into Hebrew. He is also a prolific translator whose published work includes translations of Vladimir Nabokov, William Blake, T. S. Eliot, Christopher Marlowe, Alexander Pushkin, Boris Pasternak, Arthur Rimbaud and others.

List of Figures

Fig. 12.1 Fig. 12.2 Fig. 12.3

HLAPH Selected Works of Samuel Beckett, 2016 HLAPH Minuit Series of the Works of Samuel Beckett, 2012–13 HLAPH The Complete Works of Samuel Beckett, 2016

239 240 242

xxxvii

List of Tables

Table 4.1 Table 8.1 Table 8.2 Table 8.3 Table 8.4 Table 12.1 Table 12.2 Table 12.3

The translation of Fin de partie in Spain: Beckett, Moix & Pedreño Turkish translations of Waiting for Godot [Comparison] Turkish translations of Waiting for Godot [Comparison] Examples of French and English texts of Waiting for Godot Turkish translations of Waiting for Godot [Comparison] HLAPH Selected Works of Samuel Beckett, 2006 [Comparison] HLAPH Minuit Series of the Works of Samuel Beckett, 2012–13 [Contents] HLAPH The Complete Works of Samuel Beckett, 2016 [Contents]

71 163 164 165 165 246 248 250

xxxix

PART I

Northern Europe

CHAPTER 1

Embraces – Empty Spaces: Translation and Reception of Samuel Beckett in Iceland

Ástráður Eysteinsson

Samuel Beckett did not have to struggle to find a reasonably secure footing in Icelandic literary culture. When Waiting for Godot was staged by the Reykjavik City Theatre on March 29, 1960, its reputation had preceded it, including the information that it was a controversial play, but one that was seen as signifying and embodying a watershed in modern theatre and playwriting. One could even say that the reception had been unusually well prepared, for those who had written about Beckett, during the preceding months and years, had been quite candid in stating that Waiting for Godot and other works of his were characterized by a kind of emptying out of the content that the audience would generally expect – but that this process was by no means to be lamented. An Icelandic critic reporting from Vienna where he had seen Endgame in 1958 lauded the

Á. Eysteinsson (B) Department of Comparative Literature, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. F. Fernández and P. Sardin (eds.), Translating Samuel Beckett around the World, New Interpretations of Beckett in the Twenty-First Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71730-8_1

3

4

Á. EYSTEINSSON

precision and concentration in the drama’s staging of a single day, ‘which, like most days, is full of repetition and conversations about matters of no consequence. Everything is behind us, nothing ahead, except death. All that matters is over and done with. End of game. A theatre performance that will be engraved in the mind for the rest of one’s life, as a warning, and a threat, whatever we may take from the work, in awareness of what it is to be a human being in our time’ (Helgason 1958: 11).1 This embracing reception thus replicates, in its broadly worded commentary, the empty space that seems to constitute the core of the work of art itself. One could perhaps also say that a crisis inherent in the work is carried over to the receptive and critical level rather than being resolved there. The first extensive newspaper article to appear in Iceland about Beckett’s work was written in 1957 by Sigurður A. Magnússon (1928–2017), who was to become one of the most important voices of journalistic criticism in the years to come and to have a long career as editor, translator and writer in many genres. His title must have sounded strange to many readers: ‘Bölsýni í öskutunnum’ (‘Bleak vision in dustbins’). ‘Bölsýni’ is generally felt to be a strong word for pessimism and is often used critically by those averse to such gloom and despair. Magnússon seeks to turn it into a productive term in understanding what plays like Waiting for Godot and Endgame are about, but at one point he notes that ‘nothing but Beckett’s unrivalled sense of humour elevates the play [Waiting for Godot ] from the darkness of total and irreversible pessimism’. He finds less relief through such ‘liberating humour’ in Endgame, but notes that there, as in Waiting for Godot , Beckett presents an ominous scenario of power, usurpation and servitude. Magnússon goes on to say that Beckett’s novels are shaped by the same view of life; a pervasive tone of pessimism: ‘Existence is meaningless, cruel’, the death of God having left behind an empty space which has not been filled. ‘Probably never will be’ (Magnússon 1957: 11, 13). This early article thus forebodes, as it were, what became standard elements of the Beckett reception in Iceland, much as elsewhere: The attempts to come to grips with pessimism and nihilism. Are these attributes of, or themes tackled by, these works – and what is the difference? Is Beckett’s epistemology in dialogue with religion, as Magnússon more or less states with his final words about the death of God? Is Beckett’s humour – regularly lauded by critics – a saving grace of some kind, or does it have a dark side to it, or perhaps a critical edge, possibly linked

1

EMBRACES – EMPTY SPACES: TRANSLATION AND RECEPTION …

5

to an unveiling of power structures in the social field drawn up or implied by these works, as Magnússon indicates?

B One regular and important feature of the Icelandic reception in the coming years, but still missing in the presentation discussed above, emerged in a short article published in the journal Dagskrá in 1958. The authors were still in their twenties – Sveinn Einarsson (b. 1934), who was later to become one of the most influential people in Icelandic theatre as director of first the Reykjavik City Theatre and later the National Theatre, and Ólafur Jónsson (1936–1984), on his way to becoming a leading literary critic in Iceland. They note that Beckett has been ‘ranked with the so-called absurdists, along with authors like the Rumanian Ionesco and the Russian Adamov, both of whom write in French like Beckett’ (Einarsson and Jónsson 1958: 15–16). The reference to the Theatre of the Absurd was to become a familiar feature in the Icelandic reception of Beckett. The same could in fact be said of their repeated reference – when faced with the question of what Beckett’s works are about – to the difficulty of interpreting them. This hermeneutic predicament, in a space at once empty and pregnant with possibilities, emerges in the receptive deliberation as a challenging and meaningful element in itself, functioning at a metaliterary level but as such also as a latent theme within most of Beckett’s works, making readers, listeners and viewers aware, if not self-aware, of the lack of a single and coherent source of meaning. Einarson and Jónsson’s article is accompanied by their translation of Acte sans paroles (with the French title left untranslated), and this piece of theatre, which in English is entitled Act Without Words : A Mime for One Player – a piece which often has accompanied Endgame – was thus the first Beckett text to appear in Icelandic. Before anyone heard a Beckett character utter an Icelandic word on stage, the writer appeared in writing, and moreover in a text which may formally be a series of stage directions in the author’s own ‘voice’, but which, as a separate piece of writing, also appears as a description of an unfolding set of movements and events. Many Icelandic readers, bred on an age-long narrative tradition, must have tended to read it as a story, a curious little tale indeed. And as for the issue of genres, the translators’ article contains comments that can be seen as indicative of how Beckett entered Icelandic literary culture. While their article is a general introduction to a writer who recently had acquired

6

Á. EYSTEINSSON

international recognition, they state early on: ‘No attempt will be made here to expound on Beckett’s novels, as inaccessible as they are, and the author is best known for his plays’ (Ibid.: 15). In accounting for the playwright, they emphasize how his works differ from prevalent dramatic configurations: ‘he employs symbolic imagery and similes reminiscent of modern poetry’ (Ibid.). In 1958, the word they used, ‘nútímaljóðið’ (literally ‘the modern poem’), had a clear reference to modernist poetry, about which there had been an avid and at times fierce debate in Iceland during the fifties, both following and overlapping with a similar debate about abstract and geometric painting. The lack of clearly identifiable topics and figurative scenes in poetry and painting was experienced by many as deeply troubling. For a literary culture with roots going back a thousand years but relying on the cultural cohesion of a small population and hence a national language spoken by few, the abandonment of traditional metric forms and rhyme, along with the erasure of narrative underpinnings and/or scenic imagery, created frustration and uncertainty among those who cherished cultural continuity.2 Similar experiments in short fiction, as in the first books of Thor Vilhjálmsson (1925–2011), published in the fifties, also caused some disquiet, but it was dampened by the steadily growing prestige of the novel as genre (both original and translated), which largely remained a bulwark of epic-mimeticism, spearheaded by Halldór Laxness (1902–1998), the literary Nobel laureate from 1955, whom the Swedish Academy lauded for revitalizing the epic legacy of Iceland and its medieval sagas.

E A number of factors had thus significantly delayed the advent of modernism in Icelandic literature, but by 1958 modernist poetry had come to be seen by a steadily growing group as a welcome addition to the literary field. It is interesting that Einarsson and Jónsson approach Beckett’s plays in part through this new current in Icelandic poetry, and one can later see critics and commentators making the same connection when Beckett entered Icelandic theatres. While the two authors –– and first translators of Beckett – can be seen as paving the way for this new lyric-dramatic influx into the Icelandic scene, they only briefly mention Beckett’s novels and in fact largely dismiss them as ‘inaccessible’, thus echoing the barrier that the modernist novel was still facing at this time

1

EMBRACES – EMPTY SPACES: TRANSLATION AND RECEPTION …

7

in Iceland. A few authors had made attempts to radicalize the genre of the novel but such works were either seen as isolated instances or received little attention. Translated novels had since the 1920s been the largest branch of literature published in Icelandic, and while they certainly impacted and shaped the literary landscape and the reading culture, very few of them challenged the epic legacy. Joyce, Proust, Woolf, Faulkner, Kafka – these were not unfamiliar names in the mid-twentieth-century Icelandic literary world, but their novels were not translated till much later.3 Under these circumstances, the theatre came to serve a pivotal role in paving the way for modernism in Iceland. In November 1959 Sveinn Einarsson wrote a lengthy article on the occasion of the City Theatre’s presentation of Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author, and the better part of his discussion revolves around the need for more daring dramatic aesthetics. He reminds his readers that this play from 1921 was first performed by the City Theatre in 1926, in an attempt to open up the Icelandic scene for contemporary continental European modernism, but that in the intervening 33 years the emphasis had been largely on realist drama and Stanislavskian methods. So Pirandello was, as it were, ushered in again to ask some important questions, and Einarsson knew what the City Theatre had in the works. ‘Hence’, he writes, ‘first Pirandello, then Beckett’ (Einarsson 1959: 10).

C The presentation of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (Beðið eftir Godot ) on the same stage a few months later, in March 1960, was a significant event. Not because of mass attendance, for some of the usual theatre crowd clearly stayed away and Godot only saw seven runs. But the play, translated by the novelist Indriði G. Þorsteinsson (1926–2000) and directed by Baldvin Halldórsson (1923–2007), was well received by most critics and in hindsight it becomes clear that a certain barrier had been breached. For a small population, Iceland was at this time home to what may seem like an incredible number of newspapers and journals that reported steadily on cultural affairs. Most of these publications are now accessible through an extremely useful database, ‘timarit.is’, and a quick search suffices to see both how Beckett emerges as a name and a signpost for a new theatre paradigm, and then how from 1960 on, he becomes a household term and a key reference point, especially in the domain

8

Á. EYSTEINSSON

of theatre.4 Godot was followed, in Icelandic translation and on stage, by Ionesco’s Rhinoceros in 1961 and Pinter’s The Caretaker in 1962; Beckett is not only present in the discussion of these plays and playwrights, but also when it comes to Icelandic dramatists of the 1960s, notably Halldór Laxness, who seemed to have abandoned his glorious career as a novelist, and sought a new and non-realist lease of life as the author of three plays: Strompleikurinn (1961), Prjónastofan Sólin (1962) and Dúfnaveislan (1966), before returning to prose fiction, but then in a radicalized ‘theatrical’ mode, with the novel Kristnihald undir Jökli (Under the Glacier) in 1968. The 1960s also saw younger Icelandic writers approaching the theatre in an experimental spirit, including Erlingur E. Halldórsson (1930–2011), Guðmundur Steinsson (1925–1996) and Oddur Björnsson (1932–2011). While various kinds of avant-garde qualities tended to be comparatively linked to Beckett’s drama, Oddur Björnsson was the playwright most strongly associated with the theatre of the absurd, and with Beckett in particular. In fact, one of his plays, Jóðlíf, was staged together with Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape (in Indriði G. Þorsteinsson’s translation) in the National Theatre in 1965. Krapp was played by Árni Tryggvason (b. 1924), who had been in the role of Estragon in the 1960 Godot performance. In 1965 an independent theatre group, Gríma, performed Anna S. Gunnarsdóttir’s translation of Beckett’s Happy Days . In 1966 the City Theatre staged Beckett’s Acte sans paroles together with two other oneact plays, by Fernando Arrabal and Jean Tardieu. Ólafur Jónsson’s review includes a discussion of ‘absurdism’ in drama, and he sees Franz Kafka as a precursor to the absurdists and argues that his elusive symbolic method is akin to that of Beckett (Jónsson 1966: 5). This interesting reference to Kafka in the mid-1960s would have directed most Icelandic readers to the novella Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis ) which had appeared in Hannes Pétursson’s translation in 1960 – the year of Godot in Iceland. But none of Kafka’s novels would appear in Icelandic until the 1990s. In 1972 Embers was broadcast by Icelandic State Radio, brought forth by two women – not a common occurrence at the time – translator Inga Huld Hákonardóttir and director Bríet Héðinsdóttir. And then (finally) Endgame was produced by The National Theatre in 1977, translated by Gylfi Baldursson and Jakob Möller and directed by Hrafn Gunnlaugsson.

1

EMBRACES – EMPTY SPACES: TRANSLATION AND RECEPTION …

9

K In 1976 Waiting for Godot had been produced as a radio play, and in 1980 it appeared on stage again, this time in Akureyri (the main urban centre in the north of Iceland), directed by Oddur Björnsson, the author of the play Jóðlíf mentioned above – and for him this ‘meeting’ with Beckett was probably as important as bringing his own plays on stage. This version of Godot, born close to the Arctic circle, was, though illattended, a dramatic success, and the company took it on the road, not only to Reykjavík but eventually to a Beckett festival in the town of Bantry in County Cork, Ireland, in August 1980. This particular Godot can be seen as emblematic of how Icelandic theatre moves through both continuity and regeneration in a small world that thrives on the interplay of the native and the foreign. The actor Árni Tryggvason played Estragon again, still ‘waiting’, twenty years after the initial Icelandic Godot, although now he had to look to the interpretation of director Oddur Björnsson. Fifteen years before, a boy of eleven had gone to see a visiting performance from the National Theatre at a community centre close to his hometown in the southwest of Iceland. This turned out to be the duo staging, mentioned above, of Björnsson’s Jóðlíf and Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape – with Tryggvason as Krapp. The boy, Viðar Eggertsson (b. 1954), later described how these two one-act plays had swept him off his feet and that there was no turning back from this experience.5 He would indeed later emerge as a strikingly innovative figure in Icelandic theatre and, as chance would have it, there he was, playing Lucky in Godot in 1980, working with Björnsson and Tryggvason.

E In the early 70s, it had seemed that the interest in Beckett was somewhat slackening, but it rebounded strongly around 1980. In 1978 one more Beckett enthusiast started making his mark, when Árni Ibsen (1948– 2007), a playwright, poet and translator, directed his own translation of All That Fall for Icelandic State Radio. In the summer of 1983 Ibsen directed a Beckett assemblage for the University Student Theatre which was entitled Óstöðvandi flaumur (‘Unstoppable Stream’), consisting of four one-act plays (Come and Go, Not I , Ohio Impromptu and Rockaby) and four poems – all the texts having been translated by Ibsen himself. This was an important event in the Icelandic reception of Beckett, an

10

Á. EYSTEINSSON

experimental performance that had a ‘grassroots feel’ to it in a makeshift setting, but was carried out with ambition and ingenuity. It was shaped significantly by the collaboration of Ibsen and actor Viðar Eggertsson. Instead of trying to fashion the area into a theatre with a single stage, the different elements of the assemblage were spread around, thus energizing the space in an unusual way, to the point that Ohio Impromptu was set outside a large window in the bright midsummer evening, with the audience thus watching it from within the building. Eggertsson excelled in the role of the mouth in Not I . To readers of this single-voice play, it may seem that the ‘stream’ of language issues from the lit-up mouth of a woman speaking about herself and her life in the third person, and this reading may be supported by the awareness that Beckett intended the role for an actress. Eggertsson says that this did not deter him from asking for this role, and he does not feel that the voice need be gender-specific, although it clearly imparts a woman’s experience.6 It could of course be argued that a male voice opens the performance up to different angles of reception and interpretation, and that this gap is already present in the third-person recollection. This was not Eggertsson’s first creative encounter with Not I , for in 1981 he had created a performance, a one-actor-play for a one-personaudience at a time, called Ekki ég … heldur … (Nor I … But …), in which Beckett’s Not I was a point of departure. He picked threads from Beckett’s piece to open an approximately 20-minute-long monologue about his own life, which would move in different ways in each specific performance, depending on how he sensed the presence of the single member of the audience, who remained invisible to him. He went through thirtytwo consecutive performances, to the point of exhaustion, in Nýlistasafnið (The Living Art Museum) in Reykjavik on the evening of July 21, 1981 and into the night. One of the ‘auditors’ who had bought a ticket, did not show up, but Eggertsson still performed, for no one in that instance. In 1983, Eggertsson – or the EGG-Theatre, an alternative enterprise he had established – took an English version of the performance to the Edinburgh Festival, and later to festivals in Brighton and Dublin. In total he performed Nor I … But … 280 times for 279 individuals, a grand example of minimalism if ever there was one. Eggertsson continued to interact with Beckett’s works in his career, for instance as the director of the Theatre Company in Akureyri in the 90s, when he put together and directed (in 1995) the assemblage GUÐ/jón in the Akureyri Church parish hall, using its space in a highly experimental

1

EMBRACES – EMPTY SPACES: TRANSLATION AND RECEPTION …

11

way. He based the performance largely on a mixture of texts from Beckett’s oeuvre, interspersed with Icelandic poetry and songs. The connection to Waiting for Godot may seem obvious; ‘Guð’ meaning ‘God’, while ‘Jón’ is a common Icelandic (male) name, which often stands for ‘everyman’. When asked about Beckett in an interview with the local newspaper, Eggertsson mentioned that he had acted in the 1980 Godot performance right there in Akureyri and that the Irish writer’s works had a very special place in his mind (KLJ 1995: 8).

T Árni Ibsen also continued to think about and work with Beckett’s texts, and in 1987 he brought out the first Beckett book in Icelandic, entitled simply Sögur, leikrit, ljóð (‘Stories Plays, Poetry’).7 While Beckett had for decades been a well-known figure in Iceland, mainly for his plays, it should be noted that plays have not been a prominent part of the country’s active book culture, and especially not translated plays. So now admirers could at last grasp Beckett between Icelandic book covers. The book contains the plays Waiting for Godot , All That Fall , Endgame, Come and Go, Not I , Rockaby and Ohio Impromptu, the prose texts First Love, The Expelled, Enough, Imagination Dead Imagine, I Gave Up Before Birth and Company, as well as fourteen poems. All of these works appear in Ibsen’s translation and he also writes an introduction and a timeline of Beckett’s life and works. The introduction is partly polemical, especially when Ibsen states that the discussion about Beckett in Iceland is too often based on secondary material rather than on Beckett’s own texts. He especially points to Martin Esslin’s The Theatre of the Absurd as a book that has been read (in English) by many in Iceland ever since it was first published in 1961, and he finds it to have contributed to superficial talk about ‘absurdist’ playwriting, where Ionesco and Beckett are mentioned with the same breath. He notes that this has led to a shallow understanding of the comic element in Beckett’s plays, and even notes that this emphasis on absurdism is the only explanation he can find for certain misinterpretations and errors in Indriði G. Þorsteinsson’s translations of Waiting for Godot and Krapp’s Last Tape.8 Ibsen argues that one may find a set of qualities of the ‘absurd’ that connect for instance Alfred Jarry and Ionesco, but that this is not a constellation which accounts for Beckett’s works – Beckett being more at home ‘under the hat of existentialism, if he needs a place to stay anywhere

12

Á. EYSTEINSSON

but with himself’, as he puts it (Ibsen 1987: xxv). One does not have to go outside the Icelandic reception of Beckett to notice the complicated debates that can be stirred up by such points of contention. ‘The absurd’ can be taken to refer to a number of different features and qualities in a piece of drama – and the idea of the absurd is indeed often taken to be close to the heart of existentialism. Oddur Björnsson, some of whose plays have been referred to as being in the absurdist vein, wrote a number of articles about Beckett where he discusses the idea of the absurd, which he links on one occasion to the ‘tragedy of words’ and the struggle to lend them weight in the face of the immense loss of meaning that words suffer all around us (Björnsson 1985). In another article he admits that the word ‘absurdist’ itself may have suffered such a loss, making us blind to the ‘classical elements’ in Beckett’s plays, elements that link him with dramatists from previous (and pre-realist) centuries (Björnsson 1986: 62).

T Looking through the documented evidence of the Icelandic reception of Beckett, one must conclude that while it has not been based on popularity in the prevalent sense of that word, it has been quite broad-based. This is evidenced in various interviews, articles, reviews and cultural news items where Beckett is used as a point of reference, a kind of signpost with which other writers and works are ‘located’. And this goes beyond the theatre, for instance when Megas (Magnús Þór Jónsson, b. 1945), a well-known local singer and poet-songwriter, explains in an interview in 1978 how his texts, songs and stage performances are woven together, forming ‘a thread that no one would be able to turn into a short story – except perhaps Samuel Beckett’ (Margeirsson 1978: 10). But such individual references aside, a survey of the ‘Beckett archive’ in Icelandic also indicates that his reception hinges significantly on a number of individuals who have quite actively sought to create space for him in the Icelandic cultural arena and attract direct public attention to his works. Some of these individuals have been mentioned above, notably Baldvin Halldórsson, the first director of a Beckett play in Iceland, and actor Árni Tryggvason, as well as Sigurður A. Magnússon, Sveinn Einarsson and Ólafur Jónsson, who have had Beckett in their ’company’, so to speak, ever since they began their cultural careers in Iceland. As times goes by, Beckett has been embraced by more people eager to broaden the expressive and aesthetic horizon of Icelandic theatre, of whom Oddur

1

EMBRACES – EMPTY SPACES: TRANSLATION AND RECEPTION …

13

Björnsson, Árni Ibsen and Viðar Eggertsson could be said to stand out. And to this group of Beckett enthusiasts one must add journalist and writer Illugi Jökulsson (b. 1960) who ever since the late 70s has been a strong voice for Beckett in Iceland, for instance in numerous newspaper articles. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that while there has not been any organized group at work here, in a united effort, there has been a sort of informal Beckett intelligentsia in Iceland ever since the late 50s and it has regularly helped make room for Beckett and his space; a space sparsely populated, with figures in an ‘empty’ landscape where language itself seems to be questioned, even when it comes in an ‘unstoppable stream’. But while Beckett has for decades had a significant presence in Iceland as a playwright, it might seem that he has not made much of a headway there as a major prose writer – in spite of Megas’s reference to him as a master of the short story – at a time when none of his short stories had been translated in Icelandic, although two parts of the novel Watt had in fact appeared in Icelandic in the early 70s.9 Ibsen’s aforementioned translation of a selection of Beckett’s short prose, which appeared in 1987, was a significant step, but the first Beckett novel to appear in its entirety in Icelandic – Molloy, translated by Trausti Steinsson (b. 1950), with an afterword by Sigurður A. Magnússon10 – did not appear until 2001, and it does not seem to have elicited much response. Was it perhaps still – half a century after its first appearance in French – too radical for a literary culture that wants its narratives served without too much obstruction? Or perhaps the reading public is less prone to accept such challenging and even abrasive fiction in translation, than when it is composed in the native language. This takes us back to the epic resilience of the Icelandic novel, where modernism did not make a major breakthrough until the late 1960s. Two of its main trailblazers at that time were Guðbergur Bergsson (b. 1932) and Thor Vilhjálmsson (who was mentioned previously) – while Icelandic translations of some of the best-known modernist novels did not emerge till later. But literary culture travels in subtle ways, across borders and between languages, along lines that may involve a good deal of indirect ‘translation’ or osmosis. When Bergsson wrote the novels Tómas Jónsson metsölubók (1966) and Anna (1969), he could draw on an extended history of modernist writing in other languages from previous decades, while forging new pathways in Icelandic culture. He is not shy to admit his debt to Faulkner, for instance, and as both Ólafur Jónsson

14

Á. EYSTEINSSON

and Sigurður A. Magnússon pointed out when these novels came out, Beckett is also a part of Bergsson’s intertextual luggage (Magnússon 1967; Jónsson 1970). In fact, the eponymous character Tómas Jónsson, while thoroughly and often annoyingly Icelandic, is also in part a kind of ‘translation’ of Malone in Malone Dies . The link between Beckett and Thor Vilhjálmsson may be more elusive. Vilhjálmsson’s first book, Maðurinn er alltaf einn (Man Is Always Alone) from 1950, partly written while he lived in Paris, has scenes that involve solitary figures moving through barren and strangely lyrical landscapes. He later wrote in his memoirs how taken he was with Beckett’s trilogy which came out soon after that (Molloy, Malone meurt and L’nnommable). He did not know Beckett personally but found a soul mate in these books and he notes that when the announcement came that Beckett would receive the Nobel Prize for literature in 1969, he was so delighted that he wrote him a letter, not expecting to get any reply. But Beckett wrote back, ‘from some oasis in a desert in Tunisia’, according to Vilhjálmsson, ending his short letter with these words: ‘I could do with a drop of Black Death just now’ (Vilhjálmsson 1996: 198–199). Somehow Beckett knew that the traditional Icelandic schnapps ‘Brennivín’ goes by this sombre nickname (‘Svarti dauði’). But even though Beckett’s traces and spirit may be found in significant works written in Icelandic, it seems obvious that his breakthrough as a prose writer in that language is far from complete. More Beckett prose is needed in Icelandic, but it probably has to come along with informed critical discussion of what these works are all about. In the case of the plays, a different but in some ways equivalent critical dialogue has taken place within theatres, as actors and directors prepare their respective performances. And that train keeps rolling. Árni Ibsen’s translations of the plays have proved very important, and his versions of Endgame and Waiting for Godot have been staged a number of times in Iceland, Endgame most recently in 2015 and Godot in 2012 (with an all-women cast, as has been done elsewhere, against Beckett’s will). But other translators have also emerged on the scene. In 1994, Waiting for Godot was staged to considerable acclaim by a local theatre group in Selfoss, a small town in southern Iceland, about an hour’s drive from Reykjavík. The director was Eyvindur Erlendsson (b. 1937), who had directed Happy Days back in 1965, and he decided to retranslate Godot himself for this performance, calling his translation Við bíðum eftir Godot (‘We Wait for Godot’), thus apparently accentuating a collective experience. He mentioned in an interview at the

1

EMBRACES – EMPTY SPACES: TRANSLATION AND RECEPTION …

15

time that he was not altogether happy with Ibsen’ s translation, which he saw as emphasizing ‘certain sexual aspects and going too far with them’ (Svavarsdóttir 1994: 6). But he also mentions the benefits of working simultaneously as translator and director of the work – an intertwining of two hermeneutic motions, one might say. But while Waiting for Godot has to this day remained, right from its first staging in 1960, Beckett’s central and by far best-known work in Iceland, the shorter theatre pieces have also continued to play a part in exploring and renegotiating the role of drama in society. In March and April 2019, Trausti Ólafsson (b. 1949), a theatre scholar, directed a dramatic reading of three pieces he had translated – Not I , Footfalls and A Piece of Monologue – employing a group of distinguished actors to carry out this task in an off-venue location called Senuþjófurinn (Scene-Stealer), a place where there had previously been a fitness centre by the name of Betrunarhúsið (which can mean ‘A place of betterment’ or ‘Correctional facility’).11 What better place to exercise Beckett?

Notes 1. Þ.H. [presumably Þorvarður Helgason]: ‘Stórviðburðir í leikhúslífi Vínarborgar’, Morgunblaðið, June 10, 1958, p. 11. All translations of Icelandic texts are mine. 2. This debate is discussed in detail by Eysteinn Þorvaldsson in his book Atómskáldin. Aðdragandi og upphaf módernisma í íslenskri ljóðagerð, Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka bókmenntafélag, 1980. 3. See Ástráður Eysteinsson (2002), ‘Modernism at the Borders: Notes on Literary History, Translation and Modernism in Iceland’. 4. See www.timarit.is. And on that note, I should like to thank my assistant, Arnór Ingi Hjartarson, for his help in the archival research for this article. 5. Eggertsson reminisced about this in a conversation I had with him in Reykjavík on June 3, 2020. Cf. also two interviews with Eggertsson, by Illugi Jökulsson in Vikan, No. 15 (April 10), 1986; and by Hjalti Jón Sveinsson in Vikan, No. 3 (Febr. 9), 1993. 6. Here I am drawing on my conversation with Viðar Eggertsson on June 3, 2020. I should also like to note that I attended the Beckett performance in June 1983. 7. Samuel Beckett (1987), Sögur, leikrit, ljóð, translated by Árni Ibsen, Reykjavík: Svart á hvítu. 8. Árni Ibsen (1987), ‘Inngangur’, Sögur, leikrit, ljóð, pp. xxiii–xxiv. Ibsen does not support his criticism of Þorsteinsson with any examples, but he may well have had access to the (unpublished) manuscripts of the

16

Á. EYSTEINSSON

earlier translations, for in the professional theatres such manuscripts have frequently been archived. My own space in the present article does not allow for a comparative analysis of Beckett’s originals and their Icelandic translations. 9. They appeared in the journal Tímarit Máls og menningar in 1970 and 1971, translated by Jón frá Pálmholti and Pétur Knútsson. 10. Samuel Beckett (2001), Molloy, translated by Trausti Steinsson, Reykjavík: Ormstunga. 11. When this article was just about finished, I learned that Trausti Ólafsson was working on a project called ‘Beðið eftir Beckett’ (‘Waiting for Beckett’), a dramatic piece that embraces fragments from Beckett’s works. This was done in collaboration with Kómedíuleikhúsið (‘The Comedy Theatre’) under the leadership of Elfar Logi Hannesson, and the play was premiered on August 30, 2020. We obviously have not seen the last of Beckett in Iceland.

Appendix: Works by Beckett Translated into Icelandic (1958), Acte sans paroles, trans. Sveinn Einarsson and Ólafur Jónsson, Dagskrá, Vol. 2, No. 1, 17–18. (1960), Beðið eftir Godot [Waiting for Godot ], trans. Indriði G. Þorsteinsson, Reykjavík City Theatre (Unpublished manuscript). (1965), Síðasta segulband Krapps [Krapp’s Last Tape], trans. Indriði G. Þorsteinsson, Icelandic National Theatre (Unpublished manuscript). (1965), Gleðidagar [Happy Days ], trans. Anna S. Gunnarsdóttir, Gríma Theatre Group (Unpublished manuscript). (1970), Watt: Upphafskafli skáldsögunnar [the opening pages of Watt ], trans. Jón frá Pálmholti, Tímarit Máls og menningar, Vol. 31, No. 3–4, 309–315. (1971), Kafli úr skáldsögunni Watt [a few pages from the first part of Watt ], trans. Jón frá Pálmholti and Pétur Knútsson, Tímarit Máls og menningar, Vol. 32, No. 3–4, 243–248. (1972), Eimyrja [Embers ], trans. Inga Huld Hákonardóttir, Icelandic State Radio (Unpublished manuscript). (1977), Endatafl [Endgame], trans. Gylfi Baldursson and Jakob Möller, Icelandic National Theatre (Unpublished manuscript). (1986), Úr Molloy [the opening pages of Molloy], trans. Aðalsteinn Ingólfsson, DV , April 26, 36–37. (1987), Sögur, leikrit, ljóð [Stories, Plays, Poems ], trans. Árni Ibsen. Reykjavík: Svart á hvítu. (1991), Andardráttur [Breath], trans. anonymous, Bjartur og frú Emilía, Vol. 2. No. 1, 51.

1

EMBRACES – EMPTY SPACES: TRANSLATION AND RECEPTION …

17

(1994), Við bíðum eftir Godot [Waiting for Godot ], trans. Eyvindur Erlendsson, Selfoss Theatre Group (Unpublished manuscript). (1994), Eintal [A Piece of Monologue], trans. Árni Ibsen, Tímarit Máls og menningar, Vol. 55, No. 2, 56–61. (2001), Molloy, trans. Trausti Steinsson, Reykjavík: Ormstunga. (2019), Ekki ég, Fótatak and Ein ræða [Not I , Footfalls and A Piece of Monologue], trans. Trausti Ólafsson, Scene-Stealer Theatre (Unpublished).

Works Cited Björnsson, Oddur. 1985. Leikhús fáránleikans, heimur absúrdistans. Morgunblaðið (part C: Menning-Listir), June 16, 1–3. ———. 1986. Hvað er í harðkúluhattinum? DV , May 3, 62. Einarsson, Sveinn, and Ólafur Jónsson. 1958. Um Samuel Beckett. Dagskrá 2 (1): 15–16. ———. 1959. Sex persónur leita höfundar. Alþýðublaðið, Nov. 10, 1959, 10. Eysteinsson, Ástráður. 2002. Modernism at the Borders: Notes on Literary History, Translation and Modernism in Iceland. In English and Nordic Modernisms, ed. Bjørn Tysdahl, Mats Jansson, Jakob Lothe, and Steen Klitgård Povlsen, 103–119. Norwich: Norvik Press. Ibsen, Árni. 1987. Inngangur [introduction to]. Sögur, leikrit, ljóð, by Samuel Beckett, trans. Árni Ibsen, xxi–xxxviii. Reykjavík: Svart á hvítu. Jónsson, Ólafur. 1966. Fram, fram, framúr. Alþýðublaðið. Febr. 23, 5. ———. 1970. Guðbergur Bergsson: Anna. Skírnir, vol. 144, 234–237. Jökulsson, Illugi. 1986. Mér þykir mest gaman að fólki sem er greindara en ég sjálfur [interview with Viðar Eggertsson]. Vikan, Nr. 15, April 10, 25–27. KLJ. 1995. Nýtt íslenskt leikverk á Kirkjulistaviku á Akureyri: GUÐ/jón. Dagur, May 6, 8. Magnússon, Sigurður A. 1957. Bölsýni í öskutunnum. Morgunblaðið, May 9, 11 and 13. ———. 1967. Absúrd bókmenntir og Tómas Jónsson, Metsölubók. Lesbók Morgunblaðsins, April 9, 4. Margeirsson, Ingólfur. 1978. Trúbador miðalda og hallærisplans [interview with Megas]. Þjóðviljinn, Nov. 5, 10. Svavarsdóttir, Súsanna. 1994. Hugverk sem dansar [interview with Eyvindur Erlendsson]. Morgunblaðið, part C, Nov. 19, 6–7. Sveinsson, Hjalti Jón. 1993. Tvíeggja líf [interview with Viðar Eggertsson]. Vikan, No. 3, Febr. 9, 20–24. Vilhjálmsson, Thor. 1996. Fley og fagrar árar. Reykjavík: Mál og menning. Þ.H. [presumably Þorvarður Helgason]. 1958. Stórviðburðir í leikhúslífi Vínarborgar. Morgunblaðið, June 10, 11. Þorvaldsson, Eysteinn. 1980. Atómskáldin. Aðdragandi og upphaf módernisma í íslenskri ljóðagerð. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka bókmenntafélag.

CHAPTER 2

Beckett in Sweden Then and Now: (Re)Translating Waiting for Godot Charlotta Palmstierna Einarsson

In the country that awarded him the Nobel Prize,1 Beckett is not a wellknown author.2 That is to say, surprisingly few people read his work and few students would encounter any of Beckett’s creative works (whether prose, poetry or drama), even in the university literature departments.3 Although most of Samuel Beckett’s creative work has been translated into Swedish (see Appendix), he is not a legitimised author in Sweden and, interestingly, one potential explanation for this situation is related to the issue of translation. Swedish literature depends on translation: approximately fifty per cent of the literary production in Sweden is translated from various languages, although in the last decades books translated from English have increased as a result of the Americanisation of Swedish publishing (see Kleberg 2009: 173).4 Even so, the prevailing academic attitude in Sweden to

C. P. Einarsson (B) Department of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSV), Mid-Sweden University, Sundsvall, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. F. Fernández and P. Sardin (eds.), Translating Samuel Beckett around the World, New Interpretations of Beckett in the Twenty-First Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71730-8_2

19

20

C. P. EINARSSON

translated work and to the practice of translation is ambivalent. The issue of translation has ‘long confounded researchers’, because even as ‘at least in Sweden, translations on principle are recognised to be important parts of the literary field, in practice … none of the academic subjects wants to acknowledge translated texts to be their topic’ (Kleberg 2010: 3). Despite the fact that the volume of texts translated into Swedish is high, therefore, the academic status both of the translator and of the translated text remains ambiguous. In 2000, an evaluation commissioned by the Research Council for Social Sciences and the Humanities (Humanistisk–Samhällsvetenskapliga Forskningsrådet, HSFR 2000), established that literary scientific scholarship in Sweden has consistently and almost exclusively focused on Swedish literature. This ‘domestic bias’, according to the report, has not only produced an imbalance in the aim and scope of the Swedish academic literary scholarship, it has also contributed to create a situation where scholars have tended to neglect the influence of other literatures on Swedish authors (Kleberg 2010: 2).5 In addition, Swedish translation history is practically non-existing, which means that those who have made almost half of the literature in Sweden accessible to readers are basically overlooked (Englund qtd in Kleberg 2010: 11). Although a lot has changed since 2000, not least as global perspectives on literature have emerged to transform the Swedish literary field, it is still possible that the low attention to translated work in Swedish literary scholarship, and subsequently in higher education, at least to some extent explains why Beckett has remained relatively unknown to a wider Swedish readership. Admittedly there are other ‘modes of consecration’: the academic system is not the only field able to leverage value and prestige on an author, but various other structural positions within ‘the hierarchized space of the field of production’ participate in the legitimisation of artistic works (Bourdieu 1996: 160). Among the relatively formal bodies that have participated in legitimising Beckett in Sweden one can therefore list libraries, theatres, the audio-visual media,6 and of course translators, who have been instrumental in giving Swedish readers and audiences access to Beckett’s dramatic work, as well as to his prose and poetry. Ever since the first Swedish production of Waiting for Godot in 1954, Beckett’s plays have also been more or less regularly staged on Swedish scenes. There is therefore no doubt that Beckett’s presence in Sweden, although relatively limited to certain contexts, has been longstanding. Yet, Beckett’s work must also be understood to have different degrees of legitimacy

2

BECKETT IN SWEDEN THEN AND NOW …

21

in different Swedish contexts. In the almost 70 years that have passed since the first Swedish performance of Waiting for Godot , Beckett’s status in Sweden has depended more on the work of those involved in translating and staging his work than on those involved in higher education or academia more broadly. If a writer’s work ‘gains exposure and achieves influence’ through the kind of ‘refractions’ that involve not only translation, but also, perhaps less obviously, adaptation, criticism and teaching (Lefevre 2000: 234–235), then the history of Beckett in Sweden is necessarily also the story of how his work has been refracted through various means of dissemination, including translation.

Figures of Translation This complex history can be partly illustrated by the question of how Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot has been translated in Sweden, a question which is also necessarily linked to the views on translation held by his translators. On the strength of this insight, this chapter compares and contrasts two Swedish translations of Waiting for Godot , namely the first Swedish version translated by Göran O Eriksson and Lill-Inger Eriksson in 1954, and Magnus Hedlund’s re-translation of the play from 1990.7 The aim is to tease out the different translators’ conceptualisations of the act of translation. Admittedly, the effort to categorise a translator’s solutions to specific problems of translation may seem reductive, and perhaps even unfair to the unique sensibility of the translator, yet the aim is not to compare the two Swedish translations of Waiting for Godot with respect to their success or value. Rather, it is to underline some of the main differences between these two translations, and place these differences in conjunction with the principles of translations that seem to have guided the translators. Put differently, the main focus in this chapter is to identify and analyse the translators’ ‘deforming practices’ (Berman 2000: 286), which is to say, aspects of translation that could be seen to transform and modify a target text (Ibid.). Because according to Antoine Berman, any act of translation entails ‘the destruction of the letter in favor of meaning’, the question is merely the degree to which such destruction should be resisted (2000: 297). Of course, translation is merely one factor to take into account if one wants to trace the history of Beckett in Sweden, but it is an important aspect that enfolds both cultural and

22

C. P. EINARSSON

historical perspectives. The story of Godot in Swedish is therefore necessarily also the story of its translators and the decisions they made in the process of tranlating the play. The two Swedish translations of Godot discussed in this chapter are the only extant Swedish versions of the play, and they differ in interesting ways, partly on account of the different translators’ views on translation, but partly, also, with respect to the source text. Before I move on to address such issues, however, an important caveat is due: Göran O and Lill-Inger Eriksson translated many of Beckett’s plays together (see Appendix), yet for the purpose of comparing and contrasting the deforming practices of the Swedish translators of Godot, I will henceforth only refer to Göran O Eriksson (1929–1983) as the translator of the first Swedish version. In so doing, I do not in any way seek to obfuscate or diminish Lill-Inger Eriksson’s input or participation in the translation of the play. Her status as one of the two translators of the first Swedish version of Godot is incontestable, and whenever possible I will refer to both Lill-Inger Eriksson and Göran O Eriksson as ‘the translators’ of the play. However, while Göran O Eriksson on several occasions put his ideas on translation in print, so far, I have not been able to find any commentary that could be seen to voice Lill-Inger Eriksson’s own views on translation, and nor have I been able to find any information about the division of labour between the couple in the process of translating this play. I have also not been able to find out whether or not, at this point, Lill-Inger Eriksson shared Göran O Eriksson’s views on translation. For the moment, therefore, Göran O Eriksson’s comments on translation comprise the only available source that could be seen to shed light on the deforming practices of the first Swedish translators of Godot.8 Perhaps it could be argued that the result speaks for them both. Yet I prefer not to put words into Lill-Inger Eriksson’s mouth. Instead I will continue to search for material that could be seen to express her own ideas on translation. Meanwhile, and given that both Göran O Eriksson and Magnus Hedlund have been instrumental in making Beckett’s drama accessible to Swedish theatres, audiences, readers and reviewers, paying attention to their translating practices and to their views on the act of translation seems to afford important insights, not only into the differences between the two Swedish versions of Godot, but also into the issue of Beckett in Sweden then and now. The issue of how Godot (or any of Beckett’s work) has been translated into Swedish has not been researched, apart from some comments

2

BECKETT IN SWEDEN THEN AND NOW …

23

provided by the translators themselves, and one possible reason for this lack of interest may be, as Magnus Hedlund observes, that the ‘unique perspective of the translator is frequently overlooked in translation studies’ in favour of more ‘sweeping generalisations about the art of translation, its methods and techniques’ (2014). However, the lack of interest in Swedish translations of Beckett’s drama could also be explained by the fact that for some time, the prevailing translation ideal in Sweden has been the ‘invisibility of the translator’ (see Venuti 1995). Over the years, and despite the fact that translated texts comprise more than fifty per cent of the literature in Sweden, the Swedish literary field ‘has had the same tendency to prefer eloquent translations as the Anglo-Saxon countries’ (Kleberg 2010: 6). In other words, Swedish translations tend to be evaluated in terms of how smooth they are, and rarely, if ever, are they discussed or evaluated as products in their own right (Ibid.).9 However, translations can be analysed. That is to say, the transformation that a text undergoes in the process of translation can be analysed as indicative of the translator’s understanding of the act of translation. According to Antoine Berman, the process of translation always entails various ‘negative tendencies’ that could be seen to ‘deform’ the original text (2000: 288). Such negative tendencies are, for example, ‘rationalisation’ and its corollary ‘clarification’, or ‘the destruction of rhythms’, to name but a few (Ibid.). Negative tendencies are however frequently countered by positive tendencies, which serve to limit potentially negative effects of the process of transformation, and both ‘these unconscious forces form part of the translator’s being, determining the desire to translate’ (Berman 2000: 286). Taken together, both negative and positive tendencies thus afford an ‘analytic of translation’ aimed at identifying the (often tacit) aims and predilections that underpin a translator’s act of translation (Ibid.).10 Admittedly, the ‘analytic of translation’ advised by Berman in ‘Translation and the Trial of the Foreign’ is much more complex than my simplified summary here indicates, and is also developed in relation to the process of translating novels, which means that some of the deforming practices he presents are not readily applicable to the process of translating drama.11 However, although Berman’s discussion pertains to novels, the tendencies he lists could also be seen to underlie the deforming practices of translators more generally, and specifically with respect to translating works that, like Beckett’s, tend to blur conventional genres. As S. E. Gontarski observes, over time, ‘much of Beckett’s late drama, like “A

24

C. P. EINARSSON

Piece of Monologue,” became nearly indistinguishable from the late prose fiction, which is why so many theater professionals were eager to stage the haunting, late, monologic short prose’ (Gontarski 2002: 90). Yet if Beckett’s late prose resembles dramatic monologue and Beckett’s late drama reads like prose, then this tendency is already noticeable in Godot. That is, the situation in Godot foreshadows a subsequent development in Beckett’s creative writing towards the ‘dismantling of subjectivity or received structures of subjectivity and narrativity, be it in prose or in drama’ (Boulter 2008: 8). On the assumption that already Godot could be seen to present translators with problems that resemble or are similar to the problems facing translators of Beckett’s prose, therefore, the differences between the two Swedish translations of Godot will here be seen as indicative of each translators’ unique understanding of translation as an act of material transfer. Although the present discussion of the differences between the Swedish translations of Godot merely thematises a few of the deforming tendencies that Berman identifies, it is still my contention that each translation comprises deforming tendencies (negative and/or positive) that speak to the translator’s understanding of the act of translation and transfer. Berman’s ‘analytic of translation’ is therefore also relevant to address the different perspectives afforded by the two Swedish translators of Godot.

Source Text/s As stated above, the two Swedish versions of Godot differ in interesting ways, and one of the main differences is related to the use of source text. Göran O and Lill-Inger Eriksson’s translation from 1957 is based on the French original from 1952, while Magnus Hedlund’s re-translation of the play in 1990 is based on the second Faber edition from 1965,12 although it also takes Beckett’s reworking of the play for the 1975 Schiller Theater production into consideration – even before the publication of Theatrical Notebooks of Samuel Beckett: Volume I: Waiting for Godot (Faber, 1993). The difference in source text could perhaps be seen to invalidate a comparison between the two Swedish translations, yet the deforming tendencies in each translation may still be compared. Notably, too, Hedlund has already addressed some of these tendencies without labelling them as such. In a manuscript from 1994, as well as in a commentary to a new edition of his translation of Waiting for Godot

2

BECKETT IN SWEDEN THEN AND NOW …

25

published in 2019, he lists a number of issues with the first Swedish translation and states that his decision to re-translate the play in 1990, at least to some degree, grew out of the conviction that the first Swedish translation needed to be brought up to date with the developments that had taken place since Beckett wrote the play (2019: 191).13 In the sections that follow, the problems that Hedlund points out, as well as his alternative suggestions to such problems, will therefore be used to structure the comparison between the two translations. Translators of Beckett into a third language must always negotiate the fact that there are (at least) two original texts, yet according to Hedlund the changes Beckett himself affected to the dramatic script, both in the process of translating and staging the play, must also be taken into consideration in the act of translation (1994, unp.). While Beckett’s alterations to the source text were obviously not an issue to the first Swedish translators of the play, Hedlund’s process of translation is complicated by the fact that Beckett’s intervention as director of his own plays has profoundly changed the source text of Godot. Sensitive to Beckett’s tendency to revise the dramatic work in the process of staging it, Hedlund tries to piece as many different versions of Godot together as he can find. To this purpose he uses the English version from 1965, but he also includes the alterations Beckett affected to the play in connection with the German performance at the Schiller Theater in 1975 (Hedlund 1994, unp.). In 1990, the Theatrical Notebooks Vol I –IV were not yet published, but Beckett’s textual changes to the Schiller Theater production had been collected by Dougald McMillan and Martha Dow Fehsenfeld, and published in Beckett in the Theatre: The Author as Practical Playwright and Director (1988), and Hedlund uses this book to identify most (if not all) of Beckett’s changes to the Schiller Theater performance in 1975 (2019: 191). Hedlund’s decision to re-translate the play could thus be perceived as an effort to counter a negative tendency in the first translation, namely the fact that it was based on an obsolete source that could no longer be seen as the original. As Hedlund points out, the desire to include these alterations was an important part of his decision to re-translate the play (Hedlund 2019: 191). However, the effort to do justice to the developments in Beckett’s understanding of the play as performance complicates the notion of source text. In fact, Hedlund’s conviction that the source text needs to be redefined seems prematurely to confirm S. E. Gontarski’s claim that Beckett, as he became increasingly involved in staging his dramatic works, also came to realise that ‘in the theatre, performance is the final

26

C. P. EINARSSON

text’ (2002: 91). According to Gontarski, critics who want to ‘understand Samuel Beckett as a dramatic artist’ therefore ‘need to refocus attention on performance and the performative in Beckett’s oeuvre’ (2002: 96). While pertinent, to Hedlund Gontarski’s advice is slightly belated as he already in 1990 seems to have seized on performance as the final text. Moreover‚ as both Gontarski’s admonition refocus attention on performance and Hedlund’s effort to counter the negative tendency of the first Swedish translation of Godot show, the extent to which a dramatic text changes in the process of staging it complicates, if not entirely undermines, any evaluation of translation based on the assumption that a target text should be based on an original source.

Textual Changes In the manuscript from 1994 Hedlund also comments that the first translation is ‘defective’ in the sense that the internal structure of the play is not sufficiently brought out. Of course, as already noted, the first translators did not have access to Beckett’s changes, a situation that could explain why their attention to the play’s formal structure is less pronounced. Yet, according to Hedlund, the first Swedish translation of Godot does not sufficiently bring out ‘the “shape” inherent but not completely specified [already] in Beckett’s original play’ (see McMillan and Fehsenfeld 1988: 87). Importantly, Hedlund maintains, many changes resulting from Beckett’s own staging of the play at the Schiller Theatre production in 1975, and which contribute to give the play a tighter internal structure, were already implicit in the original text and consequently, such changes have to be included (1994, unp.). An important difference between the first and the second Swedish translation of Godot therefore pertains to the kind of ‘motifs’ or ‘themes’, most visibly the motif of remembering, which Beckett took care to craft in the Schiller Theater production, and which has been carefully incorporated into Hedlund’s re-translation of the play.14 In Hedlund’s translation, each instance of remembrance is followed by the phrase ‘Visst ja!’, which in this context means approximately ‘ah that’s right’, or ‘yes that’s right’ or ‘yes, now I remember’.15 For example, at the beginning of the first act when Estragon reminds Vladimir to button his fly, he replies ‘Visst ja’ (Beckett 2019: 8). In the English version from 1965 Vladimir here says, ‘True’ (Beckett 1965: 10), or ‘sant’ in Swedish. A few moments later, as Vladimir and Estragon talk about the Gospels,

2

BECKETT IN SWEDEN THEN AND NOW …

27

Vladimir interrupts himself to ask about Estragon’s foot, and then repeats the phrase to get back on track: ‘Visst ja, de två rövarna: kommer du ihåg den historien?’ (Beckett 2019: 11). In English: ‘Ah yes, the two thieves. Do you remember the story?’ (Beckett 1965: 12). However, the phrase ‘visst’ (which also means ‘certainly’ or ‘of course’,) does not only appear in connection with remembering, as the characters also consistently use the phrase to deny or confirm things. For instance, when Pozzo introduces himself Vladimir exclaims ‘Visst inte!’ (Beckett 2019: 37). And Estragon, similarly, denies the case of mistaken identity by the same turn of phrase: ‘POZZO: Ni trodde jag var Godot’. [You took me for Godot.] ESTRAGON: ‘Visst inte herrn. Inte ett ögonblick herrn’. [Certainly not Sir. Not for a moment Sir.] (Beckett 2019: 38). Where the English version therefore has ‘Not at all’ (Beckett 1965: 22), and ‘Oh no’ (Beckett 1965: 23), the Swedish re-translated text consistently has ‘visst’. Hedlund thus seems to use ‘visst’ in place of what McMillan and Fehsenfeld describe as the ‘Ah yes’ pattern, which appears in the Regiebuch under the heading ‘“Was sagt ich noch” – “What was I saying”’, and which is ‘listed as the first item under “Erinnern” ’ (McMillan and Fehsenfeld 1988: 125). But in Hedlund’s translation, ‘visst’ is also related to knowing, as in: ‘visste du inte det’ [didn’t you know] and ‘jag visste’ [I knew]. Taken together, the variations of the phrase in Hedlund’s re-translation therefore include: ‘visst ja!’ [that’s right!], ‘visst inte!’ [certainly not], ‘visst ja’ [ah yes], ‘javisst’ [of course], ‘jovisst’ [certainly], ‘visst visst’ [sure], ‘jag visste att’ [I knew that], etc.16 And, as the variations on ‘visst’ echo throughout the play, the connotations of this ‘verbal motif’ contribute to underwrite both the play’s thematic concern with issues of memory, truth and knowledge, and the internal structure in the play, which is based on repetition. By contrast, since the first Swedish translation follows the French source, the internal structures brought out by verbal echoes and resonances are much less pronounced, and the notions of remembrance and the characters’ repetitive denial of the possibility of affirming knowledge or truth are consistently given different denotations. For example, Vladimir’s reply when Estragon reminds him to button his fly is: ‘Det är sant’ (Beckett 1957: 9), as in the French source text: ‘C’est vrai’ (Beckett 1952: 14). And a little later, as Vladimir reminds himself that he was talking about the two thieves, he says ‘Jovisst’ (Beckett 1957: 11), for the French ‘Ah oui’ (Beckett 1952: 17). The characters’ instances of denial, similarly, are rendered differently depending on the lexical item in the French source. When Pozzo introduces himself and then confronts

28

C. P. EINARSSON

Vladimir and Estragon about mistaking him for Godot, Vladimir’s first response ‘Inte’ (Beckett 1957: 24), thus follows the French ‘Mais non’ (Beckett 1952: 35). And Estragon’s denial ‘Nej då’ (Beckett 1957: 25), follows the French ‘Oh non’ (Beckett 1952: 36).17 This is not to say that Eriksson’s translation is flawed. The first translators of Godot into Swedish did not benefit from Beckett’s self-translations of the play. The internal structures that Beckett’s directorial changes were later to uncover could not possibly have been emphasised in 1954 without taking liberties with the source text that may have seemed unwarranted at the time, and Hedlund certainly does not blame Eriksson for failing to do so. As previously stated, therefore, and given that these two Swedish translations do not work with the same source text, it is not possible to compare them in order to address their respective successes or failures. However, taken as indicative of each translator’s attitude to translation, the differences between the texts are nevertheless thought-provoking. While Eriksson, in the examples above, retains the source text’s meaning closely, Hedlund’s emphasis on authorial intention renders the notion of a source text highly ambiguous. The verbal ‘ah yes’-motif emphasised through the use of ‘visst’ is not derived from the English source text, but from alterations appearing in Beckett’s Regiebuch that have been incorporated in McMillan and Fehsenfeld’s book from 1988 (125). Hedlund’s decision to incorporate changes that could be seen to correspond to Beckett’s intention (in as much as this can be derived from McMillan and Fehsenfeld’s book) could perhaps be described as a negative deforming tendency. That is to say, even if the decision to incorporate Beckett’s alterations perhaps does not correspond exactly to any of the negative tendencies on Berman’s list, it could still be seen as an effort to ‘clarify’ the text (2000: 288). Moreover, the strong emphasis on authorial intention could also be seen as an effort to counter the tendency to neglect Beckett’s own alterations to the text; a conclusion seemingly corroborated by Gontarski who deplores that scholars frequently fail to take Beckett’s more shifting notion of text into consideration when discussing his drama (2002: 91). While potentially a deforming practice, therefore, Hedlund’s decision to underwrite the theme of remembering through consistently using ‘visst’ – even in places where it does not appear in the English source text –, should perhaps rather be understood as a tendency to counter the even more negative tendency of neglecting or failing to recognise the significance of Beckett’s alterations to the dramatic script.

2

BECKETT IN SWEDEN THEN AND NOW …

29

In contrast, Eriksson seems to follow the source text closely in the examples above, and this strategy could be taken as an indication that the deforming tendency in his translation is less pronounced. However, even if Eriksson’s translation of these examples seems to retain the lexical meaning of the original, this does not mean that he always follows the source text, or that he always strives to retain its lexical meaning. In Sweden, Eriksson is one of the first to resist the prevailing ideal that translations should be fluent (Kleberg 2010: 6); and this position seems reflected in different ways in his translation of Godot. In fact, according to Hedlund, one of the main reasons why he decided to re-translate the play, pertains to the differences between Eriksson’s manner of translating and his own (2019: 192). According to Hedlund, Eriksson has a tendency to want to explain the text in order to make it more accessible to the target audience. As a result, Hedlund states, Eriksson sometimes sacrifices the source text for the sake of clarification (Ibid.). For example, Hedlund refers to Eriksson’s translation of the French line: ‘A cheval sur une tombe et une naissance difficile’ (Beckett 1952: 128). In Eriksson’s translation, this line becomes: ‘Kvinnan föder grensle över en grav’ (Beckett 1957: 109), which literally means: ‘The woman gives birth astride a grave’. Yet, as Hedlund points out, Beckett did not write this anywhere, not even in the French original: ‘although French grammar here necessitate the use of “elles” (“they” in English), the emphasis is not the same as in the ensuing Swedish translation’ (Hedlund 2019: 192). Interestingly, in Sweden, Eriksson’s alteration of this line has given Beckett a longstanding reputation of being a misogynist (Ibid.). In Hedlund’s own translation of the same line, the noun ‘woman’ is therefore substituted for the pronoun ‘they’ – ‘De föder grensle över en grav’ (Beckett 2019: 176), in accordance with the English text: ‘They give birth astride a grave’ (Beckett 1965: 89). According to Hedlund, Eriksson’s decision to alter this line was an effort to explain the text (2019: 192). Despite the fact that Hedlund’s own translation could be seen to undermine the notion of a source text, then, his decision to re-translate the play could still be seen as an effort to counter what he perceives to be a negative tendency in Eriksson’s translation to sacrifice the source text for the sake of clarity in the target text, and here is perhaps where one of the main differences between these two translators begins to emerge. Indeed, to Eriksson, the purpose of translating for the theatre is not merely a case of translating the source text, it is to transfer a reality to be experienced by actors and audiences; other aspects of language are

30

C. P. EINARSSON

the means through which this reality is created (1995: 212). Another difference between the translations therefore pertains to prosodic features. For example, in the first Swedish translation, when Vladimir and Estragon have just reconvened for the day, Vladimir looks into his hat and says that he is ‘RÄDD’ (Beckett 1957: 9), in place of the French polysyllabic ‘ÉPOU-VAN-TÉ’ (Beckett 1952: 12). By contrast, Hedlund follows the English version and gives the Swedish equivalent ‘BE-STÖRT’ (Beckett 2019: 9) in place of the English ‘AP-PALLED’ (Beckett 1965: 11). To be ‘bestört’ is to be in a state of mind associated with shock on account of having been unpleasantly surprised, whereas to be ‘rädd’ denotes a much more primary feeling. The former (‘bestört’) is however slightly more formal and more writerly, whereas the latter (‘rädd’) is more in the style of informal spoken discourse. In Eriksson’s translation, the semantic meaning of the source text (‘rädd’) is retained, but the prosodic structure of the sentence has been modified to make it more idiomatic, whereas Hedlund has chosen to retain the prosodic structure of the original, and he also uses a more formal word. The different solutions therefore seem to speak to the translators’ different intentions. Notably, the rhythmic pattern of the monosyllabic ‘rädd’ is distinctly different from the rhythmic pattern of the polysyllabic ‘épouvanté’. The lexical meaning of ‘rädd’ could be seen to represent a similar primal terror as ‘epouvanté’, but there are other words that could have been used to convey this meaning, and in which the prosody of the original could have been retained. For example, the word ‘skräckslagen’ might similarly have been pronounced by an actor to retain the French prosody: [skrä-äck-slag-en]. However, the word ‘rädd’ is perhaps more colloquial. And according to Eriksson, translation should retain the colloquial: ‘[t]o translate for the stage is to translate the colloquial; and the colloquial is the language of the body, intrinsically connected to the body’s conscious or unconscious expressions: gestures, movements in space, posture, the directions of the eyes, mimicry’ (Eriksson 1995: 211). In the preface to his own translation of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure performed at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in 1993, Eriksson also observes that ‘written language, superficially, renders the translated text a social status equal to the experience [of performance as an expression of the dramatist genius]’ (Eriksson 1995: 212).18 The negative tendency that Eriksson identifies, albeit without specifying it as such, thus entails what he perceives to be a tendency among translators to ‘honour the

2

BECKETT IN SWEDEN THEN AND NOW …

31

translator by transferring what are often colloquial verbal expressions to written language’ (1995: 212). According to Eriksson, translators should recognise that the syntax of spoken language, as opposed to the forms of written language, changes more gradually: ‘I have a sense that spoken language is handed over from body to body’, and seems ‘to be anchored in la longue durée, the long duration that Fernand Braudel talks about and which remains firm, while the history of the ruling classes – the one we take to be historic – is written in a language consistently in transformation’ (1995: 211). Rather than adapting an author’s meanings to a more formal register in what is essentially a misguided gesture of respect, therefore, translators ought to recognise the extent to which the syntax and prosody of spoken language ultimately affect the actors who will speak the lines and the audience who will listen to them (Eriksson 1995: 213). Perhaps Eriksson’s decision to use the colloquial ‘rädd’, should be seen as an effort to activate a tacit dimension of experience residing in the body of both actors and audiences. Given that written language is always in the past or in the future, it has a tendency to activate strings of connections that fly across time and space, and our fleeting intellects follow its trail everywhere. The spoken language, by contrast, is slow and anchored in the present moment as a dimension of la longue durée. Even as Eriksson’s effort to convey an embodied dimension of spoken language (‘rädd’), as opposed to the lofty dimension of the mind (‘épouvanté’), may be described as a deforming practice that qualitatively reduced the semantic richness of the original, it could also be seen as an effort to retain an aspect of the source language that speakers of the target language would otherwise have missed. Yet the effect of replacing a polysyllabic word (‘E-POU-VAN-TÉ’) with a monosyllabic one (‘RÄDD’) is also that the comical undertone of the statement is diminished. The cerebral moment of evaluation implied in the accumulated emphasis on the formality of the word, as derived from the repeated pronunciation of its polysyllabic structure (‘é-pou-vanté’ is repeated twice), undoubtedly has a comical effect when juxtaposed with the mundane act of looking into one’s hat (Beckett 1952: 14). In Hedlund’s re-translation, the more formal ‘AP-PALLED’ therefore becomes ‘BE-STÖRT’, and the implied comedy of the English text is maintained. The effect of juxtaposing pathos and bathos, then, is emphasised both in Beckett’s source text/s and in Hedlund’s Swedish retranslation. However, it disappears entirely as the first Swedish translation emphasises the colloquial at the expense of ambiguous comic relief.

32

C. P. EINARSSON

It would thus seem that Hedlund’s is more geared towards retaining the equivalence with Beckett’s source text(s), whereas Eriksson seems to focus more on opening up pathways between the source and target texts that will allow the tacit dimension in each language to resonate, a gesture that Eriksson associates with la long durée. In light of this, Eriksson also seems more concerned with the purpose of translation as the restitution of meaning from source text to target text, albeit the notion of meaning has been slightly redefined.

Translation and Transfer The issue of translation is fraught with assumptions about the equivalence between source text and target text. The relation between ‘text transfer, understood as the simple moving of inscribed material from one place and time to another place and time’ and translation, as a process potentially changing the value of texts is therefore central to the act of translation (Pym 2012: 13). For this reason, Anthony Pym explains, it is not possible to generalise about translations but a translator’s doings are always set in a context that determines or at least influences the translation (Ibid.: 17). Admittedly, many years separate the two Swedish translations of Godot, and space prevents me from giving sufficient information about their respective contexts. Yet based on the translators’ different solutions to the problems posed by Beckett’s texts, I have here made an effort to link the translators’ tendencies to different theoretical positions. It would appear that Hedlund’s emphasis on the source text is broadly indicative of a theoretical stance belonging to what Pym terms ‘the equivalence paradigm’ (2014: 6), and that Eriksson’s emphasis on the target text corresponds more with Hans J. Vermeer’s Skopos-argument, which is to say he is concerned with the purpose of the act of translation (2000: 222). From this perspective, it is up to the translator to decide ‘what role a source text plays in his translational action … The decisive factor here is the purpose, the skopos, of the communication in a given situation’ (Vermeer 2000: 222). Eriksson’s suggestion that language has a physical dimension tentatively confirms his emphasis on the purpose of translation (see Eriksson 1995: 211–213). According to Eriksson, too narrow a focus on transferring equivalent values and/or ideas originating in a specific cultural or historical context to a target context, obscures the fact that the purpose of translating drama is to render the tacit dimension of

2

BECKETT IN SWEDEN THEN AND NOW …

33

the source text accessible to speakers of the target text, and that this tacit dimension is moored in the physical experience of language.19 However, according to Eugene Nida, there are two types of equivalence when it comes to translating: ‘dynamic’ or ‘formal’ equivalence (1982: 22). ‘Dynamic equivalence’ is oriented towards the receptor, while ‘formal’ equivalence is oriented towards the source text and measured in terms of ‘whether words are understandable and the sentences grammatically constructed’ (Nida and Taber 1982: 22). Paradoxically, therefore, while Hedlund’s emphasis on the source text could be seen to indicate his commitment to more dynamic aspects of the text, the theoretical stance of Eriksson actually corresponds more to Nida’s definition of dynamic equivalence, not only because of the emphasis that translations need to stay close to the colloquial prosody and rhythm of the target language (Eriksson 1995: 212), but also because of the emphasis on the vicarious experience of text (Eriksson 1995: 211).20 To Eriksson, then, the purpose (Skopos ) of translation is ‘dynamic’, which is to say he seeks to make the tacit physical dimensions of language accessible to the target audience. By contrast, Hedlund’s emphasis on maintaining the value of the source text in translation is closer to the theory of ‘formal equivalence’. As my analyses of the different deforming tendencies seemingly at work in both Eriksson and Hedlund’s translations hopefully have revealed, therefore, both translators seem to resist the paradigm of fluency in translation, but for different reasons: Hedlund in order to maintain equivalency between the source and target texts (albeit his notion of source text is highly nuanced), and Eriksson in order to restore the signifying processes of language in the target text. Beyond merely describing the differences between the two translations, however, this chapter has sought to link these differences to the different translators’ practices. Every translation alters a text. The question of how Godot has been translated into Swedish thus arguably depends on the individual translators’ understanding of the act of translation. Indeed, if there is a Swedish Beckett, then these translators have been instrumental in shaping him.

34

C. P. EINARSSON

Notes 1. The prize motivation read: ‘for his writing, which – in new forms for the novel and drama – in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation’. (In Swedish: ‘För en diktning som i nya former för roman och drama ur nutidsmänniskans blottställdhet hämtar sin konstnärliga resning’.) Interestingly, the Nobel Foundation’s newly opened archives of proposals show that Beckett had been nominated for the prize since 1957, and that the decision to award him the prize in 1969 was fraught with internal conflicts (Kaj Scheuler 2020). 2. A hand-out from the Beckett festival at the Helsingborg City Theatre in 2009 observes that ‘[s]everal of Beckett’s strongest plays have remarkably never been staged in Sweden. Even more remarkably, his prose remains unread on the bookshelves’ (My translation). The festival was organised by Karl Dunér, who is one of Sweden’s foremost Beckett specialists, in collaboration with Marek K˛edzierski (Beckett Festival, Helsingborg City Theatre, 5–8 December 2009) (I am grateful to Marek K˛edzierski for giving me an example of this folder). 3. An unpublished study (‘What Are Literary Studies For? A Review of English Teacher Education in Sweden’), covering course plans in English literature for students enrolled in the teacher training programme in Swedish Higher Education in the academic year 2017–2018, identifies one mention of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot at the teacher training programme in Gävle. Furthermore, the study reveals that prose is by far the most studied genre in Sweden education (73%), and that drama comprises only 4% of the texts studied. Finally, it shows that many of the course plans list the same texts, i.e. Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby and Macbeth (Dodou, conference presentation, 2019). In preparation for this article I also conducted a highly informal mini survey of the course plans searching out a random selection of English literature courses (2019) at four main universities in Sweden (i.e. Stockholm, Uppsala, Umeå and Gothenburg): Beckett’s name did not appear anywhere. 4. All translations from Swedish sources in this article are my translations. In the process of translating I have tried to summarise the main gist of each statement. 5. Perhaps as a result of the situation described above, the number of academic titles pertaining to Beckett published in Sweden have remained low: according to the Swepub database, a total of 4 doctoral theses on Beckett were published in Sweden between the years 2009 and 2019. This could be compared to 52 on August Strindberg, 9 on Henrik Ibsen and 16 on William Shakespeare (Swepub). The Swedish translations of Shakespeare still in use, however, are all translated by Carl August Hagberg

2

6.

7.

8.

9. 10.

11.

12. 13.

BECKETT IN SWEDEN THEN AND NOW …

35

in the 1840s and have since been reprinted many times. In this way, Hagberg’s Shakespeare has become part of the Swedish language and idioms (See Kleberg 2010: 3–4). For example, between 1950 and 2019 there have been 123 television screenings of Beckett’s work, 149 broadcastings on the radio, and 14 film productions (See URL: https://smdb.kb.se/catalog/search?q=Sam uel+Beckett+datum%3A1950-2019+typ%3Atv). Göran O Eriksson and Lill-Inger Eriksson’s translation was used to stage the first Swedish production of Godot at Uppsala City Theatre in 1954, and subsequently published in 1957. Magnus Hedlund’s re-translation was first used to stage a performance at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm in 1990, and subsequently published in 2003 and 2019. The references to Eriksson’s translation in this chapter are to the 1957 published edition, and the references to Hedlund’s translation are to the 2019 edition of his 1990 translation. All subsequent references to the two translations in the chapter are therefore to published editions of the translations. Originally a literary critic, Göran O Eriksson subsequently became one of the most prolific translators of drama for the Swedish stage and for many years, he was also the leading translator of Beckett’s dramatic work from French or English into Swedish. Today, however, Hedlund’s retranslations of many of Beckett’s dramas are far more frequently staged in Sweden. The ambiguous status of translated texts in the Swedish literary field is the main topic of Lars Kleberg’s article from 2010. Of course, it is not possible to draw any definitive conclusions about either of these two translators’ understanding of the act of translation based on merely one text (i.e. their respective translations), and although their theoretical writings on the issue of translation are indicative of certain beliefs, this is not to say that such beliefs do not change over time. Even so, the differences between Hedlund and Eriksson’s translations seem to correspond to their views on translation as expressed in other contexts. For instance, the deforming practice of rationalisation is attuned to the syntax of the original, especially with respect to destroying the ‘signifying shapelessness’ of a prose that ‘plunges into the depths, the strata, the polylogism of language’ (Berman 2000: 288). In practice, Hedlund’s translation is the one used today. Magnus Hedlund has kindly sent me a manuscript from 1994 in which he gives an account of his reasons for retranslating Godot. However, so far, I have not yet been able to access a published version of this manuscript. What seems to be a revised version of this manuscript, however, has recently been published as a commentary to a new edition, published in 2019, of Hedlund’s translation of Waiting for Godot from 1990.

36

C. P. EINARSSON

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

However, this commentary does not take up all the examples that the 1994 version of the text includes. For this reason, I will refer to the 2019 version of the text whenever the examples are stated there, but sometimes I will refer to the 1994 version, as this includes more commentary on the decision to re-translate the text than its reprinted corollary. In the bibliography, the 1994 version is listed as an unpublished text in the author’s possession. This conclusion is corroborated by Gontarski who nevertheless deplores that scholars frequently fail to take Beckett’s more fluent notion of text into consideration when discussing his drama: ‘That sense of “creation” on stage, however, has received scant attention from critics and scholars often more comfortable with the apparent solidity of the published text than with the vicissitudes of performance’ (2002: 91). McMillan and Fehsenfeld observes that the visual representation of the theme of remembering is only one of many ‘verbal motifs’ in the play: ‘under the heading “Doubts and Confusions” Beckett brought together various entries dealing with “doubts, time, place identity” and “confusion of persons”’ (McMillan and Fehsenfeld 1988: 125). According to the Swedish Academy’s glossary (SAOL), the adverb ‘visst’ has three denotations: (1) ‘med säkerhet: ja visst ’ [with certainty; of course]; (2) ‘efter vad man kan förstå: Lina har visst varit sjuk?’ [from what I understand: Lina has been ill, has she not?]; and (3) ‘enligt vad man bör förstå: visst är det så!’ [from all account: that would certainly be the case] (See SAOL: https://svenska.se/tre/?sok=visst&pz=2). In Eriksson’s translation the exchange between Pozzo and Vladimir is rendered as follows ‘POZZO: Får jag presentera mig: Pozzo. VLADIMIR: Inte’ (Eriksson 1954: 24. My emphasis). And a little later: ‘POZZO: Ni tog mig för Godot [You took me for Godot]. VLADIMIR: Nej då, herrn, inte ett ögonblick herrn’ (Eriksson 1954, 25. My emphasis). Of course, these statements on the issue of translation were all written and published long after Eriksson’s translation of Godot in 1954, and there is no way of knowing whether or not these ideas were already percolating in his mind when he translated this play, or if they were the result of his later practice. Even so, they are worth taking into consideration in the process of discussing the differences between the translation of Godot published in 1957, and the one published in 2003 and subsequently reprinted in 2019. In the same preface, Eriksson illustrates this idea by presenting an example from French: ‘the syntax in Racine is not radically different from the syntax in contemporary French … words instigate the same neural and muscular impulses as they did five hundred years ago’ (1995: 211–213). In light of this it is also worth noticing that already in 1958, only four years after his first translation of Godot, Eriksson commented on the

2

BECKETT IN SWEDEN THEN AND NOW …

37

transformation in Beckett’s writing, from ‘mumbling rhythmically surging, immense monologue’ to ‘stage-directions’ in which ‘mathematical precision’ seems to be taking over ‘expressivity’ in Beckett’s ‘later’ work (1995: 21). The comment is articulated about Endgame, which Eriksson had just translated together with Lill-Inger for the Gothenburg City Theatre’s production (1958), yet even so Eriksson seems to have picked up on the way in which Beckett’s drama is increasingly organised to touch people beyond the meaning of words.

Appendix: A Selection of Beckett’s Work in Swedish Translation (https://litteraturbanken.se/%C3%B6vers%C3%A4ttarlexikon/sok?fras=samuel% 20BEckett%20) (1954), ‘En text för ingenting’ [Textes Pour Rien], trans. C.G. Bjurström, Tre texter för ingenting, Stockholm: BLM. Vol. 23, 24–26. (1957), ‘Akt utan ord’ [‘Acte sans paroles’], trans. Göran O Eriksson, Upptakt, Vol. 3, No. 5, 9–11. (1957), ‘I väntan på Godot’ [‘En attendant Godot’], trans. Göran O Eriksson and Lill-Inger Eriksson, Stockholm: Bonnier. Reprinted: 1964, 1968, 1971, 1992, 1997, 2002. (1957), ‘Spelets slut: absurt drama i 1 akt’ [‘Fin de partie’], trans. Göran O. Eriksson and Lill-Inger Eriksson, Stockholm: Bonnier (Panacheserien). (1958), ‘Slutspel’; ‘Akt utan ord’ [‘Fin de partie’; ‘Acte sans paroles’], trans. Göran O Eriksson and Lill-Inger Eriksson, Stockholm: Bonnier. (1959), ‘Alla de som falla’, ‘Krapps sista band’, ‘Askglöd’ [‘All That Fall’; ‘Krapp’s Last Tape’; ‘Embers’], trans. Göran O Eriksson, Alla dem som falla; Krapps sista band; Askglöd: 3 pjäser, Stockholm: Bonnier (Panacheserien). (1963), ‘Dieppe: 1-4’ [From English], trans. Lars Bäckström. Ord och bild, Vol. 72, 105–107. (1963), Hur det är [Comment c’est ], trans. C. G. Bjurström, Stockholm: Geber. (1963), ‘Lyckans dar’; ‘Ord och musik’ [‘Happy Days’; ‘Words and Music’], trans. Göran O Eriksson, Lyckans dar; Ord och musik: 2 pjäser, Stockholm: Bonnier (Panacheserien). (1964), Murphy [Murphy], trans. Pelle Fritz-Crone, Stockholm: Bonnier (Panacheserien). (1964), Proust [Proust ], trans. Erik Sandin, Stockholm: Bonnier. (1967), [‘Nouvelles et textes pour rien’; ‘Assez’; ‘Imagination morte imaginez’; ‘Bing’], trans. C.G. Bjurström, Kniv av nej: prosastycken 1946–66, Stockholm: Geber.

38

C. P. EINARSSON

(1968), ‘Spel’ [‘Play’], trans. Göran O Eriksson, Stockholm: Bonnier (Panacheserien). (1969), ‘Dikter’ [selected poems interpreted from English and French], trans. Magnus Hedlund, Röster: lyriker i svensk tolkning, Stockholm: Bonnier. (1972), Ding-dång [More Pricks than Kicks ], trans. Magnus Hedlund, Stockholm: Geber. (1973), ‘Den första kärleken’; ‘Avigt I-VI’; ‘De saknade’; ‘Utan’; s. 55-66 ‘Ur ett övergivet arbete’ [‘Premier amour’, ‘Foirades et cie’, ‘Le Dépeupleur’; ‘Sans’, pages from ‘From an Abandoned Work’], trans. C.G. Bjurström and Magnus Hedlund, Avigt & Co, Stockholm: Geber. (1981), Sällskap [Company], trans. Percival, Stockholm: AWE/Gebers. (1986), ‘Rockaby’; ‘Ohio impromptu’, ‘Vad var’ [‘Rockaby ‘; ‘Ohio Impromptu’; ‘What Where’], trans. Göran O. Eriksson, Beckett x 3: Rockaby, Ohio impromptu, Vad var, Malmö Stadsteater, 6/12. (1989), ‘Katastrof’; ‘Fragment för teater I’; ‘Fragment för teater II’; ‘Fragment för radio I’; ‘Fragment för radio II’; ‘Andetag’; ‘Inte jag’; ‘Den gången’; ‘Fotsteg’; ‘Spöktrio’; ‘…blott som moln…’; ‘Ett stycke monolog’; ‘Gungstolen’; ‘Ohio Impromptu’; ‘Quad’; ‘Nacht und Träume’; ‘Vad var’ [‘Catastrophe’; ‘Rough for Theatre I’ ‘Rough for Theatre II’; ‘Rough for Radio I’; ‘Rough for Radio II’; ‘Breath’: ‘Not I’; ‘That Time’; ‘Footfalls’; ‘Ghost Trio’; ‘… but the clouds …’; ‘A Piece of Monologue’; ‘Rockaby’; ‘Ohio Impromptu’; ‘Quad’; Nacht und Träume’; ‘What Where’, from French and English], trans. Magnus Hedlund, Katastrof och sexton andra korta pjäser, Stockholm: Bonnier (Panacheserien). (1990), ‘För att sluta än en gång’; ‘Illa sett illa sagt’; ‘Bilden’ [‘Pour finir encore’; ‘Mal vu, mal dit’; ‘L’Image’], trans. C. G. Bjurström and Magnus Hedlund, Slut än en gång, Stockholm: AWE/Geber. (1996), Mercier och Camier [Mercier et Camier], trans. C. G. Bjurström, Stockholm: Norstedt. (2003), ‘I väntan på Godot’ [‘Waiting for Godot’], trans. Magnus Hedlund, Stockholm: Dramaten. (2006), ‘I väntan på Godot’, ‘Slutspel’, ‘Spel’ [‘Waiting for Godot’; ‘Endgame’; ‘Play’], trans. Magnus Hedlund, Tre dramer: I väntan på Godot, Slutspel, Spel, Stockholm: Bonnier. (2009), Trilogin [The Trilogy], trans. Lill-Inger Eriksson, preface Jesper Olsson, Stockholm: Modernista. Reprinted: 2013, 2018.

2

BECKETT IN SWEDEN THEN AND NOW …

39

Works cited Ahmed, Sara. 2006. Queer Phenomenology. Durham: Duke University Press. Beckett, Samuel. 1952. En attendant Godot. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit. ———. 1965 [1956]. Waiting for Godot. London: Faber and Faber. ———. 1957. I väntan på Godot [En attendant Godot ], trans. Göran O Eriksson and Lill-Inger Eriksson. Stockholm: Bonnier. ———. 1993. The Theatrical Notebooks of Samuel Beckett: Vol. I, Waiting for Godot, ed. James Knowlson and Dougald Macmillan. London: Faber. ———. 2019. I väntan på Godot [Waiting for Godot ], trans. Magnus Hedlund. Stockholm: Modernista. Berman, Antoine. 2000. Translation and the Trials of the Foreign. In The Translation Studies Reader, ed. Lawrence Venuti, 284–297. London: Routledge. Boulter, Jonathan. 2008. Beckett: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Bloomsbury. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1996. The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field, trans. Susan Emanuel. Cambridge: Polity. Dodou, Katherina. 2019. What Are Literary Studies For? A Review of English Teacher Education in Sweden. LDN 2019: Litteraturstudiers Samhällsrelevans Nätverkskonferens [The Role of Literature Studies in Society, Network Conference], 8 November. Dalarnas Högskola, Sweden. Conference Presentation. Eriksson, Göran O. 1995. Tala om teater: Texter om teater och översättning. Stockholm: Nordstedts förlag. Gontarski, S.E. 2002. Beckett and Performance. Journal of Irish Studies 17 (Japan and Ireland): 89–97. Hedlund, Magnus. 1994. Att översätta och nyöversätta Samuel Beckett, några hopsamlade funderingar. Unpublished text in the author’s possession. ———. 2014. Konsten att översätta även det konstiga. Svenska Dagbladet, 11 March, 25. ———. 2019. Översättarens efterskrift. In I väntan på Godot, 190–92. Stockholm: Modernista. Kleberg, Lars. 2009. Att göra översättningar synliga. Om översättningshistoria och databasen Svenskt översättarlexikon. In En bok om böcker och bibliotek tillägnad Louise Brunes, ed. Erland Jansson, 173–186. Huddinge: Södertörns högskola. URL. http://sh.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:213 960/FULLTEXT01.pdf. ———. 2010. Översättningens osäkra plats i den svenska litteraturhistorien. IASS 2010 Proceedings. URL: https://journals.lub.lu.se/IASS2010/issue/vie w/511.

40

C. P. EINARSSON

Lefevre, André. 2000. Mother Courage’s Cucumbers: Text, System and Refraction in a Theory of Literature. In The Translation Studies Reader, ed. Lawrence Venuti, 233–249. London: Routledge. McMillan, Dougald, and Martha Dow Fehsenfeld. 1988. Beckett in the Theatre: The Author as Practical Playwright and Director. Parchment, MI: Riverrun. Nida, Eugene A., and Charles R. Taber. 1982. The Theory and Practice of Translation. Leiden: Brill. Pym, Anthony. 2012. On Translator Ethics: Principles for Mediation Between Cultures. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins. Scheuler, Kaj. 2020. Resultatet av bråket: Akademien fick all makt. Svenska Dagbladet, 2 January, 26. Venuti, Lawrence. 1995. The Translator’s Invisibility. London: Routledge. Vermeer, Hans, J. 2000. Skopos and Commission in Translational Action. In The Translation Studies Reader, ed. Lawrence Venuti, trans. Andrew Chesterman, 221–232. London: Routledge.

CHAPTER 3

Stopped in Holland: Samuel Beckett in Dutch Translation Onno Kosters

In March 1961, Samuel Beckett visited the Netherlands. With himself behind the wheel in his German translators’ Elmar and Erika Tophoven’s first car, the three of them called on Jacoba van Velde, Beckett’s Dutch translator, in Amsterdam. There Beckett also visited the Rijksmuseum to enjoy the seventeenth-century Dutch paintings by Rembrandt, Van Goyen, and Van Ruisdael. According to James Knowlson, ‘Beckett returned with the Tophovens by car via Delft (in memory of Vermeer’s painting A View of Delft ), then Straelen [home of the Tophovens], to Paris …’ (Knowlson 1996: 479). Beckett took such pleasure in driving a car that went much faster than his own little Deux Chevaux, that he exceeded the speed limit and was stopped in Holland by a police car. ‘Speak French to him, not German,’ counselled

O. Kosters (B) Department of English Language and Culture, University of Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. F. Fernández and P. Sardin (eds.), Translating Samuel Beckett around the World, New Interpretations of Beckett in the Twenty-First Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71730-8_3

41

42

O. KOSTERS

Elmar Tophoven, as they drew to a halt. ‘They don’t like the Germans.’ Beckett murmured his abject apologies in French … and, after a few words of friendly caution, was allowed to drive on. (Ibid.)

This was probably the only time Beckett visited the Netherlands, but it was not the only time he was ‘stopped’ there: translations of his best-known works are still only available in their outdated versions by Van Velde and her life partner Frits Kuipers. It is unclear whether the Beckett Estate has actively prevented the publication of new translations of these works. Moreover, in 1988 Beckett himself, who claimed that the ‘“droit moral,” the author’s right to determine how his plays should be performed, had been violated’ (Van Heeteren 1992: 95), tried to put a stop to theatre company De Toneelschuur’s all-female production of Waiting for Godot . The case went to court, but the verdict went in favour of the theatre company. As a consequence, productions of Beckett’s work in the Netherlands were briefly banned (see Van Hulle 2009b: 196–197). The ban was lifted by Beckett himself in 1989, six months before his death.

Starts In Laten we gaan: De opvoeringsgeschiedenis van Samuel Beckett in Nederland tot 1992, Lucia van Heeteren describes the history of stage productions of Beckett’s work in the Netherlands up to 1992. Furthermore, Dirk Van Hulle, in ‘Samuel Beckett in the Low Countries’ (2009b), has discussed in great detail the reception (in print and on the stage, by critics, reviewers, writers, and artists) of Beckett’s oeuvre in the Netherlands and Flanders. I am gratefully indebted to the material provided by Van Heeteren and Van Hulle; both publications serve as rich resources for the present study, which will, however, limit itself to a discussion of the (published and unpublished) Dutch translations of Beckett. As such, it will complete and extend my own previous inventory of the translations of Beckett in the Netherlands and Flanders (Kosters 1992b).1 As Van Hulle has established, in Flanders the reception of Beckett began with the young poet Hugo Claus’s review of En attendant Godot for the magazine Tijd en Mens dated December 1952 but in fact published in April 1953 (2009a: 3). In the Netherlands the first time the author was mentioned was on 5 August 1954, in a review of the Paris Summer Theatre Festival on the ‘Rive Gauche’, in which Beckett’s

3

STOPPED IN HOLLAND: SAMUEL BECKETT …

43

‘disconcerting’ play En attendant Godot is described as offering ‘a last glimpse of life’ (qtd in Kosters 1992a: 64).2 The translation history of Samuel Beckett’s work in Dutch commenced in 1955, with Jacoba van Velde’s translation of En attendant Godot (not published until 1965) for its first production in the Netherlands.3 Along with Van Velde’s translations of Fin de partie, Krapp’s Last Tape, Happy Days , and Play, her translation of Godot was published in the ‘Literaire Reuzenpocket’ (not ‘euzenpocket’, Beckett 2011: 383n1) series by De Bezige Bij (the ‘Busy Bee’),4 the publishing house that would, for the next forty years, be Beckett’s main publisher in the Netherlands. The play itself was first staged by theatre company Toneelgroep Theater in a small theatre in Arnhem in March 1955, initially (such was the reputation of the play) for invites only, and introduced by professor of literature Willem Asselberg (who wrote under the name Anton van Duinkerken; see also Beckett 2011: 411n3).5 Direction was in the hands of Roger Blin, who headed the cast of the very first production in Paris in 1953. The Arnhem production preceded the ones in London and New York: a remarkable feat for a relatively small company in a relatively small country. Van Velde’s relationship with Beckett certainly played a part in getting Godot to the Dutch stage so quickly. She had met Beckett through her brothers, the painters Geer and Bram van Velde, and had occasionally served as an intermediary or literary agent for Beckett, negotiating with publishers and journals in the hope to get his work published (see Knowlson 1996: 359 and 365; Van Hulle 2009b: 188–189 and Beckett 2011: xxi, 30, and 34).6 Her own novel, De grote zaal, in hindsight, certainly in terms of its spare style, a very ‘Beckettian’ work, was published to critical acclaim in 1953 (Beckett suggested she send it to Éditions de Minuit in Paris and propose they publish a translation, which she did on 8 June 1953).7 Van Velde’s translation of En attendant Godot was the start of her career as Beckett’s most prominent Dutch translator. For almost twentyfive years she would translate all of his plays and some of his prose works into Dutch (see Van Hulle 2009b: 188–191; Frits Kuijpers translated Murphy, Molloy [with Van Velde], Malone meurt , L’Innommable, and Comment c’est ).8 In fact, Beckett as well as Van Velde herself (see Van Heeteren 1992: 36–27; Van Hulle 2009b: 205n1) insisted on her unique right to translate the plays, even if the translations may not have been flawless. As late as October 1983, Beckett wrote to Sue Freathy of the Spokesmen agency in London:

44

O. KOSTERS

I do not remember having authorized new Dutch translations of Godot & Endgame. It would surprise me. What evidence is there of this? Jacoba van Velde’s translations may well be imperfect.9 I cannot judge. The only reason for my defending their exclusivity is my old friendship with her & her brothers Bram & Geer. Plus, in recent years, her poor health & strained circumstances. … [A]s a general rule no retranslations of works translated by Jacoba, in her lifetime, without her consent. (Beckett 2016: 620)10

Beckett’s insistence on not allowing any other translations of his plays during Van Velde’s lifetime notwithstanding, to date, as mentioned earlier, no new Dutch translations of the three full-length plays (Godot, Fin de partie, Happy Days ) have been published or allowed to be staged. This fact ties in with Beckett’s (and after his death, the Estate’s) sometimes fierce (and often paradoxical) insistence on the protection of ‘the original’ text – what, after all, in Beckett’s oeuvre is ‘original’? Is Beckett’s French ‘original’ of Godot, adjusted on the basis of his viewing of the English stage version, less or more ‘original’ than that English version? For the Dutch translation of Godot, Beckett insisted Van Velde keep (most) things unchanged: ‘I am willing to considerer [sic] whatever modifications you deem absolutely unavoidable for the performance or publication in Holland. But some things simply can’t be changed. And I prefer no publication and no performance to those of a text that no longer makes sense’ (Beckett 2011: 403). Although we only have Beckett’s side of the correspondence with Van Velde, the editors of his letters claim that she wrote to Beckett on 2 September 1953 ‘concerned that some passages would have to be cut for the play to be presentable in Holland’, which caused Jérôme Lindon to remind Van Velde that ‘the contract for translation called for “une traduction intégrale” (an unedited translation), and that SB would have to approve any modifications in the text’ (Beckett 2011: 404n1).

Still Waiting After Van Velde passed away in 1985, new translations of some plays were allowed to be performed (e.g. Marie-Dominique Wiche’s translation of Krapp’s Last Tape, 1990) and published (see below),11 but director Jos Thie’s request to use a revised translation for his major 2004 production

3

STOPPED IN HOLLAND: SAMUEL BECKETT …

45

of Godot was denied by the Estate.12 Because of the sheer scale of imperfection persisting in Van Velde’s translation, however, Thie did alter the existing translation in many places. In an interview with Het Beckett Blad, the journal of the Dutch Samuel Beckett Foundation, he insisted that there is, actually, no decent Dutch translation, and that is a ‘dramatic’ problem: the current translation by Van Velde is unplayable in a way that properly acknowledges Beckett’s work. Van Velde’s translation is outdated, full of errors, based only on the French version (and therefore lacks the theatrical elements from the English version), and has never been revised in the light of the later revision. The revised edition shows no fewer than 600 changes compared to the older editions! (Engelberts and Kosters 2004: 5)

When pressed that there is no standard ‘revised edition’, Thie suggested that he would like to put together a book justifying all the ‘1,200 changes’ (Engelberts and Kosters 2004: 6) he and his production assistant Lotte Douze processed in the Dutch play text. All of these changes, Thie claimed, are supported by Beckett’s own Schiller Theater production notes and other (re)translations by Beckett himself. Thie concludes that ‘[a] replacement of the current Dutch translation is necessary for the continuing existence of Beckett in the Netherlands’ (Ibid.). To date, however, there are no post-Van Velde Dutch translations of Godot or the other major plays. Moreover, Molloy, Malone meurt , and L’Innommable are also still only available in their (over sixty-year-old) translations by Kuipers. Perhaps Thie was right in suggesting that the slow expiration of Beckett’s heritage in the Low Countries today is to do with the Estate’s refusal to grant new translation rights for the six canonical works, or with the less than active role played by the major publishing houses to acquire those rights (De Bezige Bij, but also Meulenhoff). It is remarkable, to say the least, that since 2000, only small publishing houses, private presses, and literary journals have been willing to publish Beckett’s texts in Dutch translation.

Alongside Van Velde The first translation into Dutch not by Van Velde or Kuipers appeared in 1976: Verhalen en teksten zomaar, a joint translation of Stories and Texts for Nothing by Th. A. Sontrop, Jeanne Holierhoek, and Henny

46

O. KOSTERS

Scheepmaker. In a review in the national newspaper NRC Handelsblad, Reinjan Mulder wrote: Although the works are full of philosophical ideas (Beckettologists [sic] will always refer to Wittgenstein, probably because of the double t’s in both their surnames, or because they both refused to wear ties); although they are full of elements evident of cultural pessimism (the term nihilism is always used when this comes up), to my mind the humour is the most important quality. When in the later stories the humour disappears, hardly anything remains. (n.p.)

Mulder expresses regret that a translation of Premier amour is not also part of this collection, and gives his review a rather ironic twist when he argues that Beckett’s works for the theatre always fail to convince him ‘unless there is no audience present’. In Flanders, the experimental novelist Ivo Michiels (1923–2012) was ‘probably the most explicit adherent of Beckett in Dutch literature’ (Van Hulle 2009b: 202; see 202–203 for evidence of Michiels’s admiration for Beckett). In the Netherlands, Beckett’s works, as far as can be established, did not leave an obvious trace in the works of the canonical novelists writing in Dutch in the 1960s and 1970s (Gerard Reve, W.F. Hermans, Harry Mulisch, Jan Wolkers). A younger generation of poets and novelists whose works, like Michiels’s, were of a more experimental nature, however, certainly did become attracted to the Irish writer. Van Hulle (2009b: 202) mentions Rein Bloem and Jacq [Firmin, a middle name he later dropped] Vogelaar as early adopters of Beckett. In a 1992 essay, Vogelaar wrote that ‘Beckett’s language is contagious’ (qtd in Van Hulle 2009b: 202); his poetry collection Parterre, en van glas (1965) features Beckett’s line ‘dans un espace pantin’ (from the poem ‘que ferais-je’) as its epigraph; his short story ‘Gesloten sirkwie’ (‘Closed Circuit’), published in Het heeft geen naam (1968; the title could be translated as ‘The unnamable’) includes a half-ironic, half-serious reference to a ‘Samuel’, a fellow writer whose themes and style are Beckettian, and whose works are characterized as shallow and hardly original. When during the late 1970s and 1980s translations of the less familiar shorter fiction, plays, essays, and poetry, started to appear, often done by those emerging younger writers themselves (Vogelaar again, but also J. Bernlef and Hans Tentije), the interest in Beckett among avantgarde writers in the Netherlands grew even more. Vogelaar in particular

3

STOPPED IN HOLLAND: SAMUEL BECKETT …

47

published translations of Beckett and essays on his work, and so did Bernlef, whose popular novella Hersenschimmen (1984; Figments of the Mind) and the novel Vallende ster (1989; Shooting Star) are clearly Beckettian in tone and style. (In Vallende ster Bernlef extensively processed, without duly acknowledging this, Ruud Hisgen and Paul Regeer’s 1986 translation of ‘A Piece of Monologue’). In Connie Palmen’s influential novel De wetten (1991; The Laws ), Beckett is also clearly visible, particularly in the philosophical concepts explored in the novel.

After Van Velde Jacoba van Velde was succeeded by Karina van Santen and Martine Vosmaer as the regular translators of Beckett’s most important works (as a team they were to translate Company, L’Image, Mal vu mal dit , Worstward Ho, Stirrings Still , as well as Knowlson’s biography). Simultaneously, as mentioned, an increasing number of translators, often writers (novelists, poets, playwrights) in their own right, started translating Beckett. The literary journal Raster, published like Randstad in 1961 by De Bezige Bij, dedicated the greater part of two volumes to Beckett (in 1983 and 1986), featuring both essays on his work and translations of shorter texts and, for the first time, poems. In 1992 Meulenhoff published Laurens Vancrevel’s flawed13 translation of Echo’s Bones and Other Precipitates and various other poems. With the founding in 1990 of the Dutch Samuel Beckett Foundation, and its biannual journal Het Beckett Blad, a new platform for Beckett in the Netherlands was erected. The journal also regularly published translations of Beckett’s work, and so did a 1992 issue of literary journal Bzzlletin dedicated to Samuel Beckett. The issue was guest-edited by the indefatigable Marius Buning, founding father of Beckett studies in the Netherlands and director of the international Beckett symposium in The Hague in 1992.14 Significant is also that over the past few decades various translations of various (shorter) texts appeared: the multidimensional, poly-interpretable, and of course multilingual texts Beckett wrote over the course of a lifetime, naturally cause different translators to choose different ways of approaching them.15 This only adds to the significance of the work as a whole, and underscores the need for fresh translations of the two main trilogies. From the mid-1980s, Beckett scholars and translators Ruud Hisgen and Adriaan van der Weel started (re-)translating Beckett. One of their

48

O. KOSTERS

projects was published in the wake of their joint PhD dissertation on Worstward Ho (The Silencing of the Sphinx, privately published, 1998).16 This genetic study had made them intimately familiar with the text, and their translation, Slechtstwaarts voort, was published by Hisgen’s private press Direct Dutch in 2000. The same year also saw Karina van Santen and Martine Vosmaer’s translation of Worstward Ho (Ten slechtste gekeerd), which was sealed in under cling film with their translation of Knowlson’s Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett. Remarkably, neither translation was available in regular bookshops – only if you were willing to purchase the translation of Damned to Fame could you get a copy of Ten slechtste gekeerd. A full comparison of the two translations is still eagerly awaited, although a start was made by Piet Gerbrandy, who concluded that ‘in most cases, Vosmaer and van Santen’s translation is the better one’ (2003: 180). The year 2000 was an exceptionally productive year in terms of the publication of Beckett translations. The two translations of Worstward Ho were published, as well as Beckett’s posthumously published novel Dream of Fair to Middling Women, which came out in a ‘scintillating’ (Van Hulle 2009b: 192) translation by the poet and translator Anneke Brassinga. Wiebe Hogendoorn’s translation of the short story ‘Dante and the Lobster’ was published in the literary journal De tweede ronde. A fresh translation of Happy Days by Geert Lernout, promisingly entitled Mooie dagen, was unfortunately never published. The Beckett centenary in 2006 also saw the publication of a number of translations in the Netherlands: Van Santen and Vosmaer’s Eerste liefde (comprising a translation of various short stories, including Premier amour); a reprint of the Van Velde/Kuipers translations of Godot, Molly, Malone meurt , and L’Innommable; and my own translation of Watt , the last ‘major’ novel which had so far remained unpublished in Dutch.17

Watt: A Short Statement Written in English between 1941 and 1944, while Beckett was living undercover in Roussillon in Vichy France, Watt was published in Paris in 1953 by the Olympia Press. Subsequent editions came out in 1959 and 1963. In 2009, Chris Ackerley’s corrected edition was published by Faber and Faber. Beckett did not only write Watt but was also involved in the creation of both the French and the German translations. Published in 1969,18 the

3

STOPPED IN HOLLAND: SAMUEL BECKETT …

49

French translation of Watt was the product of a collaboration between Beckett and Ludovic and Agnès Janvier, in which Beckett was clearly the dominant party. The source text for the translation was Beckett’s own, heavily purpose-annotated copy of the 1963 Calder edition (now preserved in the Special Collections of the Ohio State University library). The annotations show Beckett’s, as Ackerley calls them, ‘changes of intent’: they offer ‘many examples of how the text had evolved in his estimation’ (Beckett 2009: xviii). Some of these changes were far-reaching and had a huge impact on the translation. Beckett’s annotations tackle not only culture-specific elements, but also suggest deletions of sometimes substantial passages, add lines and footnotes, and correct errors which had persisted in the English editions (see Beckett 2009: xviii–xix). As Knowlson’s biography, many of Beckett’s letters and his translators’ recollections show, the translation includes a significant amount of creative input by the author himself. The French translation of Watt becomes a source text in its own right; not a palimpsest of the original but a fresh original, coming after it only in time but sitting next to it in equal glory (or misery). The agony the revision process caused Beckett was considerable;19 what is striking of course, is that for a novel much deprecated by the writer himself, the effort he put into the translation was still so great.20 Undaunted by this past experience, however, in the late 1960s Beckett also collaborated with Elmar and Erika Tophoven on the German translation of Watt , which was first published in 1970.21 The German translation makes use of both the English original and the French translation as source texts. In my own Dutch translation of Watt (which I embarked on 1990) I used the Picador edition and consulted both the German and the French translations whenever I was uncertain of how to go about tackling a particular problem (which happened quite often, of course). Looking back, I find that I have not been very systematic in how I processed the material I found in the two earlier translations. For the fragment below, for instance, I discovered that the French translation had added a footnote, and that Tophoven and, subsequently, I myself had followed suit: My friends call me Dum, said Mr Spiro, I am so bright and cheerful. D-U-M. Anagram of mud.

50

O. KOSTERS

Mr Spiro had been drinking, but not more than was good for him. (Beckett 1988: 21) Mes amis m’appellent Dum, dit Monsieur Spiro, tant je suis vif et gai. D-U-M. Anagramme de mud.(1) Monsieur Spiro avait bu, mais pas plus qu’il n’aurait dû. 1. Mot anglais signifiant à peu près boue. (Beckett 1968: 31) Meine Freunde nennen mich Dum, sagte Mr. Spiro, weil ich so munter und vergnüght bin. D-U-M. Anagramm von Mud.* Mr. Spiro hatte getrunken, aber nicht mehr, als gut für ihn war. * Englishes Wort, das soviel wie Schlamm bedeutet. (Beckett 1972: 28) Mijn vrienden noemen me Dum, zei meneer Spiro, omdat ik zo’n vrolijke Frans ben. D-U-M. Anagram van mud.1 Meneer Spiro had gedronken, maar niet meer dan goed voor hem was. 1. Engels woord, dat slijk betekent. (Beckett 2006: 28) Elsewhere, however, as for instance in the seemingly endless permutations both the French and the German translations cut short, I remained loyal to the first source text, the English ‘original’. For instance, in the French and German translations of the ‘cube’/‘root’ interrogation scene (Beckett 1988: 186–192), Louit’s explanation is shortened; all of his responses from the question about the fifth root to the eighth root are replaced by an exhausted ‘Ainsi de suite’ (Beckett 1968: 231) and ‘Und so weiter’ (Beckett 1972: 203–204), respectively – which admittedly, and even more so if the reader knows the original, has an immediate comic effect. Subsequently, after the brief ‘Rose and gloom’ (Beckett 1988: 191) interlude, the responses from the ninth to the twelfth root are not credited at all – possibly because Beckett, by now fatigued and disgusted with the feast of permutations, changed his intent, and indicated as much in his annotations. One can see his point. In the Dutch translation, however, I have retained them. One can see my point too, I hope: the pointlessness of the faux-scientific string of questions and answers in the passage is precisely the point. Five permutations might be ample, but, along with Louit’s, the reader’s despair will grow with the number of permutations growing to absurd proportions, threatening (and parodying, of course) the kind of meaningless ‘overcompletion’ to be found in ‘Ithaca’, the faux-scientific,

3

STOPPED IN HOLLAND: SAMUEL BECKETT …

51

catechetic episode of Joyce’s Ulysses.22 The reader’s growing despair at what he is reading is relieved (or so one would hope) by increasing fits of laughter at what, even in translation, he is reading. Like Watt in the series of novels and novellas entitled Murphy, Mercier et Camier, Molloy, Malone meurt , and L’Innommable, every permutation, I would argue, has its place in the series.23 Further research is to be conducted on Beckett’s role in the processes that saw Watt translated into French and German. In order to facilitate this, a scholarly edition that takes into account Beckett’s annotations in the copy of his own 1963 edition is called for.

Stops? Over the past decade (re-)translations of Beckett’s works have been few and far between in the Netherlands and Flanders, and, as indicated earlier, increasingly only smaller presses and the occasional literary journal provide a platform for them. A collection of Beckett’s short prose by Brassinga came out in 2017, and in 2021 Jona Hoek’s translation of Mercier et Camier was published. Only one of Beckett’s major works has so far remained untranslated into Dutch: the short story collection More Pricks Than Kicks . Even more important perhaps than commissioning an experienced translator with a translation of that work (and, I would argue, of Beckett’s poetry, particularly a fresh translation of Echo’s Bones and Other Precipitates ), however, is for the Bezige Bij to get busy and commission fresh translations of the seminal works from the 1950s and early 60s. For readers coming to Beckett for the first time it is these titles that form the natural bridge between his later and his earlier (pre-Second World War) works. As Dirk Van Hulle has argued, ‘literature’, even after the death of the author, ‘is not only produced by readers but also by writers’ (2009b: 204), and in Dutch this writer in particular needs to be better served, lest the last of his readers will stop, and there is no one to go on.

Notes 1. For a complete survey of Beckett translations in the Netherlands and Flanders, see Appendix. 2. Unless indicated otherwise, all translations from the Dutch are mine.

52

O. KOSTERS

3. On June 24, 1953, Beckett wrote to Van Velde (in French): ‘Dear Tonny, Thank you for your letter. I’m glad you’re taking on the translating of Godot, I’m sure you’ll do it very well. Ask me anything you like about it’ (Beckett 2011: 382), and went on to explain ‘La Roquette’ (‘It corresponds to Borstal in England,’ Ibid.) and the German inspiration for the song ‘Un chien vint dans l’office’ (Beckett 2011: 382–383); in Van Velde’s Dutch translation of the song, for ‘stale’ in the third verse, read ‘stal’ (Beckett 2011: 404n1). With the letter Beckett sent a copy of the German translation of Godot by Elmar Tophoven, ‘which is pretty accurate, and which may help’ (Beckett 2011: 383); ‘You can trust Tophoven. Very conscientious, and more than happy to let himself be helped by the author’ (Beckett 2011: 495). Van Velde’s full first names were Catharina Jacoba; ‘Tonny’ (sometimes Beckett addressed her as ‘Tony’) was Van Velde’s given name. 4. James Knowlson, letter to Onno Kosters, 21 November 1995, author’s private collection. 5. Whereas theatre critic Jeanne van Schaik-Willing had suggested that the play’s assumed ‘experimental character’ might cause ‘dissent amongst an unprepared audience’ (qtd in Kosters 1992a: 65), and was therefore first performed in front of invites only, according to Van Duinkerken, the reason for keeping the first nights of the Arnhem Waiting for Godot private was ‘Beckett’s stark representation of time’ (Van Duinkerken 1955: 279). 6. According to Deirdre Bair, Beckett first met Jacoba Van Velde and her then husband Robert Clerx while briefly residing at the Hôtel Escoffier in Roussillon in 1942 (Bair 1980: 273–274). There is no mention of this meeting in Knowlson’s Damned to Fame. 7. See Beckett (2011: 384n5), where De grote zaal is misspelled as De grote zalle and the year of publication is given as 1954, not 1953. The misspelling may be due to the title of the French translation of the novel, La grande salle, which was published by Minuit in 1956. De grote zaal was translated into German by Elmar Tophoven (see Van Hulle 2009b: 202). 8. Van Velde had been married twice before Frits Kuipers became her life partner. Knowlson mentions that, according to friends of Beckett’s, his and Van Velde’s friendship may have been ‘more than friendship’ (Knowlson 1996: 519, where Frits Kuipers becomes ‘Fritz Kuyper’). 9. It would be relevant to know what caused this response: a request, perhaps, from the ‘Busy Bee’ to grant the rights for a new translation? 10. Before the first translation by Van Velde to be published in the Netherlands appeared (Krapp’s Last Tape, in Randstad, a literary journal published by De Bezige Bij), in 1961 Hugo Claus, mentioned before, created a rendering of All That Fall , which remains unpublished (see

3

11. 12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17. 18. 19.

STOPPED IN HOLLAND: SAMUEL BECKETT …

53

Van Hulle 2009a, passim, and 2009b: 194). Van Velde’s translation of the radio play was published in 1967. In 1992, thirty years after his first translation of Beckett, De Bezige Bij published Claus’s translation of Stirrings Still . Interestingly, as Van Hulle shows, his translation of All That Fall ‘indicates a remarkable parallel with [his] translation of Stirrings Still (Verroeren)’ in the way it consistently uses the verb [no more] /[no longer] verroeren (‘to stir’) ‘whenever the radio play mentions a situation of stasis’ (Van Hulle 2009b: 194). See Van Heeteren (1992: 107). This was possibly to do with the fact that a 2000 production of Godot, directed and retranslated (as Wachtend op Godot, ‘emphasizing the present participle in the title’, Van Hulle 2009b: 198) by Sam Bogaerts, deviated quite radically from what the Estate may have regarded as the play’s intent, let alone the ‘original’ text (‘Lucky’s monologue … is replaced by a philosophical discussion … about the debate between Jürgen Habermas and Peter Sloterdijk’, Van Hulle 2009b: 199). The Estate refused to give permission for ‘a second series of performances’ (Ibid.), and may well have been unwilling, four years later, to give into yet another director’s, as they may have seen it, whims. As the poet, translator, and scholar of classical literature Piet Gerbrandy put it: ‘I didn’t understand much of Echo’s Bones, but more than the translator did, that’s for sure: he had missed imagery, omitted to look up proper names, which in some cases resulted in nonsensical translations; he had even missed syntactical constructions and had quite clearly often neglected to consult a dictionary’ (Gerbrandy 2003: 173). In 1992, Buning, with Sjef Houppermans, Daniëlle de Ruyter, and Matthijs Engelberts as the first members of the editorial board, founded the bilingual journal Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui. Notably, ‘Neither’ (four translations, one of which was also published in a revised version); furthermore, for example, ‘The Vulture’ (three); ‘A Piece of Monologue’ (two); ‘La Falaise’ (two); ‘What is the Word’ and ‘Comment dire’ (both two); Stirrings Still (two); Whoroscope (two); Worstward Ho (two); ‘Proust’ (two). Hisgen and van der Weel were also the initiators of Conversion, a newsletter for Beckett translators (established 1993), which regrettably saw only one issue. The translation was ‘duly praised’ (Van Hulle 2009b: 192), and was rewarded with the annual Filter translation award in 2007. The colophon reads ‘1968’. In many letters Beckett tells about the tortuous process that translating Watt into French meant for him: ‘Tried a bit of Watt revision today, but fell on casse-tête and soon gave over’ (Beckett 2016: 79); ‘Started in hard on revision [of Watt ]. First draft shockingly bad too often’ (Beckett 2016:

54

O. KOSTERS

20.

21.

22. 23.

81); ‘Haven’t looked at Watt for 3 days’ (Beckett 2016: 96); ‘Delayed aftershock from Berlin. I brought Watt, but not keen. Sorry I ever started out on that endless uninteresting affair’ (Beckett 2016: 98); ‘Flog myself drearily on with Watt for a few hours before dinner. But result not much better and perhaps often worse than original draft. Wish to God I’d never got involved in it. Held out against it for years & flopped at last as usual’ (Beckett 2016: 99n1); ‘… struggling with French translation of Watt, in whose grim groves I feel I won’t have wandered again unpunished’ (Beckett 2016: 107); ‘Sweating away at French Watt lepping to be done with it’ (Beckett 2016: 109). Beckett’s involvement in the French translation was described in an interview with the Janviers as mostly consisting of ‘massacring’ the drafts they would bring him, ‘covering them in handwritten notes. … The Janviers would then prepare a second typed version. Once the work had been translated in this fashion, SB then independently wrote out the entire book by hand, changing the translation as he went, in notebooks’ (Beckett 2016: 70n1; see also Janvier 1969). Beckett’s active role in the translation may have been triggered by the failure of Daniel Mauroc, in the early 1950s, to produce a satisfying French translation of Watt (see Beckett 2016: 416, 419, 509). ‘Tophoven is now revising his excellent translation of Watt. We had our last session together a few days ago, last on this work I mean’ (Beckett 2014: 226, 17 March 1970). In Kosters 2010, I argue that in an important sense Watt is both a parody of and a tribute to Joyce’s Ulysses. ‘[Watt ] is an unsatisfactory book, written in dribs and drabs, first on the run, then of an evening after the clodhopping, during the occupation. But it has its place in the series, as will perhaps appear in time’ (to George Reavey, Beckett 2011: 55).

Appendix: Samuel Beckett in Dutch Translation, 1961–2021 (1961), ‘Krapp’s laatste band’ [Krapp’s Last Tape], trans. Jacoba van Velde. Randstad, literary journal, no. 1. (1962), Gelukkige dagen [Happy Days ], trans. Jacoba van Velde. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij. (1963), Molloy [Molloy], trans. Jacoba van Velde and F.C. Kuijpers. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij. (1963), Allen die vallen [All That Fall ], trans./rendering Hugo Claus [unpublished]. Typescript kept in the VRT Archive, Brussels.

3

STOPPED IN HOLLAND: SAMUEL BECKETT …

55

(1965), Malone sterft [Malone meurt ], trans. F.C. Kuipers. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij. (1965), Wachten op Godot, Eindspel, Krapp’s laatste band, Gelukkige dagen, Spel [En attendant Godot, Fin de partie, Krapp’s Last Tape, Happy Days, Play], trans. Jacoba van Velde. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij. (1967), Hé, Joe, Sintels, Woorden en muziek, Cascando, Komen en gaan, Allen die vallen, Spel zonder woorden 1, Spel zonder woorden 2 [Eh Joe, Embers, Words and Music, Cascando, Come and Go, All That Fall, Acte sans paroles 1, Acte sans paroles 2], trans. Jacoba van Velde. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij. (1967), Murphy [Murphy], trans. F.C. Kuipers. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij. (1968), Hoe het is [Comment c’est ], trans. F.C. Kuipers. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij. (1970), Molloy, Malone sterft, Naamloos [Molloy, Malone meurt, L’Innommable], trans. Jacoba van Velde and F.C. Kuipers. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij. (1976), Verhalen en teksten zomaar [Stories and Texts for Nothing ], trans. Th. A. Sontrop, Jeanne Holierhoek, and Henny Scheepmaker. Amsterdam: Meulenhoff. (1977), Proust: Een essay [Proust ], trans. Henny Scheepmaker. Amsterdam: Meulenhoff. (1979), Niet ik, Toen, Stappen [Not I, That Time, Footfalls ], trans. Jacoba van Velde. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij. (1980), (?) Toen [That Time], trans. unknown. Antwerp: Uitgeverij Janssens. (1983), Arènes de Lutèce [‘Arènes de Lutèce’], trans. Hans Tentije. Banholt: In de Bonnefant. (1983), ‘Eerste liefde’ [‘Premier amour’], trans. Tom Klerks; ‘Vier gedichten’ [‘Quatre poèmes’], trans. Hans Tentije; translated [excerpts from] ‘La mouche’; ‘vive mort ma seule saison’; ‘musique de l’indifférence’ in an essay on Beckett’s poetry also by Tentije. Raster, Dutch literary journal, no. 25. (1984), ‘Catastrofe’ [‘Catastrophe’], trans. Ger Thijs. Wolfsmond, Dutch literary journal, no. 11. (1985), Gezelschap [Company], trans. Martine Vosmaer en Karina van Santen. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij. (1986), Slecht gezien, slecht gezegd [Mal vu mal dit ], trans. Karina van Santen and Martine Vosmaer. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij. (1986), ‘Zeven gedichten’ [‘elles viennent’; ‘à elle l’acte calme’; ‘bon bon il est un pays’; ‘Arènes de Lutèce’; ‘Mort d’A.D.’; ‘bois seul’; ‘Ascension’], trans. Hans Tentije; ‘Over Geer en Bram van Velde’ [‘Geer van Velde’; ‘La Peinture des Van Velde ou Le monde et le pantalon’; ‘Peintres de l’empêchement’; ‘Three Dialogues’; ‘Bram van Velde’], trans. Karina van Santen en Martine Vosmaer; ‘Sissers’ [‘Fizzles’/‘Foirades’]; ‘Elkaar zien’; ‘Stil’ [‘Se Voir’; ‘Still’], trans. Rob van Rossum and Jacq Vogelaar; ‘Om maar weer te eindigen’ [‘Pour Finire encore’], trans. Karina van Santen and Martine

56

O. KOSTERS

Vosmaer; ‘Een stuk monoloog’ [‘A Piece of Monologue’], trans. Ruud Hisgen and Paul Regeer; ‘Schommelzang’ [‘Rockaby’], trans. Hans Tentije. Raster, Dutch literary journal, no. 38. (1989), De schilderkunst van de Van Velde’s of de wereld en de broek [La peinture des Van Velde sou Le monde et le pantalon], trans. Karina van Santen and Martine Vosmaer. The Hague: SDU. (1990), ‘Hoe zeg je’ [‘Comment dire’], trans. Matthijs Engelberts; ‘Hoe zeg je dat?’ [‘What is the Word’], trans. Ruud Hisgen and Adriaan van der Weel. Het Beckett Blad, journal of the Dutch Samuel Beckett Foundation, vol. 1. Reprinted in Bzzlletin, Dutch literary journal, vol. 193: Samuel Beckett (1992). Translation from the French republished with corrections in Het Beckett Blad, journal of the Dutch Samuel Beckett Foundation, vol. 25 (2004). (1990), Krapps laatste band [Krapp’s Last Tape], trans. Marie-Dominique Wiche, in programme booklet of Theatergroep Raam production of Krapp’s Last Tape, dir. Julien Schoenaerts, along with ‘Hoe te zeggen’ [‘Comment dire,’], trans. Marie-Dominique Wiche. (1990), Stille sidders [Stirrings Still ], trans. Marie-Dominique Wiche. Antwerp/Haarlem: Nioba. (1990), ‘Wiegelied’ [‘Rockaby’], trans. Ruud Hisgen and Adriaan van der Weel [unpublished]. (1991), ‘beide niet’ [‘Neither’], trans. Aaldert van de Boogaard. Amsterdam: Muziektheater. (1991), Atelier Beckett. Includes ‘Eerste liefde’ [‘Premier amour’; fragment]; ‘Teksten zomaar 13’ [‘Texts for Nothing 13’]; ‘De schilderkunst van de Van Velde’s of de wereld en de broek’ [‘La peinture des Van Veldes ou Le Monde et le pantalon’ (fragment)]; ‘Verbeelding dood verbeeld’ [‘Imagination Dead Imagine’]; ‘Voor Avigdor Arikha’ [‘For Avigdor Arikha’]; ‘De rotswand’ [‘La falaise’]; ‘Uit een opgegeven werk’ [‘From an Abandoned Work’], trans. Jacq Vogelaar. Amsterdam: Perdu/Buissant. ‘Voor Avigdor Arikha’ [‘For Avigdor Arikha’] and ‘De rotswand’ [‘La falaise’] reprinted in Bzzlletin, Dutch literary journal, no. 193: Samuel Beckett (1992). (1991), ‘geen van beide’ [‘Neither’], trans. Ruud Hisgen and Adriaan van der Weel. Het Beckett Blad, journal of the Dutch Samuel Beckett Foundation, vol. 2. (1992), ‘Adem’ [‘Souffle’], trans. J. Bernlef; ‘Duitse brief uit 1937’ [German letter to Axel Kaun], trans. Vertalerscollectief; ‘Voor Avigdor Arikha’ [‘For Avigdor Arikha’] and ‘De rotswand’ [‘La falaise’], trans. J. Vogelaar; ‘Alba’ [‘Alba’]; ‘Slop’ [‘Accul’]; ‘Tot in het hol hemel en grond’ [‘jusque dans la caverne’], trans. Laurens Vancrevel. Bzzlletin, Dutch literary journal, vol. 193: Samuel Beckett (1992).

3

STOPPED IN HOLLAND: SAMUEL BECKETT …

57

(1992), Echo’s gebeente: Gedichten [Echo’s Bones and Other Precipitates and other poems], trans. Laurens Vancrevel. Amsterdam: Meulenhoff. ‘Alba’ [‘Alba’]; ‘Slop’ [‘Accul’]; ‘Tot in het hol hemel en grond’ [‘jusque dans la caverne’] also published in Bzzlletin, Dutch literary journal, vol. 193: Samuel Beckett (1992). (1992), Geboorte werd hem zijn dood: Samuel Beckett (1906–1989). Includes ‘Adem’ [‘Breath’]; ‘geen van beide’ [‘Neither’]; ‘korte droom’ [‘Brief Dream’]; ‘My writing is at an end’ [untranslated], and excerpts from Watt, Mercier and Camier, Molloy, Malone Dies, Waiting for Godot, The Unnamable, Endgame, All That Fall, Texts for Nothing, Company, Ill Seen Ill Said, trans. Ruud Hisgen and Adriaan van der Weel. The Hague: Van Stockum Belinfante & Coebergh. (1992), Het beeld [L’Image], trans. Karina van Santen and Martine Vosmaer. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij. (1992), Hoe te zeggen [Comment dire], trans. Marie-Dominique Wiche. Antwerp: Nioba. (1992), Verroeren [Stirrings Still ], trans. Hugo Claus. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij. (1994), ‘zo kun je wel’ /‘je kunt natuurlijk altijd’ [‘ainsi a-t-on beau’], trans. Karlijn Stoffels /Fred Dijs. Het Beckett Blad, journal of the Dutch Samuel Beckett Foundation, vol. 6. (1994), ‘da tagte es’ [‘da tagte es’], trans. Ruud Hisgen and Adriaan van der Weel. ‘Till Birth Do Us Part: About Endings Ending in Tentative Beginnings’. Knowing the Words: Liber Amicorum for Robert Druce, ed. Jane Mallinson, Adriaan van der Weel and Tjebbe Westendorp. Leiden: Academic Press Leiden, 1994. Repr. in Het Beckett Blad, journal of the Dutch Samuel Beckett Foundation, vol. 8 (1995). (1995), Bij Samuel Beckett: Perspectieven. ‘Zelf’ [‘Self’], trans. het Gronings vertalerscollectief and Ronald Kuil. Groningen: Historische Uitgevrij Groningen. (1995), ‘De verlorenen’ [‘The Lost Ones’], trans. Piet Gerbrandy. Raster, Dutch literary journal, no. 70. Repr. in Omroepers van oproer: Breekijzers in taal. Amsterdam: Contact, 2006. (1995), ‘Eerste liefde’[‘Premier amour’], trans. Ger Thijs [unpublished]. (1997), Toch noch [Stirrings Still ], trans. Ard van der Horst. Beckett Archive [unpublished]. (1998), ‘Ja’ [‘Oui’/‘Yes’; excerpt from Textes pour rien], trans. Ruud Hisgen and Adriaan van der Weel. Privately published pamphlet. (1999), Disjecta and ‘Proust’ [Disjecta and ‘Proust’], trans. het Gronings vertalerscollectief and Ronald Kuil. Groningen: Historische Uitgevrij Groningen.

58

O. KOSTERS

(1999), ‘Enueg I’ [‘Enueg I’], trans. Mon Nys. De brakke hond, Flemish literary journal, no. 65. (2000), ‘Dante en de kreeft’ [‘Dante and the Lobster’], trans. Wiebe Hogendoorn. De tweede ronde, Dutch literary journal, vol. 21. (2000), ‘De Gier’ [‘The Vulture’], trans. Piet Gerbrandy. Het Beckett Blad, journal of the Dutch Samuel Beckett Foundation, vol. 18/19. Repr., with ‘Echo’s gebeente’ [‘Echo’s Bones’] in ‘Gieren, maden en adders: Samuel Beckett vertalen’. Een steeneik op de rotsen: Over poëzie en retorica. Amsterdam: Meulenhoff 2003, 172–181. (2000), Droom van matig tot mooie vrouwen [Dream of Fair to Middling Women], trans. Anneke Brassinga. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij. (2000), ‘Ergens iets’; ‘De Gier’ [‘something there,’ ‘The Vulture’], trans. Mon Nys. De onsterfelijken: Poëzie van Nobelprijswinnaars van de XXste eeuw, ed. Paul Claes. Leuven: Uitgeverij P. (2000), ‘evenmin’ [‘Neither’], trans. Stefan Hertmans. De Standaard, Flemish newspaper, 13 April. (2000), Mooie dagen [Happy Days ], trans. Geert Lernout [unpublished]. (2000), Slechtstwaarts voort. Includes ‘Slechtstwaarts voort’ [Worstward Ho]; ‘Plafond’ [‘Ceiling’]; ‘De weg’ [‘Crisscross to Infinity’/‘The Way’], trans. Ruud Hisgen and Adriaan van der Weel. The Hague: Direct Dutch Publications. (2000), Ten slechtste gekeerd [Worstward Ho], trans. Karina van Santen and Martine Vosmaer. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij. Published with James Knowlson, Tot roem gedoemd: Het leven van Samuel Beckett [Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett ], trans. Karina van Santen and Martine Vosmaer. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij. (2000), ‘Theaterfragment I’ [‘Rough for Theatre I’], trans. Tjeerd de Boer [1984]. Het Beckett Blad, journal of the Dutch Samuel Beckett Foundation, vol. 18/19. (2000), Wachtend op Godot [En attendant Godot ], trans. Sam Bogaerts [unpublished]. (2001), ‘Hommage aan Jack B. Yeats’ [‘Homage to Jack B. Yeats’], trans. Onno Kosters, in ibid., ‘Het gefixeerde moment: Jack Yeats en Samuel Beckett’. Bzzlletin, Dutch literary journal, no. 276. Repr. in ‘Licht in de duisternis’, Not I (bedtime), exhibition catalogue. Amsterdam: Arti et Amicitiae, 2001. (2001), ‘Theaterfragment 2’ [‘Rough for Theatre II’], trans. Tjeerd de Boer. Het Beckett Blad, journal of the Dutch Samuel Beckett Foundation, vol. 21 (2002), ‘Hoeroscoop’ [‘Whoroscope’], trans Paul Claes. De Gids, Dutch literary Journal, vol. 165. (2003), ‘Loosheid’ [‘Lessness’], trans. Dirk Van Hulle. Het Beckett Blad, journal of the Dutch Samuel Beckett Foundation, vol. 24.

3

STOPPED IN HOLLAND: SAMUEL BECKETT …

59

(2005), ‘Een stukje monoloog’ [‘A Piece of Monologue’], trans. Maarten Zeehandelaar. Het Beckett Blad, journal of the Dutch Samuel Beckett Foundation, vol. 27. (2005), ‘Wat waar’ [What Where], trans. Jack van der Weide. Het Beckett Blad, journal of the Dutch Samuel Beckett Foundation, vol. 27. (2006), ‘Brief aan Roger Blin’ [‘Lettre à Roger Blin,’ 9/1/1953], trans. Walter van der Star. Het Beckett Blad, journal of the Dutch Samuel Beckett Foundation, vol. 29. (2006), Eerste liefde [Premier amour], includes ‘Het einde’ [‘Le fin’]; ‘Verstoten’ [‘L’Explusé’]; ‘Het kalmeringsmiddel’ [‘Le calmant’]; ‘Eerste liefde’ [‘Premier amour’], trans. Karina van Santen and Martine Vosmaer. Amsterdam: Atlas. (2006), Wachten op Godot [en drie romans]. Includes En attendant Godot; Molloy; Malone meurt; L’Innommable, trans. Jacoba van Velde and F.C. Kuipers. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij. (2006), Watt [Watt ], trans. Onno Kosters. Utrecht: IJzer. Advance publications in Het Beckett Blad, journal of the Dutch Samuel Beckett Foundation, various vols.; De brakke hond, Flemish literary journal; Parmentier, Dutch literary journal. (2007), ‘Plafond’ [‘Ceiling’], trans. Dirk Van Hulle. Yang, Flemish literary journal, vol. 43. (2012), ‘Vier gedichten’ [‘Quatre Poèmes], trans. Onno Kosters. Blue-TurnsGrey, online literary journal, vol. 4, issue 1. (2014), ‘Hoe heet het’ [‘What is the Word’], trans. Piet Joostens. DW B, Flemish literary journal, April 2014. (2017), Kort proza. Includes ‘Bing,’ ‘Zonder’; ‘Genoeg’; ‘Roerloos’; ‘Op een avond’; ‘Noch het een noch het ander’; ‘De klif’ [‘Bing’; ‘Sans’; ‘Assez’; ‘Immobile’; ‘Un soir’; ‘Neither’; ‘La falaise’], trans. Anneke Brassinga. Bleiswijk: Uitgeverij Vleugels. (2021), Mercier en Camier [Mercier et Camier], trans. Jona Hoek. Amsterdam: Koppernik.

Works Cited Bair, Deirdre. 1980. Samuel Beckett. London: Picador. Beckett, Samuel. 1988 [1953]. Watt. London: Picador. ———. 1968. Watt, trans. Agnès and Ludovic Janvier, Paris: Minuit. ———. 1972. Watt, trans. Elmar Tophoven, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. ———. 2006. Watt, trans. Onno Kosters. Utrecht: IJzer. ———. 2009. Watt, ed. Chris Ackerley. London: Faber & Faber. ———. 2011. The Letters of Samuel Beckett Volume 2: 1941–1956, ed. George Craig et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

60

O. KOSTERS

———. 2014. The Letters of Samuel Beckett Volume 3: 1957–1965, ed. George Craig et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2016. The Letters of Samuel Beckett Volume 4: 1966–1989, ed. George Craig et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Claus, Hugo. 1952. En attendant Godot. Tijd en Mens 16 III, 4 (December), 260–262/340–342. van Duinkerken, Anton. 1955. Wachten op Godot. De Gids 118: 276–279. Ellmann, Richard. 1982. James Joyce, rev. ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Engelberts, Matthijs, and Onno Kosters. 2004. Becketts werk als briljant uitgangspunt: Interview met Jos Thie. Het Beckett Blad, Journal of the Dutch Samuel Beckett Foundation 25: 3–6. Gerbrandy, Piet. 2003. Gieren, maden en adders: Samuel Beckett vertalen. In Een steeneik op de rotsen: Over poëzie en retorica. Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 172–181. Van Heeteren, Lucia. 1992. Laten we gaan: De opvoeringsgeschiedenis van Samuel Beckett in Nederland tot 1992. Amsterdam: International Theatre & Film Books. Hellmann, Noor. 1992. “Wachten op Godot” voldoet aan Beckett maar mist overtuiging. NRC Handelsblad, 9 April, 6. Van Hulle, Dirk. 2009. De Beckett van Hugo Claus: Genese, zelfreceptie en “wat hem aan rede restte”. Spiegel der Letteren 51 (1): 3–21. Hulle, Dirk Van. 2009b. Samuel Beckett in the Low Countries. In The International Reception of Samuel Beckett, ed. Mark Nixon, 188–208. London: Continuum. Janvier, Ludovic. 1969. Au travail avec Beckett. In La Quinzaine littéraire, 16– 28 février, 6–7. Repr. Revue d’esthétique 1986: 57–64. Joyce, James. 1986 [1922]. Ulysses, ed. Hans Walter Gabler et al. New York: Vintage Book. Knowlson, James. 1996. Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett. London: Bloomsbury. Kosters, Onno. 1992a. Beckett in Nederland: Still Stirring. Bzzlletin, 193: 64–71. Kosters, Onno. 1992b. Beckett-vertalingen in Nederland. Bzzlletin, 193: 98–99. Kosters, Onno. 2010. I Tell You Nothing is Known! Watt as Beckett’s Parting with Joyce’. Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd’hui 21: 193–208. Mulder, Reinjan. (1976). Hoe die hoed te beschrijven? En waarom? NRC Handelsblad, 24–12, p. no. illegible.

PART II

Southern Europe and South America

CHAPTER 4

‘Half in Love’: The Translation and Reception of Samuel Beckett in Spain Robert Patrick Murtagh

Introduction By means of introduction, I would like to draw attention to a curious encounter with Samuel Beckett in popular culture with a view to illustrating his place in (post)modern-day Spain. The reference comes from a very popular TV series Cuéntame cómo pasó,1 a prime-time drama that tells the story of a typical Spanish family (the Alcántara’s) from the late 1960s to the transition period – the equivalent in Ireland would likely be Fair City, Coronation Street in the UK or Home and Away in Australia, though none reflect the key moments in history in the same sort of docudrama-come-day-time TV as the former. A series that has been running for almost 20 years with over 350 episodes, it has undoubtedly become part of Spain’s cultural consciousness. It is no exaggeration that the Alcántara family would rival even the Spanish royal family in terms of their iconic cultural status. In one episode towards the end of the first

R. P. Murtagh (B) Independent Scholar, Dublin, Ireland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. F. Fernández and P. Sardin (eds.), Translating Samuel Beckett around the World, New Interpretations of Beckett in the Twenty-First Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71730-8_4

63

64

R. P. MURTAGH

season, ‘Fish and Chips’ (named so owing to an entirely unrelated Anglothemed plotline), the eldest son, Toni, is brought to the theatre by his politically charged girlfriend, Marta. Interestingly, she brings him to see Esperando a Godot, directed by José Tamayo. While little time is devoted to the subplot (the scenes take place before and after the performance), it is telling of particular assumptions about the playwright. First off, we learn they get ‘entradas de Clá’ – meaning their tickets are reduced in price for which they have to applaud during the performance.2 Beckett is off to an encouraging start! Toni is however pleasantly surprised: ‘No pensaba que era así. Yo pensaba que era aburrido. ¡Es estupendo!’ (‘I didn’t think it’d be like that. I thought it’d be boring. It was great!’).3 Admittedly, Toni’s comments are not overly insightful from a critical perspective but the message is clear: in the early 1970s, Beckett was (mis)represented as ‘boring’ in Spain. Toni then observes that it makes sense to him that they need people to clap the performance with others stomping throughout. ‘¿Por qué insultaban el autor?’ he asks (‘Why did they insult the author?’). To which Marta responds: ‘Porque es autor de vanguardia, progresista y los fachas tenían que venir a patear’. (‘Because he is a progressive, avant-garde author, and the fascists have to come to stomp’.) Sidestepping the ironic (if not absurd) ambit to Marta’s notion that all the fascists can do is to come, stomp their feet and make noise meanwhile all she and Toni can really do in retaliation is to clap (for they have no choice, given their circumstances), the greater intimation here is that Beckett’s theatre makes a subversive political statement. It is not without significance either that Beckett is defined as avantgardist. The avant-garde is a loaded term but in the context of Spain it appears to represent a veiled euphemism for something that has yet to be assimilated into the mainstream.4 This is further emphasised by Luce Moreau Arrabal’s words written in 1958 in the prestigious conservative Spanish newspaper ABC introducing Final de partida with comments about the perception of the author more generally: ‘Se dice que Beckett es un autor de vanguardia y habría que cortar esa calumnia: Beckett es un clásico’ (Arrabal 1958: 77) (‘Beckett is said to be an avant-garde author and this slander must be gotten rid of: Beckett is a classic’). It is surely no accident that early critical responses paid particular attention to the avantgarde nature of Beckett’s aesthetic, some to such arresting degrees that it is difficult to see how it was intended in anything else but a derogatory sense.5 With a focus on Beckett in translation, let us now explore some of the possible reasons for an enduring reluctance to embrace this Irish playwright in Spain.

4

‘HALF IN LOVE’: THE TRANSLATION AND RECEPTION …

65

Beckett & Spain Given the International reception of Beckett,6 the fact that the author does not appear to have integrated into contemporary Spanish culture certainly begs elaboration. Suffice to say that the author’s name is rarely mentioned in intellectual discourse and there are only a handful of researchers that have published on Beckett and Spain. One of these scholars, José Francisco Fernández, succinctly notes that: in Spain, Samuel Beckett’s theatre has seldom been performed by commercial companies and his plays, therefore, have never reached wide audiences. Only marginal groups devoted to experimental theatre have shown continuous interest in offering his work to the public. (Fernández 2009: 272. My emphasis)

This was not published in 50s or 60s Francoist Spain, which logically would have altered the author’s critical purview considering the sociopolitical landscape of the country at the time, but in 2009, which makes it all the more unsettling in consideration of Beckett as an author of international renown. The intimation here is that the problem lies beyond Beckett’s aesthetic. While the extent and degree to which the response of Beckett in Spain comes down to external circumstances (in this case commercial difficulty) or intrinsic features that have impeded access to his work are certainly debatable, the same critic goes on to further his argument by noting that ‘[a]s regards his novels, there is a pressing need for new translations into Spanish, while important texts of the Beckett canon were for a long time simply unavailable in Portuguese bookshops’ (Fernández 2009: 272). Significantly, this last point is not only true for Portugal in the context of secondary material on the author. While Anthony Cronin’s The Last Modernist was translated into Spanish and published as El último modernista in 2012, Beckett’s definitive biography, James Knowlsons’s Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett (which was published in 1996, as the aforementioned text) and the only account that was ever authorised by Beckett himself remains to this day, almost a quarter of a century from its first publication in English, untranslated. This is made all the more jarring alongside the publication history of the same book in France, Italy and Germany (taken for the purposes of a comparative reception study of secondary sources on Beckett with other countries in mainland Europe). In France, it was published as simply Beckett in 1999; Germany, under the title Samuel Beckett: Eine Biographie

66

R. P. MURTAGH

in 2001; and Italy as Samuel Beckett: Una Vita in the same year as the latter, all no longer than 5 years after the text was originally published.7 It is also worth noting that the one and only memoir of Beckett in Spain (that is to say, The Last Modernist ) makes only two passing references to the country – including no more than a single line on the Spanish Civil War and a rather trivial commentary on a book by one of Beckett’s Italian Lecturers at Trinity College Dublin, Walter Starkie, called Spanish Raggle Taggle. There is no mention of the relationship with playwright Fernando Arrabal,8 nor of other Spanish friends,9 nor his interest in Spanish language, literature, culture and politics.10 It is therefore not difficult to see why many would believe Beckett and Spain to be a non-issue. This is to be compounded by the views expressed by another prominent critic, Antonia Rodríguez-Gago, writing a year later that: Despite his unprecedented international popularity, Beckett remains a ‘marginal ’ playwright in Spain, where he is still seen as a difficult obscure artist, his plays always produced outside the ‘official’ theatres. (Rodríguez-Gago 2010: 403. My emphasis)

Reading Rodríguez-Gago and Fernández side by side, their point is emphatically unequivocal: Beckett is considered a marginal dramatist in Spain. Again, Rodríguez-Gago echoes the critical sentiments of Fernández in the nexus between Beckett’s marginality in Spain and the limited nature of his exposure on a commercial level.11 Notably, these insights align with practitioners such as Spanish playwright and essayist Jerónimo López Mozo, who writes, in an almost verbatim summation on the relationship between Beckett and Spain, that ‘the dissemination of Beckett’s theatre in Spain has barely left the channels of alternative and independent theatre’ (Mozo 2006: 123).12 The same is true for Spanish director Trino Martínez Trives, responsible for the very first translation and indeed production of Esperando a Godot in Spain,13 who relates the story of discussing the commercial unviability of Beckett in Spain whose response, curiously enough, was simply to smile (Trives 1959: 40). But, while it is difficult to deny that there has been little commercial space for the author to move beyond the theatrical fringes when it comes to his work in Spain, there still exists room for an alternative hypothesis as to why Beckett’s reputation is so at odds with the rest of Europe. More than that, it needs to be explored in greater detail before we can approach any sort of definite conclusion on the issue.

4

‘HALF IN LOVE’: THE TRANSLATION AND RECEPTION …

67

Beckett in Translation In her article ‘Pseudonyms, Pseudotranslation, and Self-Censorship in the Narrative of the West During the Franco Dictatorship’, Carmen Camus notes that the translation of foreign works was rejected by the regime to allay fears of engendering anti-Spanish sentiment in any form (Camus 2008: 160). That Beckett’s plays would be deemed morally reprehensible by critics is one thing that needs to be taken into consideration in assessing the extent of this with respect to Beckett in Spain.14 However, the fact that Spanish humour magazines in the 1970s would make light of such criticism tells another story. Hermano lobo (a popular Madrilenian publication that ran from 1972 to 1976) for instance, went so far as to include an elaborate dramaticule depicting Ionesco and Beckett on trial for being ‘hombres repulsivos, incoherentes y en extremo peligrosos para la juventud’ (‘repulsive, incoherent men and extremely dangerous to young people’ [Mallory 1972: 15]). They come before members of the grand jury, spectators and most importantly their harshest literary critics, Alfredo Marqueríe, Adolfo Prego and Elías Gómez Picazo. Creatively imagined, the piece is crafted in such a way as to allow ‘the witnesses’ (in other words, the aforementioned critics) to provide ‘their testimony’ (which happen to be extracts taken directly from published critiques of the playwrights)15 in public admonition of the alleged miscreants. Neither is it fair to say that translation of his work was rejected in Spain. As we have already seen, Trino Martínez Trives published Waiting for Godot as early as 1957,16 only three years after Grove Press released the first edition in the English language. Granted, later translations would take longer to arrive in Spain (Company would be translated as Compañía by Carlos Manzano in 1982; More Pricks than Kicks as Belacqua en Dublín by Víctor Pozanco in 1991 and Not I as No yo by Vicente Hernández Esteve in 1987) but it is a remarkable show of early interest in the Irish playwright. In spite of the access to Beckett’s work in Spain over the years, most critics would agree that the problem of translation remains to this very day. Translator Antonio Ballesteros González for one has opined that the majority of Beckett translations reflect poorly upon the original texts. The one caveat, in his view, is that the work of academic Antonia RodríguezGago offers some consolation to the state of Beckett in Spain,17 but beyond her efforts there is little hope of literary redemption. This is supported by comments made by Miguel Martínez-Lage, who is to

68

R. P. MURTAGH

thank for the translation of Anthony Cronin’s biography, Samuel Beckett: El último modernista. In an interview with José Francisco Fernández, Martínez-Lage argues that most translations are ‘too writerly and lack a thorough work of research’ (qtd. in Fernández 2009: 281). This is exacerbated by the fact that many current editions have not been updated since the 60s and 70s. To make matters even worse, as Antonia RodríguezGago has suggested, early translations of Beckett’s work did not warrant the praise they received. Renowned writers, poets and critics assumed the mantle of professional translators, giving rise to a sort of celebrity (as opposed to scholarly) acclaim to many editions that would hardly stand the test of time: Spanish Beckett translations are a mess. Many different publishing houses have published them. There are over a dozen translators, some of whom have been very sloppy. Many of them are famous novelists, poets, and critics and their translations have often been praised because the authors are famous. But the accuracy or correctness of the translations has not been checked carefully enough. (Van der Weel and Hisgen 1993: 347)

Authorised Translations? Critics paint quite a bleak picture when it comes to the translation of Beckett in Spain. Given the reception of the author in the country (and indeed the aforementioned analyses), it is difficult to disagree with their conclusion. Beckett’s input in the Spanish translation of his work did not always help matters either. In correspondence with director Alfredo Mesquita, Beckett recommended using Palant’s translation of Waiting for Godot for a Brazilian production of the play (de Souza Andrade 2014: 450).18 The same seal of approval would appear to have been endorsed in print as Palant’s edition claims to have been revised by the author himself.19 However, far from authorising Esperando a Godot, Beckett was so dismayed at the prospect of having to revise the text that he merely sent it back uncorrected.20 Other translations, like the work of Antonia Rodríguez-Gago, cannot be said to aggravate the problem of Beckett’s reception in Spain. Her translations of Rockaby, Ohio Improptu and Catastrophe (which in Spanish became Nana, Impromptu de Ohio and Catástrofe) among other lesserknown pieces, such as the short story ‘One Evening’ and the prose text ‘Neither’, were all unambiguously authorised by Beckett. Furthermore,

4

‘HALF IN LOVE’: THE TRANSLATION AND RECEPTION …

69

while Los días felices 21 was not officially approved, to borrow Beckett’s phrasing in reference to director Alan Schneider, ‘no author was ever better served’ (Beckett and Schneider 1998: 113) could just as equally be applied to the work of Antonia Rodríguez-Gago with respect to the playwright as any other.22 Much the same can surely be said for Luce Moreau Arrabal’s Final de partida,23 who had been in close contact with Beckett since 1957. How can we reconcile the apparent failure to translate Beckett in Spain with the fact that the playwright himself authorised a number of Spanish translations of his work? Surely the existence of authorised editions in the first place (if only a handful) suggests that there is more to be considered than mere quality. In other words, translation per se is not necessarily the entire problem. Let us look at the above examples in more detail for an elaboration of this point.

Lost After Translation? In the case of Palant’s Esperando a Godot, the text appears to have gone out of print in the 1970s. It was taken over by poet and novelist Ana María Moix’s translation, which remains the ‘definitive’ edition to the present day, having been reprinted over 12 times since its initial publication.24 A creative writer, it is understandable that she would take a more liberal approach to the translation of Godot as opposed to one that is more familiar with the technical subtleties that come with a background in translation studies or Beckett expertise for that matter. As a consequence, it is natural too that her literary style would have a greater impact on the end result than that of a full-time translator. That said, Pablo Palant was no different, having worked primarily as a dramatist though he did provide an introductory prologue to the text which is more than can be said of the former.25 Nonetheless, it is not without significance that the one edition Beckett believed to be worthy of replicating (even if, to him, that meant the best of a bad lot) would not be the one to survive beyond Franco’s Spain. Next is Luce Moreau Arrabal’s authorised translation of Final de partida (1958), which was performed by the same theatre company that staged Beckett for the first time in Spain some three years prior.26 It must be borne in mind that all cultural activity at the time was monitored to ensure that the tenets of Francoist ideology were upheld. In practice, as historian Patricia O’Byrne argues, these fundaments could be distilled into

70

R. P. MURTAGH

four main components: ‘Catholicism, obedience, unity and an appeal to the (former) great nation’ (2014: 40). For the most part, theatre was deemed high-risk by the authorities for its power to inculcate hostility towards the regime. As a result, theatre censorship was heavily regulated. A two-step process meant to ensure that little passed the censors unnoticed.27 First and foremost, the script had to be sent to the censorship office for evaluation. If deemed appropriate, a representative would attend a dress rehearsal to inspect the finer details of the performance. More often than not, the second stage of the process also involved further censoring.28 Given Beckett’s well-documented feelings about the constraint imposed by censorship,29 it is likely that the case of Final de partida caused him considerable dismay. As Nuria Fernández-Quesada has pointed out, according to the Censorship Archives at the AGA,30 the play was granted a licence in little under a week (Fernández-Quesada 2011: 203). The fact that Final de partida had passed through the censors without issue was certainly unexpected. Unlike the Lord Chamberlain in England, who had put a hold on productions of the play unless twentyone lines were removed, the prospect of an uncensored Endgame in Spain seemed within reach. All was too good to be true, however. The same critic goes on to explain that the result of the censors was ‘not surprising considering that director of the play, Josefina Sánchez Pedreño, had bowdlerized the text before submitting the script’ (Fernández-Quesada 2011: 203). Worse than what the English censors would demand, the Spanish director put forward a version of Beckett’s drama that surely rendered his approval of Arrabal’s translation obsolete. Indeed, there are moments in the dialogue that correspond in no way to the original. Quesada cites the example of the prayer in the original text that ends with Hamm’s line ‘The bastard! He doesn’t exist’ (Beckett 1990: 119). Far from ‘bastard’ becoming ‘swine’ (which gave Endgame the go-ahead in England as far as the censors were concerned, and indeed much in the same way Ana María Moix would translate as ‘puerco’), in Pedreño’s production of Beckett’s drama, the blasphemous prayer scene would be mutilated beyond recognition as the following table illustrates (Table 4.1).

NAGG: Me sugar-plum! HAMM: God first! [Pause.] Are you right? CLOV: [Resigned.] Off we go

HAMM: [To NAGG.] And you? NAGG: [Clasping his hands, closing his eyes, in a gabble.] Our Father which art –

HAMM: Silence! In silence! Where are your manners? [Pause.] Off we go. [Attitudes of prayer. Silence. Abandoning his attitude, discouraged.] Well?

NAGG. – Ma dragée! HAMM. – Dieu d’abord (Un temps.) Vous y êtes ? CLOV (résigné). – Allons-y

HAMM (à Nagg). – Et toi? NAGG (joignant les mains, fermant les yeux, debit précipité). – Notre père qui êtes aux…

HAMM. – Silence! En silence! Un peu de tenue! Allons-y. (Attitudes de prière. Silence. Se dècourageant le premier.) Alors?

HAMM: God first! (Pause.) Are you right? CLOV (resigned): Here we go… Let’s start HAMM (to Nagg ): And you? NAGG (joining his hands, closing his eyes, hurried elocution): Our Father which art…

HAMM: ¡Primero Dios! (Pausa.) ¿Estáis listos? CLOV (resignado): Vamos allá… Empecemos HAMM (a Nagg ): ¿Y tú? NAGG (junta las manos, cierra los ojos, elocución precipitada): Padre Nuestro que estás en… HAMM: ¡Silencio! ¡En silencio! ¡Un poco de modales! Empecemos. (Actitud de rezar. Silencio. Descorazonado.) ¿Q ué? HAMM: Silence! In silence! A little (show of) manners! Let’s start. (Attitude of prayer. Silence. Disheartened.) Well?

NAGG: My sweetie!

NAGG: ¡Mi dulce!

Hamm: (A Nagg.) ¿Y tú?

Hamm: Primero Dios (Pausa.) ¿Preparados? Clov: Venga

Nagg: Mi peladilla

(continued)

Hamm: (To Nagg.) And you?

Nagg: Me sugared almond Hamm: God first (Pause.) Are you ready? Clov: Off we go

English

Spanish

Spanish

English

Josefina Sánchez Pedreño’s staged version (Final de partida File 69-58, 32)32

Ana María Moix’s translation of Fin de partida (Teatro reunido 2006: 240–241)31 [Moix’s first translation of this text is from 1970]

The translation of Fin de partie in Spain: Beckett, Moix & Pedreño

Fin de Partie (1961: Endgame (The 76–77) Complete Dramatic Works 2006: 119)

Table 4.1

4 ‘HALF IN LOVE’: THE TRANSLATION AND RECEPTION …

71

(continued)

HAMM. – Bernique! (A Nagg.) Et toi? NAGG. – Attends. (Un temps. Rouvrant les yeux.) Macache!

CLOV (rouvrant les yeux). Je t’en fous! Et toi?

CLOV: [Abandoning his attitude.] What a hope! And you? HAMM: Sweet damn all! [To NAGG.] And you? NAGG: Wait! [Pause. Abandoning his attitude.] Nothing doing!

Fin de Partie (1961: Endgame (The 76–77) Complete Dramatic Works 2006: 119)

Table 4.1

CLOV (abriendo de nuevo los ojos ): ¡Vete al cuerno! ¿Y tú? HAMM: ¡Ni por ésas! (A Nagg:) ¿Y tú? NAGG: Espera. (Pausa. Abre los ojos.) ¡No hay manera! HAMM: Even that didn’t work! (To Nagg:) And you? NAGG: Wait. (Pause. Opens his eyes.) There’s no way!

CLOV (opening his eyes once again): Go to hell! And you?

Nagg: Espera. (Pausa. Vuelve a abrir los ojos.) Nada

Nagg: Wait. (Pause. He opens his eyes again.) Nothing

English

Spanish

Spanish

English

Josefina Sánchez Pedreño’s staged version (Final de partida File 69-58, 32)32

Ana María Moix’s translation of Fin de partida (Teatro reunido 2006: 240–241)31 [Moix’s first translation of this text is from 1970]

72 R. P. MURTAGH

HAMM. – Le salaud! Il n’existe pas! CLOV. – Pas encore NAGG. – Ma dragée! HAMM. – Il n’y a plus de dragées

HAMM: The bastard! He doesn’t exist! CLOV: Not yet NAGG: Me sugar-plum! HAMM: There are no more sugar-plums! [Pause.]

Fin de Partie (1961: Endgame (The 76–77) Complete Dramatic Works 2006: 119)

HAMM: The swine! He doesn’t exist! CLOV: Not yet NAGG: My sweetie! HAMM: There are no more sweeties. (Pause.)

HAMM: ¡Puerco! ¡No existe! CLOV: Aún no NAGG: ¡Mi dulce! HAMM: Ya no hay dulces. (Pausa.)

Nagga [sic]: Mi peladilla Hamm: Ya no hay peladilla

Nagga [sic]: Me sugared almond Hamm: There are no more sugared almonds

English

Spanish

Spanish

English

Josefina Sánchez Pedreño’s staged version (Final de partida File 69-58, 32)32

Ana María Moix’s translation of Fin de partida (Teatro reunido 2006: 240–241)31 [Moix’s first translation of this text is from 1970]

4 ‘HALF IN LOVE’: THE TRANSLATION AND RECEPTION …

73

74

R. P. MURTAGH

Much akin to the disappearance of Pablo Palant’s Godot, the reception of Beckett’s work in Spain would once again be out of his control. It is not difficult to see why theatregoers dismissed Final de partida as senseless considering much of the sense was stripped away by the censors. Thus, that Spanish audiences should have failed to connect with his work is hardly surprising. Granted, no one performance can be held accountable for Beckett’s reputation in Spain nor, by extension, is it necessarily a fair standard upon which to gauge the censorship of his work in the country as a whole but it is part of a more complicated story behind a silenced playwright that has spanned an era of dictatorship and beyond. The paradox of Beckett criticism, editor Carlos Rod explains, is that there was truth to the cliché that his work was lame and unexciting – the one proviso being that Beckett never had anything to do with it.33 Certainly, there is little to be gleaned from the above snippet given that the prayer was effectively removed from the prayer scene leaving no room for suggestive interpretation. Not only are Beckett’s words expunged by the censors but so too is non-verbal discourse that very often provides meaning to his work (Nagg’s joining of hands, closing his eyes, Hamm’s attitude of prayer, Clov’s opening his eyes). Beckett’s meticulous approach to stagecraft evidenced by the sheer detail of his production notebooks34 and an obsessive approach to stage direction surely bear witness to this fact. A good example of this idiosyncratic nuance is to be found in Esslin’s The Theatre of the Absurd. The critic stresses the importance of expression beyond language in Beckett’s work, so often achieved by what he calls the ‘contrapuntal relationship’ between actions and words (Esslin 1965: 84–85). He takes the line ‘Let’s go’ from Waiting for Godot to exemplify the recurring contradiction between one and the other that is so characteristic of Beckett’s aesthetics. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine the impact of the play without such conflict. The same argument could be made for the dissonance between Clov’s ‘Off we go’ and the stasis (or inaction) of praying, made all the more emphatic by Beckett’s triadic repetition of the interrogative ‘And you?’ and ritualistic choreography of the actors (both of which are cut in Pedreño’s text). Perhaps Beckett was using visual humour to defuse the thought (or the reality) of a world without God. Much like Krapp’s banana skin or Vladimir and Estragon’s hat exchange, it is one of the many vaudevillian-type routines that help us to laugh rather than to despair at the absurdity of life. The end result of Pedreño’s ‘prayer’ scene in Final

4

‘HALF IN LOVE’: THE TRANSLATION AND RECEPTION …

75

de partida however would leave nothing but a joke without a punchline. As the examples of Palant and Pedreño show, translation is only part of the problem. The economic and socio-political factors have shaped the reception of Beckett in Spain as much as any other. Finally, we must consider Antonia Rodríguez-Gago’s translation of Los días felices. Published in 1989, Los días felices is the only translation in this study to fall under the period of Spanish history known as the Transition Era. In other words, the Franco dictatorship had by then come to an end and a secular social democracy was well underway. Significantly, this meant that Rodríguez-Gago’s edition of Beckett’s play was uncensored. As a result, it cannot be said to have been influenced by socio-political factors in the same way as Palant’s and Pedreño’s. On the other hand, for all the literary merit of her translation, there was no undoing the years of damage to the playwright during Franco’s administration. Though a radical transformation of Spanish theatre was expected after the death of Franco, the course of culture was to prove more counter-intuitive, as María Delgado provides: …as far as mainstream theatre in Spain is concerned, the dramatists who have been to the forefront in the post-Franco period have largely been those who were active before it. If the new democracy has seen the end of censorship and the promotion of the arts in general, it has not on the whole seen the emergence of new, significant writers for the theatre. (1998: 35)

Dictatorship or democracy, it seems never to have been the right moment for Beckett in Spain. If ever the glimmer of opportunity arose, the sociopolitical landscape has proven time and time again to impede the process of acculturation. Beckett remains in a sort of cultural limbo neither victor nor vanquished, a canonical figure relegated to the fringes of literary influence. The opening of Sala Beckett (an experimental space housed in Barcelona with a focus on disseminating Catalan culture) in 1989 is less a watershed moment for Beckett in Spain as it is somewhere between a homage and a memorial for alternative theatre. The name Beckett is still very much synonymous with suppressing markers that are long outdated beyond the Spanish borders: avant-garde, boring, commercially difficult, marginal. But perhaps the tide is turning. The University of Almería hosted the 5th International Conference of the Samuel Beckett Society

76

R. P. MURTAGH

in May 2019 in a three-day symposium that saw the likes of José Francisco Fernández, Nuria Fernández-Quesada, Fábio de Souza Andrade, María José Carrera and other notable scholars inspire a new wave of interest in Beckett and Spain. The same year would see the publication of Beckett en español: bibliografía crítica de las traducciones de su obra, a landmark study that catalogues over sixty years of Beckett translations into Spanish, Catalan, Galician and Basque. The invaluable groundwork for future research has never looked so promising.

Conclusion To conclude, I would like to come full circle by returning to the Alcántara family. Quite surprisingly, Beckett is mentioned on one other occasion throughout the Cuéntame series. Much later (in season 18 of the show), there is an all too familiar exchange between Antonio (the archetypal Spanish father) and his son Carlos (the central narrative focus of the show) concerning parenthood. Antonio is just given a baby to hold whom he cares for throughout the following conversation: Antonio: And you heir, when are you going to give me a grandson? Carlos: Me? Never. I don’t want to have children. Antonio: A man without children never leaves a trace. Carlos: Beethoven, Leonardo da Vinci, Newton, Samuel Beckett, Louis Armstrong. Did they or didn’t they leave a trace?35

That Spain’s most beloved son would categorise Beckett alongside such iconic figures of cultural history is a nod in the right direction in that it affirms the immortality of his work, if only (at least for the time being) in the realm of a fictitious Spain. If we are to believe the sincerity of his conviction however, Carlos’s placement of the Irish playwright betrays a conflict at the heart of Beckett in Spain. Whether or not Beckett has left a trace in Spain is unanswerable as both realities paradoxically appear to (co)exist. Superficially though, the name alone would appear to hold more weight in Spain than any sort of meaningful attachment to his work. In effect, his reputation as a classic author demonstrably exceeds his cultural value in Spanish society. He is not so much the odd man out then (in Carlos’s list of worthy men) as he is the odd man left in. As yet, Beckett does not deserve mention in the cultural pantheon of Spain and

4

‘HALF IN LOVE’: THE TRANSLATION AND RECEPTION …

77

his trace is close to nothing. And still, there is hope looking forward for something to grow from nothing.

Notes 1. For an elaboration of the historical and cultural significance of Cuéntame in Spanish society (and indeed of its accurate attention to detail) more broadly speaking, see: A. Corbalán (2009), ‘Reconstrucción del pasado histórico: nostalgia reflexiva en Cuéntame cómo pasó’, Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, Vol. 10, No. 3, 341–357; and E. Cueto (2009), ‘Memorias de progreso y violencia: la Guerra Civil en Cuéntame cómo pasó’, in F. López, E. Cueto, and D.R. George (eds), Historias de la pequeña pantalla: representaciones históricas en la televisión en la España democrática, Madrid: Vervuert Iberoamericana, 137–156. This paper is dedicated to the memory of Lynda Moran. 2. A real part of theatre history, this practice was traditionally availed by students who would otherwise have been unable to attend performances. For more (including a list of venues in Madrid that operated a claque system until relatively recently), see Manuel Gómez García, Diccionario Akal de teatro (Akal, 2007), 180. 3. Unless otherwise specified in this example and hereinafter throughout this paper, all translations are my own. 4. Given the ambiguous reception of Beckett in Spain, the question as to whether his popularity challenges his avant-garde status is not one that needs to be considered here. Outside of Spain however, the matter has been explored by scholar S. E. Gontarski in his introduction to A Companion to Samuel Beckett (2010: 2) and ‘Viva, Sam Beckett, or Flogging the Avant-Garde’ (Gontarski 2007: 1). 5. Alfredo Marqueríe, one of the most influential ABC newspaper theatre critics whose ideology aligned closely to Franco’s regime, cannot escape mention given how he relished being ‘enemigo de la vanguardia’ (Doménech 1991: 10). 6. For a more in-depth analysis, see the following reception study: Mark Nixon and Matthew Feldman (2009), The International Reception of Samuel Beckett, New York: Continuum. 7. The book is also now available in Japanese and the Dutch language. 8. For more details, see: José Francisco Fernández’s article (2015), ‘“Minister of Horses”: Samuel Beckett According to Fernando Arrabal,’ Journal of Beckett Studies , Vol. 24, No. 2, 223–231; and James Knowlson (1996), Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett, London: Bloomsbury, 552–553. 9. See: Antonia Rodríguez-Gago (2017), ‘Reminiscences of a Late Friendship’, Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui, Vol. 28, No. 1, Beckett in

78

R. P. MURTAGH

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

Conversation, ‘Yet Again’/Rencontres Avec Beckett, ‘Encore’, Angela Moorjani et al. (eds), Rodopi, 18–26; and Trino Martínez Trives (1959), ‘Retrato frustrado de Samuel Beckett’, Primer Acto, Vol. 11, 16–18. Inter alia, see: José Francisco Fernández (2014), ‘Surrounding the Void: Samuel Beckett and Spain’, Estudios Irlandeses, Vol. 9, 44–53; and María José Carrera (2007), ‘“En un Lugar De La Mancha”: Samuel Beckett’s Reading of “Don Quijote” in the Whoroscope Notebook’, Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui, Vol. 18, “All Sturm and no Drang”: Beckett and Romanticism, Beckett at Reading, 145–159. It is no surprise that publications (have) followed suit. Tusquets Editores, for instance, classified Teatro Reunido: Eleutheria · Esperando a Godot · Fin de partida · Pavesas · Film (the most comprehensive collection of dramatic works available in Spanish) under the category ‘Marginales’. This is to be taken with a grain of salt, however, given canonical texts such as Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (Muerte de un viajante) were included in the same collection, but it nevertheless serves to reinforce this limiting association of Beckett with Spain. Furthermore, in response to the state of publishing in Spain, editor Jorge Herralde has observed ‘había un vacío cultural tan grande, tan inmenso, que muchísimas obras de interés en el panorama internacional estaban por editar’ (Orquín 2007: 184) [‘there was a cultural void so great, so immense, that so many works of interest on the international scene were yet to be published’]. The effects of the void are clearly still felt to this day. Note that in English the article is entitled: ‘The Theatre of Beckett in Spain 100 Years From his Birth’. In Spanish this quotation reads: ‘…la difúsion del teatro de Beckett en España apenas ha salido de los cauces del teatro alternativo e independiente’. Trino Martínez Trives (1957), ‘Mi versión de Esperando a Godot y su estreno en España’, Primer acto, Vol. 1, 15–16. It was brought to fruition by the independent theatre group, Dido Pequeño Teatro, under his direction at Complutense University in the heart of Madrid, on the 28th of May 1955. Considering it was not granted the licence as was then required, the go ahead was a rather bold move by then University Rector, Pedro Laín Entralgo. There is no short list of opprobrium. One particularly memorable and oft-cited phrase that has caught the attention of critics has been Alfredo Marqueríe’s ‘Dios maldiga a Samuel Beckett’ [‘God curses Samuel Beckett’] (Doménech 1991: 10; Castellón 1999: 30). Infra, see Note 15. These include Prego’s denial of cultural value: ‘El éxito de Beckett pertenece al mundo de los fenómenos sociales. No es propiamente un éxito literario’ [‘Beckett’s success belongs to the world of social phenomena. He is not properly (speaking) a literary success’]; and Gomez Picazo’s debasingly iconoclastic: ‘La escandalosa y putrefacta fraseología

4

16.

17.

18.

19. 20. 21.

‘HALF IN LOVE’: THE TRANSLATION AND RECEPTION …

79

que, aunque esté muy de acuerdo con la obra, repugna a la sensibilidad de cualquiera que tenga mediana educación. Estamos convencidos de que con barro de letrina pueden hacerse también obras de arte, que seguirán repugnando por muy artística que sea su forma’ [‘The scandalous and putrefying phraseology that, although it agrees very much with the work, is repugnant to the sensibility of anyone with a basic level of education. We are convinced that works of art can also be made from a latrine made of clay, which will continue to be repugnant, no matter how artistic its form’] (Mallory 1972: 15). By this time, it had already in fact been translated into Spanish by Argentine writer and translator Pablo Palant in 1954. It was published by Editorial Poseidón in Buenos Aires with a four-page prologue and text that was ‘revisada por el autor’. There were however only a limited number of copies exported to Spain, rendering Trives’ translation the first widely available in the country. A third translation of Esperando a Godot by Pedro Barceló was published in 1960 as part of a collection entitled Teatro francés de vanguardia, alongside works by Ionesco, Schehadé and Adamov. The latter includes a lengthier prologue written by Barceló with topics ranging from La nueva literatura (14–16), Vanguardia y clasicismo (16–18) and El impacto de Samuel Beckett (26–29). Speaking at the Second Beckett International Symposium held in The Hague in 1992, Antonio Ballesteros Gonzaléz adds: ‘Beckett translations into Spanish don’t seem to have been very successful. There is quantity alright, but the translations have not been faithful enough. The only ones that deserve to be read are those of my fellow translator and colleague, Antonia Rodríguez-Gago’. ‘To translate Beckett’, he concludes ‘you have to be half in love with the text’ (Van der Weel and Hisgen 1993: 346). Beckett was less than satisfied with the first translation of Waiting for Godot in Spanish by Trino Martínez Trives. In rather scathing correspondence with friend and publisher, Jérôme Lindon, he writes: ‘The Spanish translation is execrable, full of mistakes and omissions’ (2011: 447). While not mentioned on the front or back cover of the book, the title page provides an italicised ‘revisada por el autor’ (5). See: Beckett (2011: 493). Much like Esperando a Godot, Trino Martínez Trives was however the first to translate and publish Happy Days in Spain. It was featured in the January 1963 edition of Primer acto as Días felices. That said, Antonia Rodríguez-Gago’s edition is imbued with a level of scholarship that really is second to none. Infra, Note 24, the comparison with Ana María Moix could just as equally be applied to Trives’ translation, in terms of the difference from a reader’s perspective. It is beyond the scope of this research to provide a more detailed list of Beckett translations into Spanish. For an extensive catalogue and a bibliography of works

80

R. P. MURTAGH

22.

23.

24.

25.

26. 27.

28.

29.

in Spain (which includes the Catalan, Galician and Basque language), Samuel Beckett en español: bibliografía crítica de las traducciones de su obra (Fernández-Quesada et al. 2019) is, by far, the most valuable and comprehensive resource available. Testament to this fact (beyond having more authorised Beckett translations than any other Spanish translator) is that the University of Reading, the undisputed home of Beckett scholarship, referred to the critic as the ‘doyenne of Beckett Studies in Spain’ in their June 2009 newsletter via Beckett International Foundation. To avoid confusion, it is worth noting that Luce Moreau Arrabal translated both La última cinta (as mentioned above) and Final de partida, however the latter was intended for performance rather than publication. Furthermore, much like Esperando a Godot, there were other translations available. It is noteworthy that unlike Antonia Rodríguez-Gago’s bilingual edition of Los días felices for instance, which has gone through a rigorous emendation process over the years and features an extensive introduction and detailed explanatory footnotes throughout, the same cannot be said for Moix’s translation. Beyond a very short biography and performance history of the play (no more than half a page apiece), there is little information about the text provided. In fact, the dust jacket of the book provides more insight, but five lines on such a drama is hardly sufficient. It is not difficult to see that the reception of this work would greatly benefit from an introduction with complementary notes explaining the text in a way that would engage the general public. While nevertheless a notable distinguishing feature, Palant’s prologue is more a brief poetic exploration of ‘querer’ (to want/love) and the relative understanding of God, than substantiated literary criticism. Supra, Note 13. In practice, a fair amount did pass the censors. Sastre’s Escuadra hacia la muerte (The Condemned Squad) for instance, went for three performances before it was cut by the censors (Giles 2004: 228). For a useful elaboration of censorship in Spain during this time, see: Elena Bandín (2008), ‘Translating at the Service of the Francoist Ideology: Shakespearean Theatre for the Spanish National Theatre (1941–1952). A Study of Paratexts’, in Micaela Muñoz-Calvo et al. (eds), New Trends in Translation and Cultural Identity, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 117–128. The playwright’s essay on the Censorship of Publications Act (1929) entitled ‘Censorship in the Saorstat’ (published in Ruby Cohn’s 1984 collection of Beckett writings, Disjecta) is likely the best support for this claim. A scathing review of the state of censorship in his native country, Beckett attacks everything from the ban on books to contraceptives in a

4

30. 31. 32. 33.

34.

35.

‘HALF IN LOVE’: THE TRANSLATION AND RECEPTION …

81

newly independent Ireland, that as he argued, was becoming more and more influenced by the Catholic church. Short for Archivo General de la Administración (General Archives of the Administration). Used for comparative purposes between different Spanish editions of the play and to highlight the extent of Pedreño’s expurgation. Reproduced by Nuria Fernández-Quesada in her study on the bowdlerization of Waiting for Godot and Endgame (2011: 203). As reproduced in an interview with José Francisco Fernández on 22 May 2007 (Fernández 2009: 282). Admittedly, it is difficult to ignore Beckett’s involvement (or lack thereof) with Palant’s translation of Waiting for Godot . See: Samuel Beckett (1992), The Theatrical Notebooks of Samuel Beckett: Endgame, S.E. Gontarski (ed). Faber & Faber. The book includes extensive notes, diagrams, as well as cuts and changes made by the author in the context of two different productions of Endgame (the Schiller Theater in 1967 and the Riverside Studios in 1980). What is more, a revised text of the play (which was approved by Beckett) is provided with no fewer than 1506 textual notes. Translated from the following dialogue: ‘Antonio: Y tú heredero, ¿cuándo me vas a dar un nieto? Carlos: ¿Yo? Nunca. Yo no quiero tener hijos. Antonio: Pues un hombre sin hijos no deja nunca huella. Carlos: Beethoven, Leonardo da Vinci, Newton, Samuel Beckett, Louis Armstrong. ¿Dejaron o no dejaron huella?’

Appendix: Selection of Works by Beckett Translated into Spanish (1965), La última cinta [La dernière bande], trans. Luce Moreau Arrabal, Barcelona: Aymá. (1966), Cómo es [Comment c’est ], trans. José Emilio Pacheco, México: Joaquín Mortiz. (1966), El innombrable [L’Innommable], trans. Rafael Santos Toroella, Barcelona: Lumen. (1969), Malone muere [Malone meurt ], trans. Ana María Moix, Barcelona: Lumen. (1969), Molloy, trans. Pere Gimferrer, Barcelona: Lumen. (1969), Film, trans. Raquel Bengolea, Caracas: Monte Ávila. (1970), Murphy, trans. Gabriel Ferrater, Barcelona: Lumen. (1970), Watt, trans. Andrés Bosch, Barcelona: Lumen. (1970), Esperando a Godot [Waiting for Godot ], Barcelona: Barral.

82

R. P. MURTAGH

(1970), Fin de partida [Fin de partie], Barcelona: Barral. (1971), Mercier y Camier, trans. Félix de Azúa, Barcelona: Lumen. (1971), Comedia [Play], trans. Miguel Bilbatúa, Madrid: Cuadernos para el diálogo. (1972), Sin [Sans ], trans. Félix de Azúa, Barcelona: Tusquets. (1982), Compañía [Company], trans. Carlos Manzano, Barcelona: Anagrama. (1989), Los días felices [Happy Days ], trans. Antonia Rodríguez-Gago, Madrid: Cátedra. (1990), ‘Cómo decir’ [‘Comment dire’], trans. Laura Cerrato, Bogotá: Común presencia. (1991), Yo no [Not I ], trans. Juan Benet, Madrid: Centro Dramático Nacional. (1996), Eleuthéria, trans. José Sanchis Sinisterra, Barcelona: Tusquets. (1998), Quiebros [Mirlitonnades ], trans. Loreto Casado, Madrid: Árdora. (2000), Obra poética completa [Complete poems], trans. Jenaro Talens, Madrid: Hiperion. (2001), Rumbo a peor [Worstward Ho], trans. Libertad Aguilera, Daniel Aguirre, Gabriel Dols, Robert Falcó, Miguel Martínez-Lage, Barcelona: Lumen. (2004), A vueltas quietas [Stirrings Still ], trans. Miguel Martínez-Lage, Segovia: La uña rota. (2006), Teatro reunido [Collected Theatre Works], trans, José Sanchis Sinisterra, Ana María Moix and Jenaro Talens, Barcelona: Tusquets. (2008), Proust, trans. Marcela Fuentealba, Santiago de Chile: Universidad Diego Portales. (2009), Disjecta, trans. Alicia Martínez Yuste and Isidro Herrera, Madrid: Arena. (2011), Sueño con mujeres que ni fu ni fa [Dream of Fair to Middling Women], trans. José Francisco Fernández and Miguel Martínez-Lage, Barcelona: Tusquets. (2015), “Asunción” [‘Assumption’], trans. José Francisco Fernández, Buenos Aires: Editorial Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. Universidad de Buenos Aires. (2015), Textos para nada [Texts for Nothing ], trans. José Francisco Fernández, Valencia: JPM.

Works Cited Andrade, Fábio de Souza. 2014. Facing Other Windows: Beckett in Brazil. In The Edinburgh Companion to Samuel Beckett and the Arts, ed. S.E. Gontarski, 445–452. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Arrabal, Luce Moreau. 1958. Antecrítica de Final de partida de Samuel Beckett, que se estrena esta noche. ABC Madrid, June 12, p. 77. Bandín, Elena. 2008. Translating at the Service of the Francoist Ideology: Shakespearean Theatre for the Spanish National theatre (1941–1952): A Study of

4

‘HALF IN LOVE’: THE TRANSLATION AND RECEPTION …

83

Paratexts. In New Trends in Translation and Cultural Identity, ed. Micaela Muñoz-Calvo et al., 117–128. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Barceló, Pedro, and Rodolfo Usgli. 1960. Teatro Francés de Vanguardia: Georges Schehadé – Historia de Vasco; Arthur Adamov – Paolo Paoli; Samuel Beckett – Esperando a Godot; Eugene Ionesco – Las Sillas. Madrid: Aguilar. Beckett, Samuel, and Alan Schneider. 1954. Esperando a Godot, trans. Pablo Palant. Buenos Aires: Poseidón. ———. 1961. Fin de Partie. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit. ———. 1965. La última cinta. Acto sin palabras I , trans. Luce Moreau Arrabal and José Manuel Azpeitia. Barcelona: Aymá. ———. 1970. Fin de partida, trans. Ana María Moix. Barcelona: Tusquets. ———. 1982. Compañía, trans. Carlos Manzano. Barcelona: Anagrama. ———. 1984. Disjecta, ed. Ruby Cohn. New York: Grove. ———. 1987. No yo, trans. Vicente Hernández Esteve, in Pavesas, ed. Jenaro Talens, 158–166. Barcelona: Tusquets Editores. ———. 1989. Los días felices, trans. Antonia Rodríguez-Gago. Madrid: Ediciones Catedra. ———. 1990. The Complete Dramatic Works. London: Faber & Faber. ———. 1991. Belacqua en Dublín, trans. Víctor Pozanco. Barcelona: Lumen. ———. 1992. The Theatrical Notebooks of Samuel Beckett: Endgame, ed. S.E. Gontarski. London: Faber & Faber. ———. 1998. No Author Better Served: The Correspondence of Samuel Beckett and Alan Schneider, ed. Maurice Harmon. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 2006. Teatro Reunido: Eleutheria · Esperando a Godot · Fin de Partida · Pavesas · Film. Barcelona: Tusquets. ———. 2011. The Letters of Samuel Beckett, Volume 2: 1941–1956, ed. George Craig, Martha Dow Fehsenfeld, Dann Gunn, and Lois More Overbeck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Camus, Carmen. 2008. Pseudonyms, Pseudotranslation, and Self-Censorship in the Narrative of the West During the Franco Dictatorship. In Translation and Censorship: From the 18th Century to the Present Day, ed. T. Seruya and M. Lin Moniz, 147–162. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press. Carrera, María José. 2007. “En un Lugar De La Mancha”: Samuel Beckett’s Reading of “Don Quijote” in the Whoroscope Notebook. Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui, volume 18, “All Sturm and no Drang”: Beckett and Romanticism, Beckett at Reading, 145–159. Castellón, Alfredo, et al. 1999. La Huella de Beckett. Las Puertas del Drama, n. (–2), AAT. Madrid: Spring. http://www.aat.es/pdfs/drama_2.pdf. Accessed 13 June 2020. Corbalán, A. 2009. Reconstrucción del pasado histórico: nostalgia reflexiva en Cuéntame cómo pasó. Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 10 (3): 341–357.

84

R. P. MURTAGH

Cuéntame cómo pasó, Fish and Chips, season 1, episode 18, RTVE, 21 Feb. 2002. https://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/cuentame-como-paso/cue ntame-como-paso-t1-capitulo-18/392107/. Cuéntame cómo pasó, Bienvenido Mr. Tierno, season 18, episode 312, RTVE, 19 Jan. 2017. https://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/cuentame-como-paso/ cuentame-como-paso-t18-capitulo-312-bienvenido-mr-tierno/3870990/. Cueto, E. 2009. Memorias de progreso y violencia: la Guerra Civil en Cuéntame cómo pasó. In Historias de la pequeña pantalla: representaciones históricas en la televisión en la España democrática, ed. F. López, E. Cueto, and D.R. George, 137–156. Madrid: Vervuert Iberoamericana. Delgado, María M. (ed.). 1998. Spanish Theatre 1920–1995: Strategies in Protest and Imagination. Contemporary Theatre Review 7, part 3. Oxford: Routledge. Doménech, Ricardo. 1991. Beckett. Primer Acto 241 (Nov/Dec): 9–13. Esslin, Martin. 1965. The Theatre of the Absurd. London: Penguin. Fernández, José Francisco. 2009. A Long Time Coming: The Critical Response to Samuel Beckett in Spain and Portugal. In The International Reception of Samuel Beckett, ed. Mark Nixon and Matthew Feldman, 272–290. London: Continuum. ———. 2014. Surrounding the Void: Samuel Beckett and Spain. Estudios Irlandeses 9 (March): 44–53. ———. 2015. “Minister of Horses”: Samuel Beckett According to Fernando Arrabal. Journal of Beckett Studies 24 (2): 223–241. Fernández-Quesada, Nuria. 2011. Under the Aegis of the Lord Chamberlain and the Franco Regime: The Bowdlerization of Waiting for Godot and Endgame. In Censorship Across Borders: The Reception of English Literature in Twentieth-Century Europe, ed. Catherine O’Leary and Alberto Lázaro, 193–210. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Fernández-Quesada, Nuria, José Francisco Fernández, and Bernardo Santano Moreno. 2019. Samuel Beckett en Espanol: Bibliografía crítica de las traducciones de su obra. Almería: Editorial Universidad de Almería. Giles, David T. 2004. The Cambridge History of Spanish Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gontarski, S.E. 2007. Viva, Sam Beckett, or Flogging the Avant-Garde. Journal of Beckett Studies 16: 1–11. Knowlson, James. 1996. Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett. London: Bloomsbury. Mallory, Sir Thomas. 1972. El Proceso. Hermano Lobo, Año I, n. 26 (4 Nov.). https://gredos.usal.es/handle/10366/8635. Accessed 13 June 2020. Manuel, Gómez García. 2007. Diccionario Akal de Teatro. Móstoles: Akal. Mozo, Jerónimo López. 2006. El teatro de Beckett en España a los cien años de su nacimiento. Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos 669 (March): 121–124.

4

‘HALF IN LOVE’: THE TRANSLATION AND RECEPTION …

85

Nixon, Mark, and Ronan McDonald. 2009. Beckett News. Beckett Foundation, June. http://www.reading.ac.uk/web/files/DEAL/beckett_matters. pdf. Accessed 11 June 2020. O’Byrne, Patricia. 2014. Post-War Spanish Women Novelists and the Recuperation of Historical Memory. Suffolk: Tamesis. Orquín, Felicidad (ed.). 2007. Conversaciones con Editores: En Primera Persona. Madrid: Ediciones Siruela. Rodríguez-Gago, Antonia. 2010. Staging Beckett in Spain: Theater and Politics. In A Companion to Samuel Beckett, ed. S.E. Gontarski, 403–415. London: Wiley-Blackwell. ———. 2016. Reminiscences of a Late Friendship. Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui, vol. 28, n°1, Beckett in Conversation, “Yet Again”/Rencontres Avec Beckett, “Encore”, ed. Angela Moorjani et al., 18–26. Rodopi. Trives, Trino Martínez. 1957. Mi versión de Esperando a Godot y su estreno en España. Primer Acto 1 (April): 15–16. ———. 1959. Retrato Frustrado de Samuel Beckett. Primer Acto 11, 16–18. ———. 1963. Días felices. Primer Acto 39: 22–34. Van der Weel, Adriaan, and Ruud Hisgen. 1993. Unheard Footfalls Only Sounds: “Neither” in Translation. In Beckett in the 1990s: Selected Papers from the Second International Beckett Symposium Held in The Hague, 8–12 April 1992, ed. M. Buning and L. Oppenheim, 345–364. New York and Amsterdam: Rodopi.

CHAPTER 5

‘My Italian is not up to more’ : Samuel Beckett, Editor of ‘Immobile’ Antonio Gambacorta

‘An extensive and rather confused holograph’ Luigi Majno, the owner of the Milanese art gallery M’Arte, started publishing livres d’artiste to ‘get rid of some etchings’ (Messina 2003: 159). The poet, translator, art, and literary critic Roberto Sanesi suggested a book, and after a first publication – October: The Silence, a collaboration between the American poet Nathaniel Tarn and the Japanese artist Kumi Sugai – they envisaged the series ‘Immagini e Testi’ with M’Arte Edizioni. Dynamic, creative, and with the right amount of impulsiveness, Majno reached out to Nobel Prize Laureates, and many replied. But it was Stanley William Hayter, the founder of Atelier 17, that suggested his friend ‘Sam’, when discussing a book with his art (Ann Cremin qtd. in Mitchell 1999: 185; Valduga 2003).1 In a letter dated 26

A. Gambacorta (B) Department of English and Creative Writing, University of Reading, Reading, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. F. Fernández and P. Sardin (eds.), Translating Samuel Beckett around the World, New Interpretations of Beckett in the Twenty-First Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71730-8_5

87

88

A. GAMBACORTA

February 1970 Majno requested permission to use ‘Alba’ and an unidentified poem in French, and Beckett – he penned his reply only on 11 June at his return from Alghero in Sardinia – declared himself happy to place the poems at Majno and Hayter’s disposal. While he often allowed artists to work on special editions, most of the times his involvement was limited to granting permission to published texts and looked at the art only once completed (Oppenheim 2000: 185). As first envisioned, this collaboration seemed to be headed in a similar direction. But in June 1971, the focus of the phone call Beckett and Majno arranged while Beckett was staying at the Imperial Palace Hotel in Santa Margherita Ligure in Liguria, had shifted from the two poems to a new work. Majno reminded him of the conversation on 26 December, but since his last stay in Italy, Beckett had not succeeded in completing anything new and did not possess a manuscript of the sort the publisher had in mind (Letter to Majno, 9 January 1972). It was characteristic of Majno’s books to include a reproduction of drafts, and on 28 July Beckett offered a short text of about 750 words in English he had completed only the day before, which came with a more extensive and confused holograph (Letter to Majno, 27 July 1972). Beckett’s involvement in the making of Still: con tre acqueforti was not limited to the writing of a text of marked visual aspect, which found expression even in his drawings of two stylised chairs in the manuscript (see also Knowlson 1996: 593). He paid weekly visits to Hayter, offering comments on the etchings, and even rejecting a first representation of the figure’s head. It had ‘too much personality’, which contrasted the vagueness – reinforced by the lack of pronouns – with which the text presents a figure in a room, sat in a wicker chair, in an attempt to escape perception (Ann Cremin qtd in Mitchell 1999: 182). He followed the print reproduction of the manuscript, asking to restore pages that Majno had considered irrelevant inkblots and removed. It was Beckett’s practice to write on the right-hand page and leave the left to experiments and variations, and this was a confrontation he thought important (Beckett 2016: 313). Yet while this level of participation is unusual, Beckett’s involvement in the translation of ‘Still’ into Italian is in many ways unprecedented, as Beckett provided Majno with numerous comments, which affect twentyone of the thirty sentences that make up ‘Immobile’. These ‘corrections and suggestions’ are the main focus of this chapter. But to better appreciate the rarity and significance of this collaboration, we should first look at Beckett’s ties with Italian language and literature, at the way his work

5

‘MY ITALIAN IS NOT UP TO MORE’ …

89

has been turned into Italian over the years, and at his relationship with translators and publishers.

‘[I] seem to have forgotten more Italian than I thought’ It is hardly remarkable that Beckett might have been involved in Italian translations of his work, since he showed interest even in translations into languages he did not master. But the level of engagement has been inflated. Connor observes that Beckett took an interest in German and Italian translations of his work, and St-Pierre treats ‘Immobile’ as one of many examples of involvement with Italian (Connor 1989: 44; StPierre 1996: 234). But pairing Italian with German can be misleading, as it suggests the sort of engagement Beckett had with Elmar and Erika Tophoven, in whose translations he played such an active role that it has been argued that, considering the impact these translations had, at times, on Beckett’s own translations, he was somehow also a German-language author (see Voigts-Virchow 2009: 97). We cannot claim this for Italian. Beckett’s relationship with Italian translators was far less collaborative, and although he never refused to offer comments – he sent, for example, corrections to Luciano Mondolfo for his translation of En attendant Godot for the stage, and looked at Gabriele Frasca’s version of three poems – there is no evidence that he kept much of a contact with the score of translators that over the years turned his work into Italian (Beckett 2011: 504; Frasca 2006: 254). Beckett’s reply to the scholar Aldo Tagliaferri’s comments on Roberto Mussapi’s version of Company and Mal vu mal dit suggests instead that reviewing Italian translations was not the norm and that he was often unaware of their quality. And it was apparently not the norm for translators to seek his input. The fact that the letter refers to Mussapi as ‘the Italian translator’ reinforces the idea that he, like many others, did not (Letter to Tagliaferri, 9 February 1984). The only constant presence in the Italian panorama was Carlo Fruttero, who translated almost all the theatre from En attendant Godot to Ohio Impromtu, partly with Franco Lucentini. But theirs did not turn into a close relationship. While their association spans nearly 30 years, only five letters from Beckett have been found in Fruttero’s archive, one of them – about Footfalls – addressed to Lucentini. Even accounting for lost or misplaced material – for example, Beckett’s alterations to the translation

90

A. GAMBACORTA

of Godot – and the rare phone call, these are not the numbers of a collaboration. As a way of comparison, Beckett sent Majno about 25 letters, and the scholar Aldo Tagliaferri received around 20.2 The impression that they were not in close contact has been confirmed by Fruttero himself, who claimed to have written to Beckett only when in real need of clarification – as in the case of the quotations from the classics in Happy Days , the basis for what years later Knowlson would call Beckett’s ‘bits of pipes’ – and only met him once, at his Paris house (Alfano and Cortellessa 2006: 242; Letter to Fruttero, 25 August 1961). Their relationship had not started in the best of ways, as Fruttero wrote a ‘foolish preface’ (Beckett’s words) to Aspettando Godot in 1956, where as he praised Beckett’s theatre, he downplayed his prose (Beckett 2011: 631–632). Beckett’s work on ‘Immobile’ is a unique example of extensive involvement in an Italian version of his work, and a rare testament to his late familiarity with the language (Beckett 1972: 143). The young Beckett was instead an ‘Italianate Irishman’, much like Walter Draffin in ‘What a Misfortune’ (Beckett 1972: 143). He studied Italian during his undergraduate degree in Modern Languages at Trinity College Dublin and privately with Bianca Esposito, the professoressa he fictionalised as the signorina Adriana Ottolenghi in ‘Dante and the Lobster’. Caselli describes the young Beckett’s written Italian as ‘fluently metaphoric’, with a few expected slip-ups (Caselli 2009: 209). He had a good knowledge of Italian literature, not limited to Dante, whose Commedia he kept reading all his life. He translated bits of Dante into English in letters and notebooks and even wrote an odd version of Ariosto’s Orlando furioso in German (Pilling 2009: 10; Nixon 2011: 126). Yet he only put his Italian to work publicly in 1930, when he translated into English Montale’s poem ‘Delta’ and the short texts ‘Paesaggio’ by Raffaello Franchi and ‘Ritorno a casa’ by Giovanni Comisso for an issue of This Quarter dedicated to Italian literature. Italian fell behind when Beckett’s interest in German became more prominent, and his application for the post of lecturer of Italian Literature at Cape Town in 1937 represents in many ways his last attempt at ‘taking up the subject again’ (Beckett 2009: 530). Some twenty years later, thanking Pamela Mitchell for the ‘big magnificent’ Vocabolario Zingarelli, which he was reading – as one does a dictionary – ‘with much satisfaction’, Beckett acknowledged the state of his Italian. As he found himself ‘wishing [that the Vocabolario] was more explicit about the difference between the s’s of cosa and rosa and the zz’s of mezzo and pazzo’, Beckett commented: ‘[I] seem to have forgotten

5

‘MY ITALIAN IS NOT UP TO MORE’ …

91

more Italian than I thought’ (Beckett 2011: 525). Touched by this realisation he found ‘a good Italian illustra[t]ed weekly called Oggi’ – already in 1955, for the most part, a gossip magazine – which he used to stir his knowledge of the language (Beckett 2011: 540). The impoverishment of Beckett’s Italian is tied to his apparent disinterest in contemporary Italian literature – his reading of Camillo Sbarbaro in the 1960s seems to be a rare exception fuelled by friendship – and the Italian flame was never properly rekindled (Pilling 2009: 12). Fruttero, Tagliaferri and Frasca – three of the major translators of Beckett’s work – never doubted the high level of his Italian,3 and Beckett himself seemed to have considered it ‘MUCH better’ than his German as late as 1975 (Cohn 2006: 129–130). Yet save for his university essays and the rare sentence in notebooks and letters, Beckett never wrote directly in Italian. Frasca recounts how he used to write to Beckett in Italian, but received replies either in English or in French. And when in 1984 he sent him his poetry collection Rame, Beckett noted that he could merely guess the beauty and the intensity of the poetry, since, with what was left of his Italian, he could not properly appreciate it (Letter to Frasca, 14 December 1984). Frasca suggests that Beckett would have gladly collaborated with Italian translators if he had not been discouraged by the attitude of Italian publishers (Frasca 2006: 255–256). It is possible that, if Fruttero had sought his input as openly as the Tophovens had for German, Beckett would have worked with him, but the editorial strategies of the Italian publishing industry did not seem to invite this sort of commitment.4

‘Maledetta scarpa. Accidenti, non ce la faccio. Non ce la faccio a togliermela’ Fruttero’s version for Einaudi was not the first translation of En attendant Godot. The first Italian Godot was translated by Romeo Lucchese for a radio performance which aired on 28 May 1954, preceding the better known Rai radio broadcast in Luciano Mondolfo’s translation which aired on 6 April 1955. The two versions diverged so much from Beckett’s original text that they should perhaps be discussed as adaptations. By way of example, in Mondolfo’s version, Estragon’s loaded first sentence ‘Rien à faire’ is replaced by the much less memorable ‘Maledetta scarpa. Accidenti, non ce la faccio. Non ce la faccio a togliermela’ [‘Wretched shoe. Damn it, I can’t. I can’t take it off’].5 While oddities such as this can be ascribed to the needs of a different medium, they are also indicative

92

A. GAMBACORTA

of little concern with fidelity. The original French broadcast aired on 17 February 1952 – about a year before the première on stage – made no such concessions. Mondolfo retranslated the play for the very first staging of Aspettando Godot at the Teatro di via Vittoria in Rome in 1954, which he also directed. Both his translation – Beckett deemed it ‘pretty ordinary’, Fruttero ‘too literary’ – and his mise en scène are examples of a tradimento of sort. The French Godot had ‘appeared’ at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan a year earlier directed by Roger Blin, but the Italian Godot was different. Mondolfo sanitised the text, removing everything that might offend the propriety of the time, and according to Cascetta, he toned down much of the comedy – he cut, for example, the joke of the Englishman in the brothel – and obliterated the vaudeville elements, an odd choice considering Mondolfo’s experience with cabaret (Cascetta and Peha 2000: 268).6 This tendency to ‘purify’ texts in translation for the ‘comune senso del pudore’ is evident also in the first Italian versions of Molloy by Pietro Carpi De’ Resmini, L’Innominabile and (later) Malone muore by Giovanni Falco published by SugarCo in the late 1950s. Much like Mondolfo and Lucchese, Carpi De’ Resmini and Falco cleansed their translations and toned down the sharpest elements of Beckett’s prose to the detriment of comedy. As a result, Italian readers and theatre-goers experienced a much more serious Beckett than the French, the English, or the German. But it is indicative of the Italian reception of Beckett that, in his review of Mondolfo’s Aspettando Godot, the critic Silvio D’Amico dismissed ‘foreign’ performances and their clownish figures, and praised Mondolfo’s insistence on the ‘human essence of the two lost heroes’ and the ‘acceptable realism’ he lent to their dialogue (D’Amico 2006: 30). This interest in ‘rescuing’ Beckett’s ‘humanism’ characterises the response of much of the Italian scene, to the point that even Italo Calvino, one of the greatest Italian literary figures of the twentieth century, describing Beckett as the author that, for the first time, ‘tells of the ending of all stories’ in his unfinished ‘lezione americana’ titled ‘Cominciare e finire’, chose to quote the earlier ‘little is left to tell’ of Ohio Impromptu rather than the final ‘nothing is left to tell’ (Calvino 2011: 141). If Beckett’s theatre was caught between existential and even Catholic readings, his prose was mostly ignored (Caselli 2009: 221).7 Beckett’s prose was rejected by a literary scene divided between the cult of beautiful prose – he wrote ‘without style’ – and the neoavanguardia of Gruppo

5

‘MY ITALIAN IS NOT UP TO MORE’ …

93

63 which sought formal experimentations but could not come to terms with a writing that, unlike Joyce’s, could not be reduced to linguistic games and that strayed away from their humanistic assumptions (Caselli 2009: 215–216). The flawed translations of Molloy, Malone muore and L’Innominabile are a consequence of the low status of Beckett’s prose in Italy but are also a testament to an industry that rested on poorly paid work and the invisibility of translators. The case of Murphy is particularly telling. The book was entrusted to the young Franco Quadri as a translation test from the French. When it was published in 1962 it still contained the queries that Quadri had addressed to the series editor: no one at Einaudi had cared to check the proof (Caselli 2009: 217). That Quadri was given Beckett and Péron’s French translation of Murphy rather than the original English is also indicative of the way early Italian publishers treated Beckett’s bilingualism: until Aldo Tagliaferri and Gabriele Frasca started producing philologically informed translations, it had been a shortcut. Initially, Fruttero was indifferent to what Montini calls Beckett’s ‘equilingualism’ (Montini 2013: 143), and would simply translate from whichever text he was sent by Einaudi. Only later on, when Beckett’s English texts began to pose serious challenges, Fruttero found it necessary to consult both versions (Sebellin 2019).8 ‘Still’ is one of those challenging texts. Yet if when Edda Melon (from French) and Gabriele Frasca (from English) produced their versions, they could count on both the English and French text by Beckett, Majno could not. But he could count on Beckett himself.

‘Such writing lends itself with but an ill grace to your reasonable language’ Majno was new to translation and ‘Still’ would remain his only experience with a literary text.9 Sanesi was, on the other hand, a major translator of English and American poetry, and most of the English texts featured in the series ‘Immagini e testi’ included his translations. Walt Whitman, Philip Larkin, D.H. Lawrence, Hart Crane, Wallace Stevens, W.B. Yeats, W.H. Auden and David Gascoyne were only a few of the writers whose works he had already turned into Italian. In the following years, he would translate Milton’s Paradise Lost and the complete works of T.S. Eliot. In the 1960s he had taken an interest in Beckett’s theatre and poetry, which found its most evident expression in a poem titled ‘Tema di Beckett’ – a collage of Beckettian images derived from some of the poems translated

94

A. GAMBACORTA

by Rodolfo J. Wilcock in Poesie in inglese – included in his 1969 collection L’incendio di Milano. Majno and Sanesi must have discussed the translation of ‘Still’, and perhaps Sanesi was simply too busy with his other projects. What is certain is that on 28 July 1973 Beckett acknowledged Majno’s first draft of ‘Immobile’ and the first request of comments. When Beckett sent his first ‘suggestions and corrections’, he minimised his contribution saying that he only hoped his notes could be of use and accompanied them with the comment: ‘My Italian is not up to more’ (Beckett 2016: 339). This is not how they were perceived. Considering the way Majno recounts the experience, even the form in which the ‘continuous corrections’ were presented gave the impression of Beckett’s total control: ‘since his handwriting was impossible, [Beckett] also sent a typescript, he numbered the lines of the text and his corrections were: leaf 2, line 7, word 3 and so on’ (Valduga). The numerous corrections markedly affect the translation, especially meaning and structure, and reveal Beckett as a self-confident editor. There are two copies of the first draft with the typed suggestions Majno remembered: Beckett’s copy, held by the University of Reading (MS1396/4/33), and Majno’s, whose original is still with the family.10 The most relevant difference between the two is the presence, in Beckett’s copy, of corrections in pen and pencil in his hand. The pencil notes, which constitute his first revision, are partly amended by notes in black pen, which constitute the second. Beckett typed the list of corrections and attached it to a letter dated 1 August 1973. Two additional handwritten suggestions referring to the same draft are contained in an undated note which Beckett must have sent only a few days later, and certainly before the 13 September letter, whose corrections, once again handwritten, refer to the second and final draft of the translation. In his corrections to the second draft, Beckett also refers to the number of the page on which the error to be amended appears. He never got as far as to indicate the number of the word, but Majno’s exaggeration in describing Beckett’s punctiliousness reveals the level of Beckett’s participation. Majno had no intention of making difficulties, and trusted the control over the matter of a writer that he thought ‘knew Italian very well’ – as did Fruttero, Tagliaferri and Frasca (Valduga). As a result, Majno incorporated the suggestions in a seemingly mechanical way, in a second draft that had little to offer to Beckett’s exacting eye. The first draft of ‘Immobile’ reveals the difficulties Majno was having with the structure of the piece and passages made ambiguous by Beckett’s

5

‘MY ITALIAN IS NOT UP TO MORE’ …

95

grammar and syntax. Beckett offered his ‘corrections and suggestions’, but opened up the possibility that Majno might consider again whether the inclusion of a translation was necessary or even desirable. Beckett softened his dissatisfaction with a reflection on the problems of translating his late work in English: ‘such writing lends itself with but an ill grace to your reasonable language’ (Beckett 2016: 339). In his late writing, Beckett exploited what Frasca terms the ‘analogical tendency’ of the English language. The ‘process of formalisation’ so characteristic of Beckett’s English cannot be rendered in a romance language without ‘dressing [the text] with a more articulate syntax’ (Platania, 1). Beckett’s own French translations are proof of this impossibility, and two years after Majno’s version, faced with very similar issues, Beckett seemed to confirm this when he lamented to Cohn that he was trying ‘in vain’ to translate ‘Still’ (Letter to Cohn, 17 July 1975).11 Beckett’s ‘thanks for all the pain you have taken’ at the end of the letter to Majno sounds almost like a farewell to the translation. Majno told Knowlson that after Beckett’s comment he worked harder at ‘Immobile’ because he wanted it to be as close to the original as possible, but this does not find confirmation in manuscript material (JEKA/2/190). The difficulties start with the impossibility to translate the fundamental word ‘still’ in a satisfactory way. The same can be said for French. In Italian, this is rendered as ‘immobile’ [motionless] or ‘ancora’ [yet], with an irretrievable loss, and its nuance as ‘silent’ is absent. In Majno’s translation, the twenty-four repetitions of the word in English, are split between the eighteen occurrences of ‘immobile’, plus one as ‘immobilità’ [immobility] and the seven of ‘ancora’. The reason for the disparity is that in his first draft Majno used the word ‘ancora’ also to translate ‘again’. Beckett responded to this accidental introduction of a further repetition pointing out that the original used two different words, and suggested ‘di nuovo’ to translate ‘again’, as he would do in French. But although he amended most mistranslations, those in sentences 13 and 16 escaped him and ended up in the published version. Beckett insisted that the structure of repetitions had to be kept, and in this regard his notes are very precise. He wanted to make sure that groups of words such as ‘quite dark’, ‘not still at all’, ‘if not… almost’, ‘no such thing’, etc., which are repeated throughout the text, were recognised as such and rendered always in the same way. Beckett identified those that Majno missed referring him to other parts of the text in which the same appeared, using a ‘cf.’, an ‘X’, or explicitly writing that the English used

96

A. GAMBACORTA

the same word in places where the Italian had used multiple ones. Dealing with the phrase: ‘Quite still then all this time eyes open when discovered then closed then opened and closed again’, which Majno translated as ‘Assolutamente immobile allora per tutto questo tempo occhi aperti quando scoperti poi chiusi poi aperti poi chiusi ancora’ [opened then closed again], Beckett remarked that ‘opened and closed again’ is a single movement, the same movement performed when the eyes had opened and closed again in what was ‘if not quite a single movement almost’, making another connection between different parts of the text explicit (Beckett 2010b: 156; UoR MS 1396/4/33). But even though examples such as these show Beckett’s close attention, the missed ‘ancora’ are not the only errors that he did not notice. For example, he corrected Majno’s translation of ‘quite’ as ‘davvero’ [very, really] with ‘assolutamente’ [absolutely], but, while he amended some of the mistranslations, he missed one in sentence 6. Some of the limits of Beckett’s Italian are revealed by other details. Majno rendered ‘Hangs there as if half inclined to return…’ as ‘Pende là come se mezzo inclinata per ritornare…’. ‘Inclinato’ can translate ‘prone to’ (even though ‘incline’ would be the obvious solution), but it must be followed by ‘a’ and not by ‘per’. As it is, the word is mistranslated as tilted. A similar confusion is behind another error. Majno translated ‘Normally turn head now … to watch sun which if already gone then fading afterglow’ disregarding the conjunction ‘if’, so that the passage read: ‘che se n’è già scomparso’ [‘which is already gone’]. Once again, Beckett did not intervene, perhaps betrayed by the presence of ‘se’, which can indeed mean ‘if’, but that in this particular case is a pronoun. The sentence as published reads awkwardly and without that ‘if’ it obscures the fact that the repeated actions inside the room do not always match the same event in the world outside, where the cycle of seasons still endures, indifferent. Dealing with Majno’s translation of the incipit, Beckett gave him a rare glimpse of the world outside. He noted that ‘brillante’, the word that Majno chose to translate ‘bright’ was too strong and suggested ‘chiaro’. Majno typed the suggested word in his second draft but – this is the only time he provided an alternative to Beckett’s notes – he wrote ‘Luminoso’ [luminous] in pen. Beckett disregarded the suggestion, insisting on ‘chiaro’, and ‘clair’ is the word he would choose in French (JEKA/2/190). Beckett explained that in the passage ‘the sun shines out at last and goes down’, the sun is appearing from behind the

5

‘MY ITALIAN IS NOT UP TO MORE’ …

97

clouds, just before going down. While the detail could be easily missed, it is remarkable that, even in a text which strives for abstraction, Beckett is still picturing a ‘realistic’ background.12 The day has been dark because cloudy until for a moment the sun comes out and shines. But at dusk the day cannot be described as ‘brillante’ and ‘chiaro’ is still preferable to a dull ‘luminoso’. In French, Beckett would go on translating ‘shines out’ as ‘brille’, and in his translation from English, Frasca favours a more literary ‘sfolgora’ [blazes], so that a more explicit description of the sun poking out before disappearing remains confined to Majno’s version, which ultimately reads: ‘il sole appare alfine e cala’ [‘the sun appears at last and goes down’] (Beckett 2007).

‘First person throughout: absolutely impossible’ Considering his sensitivity to the use of pronouns in his work, it does not surprise that Beckett’s most energetic reaction was triggered by Majno’s use of the first person present indicative. Majno translated the second sentence as: ‘Seduto assolutamente immobile alla finestra che dà sulla valle normalmente volgo ora il capo e lo vedo il sole basso affondare a sud-ovest’ [‘Sitting absolutely still at the window that faces the valley normally I turn the head now and I see it the sun low sinking in the south-west’]. Beckett’s reaction was firm: the use of the first person was impossible, since no person should be indicated at any point, and suggested the infinitive or the reflexive instead. Beckett’s opposition to anything that could identify the figure in the room, had already forced him to reject a first representation of the head as devised by Hayter, who recounted Beckett’s predilection for ‘a mannequin, a sort of puppet’ (Ann Cremin qtd in Mitchell 1999: 182). In ‘Still’, the figure in the room tries to conjure the end of existence by negating vision. The text contains very little that could grant the figure an identity, and the lack of a pronoun reflects this in a powerful way. The writing of ‘Still’ had not started with this refusal of pronouns. The first draft read: ‘Sitting at the window facing the valley he has it on his right’ (UoR MS 1396/4/28). But after crossing this out, in his second attempt, Beckett decided to get rid of pronouns completely and crafted a text that only hints at the presence of a human figure focusing on parts easily associated to a human body – eyes, hands, breast, legs, knees, trunk, skull, nape, arms, elbows, forearms, head, thumb, index finger, middle finger, right and left cheekbone – but ultimately leaving the identification to an act of inference, which

98

A. GAMBACORTA

is itself questioned. The only moment in which the text seems close to acknowledging the figure is when the result of the ‘close inspection’ is said to ‘add up to this whole’, not ‘per confermare alfine questo risultato’ [to confirm at last this result], as Majno had translated, but as Beckett corrected: ‘fino alfine a questo tutto’ [till at last to this whole] or ‘a questa somma (totalità)’ [to this sum (entirety)]. Hayter’s etchings compose the figure as an agglomerate of geometric forms, conveying well the discrete depiction of this ‘whole’. Beckett would carry his struggle with pronouns onto the other two short texts that, along with ‘Still’, were thought out to form the Still Triptych: ‘Sounds’ and ‘Still 3’.13 If in ‘Still’ the aim is to banish vision, in ‘Sounds’ it is the turn of sound. Here Beckett restores pronouns as the figure abandons himself to a nostalgic exploration of sounds, memories of a past life, difficult to distinguish from imagination. But as Cohn noted, the pronoun does little to establish an identity, as the man only manages to ‘dwell in a dream’ (Cohn 2001: 323). ‘Still 3’ moves us back to the wicker chair and a figure again devoid of a pronoun. In the first half, it almost seems that the exclusion of vision and sound has granted the much-sought stillness. In the second half, as it becomes necessary to deal with the turbulent realm of imagination, pronouns reappear. What the text achieves is the conjuring of a figure ‘marble still’, with all the external characteristics of a human figure, but with eyes that do not see, ears that do not hear, and referred to by the pronoun ‘it’, an object among objects, as though stillness has been finally achieved (Beckett 2010a: 173). To account for the lack of pronouns, in ‘Immobile’ Majno chose the infinitive, and Beckett would do the same in French.

‘My Italian is not up to more’ Before going into print Majno sent the proofs of both ‘Still’ and ‘Immobile’ to Beckett. But while the English contains a few notes in Beckett’s hand, amending a couple of typos and even requesting to change syllabification, there is no trace in Beckett’s hand in the Italian proof. The translation still contained errors but Beckett did not comment further. Perhaps he considered that an Italian eye would have been more apt to the task and that he had given Majno all the corrections he was able to provide. Perhaps he even thought that an unsatisfying translation in Italian, and in a limited edition, would not cause much harm. But this

5

‘MY ITALIAN IS NOT UP TO MORE’ …

99

partial immersion into the problems of translating ‘Still’ into a more ‘reasonable language’ might have been a useful exercise. Sardin-Damestoy suggests that Beckett might have started working on the French version just after completing the first draft of ‘Still’, because of changes likely made in parallel in the two languages, as the ‘turning deasil’ which became ‘tournant dextrorsum’ in French, but after being rendered first as ‘tournant sens des aiguilles’, which could have been derived from the ‘turning the other way’ of a previous English draft (Sardin-Damestoy 2002: 278). But the only documentary evidence of Beckett working at the French translation is the letter to Cohn dated 17 July 1975, which places Beckett’s French translation after the Italian. And it is here that we can locate the first germ of ‘tournant sens des aiguilles’. Majno was puzzled by the word ‘deasil’. Beckett clarified that it meant ‘clockwise’, but unable to find a satisfactory word in Italian, he suggested the rather disappointing ‘girando un poco a destra’ [‘turning a little to the right’]. If Beckett had already settled for ‘dextrorsum’ in French, he could have suggested its Italian equivalent ‘destrorso’. But it is the French that derives from Italian some of its solutions. Another example is provided by the peculiar expression Beckett suggested to Majno to translate ‘as the hours pass’ and ‘as night wears on’. The French ends up reproducing that ‘a misura che passano le ore’ and ‘a misura che la notte lentamente passa’, and it ultimately reads ‘à mesure que les heures s’écoulent’ and ‘à mesure que la nuit s’écoule’, which made it from one ‘reasonable language’ to another (Beckett 1976: 23). In his corrections to ‘Immobile’, Beckett tried to clarify his intentions, reaffirming the centrality of patterns of iteration to the structure of the piece, making many of them explicit to Majno and insisting on the absence of pronouns to avoid granting an identity to the figure in the room. As for the translation, in ‘Immobile’ alliterations, assonances, homonymous are often lost, and the little care for the musicality and the rhythm constitutes much of its weakness. In French, as he often did when translating himself, Beckett rephrased quite extensively, and created new sound patterns and repetitions: ‘face à la fenêtre face à la vallée’, ‘toujour sans voir au jour toujours’, ‘nuit noire voire certains soirs’, ‘pour aboutir à ce tout pas immobile du tout mais tremblant de partout’, rethinking the text in his own more ‘reasonable language’ (Beckett 1976). Majno made no such attempt in Italian and Beckett did nothing to encourage him. Beckett seemed perfectly at ease in his role of editor as he dealt with problems of meaning and structure, and his notes on the matter are of

100

A. GAMBACORTA

interest to both scholars and translators. But it is indicative that none of his suggestions concerned the quality of the prose. In this sense, Beckett’s Italian seems to have been not up to more. The text published in Still: con tre acqueforti is not a successful translation. Edda Melon’s ‘Immobile’ achieves far better results, but her translation is based on Beckett’s French version, and so it avoids the most challenging aspects of ‘Still’. Frasca’s ‘Fermo’ is translated from the English with an eye to the French, and, unlike Majno’s version, it engages with musicality and rhythm. But even such a well-crafted translation would have warranted a note or two from Beckett for straying at times from the pattern of repetitions. It is perhaps the moment for a new Italian version of ‘Still’, one that would rethink musically and rhythmically the text in the target language and pay close attention to the ‘corrections and suggestions’ of Samuel Beckett, editor of ‘Immobile’.

Notes 1. For more on Stanley William Hayter see Mitchell (1999). 2. Majno kept writing until 1985, yet the bulk of their correspondence dates back to when the livre d’artiste of ‘Still’ was in the making. 3. Frasca and Tagliaferri translated Beckett’s major works after Beckett’s death. Beckett saw three poems translated by Frasca and liked them (Letter to Frasca, 7 August 1987; Frasca 2006: 254). 4. Private communication. The case of ‘Immobile’ would seem to confirm Frasca’s impression. 5. Translations from Italian are mine, unless otherwise indicated. 6. Who was Godot? God? Death? Happiness? Andrea Camilleri (the wellknown creator of Inspector Montalbano), who directed the first Italian staging of Fin de Partie under the title Il gioco è alla fine, thought an answer was unnecessary. Yet he hardly refrained from writing an open letter to the puzzled critics to remind them that Godot (or rather Godeau) was a character from Balzac (Le Faiseur, 1840), but also to point out that in the 1800s, in Italy, ‘Godò’ was the theatre manager, and phrases such as ‘When is Godò coming?’ and ‘Did Godò arrive?’ were theatre jargon that meant ‘Did the money arrive?’ ‘Did we get paid?’ (Camilleri 2013: 159). I did not find this reading anywhere else. 7. There are exceptions. Commenting on Valerio Fantinel’s translation of ‘From an Abandoned Work’ and drawing comparisons with Molloy, Malone meurt , Comment c’est and the theatre, the Marxist critic Franco Fortini saw in the rhythms of Beckett’s prose a way to resist the lyrical

5

8.

9.

10.

11. 12. 13.

‘MY ITALIAN IS NOT UP TO MORE’ …

101

seductiveness of the ‘prosa d’arte’. Aldo Tagliaferri recognised the value of Beckett’s work, rare for a member of Gruppo 63. According to Frasca, the endless attempts at translation are characteristic of Beckett’s work (and recall Proust’s idea of writing as translation). While more work on Beckett’s bilingualism is being done, comparisons between Beckett’s English and French texts have mostly illustrated the work of a bilingual writer struggling to innovate in two languages. Yet it could be argued that Beckett’s late prose does very different things in different languages. To explore these different Becketts, we may want to invite new translations of Beckett’s texts from English to French and vice versa. The only other translation to his name is the ‘Bibliographical Notes’ by Ivar Ivask on Nocturnos e altre poesie – a collaboration between Jorge Guill´en and Henri Goetz – which he translated with his daughter Paola. A photocopy of Majno’s copy is in the Knowlson Collection at the University of Reading, JEKA/2/190. All quotations from Beckett’s suggestions are from MS 1396/4/33, unless otherwise indicated. At the time, Beckett was struggling with his translation into French of Not I . More work should be done to reassess Beckett’s relationship with realism and the realistic. These short texts were never published in a collection during Beckett’s lifetime and only appeared in the ‘Appendix’ to Pilling’s 1978 essay ‘The significance of Beckett’s Still ’. ‘Still’ was published as one of the Fizzles.

Appendix This is a collection of the most important publications of Beckett’s work in Italian. Reprints are only indicated when significant. (1956), Aspettando Godot, translated by Carlo Fruttero, Torino: Einaudi. (1957), Molloy, translated by Piero Carpi De’ Resmini, Milano: SugarCo. (1958), L’Innominabile, translated by Giacomo Falco, Milano: SugarCo. (1960), Malone muore, translated by Giacomo Falco, Milano: SugarCo. (1961), Teatro [Aspettando Godot, Finale di partita, Tutti quelli che cadono, L’ultimo nastro di Krapp, Ceneri, Atto senza parole I , Giorni felici], translated by Carlo Fruttero, Torino: Einaudi. (1962), Proust, translated by Carlo Gallone, Milano: SugarCo. (1962), Murphy, translated from French by Franco Quadri, Torino: Einaudi. (1964), ‘Dante…Bruno. Vico..Joyce’, in Introduzione a Finnegans Wake, translated by Francesco Saba Sardi, Milano: SugarCo. (1964), Poesie in inglese [‘Puttanoroscopo’, Ossi dell’eco, ‘Cascando’, ‘Saint-Lô’, ‘Dieppe’], translated by Rodolfo J. Wilcock, Torino: Einaudi. (1965), Come è, translated by Franco Quadri, Torino: Einaudi.

102

A. GAMBACORTA

(1965), Trilogia [Molloy, translated by Piero Carpi De’ Resmini; Malone muore, L’Innominabile, translated by Giacomo Falco], Milano: SugarCo. (1967), Watt, translated by Cesare Cristofolini, Milano: SugarCo. (1968), Teste-Morte [‘Da un’opera abbandonata’, ‘Basta’, ‘Immaginazione morta immaginate’, ‘Bing’], translated by Valerio Fantinel e Guido Neri, Torino: Einaudi. (1968), Teatro [Aspettando Godot, Finale di partita, Atto senza parole I , Tutti quelli che cadono, L’ultimo nastro di Krapp, Ceneri, Atto senza parole II , Giorni felici] (new updated edition), translated by Carlo Fruttero, Torino: Einaudi. (1970), La trilogia [Molloy, translated by Piero Carpi De’ Resmini; Malone muore, L’Innominabile, translated by Giacomo Falco], with an Introduction by Aldo Tagliaferri, Milano: Mondadori. (1971), Primo amore [‘Primo amore’, translated by Franco Quadri, ‘Lo sfrattato’, ‘Il calmante’, ‘La fine’, Testi per nulla, translated by Carlo Cignetti], Torino: Einaudi. (1971), Mercier e Camier, translated by Luigi Buffarini, Milano: SugarCo. (1972), Più pene che pane, translated by Alessandro Roffeni, Milano: SugarCo. (1972), Senza e Lo spopolatore, translated by di Renato Oliva, Torino: Einaudi. (1973), Samuel Beckett [Molloy, translated by Piero Carpi De’ Resmini; L’Innominabile, translated by Giacomo Falco; ‘Dante…Bruno. Vico..Joyce’, translated by Francesco Saba Sardi; Aspettando Godot, Finale di partita, L’ultimo nastro di Krapp, Giorni felici, translated by Carlo Fruttero; Poesie in inglese, translated by Rodolfo J. Wilcock], ed. Luigi Ferrante, Torino: UTET. (1974), ‘Immobile’, translated by Luigi Majno, in Still con tre acqueforti, by Samuel Beckett and Stanley William Hayter, Milano: M’Arte Edizioni. (1974), Non io, translated by John Francis Lane, Torino: Einaudi. (1975), Novelle [More Pricks than Kicks ], translated by Alessandro Roffeni, Milano: Garzanti. (1980), Poesie. Poèmes suivi de mirlitonnades, translated by Giovanni Bogliolo and Rodolfo J. Wilcock, Torino: Einaudi. (1978), Racconti e teatro [Fallimenti, ‘Per finire ancora’, ‘Immobile’, ‘In lontananza un uccello’, translated by Edda Melon; Teatro I e Teatro II , Respiro, Passi, Radio I e Radio II , Trio degli spiriti,…Nuvole…, translated by Floriana Bossi; Quella volta, translated by Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini], Torino: Einaudi. (1981), Compagnia, translated by Roberto Mussapi, Firenze: Arte e pensiero. (1982), Tre pezzi d’occasione [Un pezzo di monologo, Dondolo, Improvviso nell’Ohio, translated by Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini], Torino: Einaudi.

5

‘MY ITALIAN IS NOT UP TO MORE’ …

103

(1985), Film. Seguito da Commedie brevi [Film, translated by Maria Giovanna Andreolli; Il vecchio motivetto, Cosa dove, Catastrofe, Quad, Nacht und Träume, translated by Camillo Pennati], Torino: Einaudi. (1986), Mal visto mal detto, translated by Renzo Guideri, Torino: Einaudi. (1986), Compagnia e Worstward Ho, translated by Roberto Mussapi, Milano: Jaca Book. (1989), Quello che è strano, via, translated by Roberto Mussapi, Milano: SE. (1991), Disiecta. Scritti sparsi e una frammento drammatico [‘Dante…Bruno. Vico..Joyce’, ‘Il concentrismo’, Sogno di donne attraenti o mediamente attraenti. Frammento, ‘Lettera tedesca del 1937’, ‘I due bisogni’, ‘Schwabenstreich’, ‘Proust a pezzi’, Poesie di Rainer Maria Rilke, ‘Quietismo umanistico’, ‘Poesia irlandese recente’, ‘Ex Catherza’, ‘Il Dante di Papini’, ‘L’essenziale e il secondario’, ‘Censura nello stato libero d’Irlanda’, ‘Un’opera di immaginazione’, ‘Intercessioni di Denis Devlin’, ‘Mac Greevy su Yeats’, ‘Gli indemoniati’, ‘Su Murphy’, ‘Su Murphy’, ‘Sulle opere fino al 1951’, ‘Su Finale di partita’, ‘Su Commedia’, ‘Su Murphy’, ‘Su Finale di partita’, ‘Geer Van Velde’, ‘La pittura di Van Velde ovvero il mondo e i pantaloni’, ‘Pittori dell’impedimento’, ‘Tre dialoghi’, ‘Henri Hayden, uomo pittore’, ‘Omaggio a Jack B. Yeats’, ‘Henry Hayden’, ‘Bram Van Velde’, ‘Per Avigdor Arikha’, Desideri umani. Frammento, translated by Aldo Tagliaferri], Milano: E.G.E.A. (1992), Soprassalti, translated by Nanni Balestrini, Carnago: SugarCo. (1994), Teatro completo. Drammi, sceneggiature, radiodrammi, pièces televisive [Aspettando Godot, Finale di partita, Tutti quelli che cadono, Atto senza parole, Atto senza parole II , L’ultimo nastro di Krapp, Ceneri, Giorni felici, Parole e Musica, Cascando, Commedia, Va e vieni, translated by Carlo Fruttero; Teatro I , Teatro II , Radio I , Radio II , Respiro, Passi, Trio degli spiriti,…Nuvole…, translated by Floriana Bossi; Il vecchio motivetto, Quad, Catastrofe, Nacht und Träume, Cosa dove, translated by Camillo Pennati; Film, translated by Giovanna Andreolli; Non io, translated by John Francis Lane; Quella volta, Un pezzo di monologo, Dondolo, Improvviso dell’Ohio, translated by Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini], ed. Paolo Bertinetti, Torino: Einaudi-Gallimard. (1994), Mal vu mal dit = Ill Seen Ill Said = Mal visto mal detto, English translation by the author, Italian translation by Renzo Guideri, ed. Nadia Fusini, Torino: Einaudi. (1995), Anna Livia Plurabelle, translated into French by Beckett et al., in James Joyce, Annalivia Plurabelle, Rosa Maria Bollettieri Businelli (ed), with an Introduction by Umberto Eco, Torino: Einaudi. (1996), Trilogia. Molloy, Malone muore, L’Innominabile, translated by Aldo Tagliaferri, Torino: Einaudi. (1997), ‘Da un lavoro abbandonato’, translated by Gianni Celati, Il semplice. L’almanacco delle prose, 6, 15–24.

104

A. GAMBACORTA

(1997), Stirrings Still [Ultimi sussulti], translated by Sergio Cigada, Milano: Sugarco. (1999), Le poesie [Oroscopata e altri versi d’occasione, Ossa d’Eco, Cascando e altre poesie in inglese, Poesie in francese 1937 –1939, Filastroccate/Mirlitonnades, Dondola/Rockaby, Che dove/Quoi où, Qual è la parola/Comment dire/What is the Word, Coda], translated by Gabriele Frasca, Torino: Einaudi. (2002), Teatro [Aspettando Godot, Finale di partita, Tutti quelli che cadono, L’ultimo nastro di Krapp, Giorni felici, Parole e musica, Commedia, Di’ Joe, translated by Carlo Fruttero; Respiro, translated by Floriana Bossi; Non io, translated by John Francis Lane; Quella volta, Dondolo, translated by Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini], Torino: Einaudi. (2003), Da un’opera abbandonata, translated by Valerio Fantinel, Milano: SE. (2003), Quello che è strano via, translated by Roberto Mussapi, Milano: SE. (2003), Murphy, translated by Gabriele Frasca, Torino: Einaudi. (2004), Proust, translated by Piero Pagliano, Milano: SE. (2005), Molloy, translated by Aldo Tagliaferri, Torino: Einaudi. (2007), ‘Fermo’, translated by Gabriele Frasca, in Per finire ancora. Studi per il centenario di Samuel Beckett, ed. Gabriele Frasca, Pisa: Pacini. (2008), In nessun modo ancora, translated by Gabriele Frasca, Torino: Einaudi. (2009), Assunzione [‘Assuzione’, ‘Un caso su mille’ translated by Francesco Cappellini], with a Postscript by Gabriele Frasca, Pistoia: Via Del Vento. (2010), Racconti e prose brevi [‘Assunzione’, translated by Massimo Bocchiola; ‘Dante e l’aragosta’, translated by Paolo Bertinetti; ‘Un caso su mille’, translated Susanna Basso; ‘Primo amore’, translated by Franco Quadri; ‘Lo sfrattato’, ‘Il calmante’, ‘La fine’, translated by Carlo Cignetti; Testi per nulla, translated by Gabriella Bosco; ‘Da un’opera abbandonata’, translated by Valerio Fantinel; ‘L’immagine’, translated by Renato Oliva; ‘Tutto l’estraneo via’ (previously ‘Quello che è strano, via’), translated by Massimo Bocchiola; ‘Immaginazione morta immaginate’, ‘Basta’, ‘Bing’, translated by Gabriella Bosco; ‘Senza’, ‘Lo spopolatore’, translated by Renato Oliva; ‘Per finire ancora’, ‘Immobile’, Fallimenti (I -V), ‘In lontananza un uccello’, translated by Edda Melon; ‘Una sera’, ‘Secondo la storia che mi hanno raccontato’, translated by Susanna Basso; ‘La falesia’, translated by Paolo Bertinetti; ‘Nè l’uno nè l’altro’, Fremiti Fermi, translated by Gabriele Frasca], Torino: Einaudi. (2011), Malone muore, translated by Aldo Tagliaferri, Torino: Einaudi. (2012), Molloy, translated by Aldo Tagliaferri, Torino: Einaudi. (2018), L’Innominabile, translated by Aldo Tagliaferri, Torino, Einaudi. (2018), Lettere 1929–1940, translated by Massimo Bocchiola and Leonardo Marcello Pignataro, ed. Franca Cavagnoli, Milano: Adelphi.

5

‘MY ITALIAN IS NOT UP TO MORE’ …

105

Works Cited Alfano, Gianfranco, and Andrea Cortellessa (eds.). 2006. Tegole dal cielo. L’‘effetto Beckett’ nella cultura italiana, 252–265. Roma: EDUP. Beckett, Samuel. ‘Still’, Beckett International Foundation, University of Reading, UoR MS1396/4/28-33, UoR MS1520A, UoR MS1550/27-29. ———. Letters to Ruby Cohn, Beckett International Foundation, University of Reading, UoR MS5100 [COH]. ———. Letters to Gabriele Frasca, Beckett International Foundation, University of Reading, UoR JEKA/2/107. ———. Letters to Luigi Majno, Beckett International Foundation, University of Reading, UoR JEKA/2/190. ———. Letters to Aldo Tagliaferri, Beckett International Foundation, University of Reading, UoR MS5555/1-41. ———. Letters to Carlo Fruttero, in private hands. ———. 1961. Poesie in inglese. Torino: Giulio Einaudi Editore. ———. and Stanley William Hayter. 1974. Still con tre acqueforti. Milano: M’Arte Edizioni. ———. 1972. More Pricks Than Kicks. New York: Grove Press. ———. 1976. ’Immobile’. In Pour finir encore et autres foirades, 19–24. Paris: Éditions de Minuit. ———. 2007. ’Fermo’. In Per finire ancora. Studi per il centenario di Samuel Beckett, ed. Gabriele Frasca and trans. Gabriele Frasca. Pisa: Pacini. ———. 2009. The Letters of Samuel Beckett, Vol. I: 1929–1940, ed. Martha Dow Fehsenfeld and Lois More Overbeck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2010a. ‘Immobile’, translated from French by Edda Melon. In Racconti e prose brevi, 242–244. Torino: Einaudi [Edda Melon’s ‘Immobile’ (1978) first appeared in Racconti e teatro. Torino: Einaudi]. ———. 2010b. Texts for Nothing and Other Shorter Prose. London: Faber and Faber. ———. 2011. The Letters of Samuel Beckett, Vol. II: 1941–1956, ed. George Craig et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2016. The Letters of Samuel Beckett, Vol. IV: 1966–1989, ed. George Craig et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Calvino, Italo. 2011. Appendice: Cominciare e finire. Lezioni americane, 123– 142. Oscar Mondadori: Milano. Camilleri, Andrea. 2013. A proposito di Samuel Beckett. L’ombrello di Noè. Come si diventa scrittori a teatro, 155–179. Milano: BUR. Cascetta, Annamaria, and Laura Peha. 2000. Appendice. In Annamaria Cascetta, Il tragico e l’umorismo: studio sulla drammaturgia di Samuel Beckett, 233– 327. Firenze: Le lettere.

106

A. GAMBACORTA

Caselli, Daniela. 2009. Thinking of A Rhyme for the “Euganean”: Beckett in Italy. In The International Reception of Samuel Beckett, ed. Mark Nixon and Matthew Feldman, 209–233. London: Continuum. Cohn, Ruby. 2001. A Beckett Canon. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ———. 2006. Ruby Cohn on the Godot Circle. In Beckett Remembering, Remembering Beckett, ed. James Knowlson and Elizabeth Knowlson, 125– 130. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Connor, Steven. 1989. “Traduttore, traditore”: Samuel Beckett’s Translation of Mercier et Camier. Journal of Beckett Studies 11–12: 27–46. D’Amico, Silvio. 2006. Il Primo Godot visto da D’Amico. Hystrio, no. 1, gennaio-marzo, 30. Frasca, Gabriele. 2006. Traduzioni. Una voce che s’intrude. Intervista a Gabriele Frasca. In Tegole dal cielo. L’‘effetto Beckett’ nella cultura italiana, ed. Gianfranco Alfano and Andrea Cortellessa, 252–265. Roma: EDUP. Knowlson, James. 1996. Damned to Fame. London: Bloomsbury. Messina, Claudio M. 2003. Guida ragionata alle librerie antiquarie e d’occasione d’Italia. Roma: Robin Edizioni. Mitchell, Breon. 1999. Six Degrees of Separation: Beckett and the Livre d’Artiste. In Samuel Beckett and the Arts: Music, Visual Arts, and Non-Print Media, ed. Lois Oppenheim, 173–198. New York: Garland Publishing. Montini, Chiara. 2013. Tradurre un testo autotradotto: Mercier et/and/e Camier. In Autotraduzione e riscrittura, ed. Andrea Ceccherelli, Gabriella Elina Imposti, and Monica Perotto, 141–151. Bologna: Bononia University Press. Nixon, Mark. 2011. Samuel Beckett’s German Diaries 1936–1937 . London: Continuum. Oppenheim, Lois. 2000. The Painted Word: Samuel Beckett’s Dialogue with Art. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Pilling, John. 1978. The Significance of Beckett Still. Essays in Criticism XXVIII (2, April): 143–157. ———. 2009. Beckett and Italian Literature (After Dante). In The Tragic Comedy of Samuel Beckett, ed. Daniela Guardamagna and Rossana M. Sebellin, 5–19. Roma: Università degli Studi di Roma ‘Tor Vergata’, UP Online [full text available at: http://laterza.fastweb.it/up/9788842090700.pdf]. Platania, Federico. Parlando la lingua del paradiso: una conversazione con Gabriele Frasca. http://www.samuelbeckett.it/wordpress/wp-content/ uploads/2012/08/frasca.pdf. Last Accessed 12 July 2020. Sardin-Damestoy, Pascale. 2002. Samuel Beckett auto-traducteur ou l’art de l’‘empêchement’. Paris: Artois Presses Université. Sebellin, Rossana. 2019. Beckett Resonating in Italy: Which Text, Whose Voice? Keynote at the conference Beckett and Italy, November 8, University of Reading.

5

‘MY ITALIAN IS NOT UP TO MORE’ …

107

St-Pierre, Paul. 1996. Translation as Writing Across Languages: Samuel Beckett and Fakir Mohan Senapati. TTR: traduction, terminologie, rédaction 9 (1): 233–257. Valduga, Patrizia. 2003. Majno, turista tra i geni. La Repubblica, February 11. https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2003/02/ 11/majno-turista-tra-geni.html. Voigts-Virchow, Eckart. 2009. Shades of Negativity and Self-Reflexivity: The Reception of Beckett in German Literary Studies. In The International Reception of Samuel Beckett, ed. Mark Nixon and Matthew Feldman, 97–107. London: Continuum.

CHAPTER 6

Translations of Beckett’s Work in Argentina Lucas Margarit and María Inés Castagnino

¿Dónde crees que estamos? ¿En la Patagonia? [Where do you think we are? In Patagonia?] Catastrophe

Samuel Beckett’s work has been present in Argentina since the 1950s and has had a lasting effect ever since both on theatre audiences and readers. Interest in Beckett’s drama influenced the revival of the theatre scene that took place in large cities like Buenos Aires or Córdoba. Then, the interest moved on to his fiction and this, along with the first performances of his plays, brought about an array of novelties and aesthetical breakthroughs that developed mainly in Buenos Aires and connected this southern cultural scene with others beyond the Argentinean borders. Beckett was born in Dublin, therefore in the margins of established cultural centres like Paris, London or New York. For its part, Buenos Aires is a marginal space in the global context, but it is also a capital city in its territory. The presence of an author in a foreign production context outside the main aforementioned centres of cultural dissemination is likely

L. Margarit (B) · M. I. Castagnino Department of Literature, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. F. Fernández and P. Sardin (eds.), Translating Samuel Beckett around the World, New Interpretations of Beckett in the Twenty-First Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71730-8_6

109

110

L. MARGARIT AND M. I. CASTAGNINO

to influence this marginal space in different ways, bringing alterations to established paradigms and evincing ambiguous local responses to those alterations. In the 1950s, when Waiting for Godot was translated, published and performed for the first time in Argentina, Buenos Aires was a relatively thriving city. It was going through a transition as the tension between a highly conservative society and a new spirit that needed to escape the hardness of social rules became manifest; artistically, a rupture of this kind (between tradition and innovation) had started in the 1920s and gained momentum in the 1940s. After the interruption of democratic rule between 1976 and 1983, which entailed censorship, enforced disappearances, and the loss for the country of many intellectual and critical resources through exile, new ways of reading emerged as a response to the totalitarianism of those dark times. In this context, the work of Beckett had different repercussions, and met with both approval and rejection, but also established itself as an important presence among Argentinean readers and spectators belonging to a class that was fairly cultivated, artistically or academically. In many cases, especially from the 1980s onwards, this interest manifested itself through ideological and aesthetic debates that had primarily emerged with the editions and performances of Waiting for Godot in the mid-1950s. This chapter begins by focusing on the first translation of Godot in Argentina in 1954 because it paved the way for further translations of Beckett’s work and led to the premiere of the play on the local stage two years later; it was thus inaugural in the development of interest in Beckett’s work for Argentineans, an interest that will be studied in the second part of the chapter by looking into subsequent translations. Then the focus will turn to the translation of Act without words I by Roberto Juarroz in 1962, as another milestone in the development of the aforementioned interest which opened it to the poetic resonance of Beckett’s use of language.

6

TRANSLATIONS OF BECKETT’S WORK IN ARGENTINA

111

Translating and Performing Waiting for Godot: How the Country Road and the Tree Reached the Pampas The first translation of a work by Samuel Beckett carried out in Argentina, that of En attendant Godot as Esperando a Godot, was published in Buenos Aires by Poseidón in 1954.1 The translator was Pablo Tischkovsky Blant, whose pen name was Pablo Palant (1914, Victoria, Entre Ríos – 1975, Buenos Aires). He was a playwright and scriptwriter, although he had trained as a lawyer. He became involved in theatrical activities alongside Leónidas Barletta2 in Teatro del Pueblo, the first non-commercial theatre in Argentina. This company was established in 1930 in the city of Buenos Aires and originated the whole movement of independent theatre; it possessed uncommon vitality in its time and has influenced numerous experimental, non-institutional companies to this day. Palant was also in touch with some of the members of Grupo Boedo, one of the avantgarde literary groups of the 1920s, concerned with formal innovation but mostly centred on social and political content. As a playwright, he premiered his first play, Diez horas de vida, in 1938. Apart from Godot, he published translations of Le Lâche by Henri-René Lenormand (El cobarde, Buenos Aires, Poseidón, 1944); Je suis comédien by Pierre Fresnay (Yo soy un comediante, Buenos Aires, Leviatán, 1956), and Zalmen ou la Folie de Dieu by Elie Wiesel (La locura de Dios, Buenos Aires, Acervo Cultural Editores, 1970). The book was published by Poseidón, a small publishing house established by the exiled Catalonian Joan Merli.3 Palant’s translation was mainly made from the French version and the first page bears the inscription ‘A translation by Pablo Palant revised by the author’ (Beckett 1954a: 5). There are few commentaries about the Spanish editions of Beckett’s works made by the author himself; one about the Poseidón edition can be found in his correspondence. A letter dated 19 August 1954, and addressed to Pamela Mitchell reads: News out of the blue this morning from Buenos Ayres of a Spanish translation of Godot with threat of proofs to follow. But I simply can’t face that. Shall simply have to send them back uncorrected and à la grâce de Dieu. No importance either. (Beckett 2011: 493)

112

L. MARGARIT AND M. I. CASTAGNINO

A few days later he wrote almost the same words to Barney Rosset, his Grove Press editor in New York, adding that he was leaving the matter to the care of Jérôme Lindon, his French publisher: ‘Lindon in the great kindness of his heart is dealing with everything himself and I must say I am grateful to him’ (Beckett 2011: 497). The revision of Palant’s Spanish translation must have been carried out mostly during the month of September 1954, with no input from Beckett himself, since Poseidón published the book on October 20th of the same year. The book’s flaps include five comments and impressions about Godot by playwrights and critics: Jean Anouilh, Jacques Lemarchand, Jacques Audiberti, Dusanne and Karl Korn. These fragments were selected by the editor when the book was put together. They present Esperando a Godot in an existentialist light, as was usual in the post-war period. The volume opens with a brief prologue by the translator in which he reflects in general terms on the nature of literary works before focalizing on some aspects of Godot as a literary work in particular. He outlines his own sceptical outlook towards attempts to intellectualize Beckett’s work: Ya le incluirán en algún ‘ismo’ los clasificadores que no piensan, pues carecen de amor. No importa; los ismos pasan junto con los clasificadores que no clasifican, pero las obras quedan … Y ESPERANDO A GODOT es una obra. (Beckett 1954a: 9) [It will soon be included in some “ism” or other by those who classify without thinking, because they are lacking in love. It doesn’t matter; “isms” shall pass, as shall those who classify without actually classifying, but plays remain … and Waiting for Godot is a play.]

This conveys the translator’s high esteem for the play, which is the reason why he chose to translate this work into Spanish: he sees it as transcending the conceptual boundaries of pre-existing philosophical matrixes, and standing in its own right as a work of art. We are reminded of what Beckett outlined in his essay ‘Dante…Bruno. Vico..Joyce’ in 1929: ‘Must we wring the neck of a certain system in order to stuff it into a contemporary pigeon-hole, or modify the dimensions of that pigeon-hole for the satisfaction of the analogymongers? Literary criticism is not book-keeping’ (Beckett 1983: 19). Thus Palant seems to have taken a leaf out of Beckett’s book, as he rejects the forcing of the delicate system that is Godot

6

TRANSLATIONS OF BECKETT’S WORK IN ARGENTINA

113

into the pigeon-hole of existentialism, which would reduce the play to an illustration of philosophical tenets. Regarding the translation itself, we can see that Palant uses the kind of Spanish which is typically spoken in Buenos Aires, yet with elements of a more neutral kind of Spanish, since he does not use Argentina’s characteristic ‘voseo’ for the second-person singular, but prefers ‘tú’ (used not only in Spain but also in other Spanish-speaking countries) in the dialogues between the protagonists. Some of the more local terms that Palant does use are ‘changador’ (Beckett 1954a: 46) for ‘porteur’ (Beckett 1953: 36); the expression ‘¡Hico!’ (1954a: 69) for ‘¡Woooa!’ (1953: 56); ‘¡Caramba!’ (1954a: 78) as a translation for ‘Ça alors!’ (1953: 64) when Pozzo finds his watch, and the choice of ‘botín’ for ‘chaussure’ along the entire play. A particular choice found in Palant’s version has to do with cultural reference: Estragon. Nous irons dans l’Ariège. Vladimiro. Où tu voudras. Pozzo. Trois cents! Quatre cents! Estragon. J’ai toujours voulu me balader dans l’Ariège. (Beckett 1953: 114)

Estragon. Nos iremos a los Pirineos. Vladimiro. Adonde quieras. Pozzo. ¡Trescientos! ¡Cuatrocientos! Estragon. Siempre he querido pasear por los Pirineos. (Beckett 1954a: 131)

The Argentinean translator changed ‘l’Ariège’ for another place name, ‘the Pyrenees’, which is a hypernym, Ariège being a part of the Pyrenees; this is explained by Palant’s switching to the English version of Waiting for Godot published by Grove Press in 1954: Estragon. We’ll go to the Pyrenees. Vladimiro. Wherever you like. Pozzo. Ten shillings! – A pound! Estragon. I’ve always wanted to wander in the Pyrenees. (Beckett 1954b: 81)4

114

L. MARGARIT AND M. I. CASTAGNINO

Like Beckett himself, Palant wished the topographical reference to be less obscure for a non-French speaking audience. Despite the aforementioned liberties, Palant respected to a large extent Beckett’s text, making it accessible to an Argentinian audience in particular, but also readable by Spanish speakers at large. His role as a pioneer in the Spanish translation of Beckett is relevant since he promoted the adaptation of Beckett’s characters to the Humid Pampas, where emptiness extends beyond the limits of the plain, like an infinite stage where any form of waiting can take place. The way was thus paved for the first Argentinean performance of Esperando a Godot, which took place in Buenos Aires on 18 September 1956.5 It was directed by Jorge Petraglia, who seems to have produced his own translation of the play taking into account Palant’s work, probably with a greater view to the actual performance of the text by the actors.6 The performance received adverse reviews from journalists who were not up to date with the new theatre trends, and who favoured a more realistic or traditional type of drama, but also from some members of the audience and journalists who, as regular frequenters of independent theatre venues and socially and critically minded people, considered Esperando a Godot to be cryptic and elitist. They were hardly impressed by a play in which the characters seem to maintain a passive attitude regarding their own problems and context. Nevertheless, the play had a great impact and was very successful, not only because of an audience interested in new stage experiences, but also curious enough to see what the press criticized adversely. In an interview, Petraglia, the director of this first production, remembers: Pensamos que con 15 días de función bastaba. ¡Cómo nos equivocamos! Volvimos a hacer temporada regularmente hasta seis veces. El grupo no tenía ninguna orientación política, por eso no rechazamos a Beckett como sí lo hizo una zona de la izquierda: lo criticaban porque suponían que era hermético. (Clarín 2003) [We thought that 15 days of performances would be enough. What a mistake! We put the play up again as many as six times. Our cast and crew were not politically biased, and thus we didn’t reject Beckett as some leftists did: they criticized him because they assumed he was hermetic.]

6

TRANSLATIONS OF BECKETT’S WORK IN ARGENTINA

115

As mentioned, Petraglia went on to revive Esperando a Godot six times between 1956 and 1975, retaining Roberto Villanueva and Leal Rey from the original cast. This was a relatively encouraging start for the subsequent presence of Beckett’s work in Argentina.

Translating and Publishing Beckett in Argentina After 1954 Palant’s first Spanish version of Waiting for Godot in 1954 was followed by the translation of other pieces of Beckett’s work, like Malone dies , translated from the French by the novelist Jose Bianco7 as Malone muere in 1958. This was published by Victoria Ocampo’s8 publishing house, Sur, which also regularly issued the journal of the same name. The same publishing house then released Molloy in 1961, also translated from the French but this time by professional translator Roberto Bixio. Sur played a crucial role in the dissemination in Argentina of novel and contemporary authors of world literature, Samuel Beckett among them. His narrative pieces were translated and introduced to the general public, as were others by Virginia Woolf or William Faulkner, by this imprint, even before the Irish writer became famous in the wake of the Prix Formentor (which he received jointly with the Argentinean Jorge Luis Borges in 1961) and of the Nobel Prize (1969). Acto sin palabras, a translation of Act Without Words I , was published in Buenos Aires in the journal Poesía = Poesía of December 1962 (nos. 11–12–13); the number of copies brought out was small, as is characteristic for an independent publication. On that occasion the mime was translated by the poet Roberto Juarroz.9 Some years later, in 1964, a translation of Endgame as Final de Partida was published, followed by a new translation of Act Without Words I (again as Acto sin palabras ), both by Francisco Javier.10 This interest in translating Beckett’s dramatic works into Spanish went along with the presence of those works in playhouses in the city of Buenos Aires from 1956 onwards, and all over the country, especially in Córdoba and Santa Fe, mainly from the mid-1980s onwards, with the restoration of democracy. These translations have exerted an influence on many Argentinean playwrights who have woven Beckettian themes into their own texts in diverse ways, as can be seen in the plays La espera trágica by Eduardo Pavlovsky (1962), Los siameses by Griselda Gambaro (1965) and La china

116

L. MARGARIT AND M. I. CASTAGNINO

by Sergio Bizzio and Daniel Guebel (1995). Pavlovsky’s drama often accounts for social conflicts through characters who are undefined as subjects and – in their most extreme manifestations – may not even constitute proper grammatical persons. In Gambaro’s case, it is through the absurd that her drama has been usually linked to Beckett’s; for instance, the characters in Los siameses are unable to derive certainty from the use of language, their dialogues are broken down and rather resemble monologues attempting to relate to other voices. Also, works by both these playwrights, through their ideological content, share similarities with Beckettian pieces such as Catastrophe or What Where in that they present bodies under subjection who resist their oppression in some way. La china, on its part, puts a gaucho twist on the theme of waiting and underlines the use of language by a couple of degraded characters in that situation, bringing to mind not only Waiting for Godot but also aspects of Endgame. Babel was a cultural magazine issued in Buenos Aires from the mid1980s to the first years of the 1990s. Issue n°15 (1990) includes a translation of ‘Stirrings Still’ as ‘Quietud, aun inquieta’, presented as the last text written by Samuel Beckett with a brief introductory note entitled ‘Se apaga la oscuridad’ [‘Darkness is turned off’] by C.E. Feiling,11 who was also the translator. The expansive nature of Spanish proves a challenge to the translator of Beckett; Feiling makes a point of restraining the need of the Spanish language to expand into many polysyllabic words and complex structures in order to convey what Beckett built mostly with a cumulus of English monosyllables. In doing so, he also endeavours to produce a sense of rhythm akin to that of the English original. This then is a very competent translation of a complex text, and, taking into account its publication date, it may have worked as a tribute to the author, who had died in December 1989. A similar tribute was paid by Laura Cerrato12 with her translation of the poem ‘Comment dire’, a version that circulated in Argentinean and Latin American media. This Spanish version of Beckett’s last poem was produced in the context of Cerrato’s research about the genesis and creative process of Beckettian texts and displays a knowledge of Beckett’s poetics and the disruptive forms that turn the lines into the broken babbling or whispering of a self-questioning voice, as seen in the opening lines:

6

TRANSLATIONS OF BECKETT’S WORK IN ARGENTINA

locuralocura dedecómo decirlocura de estedesdelocura desde estedadolocura dado lo que devistolocura visto esteestecómo decirestoeste estoesto aquítodo este esto aquílocura dado todo lovistolocura visto todo este esto aquí dedecómo decir - (Beckett 1994: 2–3)

117

Foliefolie que deque decomment direfolie que de cedepuisfolie depuis cedonnéfolie donné ce que devufolie vu cececomment dirececice ceciceci-citout ce ceci cifolie donné tout cevufolie vu tout ce ceci-ci que deque decomment dire - (Beckett 2012: 226)

It is interesting to contrast this translation from the French with the one made in 2005 by Ezequiel Zaidenwerg, who specializes in poetry and translated from Beckett’s own English version of the poem, ‘What is the Word’. While changes in the choice of prepositions (‘de’ in Cerrato, ‘por’ in Zaidenwerg) stem from Beckett’s own change from ‘de’ in French to ‘for’ rather than ‘of’ in English, Zaidenwerg’s choice for the title phrase is of a more colloquial register, and in fact his whole version is of a more articulated character, which can be easily seen in those lines where he employs more words than Cerrato. In a less fragmentary way, he also succeeds in keeping up the rhythm and tone from the original babbling and stammering: locuralocura porporcómo se dicelocura de estotodo esto-

[follyfolly for tofor towhat is the wordfolly from thisall this(continued)

118

L. MARGARIT AND M. I. CASTAGNINO

(continued) locura de todo estodadolocura dado todo estovistolocura visto todo estoestocómo se diceeste estoeste esto de acátodo este esto de acálocura dado todo estovistolocura visto todo este esto de acáporcómo se dice -13

folly from all thisgivenfolly given all thisseeingfolly seeing all thisthiswhat is the wordthis thisthis this hereall this this herefolly given all thisseeingfolly seeing all this this herefor towhat is the word - ] (Beckett 2012: 228)

More recently, Matías Battistón has completed the translation of the whole first trilogy of novels for the publishing house named, significantly, Ediciones Godot. El innombrable [The Unnamable] was published first, in 2016, while both Molloy and Malone muere [Malone Dies ] were published only in 2020. While the editions give the French versions as the originals from which the translations were made, Battistón, in private conversation with Lucas Margarit, has claimed to have consulted and taken into consideration the English versions as well, which constitutes something of a novelty for translations in Argentina, traditionally done exclusively from the French. Battistón has been attentive to the rhythmic quality and cadence of Beckett’s narrative, as well as careful to avoid the use of excessively local terms while at the same time producing a text in Spanish that will not sound foreign to Argentinean ears, as translations imported from Spain sometimes may.14 Finally, it should be noted that Beckett’s work has been approached and translated by academics and for academia. Laura Cerrato conducted seminars on different aspects of Beckett’s work in the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras (School of Philosophy, Language and Literature) of Universidad de Buenos Aires (University of Buenos Aires) and created in 1992 the journal Beckettiana, which has made it possible for articles from prestigious Beckett scholars such as John Pilling, James Knowlson, Daniela Caselli, Linda Ben-Zvi, and Stan Gontarski to be published in Spanish. To this day, the journal has provided readers of Spanish with an access

6

TRANSLATIONS OF BECKETT’S WORK IN ARGENTINA

119

to the latest critical production on Beckett’s work through papers and reviews. A number of translations of brief texts by Beckett have appeared in Beckettiana as well (see list at the end of the chapter). This task is carried on today by researchers who also contribute translations to this academic publication.

Roberto Juarroz’s Act Without Words: A Poet’s Translation As already mentioned, a translation by Roberto Juarroz of Act Without Words I as Acto sin palabras can be found in the December 1962 triple issue of Poesía=Poesía. This journal ran from 1958 to 1965 under the direction of Roberto Juarroz himself and Mario Morales.15 Several aspects of this version are noteworthy: the fact that the translator is well known as a poet; that this was an early version of a Beckett text in Spanish; and that the translation of this short theatrical piece, a mime, was published in an independent journal dedicated to poetry. This allows for a suspicion that the journal’s directors approached Beckett’s work from a poetic rather than a dramatic point of view, and in a sense read it as such. Thus its inclusion in a publication devoted to poetry is justified, beside the fact that the briefness of the play contributed to its being apt to be published in a journal. The issue in question opens with an editorial entitled ‘Sobre la fidelidad’ (‘On fidelity’), signed by both directors, which states: He aquí nuestro realismo: el hombre expresándose desde el núcleo de su ser en situación. Toda la posibilidad expresiva del hombre total, concentrada en su último alcance creador: la poesía. Y no para esto o aquello, sino como misteriosa exigencia de ser puesta en acción. La palabra más inexplicable, inexplicablemente abierta hacia algo más fuerte que el absurdo y la soledad. (Juarroz and Morales 1962: 1–2) [This is our realism: man expressing himself from the core of his being in a situation. All expressive possibilities of the total man, concentrated in his ultimate creative reach: poetry. And not to this or that end, but as a mysterious demand to be put into action. The most inexplicable word, inexplicably open to something stronger than absurdity and loneliness.]

120

L. MARGARIT AND M. I. CASTAGNINO

Thus the editorial allows for a projection of Beckett’s ‘dramaticule’ into the realm of a poetical aesthetics in which the power of language is questioned and subjectivity borders on the inexplicable. Aspects of this manifesto-like opening piece clearly resonate with Beckett’s mime: its dramatic structure, pared down to the essential plight of humanity, appeals to the concept of realism posited in the editorial and its conjunction of poetry with action, while the absurd in particular has been an early conceptualization of Beckett’s work. Some of the authors that can be read alongside Beckett’s piece in this issue are Victor Segalen, Aimé Césaire, René Char and Witold Gombrowicz, as well as Argentinean poets like Alejandra Pizarnik, Aldo Pellegrini or the journal’s own directors. Without a doubt, elements in the particular poetic search of Juarroz can be identified with elements in the work of the included authors. This suggests that the editors recognized in Beckett’s play an interest in the same kind of search they and those authors were carrying out in the field of poetry – one committed to the liminal use of language and to its destabilizing, which challenges its role in connection with the referential world and the construction of knowledge – and a poetical quality to its language. Finding Beckett’s work in this context, then, shouldn’t be surprising. The translation is preceded by a note specifying that it is based on the text published by Les Éditions de Minuit in 1957, and including an appreciation of the author in the following terms: SAMUEL BECKETT (irlandés, 1906) el creador más significativo del actual teatro francés de vanguardia, está siempre en los límites de la poesía, a través de una constante dialéctica entre la trascendencia y el absurdo. (p. 20) [SAMUEL BECKETT (Irish, 1906) the most significant creator of current avant-garde French theatre is always in the margins of poetry through a constant dialectic of significance and absurdity.]

The lack of speech and the essentially descriptive nature of the mime’s language allow for a more objective translation – that is to say, one without the kind of localisms necessary to facilitate an audience’s comprehension or enhance the play’s performability – than Palant’s 1954 version of Esperando a Godot. But the type of reader this translation was made for should also be considered, because, as mentioned before, Poesía = Poesía was a poetry journal with a specific readership determined by the

6

TRANSLATIONS OF BECKETT’S WORK IN ARGENTINA

121

genre. It is in this respect that the translating work carried out would have looked to transform the mime not so much into a performable text as into one that might be read in a poetical light, as an enlarged metaphor on poiesis: a representation of the attempts on the part of poetic language to grab at meaning or to attain a certain objective; attempts which, ultimately frustrated, become a comment on the limitations of knowledge and on impossibility. This is the kind of consideration around which the poets brought together by the literary journal could gather, and one they echoed. The translation follows the French text closely, even respecting the spatial distribution of text on the page, and treats each movement by the character as if it were a line of poetry. Moreover, the repetitive actions of this character, systematically thwarted, bring into play the concept of failure and lead towards a state of immobility which becomes an image of existence, a reading of Beckett’s drama related to those that interpreted it from the point of view of existentialist thought, and that were usual in the 1960s and 1970s. If not always directly, but sometimes marginally or furtively, Beckett’s work has influenced the intellectual and cultural Argentinean milieu since the 1950s. As pointed out, at that early stage, in a theatre scene immersed in realism and local colour, Esperando a Godot was the play that started a trend that continues to this day: almost every year since then, some of Beckett’s dramatic works have been performed on the stages of institutional or independent theatres in Buenos Aires, as well as in the provinces. The city of Buenos Aires is the home of a yearly Beckett festival organized by director Patricio Orozco. Other Argentinean directors of today, like Luis González Bruno, Pompeyo Audivert, Cecilia Propato and Rubén Pires, direct plays by Beckett and show a sustained interest in his drama. What is more, under the direction of composer and cultural agent Martin Bauer, pieces by Beckett and by Morton Feldman have come together on stage.16 Finally, at the University of Buenos Aires, Beckettiana continues to produce online issues,17 and seminars about Beckett’s work are still conducted, which allow for the debate to continue and expand, paving the way for new aesthetic proposals, performances and translations into Spanish.

122

L. MARGARIT AND M. I. CASTAGNINO

Notes 1. In 1968 the same translation was published again in Buenos Aires, this time by Ediciones del Mediodía. In 1970 it was published in Barcelona, Spain by Círculo de Lectores. 2. Leónidas Barletta (1902–1975) was a writer of fiction, drama, poetry and essays; he founded Teatro del Pueblo and ran it until the time of his death. 3. Joan Merli (1901–1995) already had a significant trajectory as cultural agent in Spain before relocating at the beginning of the 1940s to Buenos Aires, where he continued in the same line of work. 4. In his thorough thesis on the different Spanish translations of Waiting for Godot , David Martel Cedrés (2019: 309ff.) claims that Palant used the second French edition (1953) for his translation and confirms that he also used Beckett’s Grove Press edition from 1954. 5. The debut had the following cast: Roberto Villanueva as Estragon, Leal Rey as Vladimir, Nodier Lucio as Lucky, Jorge Petraglia as Pozzo and Ricardo Petraglia as Boy. 6. While no specific information is available, it is claimed in http:// www.alternativateatral.com/obra56463-esperando-a-godot that Petraglia ‘softened’ Palant’s translation. 7. José Bianco (1908–1986) was an Argentinian writer and translator; he was the editor in chief of the journal Sur and friends with authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Adolfo Bioy Casares and Silvina Ocampo. The short story collection Las ratas and the novel Sombras suele vestir are among his best known work. 8. Victoria Ocampo (1890–1979) was an author and outstanding intellectual, who carried out extensive work as translator, editor and benefactor. Silvina Ocampo (1903–1993) was her sister, a writer of narrative and poetry and the wife of writer Adolfo Bioy Casares (1914–1999). 9. Roberto Juarroz (1925–1995) was an Argentinian poet, librarian, critic and essayist. His poetry is essentially of an intellectual kind. All of his poetry collections have been published under the title Poesía vertical [Vertical Poetry]. He received numerous awards, the prize of the 1992 International Biennial of Poetry among them. 10. Jorge Amado Lurati, known as Francisco Javier (1923–2017), was a theatre director, university professor and researcher in the field of drama. 11. Carlos Eduardo Antonio Feiling (1961–1997) was a prominent novelist, as well as a translator, journalist, poet and university professor. 12. Laura Cerrato, who was married to Roberto Juarroz, is a poet, former university lecturer and Beckett scholar. 13. The translation can be found in https://www.zaidenwerg.com/como-sedice-samuel-beckett/; it has not been published on paper or any other media than the translator’s personal page, but it is pointed out here

6

14.

15.

16.

17.

TRANSLATIONS OF BECKETT’S WORK IN ARGENTINA

123

because Zaidenwerg stands out in the local cultural milieu as a proficient translator of poetry, particularly American, and because it offers a translation from the English to contrast with the one from the French. Approached via email for this article, Zaidenwerg revised and corrected some lines in his translation. Regarding prose texts, we may as well mention the translation of Assumption (as Asunción) carried out by José Francisco Fernández, a Beckett scholar and translator at Universidad de Almería (University of Almería, Spain), which was the first translation of this text into Spanish and published in book format in Argentina. In this particular case, the translation was made in Spain, but published in Argentina by the imprint of the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires in 2015. It is a bilingual edition and includes a prologue by Lucas Margarit and an epilogue by J.D. O’Hara, ‘Assumption’s Launching Pad’, translated by María Inés Castagnino as ‘La plataforma de lanzamiento de Asunción’. Mario Morales (1936–1987) was an Argentinean poet very active during the 1970s and 1980s. After leaving the board of Poesía = Poesía, he was instrumental to the formation and activities of several groups of poets and publications, such as group Nosferatu and one of the most important journals of the time, Último Reino. He wrote several poetry collections but most of his work either remains unpublished or is out of print. In August 2018, Bauer presented a show comprising the performance of Beckett’s That Time (in an unpublished Spanish version by professional translator Laura Fryd) and Feldman’s Three Voices at the Margarita Xirgu playhouse in Buenos Aires. They may be consulted in http://revistascientificas.filo.uba.ar/index. php/Beckettiana/issue/archive, while older issues are available in reposi torio.filo.uba.ar.

Appendix: Translations of Beckett’s Work in Argentina Published in Book Form (1954), Esperando a Godot, trans. Pablo Palant, Buenos Aires: Poseidón. (1958), Malone muere, trans. José Bianco, Buenos Aires: Sur. (1961), Molloy, trans. Roberto Bixio, Buenos Aires: Sur. (1964), Final de partida – Acto sin palabras, trans. Francisco Javier, Buenos Aires: Nueva Visión. (2015), Asunción, trans. José Francisco Fernández, Buenos Aires: EUFyL. (2016), El innombrable, trans. Matías Battistón, Buenos Aires: Ediciones Godot. (2020), Malone muere, trans. Matías Battistón, Buenos Aires: Ediciones Godot.

124

L. MARGARIT AND M. I. CASTAGNINO

(2020), Molloy, trans. Matías Battistón, Buenos Aires: Ediciones Godot.

Published in the Journal Beckettiana (1992), ‘Henri Hayden, hombre-pintor’ [‘Henry Hayden, homme-paintre’], trans. and annotator Laura Cerrato, Beckettiana. Cuadernos del Seminario Beckett, N° 1, 55–56. (1994), ‘Mirlitonnades’, trans. Lucas Margarit, Beckettiana. Cuadernos del Seminario Beckett, 37–44. (1995), ‘Malacoda’, trans. and annotator Laura Cerrato, Beckettiana. Cuadernos del Seminario Beckett, N° 4, 41–42. (1996), ‘Abandonné’, trans. and annotator Laura Cerrato, Beckettiana. Cuadernos del Seminario Beckett, 7. (1996), ‘Carta alemana de 1937’ [‘German letter of 1937’], trans. and annotator Ana María Cartolano, Beckettiana. Cuadernos del Seminario Beckett, N° 5, 89–92. (1997), ‘Neither’, trans. and annotator Laura Cerrato, Beckettiana. Cuadernos del Seminario Beckett, N° 6, 101–103. (1997), ‘Carta a George Duthuit’ [‘Letter to George Duthuit’ dated June 9, 1949], trans. Patrice Toulat and Lucas Margarit, Beckettiana. Cuadernos del Seminario Beckett N° 6, 117–118. (2002), ‘El Concentrismo’ [‘Le Concentrisme’], trans. and annotator Elina Montes, Beckettiana. Cuadernos del Seminario Beckett, N° 9, 141–148. (2002), ‘Ceiling’, trans. Laura Cerrato, Beckettiana. Cuadernos del Seminario Beckett, N° 9, 149–150. (2002), ‘Sentencia’ [‘Gnome’], trans. Laura Cerrato, Beckettiana. Cuadernos del Seminario Beckett, N° 9, 152. (2002), ‘I would like my love to die’, trans. Lucas Margarit, Beckettiana. Cuadernos del Seminario Beckett, N° 9, 152.

Published in Other Journals (1962), ‘Acto sin palabras’ [Act without Words I ], trans. Roberto Juarroz, Poesía = Poesía, Nº 11–12–13, December, 20–22. (1990), ‘Quietud, aun inquieta’ [Stirrings Still ], trans. C.E. Feiling, Babel, N°15, 32–33. (1994), ‘Cómo decir’ [‘Comment dire’], trans. Laura Cerrato, El Jabalí, Nº 3, 2–3 [This translation was also published in Colombia in the journal Común presencia, N° 3–4, Bogotá (1990) and in the journal Poesía y Poética, Nº 19, México (1995)].

6

TRANSLATIONS OF BECKETT’S WORK IN ARGENTINA

125

Works Cited Beckett, Samuel. 1953. En attendant Godot. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit. ———. 1954a. Esperando a Godot, trans. Pablo Palant. Buenos Aires: Editorial Poseidón. ———. 1954b. Waiting for Godot. New York: Grove Press. ———. 1983. Disjecta, ed. Ruby Cohn. London: Calder. ———. 1994. Cómo decir, trans. Laura Cerrato, El Jabalí, Nº 3, 2–3. ———. 2005. Cómo se dice, trans. Ezequiel Zaidenwerg. https://www.zaiden werg.com/como-se-dice-samuel-beckett/. ———. 2011. The Letters of Samuel Beckett Volume II: 1941–1956, ed. George Craig, Martha Dow Fehsenfeld, Dan Gunn, and Lois More Overbeck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2012. Collected Poems, ed. Seán Lawlor and John Pilling. London: Faber & Faber. Clarín. 2003. Las versiones en la Argentina, January 5. Retrieved from https:// www.clarin.com/espectaculos/versiones-argentina_0_ByoB0MeRYx.html. Juarroz, Roberto, and Mario Morales. 1962. Sobre la fidelidad. Poesía = Poesía: 1–2. Martel Cedrés, David. 2019. Esperando a Godot: escenificaciones condicionadas por sus traducciones. PhD dissertation. Madrid: Universidad Complutense.

CHAPTER 7

The Meremost Minimum: Beckett’s Translations into Brazilian Portuguese Renata Vaz Shimbo and Fábio de Souza Andrade

For French philosophically inspired critics like Maurice Blanchot (1959) and Bruno Clément (1994) Beckett should be taken for an écrivain critique not only as far as his critical essays are considered. Moved by this self-reflexive breath and inhabited by recurrences, parallels, series – of quotes, of characters, of technical devices – Beckett’s oeuvre seems to explain itself, obsessively spreading from a recognizable and recognized core of issues. Blanchot and Clément insist on the enticing and selflegitimating trait of Samuel Beckett’s writings, anticipating in his own creative efforts the critics’ hermeneutic strategies, fore-announcing them by persuasive, consistent and continuous self-references, deeply embedded

R. V. Shimbo Graduate Studies in Literature and Literary Criticism, Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil F. de Souza Andrade (B) Department of Literary Theory and Comparative Literature, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. F. Fernández and P. Sardin (eds.), Translating Samuel Beckett around the World, New Interpretations of Beckett in the Twenty-First Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71730-8_7

127

128

R. V. SHIMBO AND F.

DE

SOUZA ANDRADE

in his novels and plays. Thus, it is only natural that every Beckett reader, academic or not, should benefit from getting to know the whole corpus of his work, its internal development and ruptures. Not because this movement follows a clear pattern of progress, his writings evolving towards a point of extreme concentration, but essentially because his creations revolve around the same very few motives – failure, language, imagination, solipsism – and one may learn a lot about their extraordinary suggestiveness precisely from the variations they assume. In Brazil, Beckettian reception began relatively soon and it would also be quite easy to trace Beckett’s influence in contemporary theatrical life.1 Nevertheless, new critical approaches are still hindered by very serious gaps in the translation of his works. The young Beckett, for instance, is still scarcely known among Brazilian readers, despite recent editions of Murphy, Echo’s Bones and a forthcoming Watt .2 A considerable part of his late prose, Nohow on included, has been carefully translated and edited, but his poems and late dramaticules have not yet been published in Brazil. In which way are recent Brazilian editions of these neglected works likely to redefine Beckett’s image in our country? To which extent do translations of Beckett’s early and late works imply new critical approaches to his literature in Brazil? And how far have they been conditioned by recent paths in Beckettian studies worldwide? It seems difficult to reconcile a very early and prolific presence of his plays on Brazilian stages, dating from the late 1950s, and a relatively slowpaced and deficient local publication history. To this day, a considerable part of Beckett’s prose, poems and dramatic works (particularly, the late dramaticules) has not yet been published in Brazilian translations. The existent Portuguese editions of those works, though in greater number, do not make up for such a significant gap. In fact, they attest to how diverse the same language became contemporarily in Portugal and in Brazil, especially for literary and dramatic uses. In order to be entirely and creatively assimilated by Brazilian readers and authors, actors and directors, Beckett’s bilingual work demands to be translated specifically into Brazilian Portuguese, implying a sort of double translation, or another translation into the same language, which mirrors, in certain aspects, the complications involved in the twofold Beckett originals, in English and French. For that reason, when considering Beckett translations in Brazil and Portugal, the issue of self-translation may offer invaluable help. In addition to presenting a brief overview of Beckett’s translations in

7

THE MEREMOST MINIMUM: BECKETT’S TRANSLATIONS …

129

Brazil, from the mid-twentieth century onwards, this chapter concentrates on a case study, providing a comparative analysis of the Brazilian Portuguese translation of Worstward Ho (Pra Frente o Pior, translated by Ana Helena Souza, 2012), and the Portuguese translation published in Portugal in 1988 (Pioravante Marche, translated by Miguel Esteves Cardoso). This comparison will, hopefully, show how diversely each one of them deals with Beckett’s late style, singularly recreating its complex sound suggestiveness, tattered syntax and challenging brevity. For a long time, Brazilian readers had to cope with an awkward editorial silence as far as Beckett was concerned, except for a first translation of Waiting for Godot , Esperando Godot (1976, trans. Rangel), which was included in a series dedicated to classics of drama and stimulated by a particularly successful production of the play.3 It was not until the 1980s that Beckett’s novels found their way into Brazilian Portuguese. Predictably, the post-war trilogy came first, but these first editions of Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable were rather isolated events, far from carefully prepared editions, and almost deprived of paratexts. Apart from Malone Morre (1986, trans. Paulo Leminski), Molloy (1988, trans. Leo Schlafman) and O Inominável (1989, trans. Walternsir Dutra), there was only a local edition of Company, Companhia (1982, trans. Elsa Martins) and a bilingual edition of First Love, Primeiro Amor (1987, trans. Waltensir Dutra). The translator of Malone Dies , Paulo Leminski, a prestigious poet himself, even tried a ‘bitranslation’ of the novel, incorporating aspects of both the French and the English originals into his Portuguese version.4 Even though a few literary essays by the young Beckett were already available in Portuguese – see Proust (1986, trans. Arthur Nestrovski) and ‘Dante…Bruno.Vico..Joyce’, published in a volume dedicated to James Joyce, Riverrun (1992, trans. Arthur Nestovski) – Beckett’s first and late years remained extensively ignored by the editorial market. Whoever in Brazil took an interest in those extremes of Beckettian creation had no alternative but to appeal to Portuguese translations, which proved a misleading shortcut, especially when talking about the plays, as the differences between the spoken language in Portugal and in Brazil are more important than we usually acknowledge. Beckett was staged regularly,5 but the translated plays were never printed due to an editorial myth, pervasive among Brazilian editors, that dramatic literature would not be commercially viable.

130

R. V. SHIMBO AND F.

DE

SOUZA ANDRADE

Succeeding this sustained silence, a second wave of academically oriented and specialized interest came and, this time, other interesting dimensions of Beckett’s work began to be systematically brought into focus. From the mid-1990s on, Beckettian reception in Brazil reached a different stage: essays on specific aspects of Beckett as a playwright, as a novelist, as a bilingual writer, studies dealing with the elusive I in his final works or with his television experiments have been published, as well as translations of a significant part of his early and late works. The appearance of a considerable amount of new critical studies and the sudden increase in the number of Beckett’s editions in Brazilian Portuguese were closely connected, the translators frequently being Beckett scholars themselves.6 It is well known how unpreceded importance has recently been attributed to the first Beckett, the ‘Beckett before Beckett’,7 closely associated with the rediscovery of the archives (reading notes, letters, manuscripts, even doodles) dating from his formative years as a writer. This represented a considerable quake in Beckett studies, as the critical works of Matthew Feldman and Mark Nixon, for instance, may well attest to.8 This philologically anchored approach emphasizes the links between Beckett’s work and specific traditions from which he comes and that he resisted – Elizabethan drama, the origins of the English novel, the eighteenth century, Dr. Johnson, Arnold Guelincx, and so on. Paradoxically, his singularity is only stressed by the study of these dialogues. On the other hand, Beckettian studies have become progressively more open to globalized readings of Beckett’s drama and fiction,9 no longer taken for an exportable formula of avant-garde art, a way into experimentation which could be replicated in different places as an internationalist handbook, but as a corpus encouraging emergent cultures to reinterpret the legacy of Western modernism according to the premises of their own histories and needs. These readings may lead to a wide range of possibilities, from political interpretations of Beckett’s works, considered as allegories of modern history and impasses, to desubstantializing readings, reducing his efforts to a resource of inspiring technical innovations. The growth of specialized studies has also imposed Beckett’s bilingualism and his self-translating process as an urgent theoretical issue. The fact that Beckett was a bilingual writer could no longer be ignored.10 Ana Helena Souza’s A Tradução Como um Outro Original (Souza 2006) was the first serious attempt to consider it from a local point of view. As well as having translated for the first time in Brazil How It Is as Como É (2006, trans. Souza), the author retranslated the trilogy of novels, Molloy (2007,

7

THE MEREMOST MINIMUM: BECKETT’S TRANSLATIONS …

131

trans. Souza), O Inominável (2009, trans. Souza) and Malone Morre (2014, trans. Souza). At the same time, Beckett’s dramatic works were (re)-translated: Fim de Partida (2002, trans. Andrade), Esperando Godot (2005, trans. Andrade) and Dias Felizes (2010, Andrade) were published as part of a translation editorial project encompassing Beckett’s complete drama works. Almost simultaneously, part of the final prose was finally translated. Ill Seen, Ill Said, Mal Visto, Mal Dito was published side-by-side with The Lost Ones, O Despovoador (2008, trans. Araújo), followed by Companhia e Outros Textos (2012, trans. Souza), a collection including a retranslation of Company, Companhia, the first Brazilian translation of Worstward Ho, Pra Frente o Pior, and a few short prose faux departs . Having previously translated The Expelled and other Novellas, Novelas (2006, trans. Araújo), Eloiza Araújo provided a Brazilian version of the Texts for Nothing, Textos para Nada (2015, trans. Araújo). Caetano Galindo, a prolific translator (James Joyce, Thomas Pynchon, Paul Auster) set about to translate and annotate the short story Echo’s Bones, Os Ossos de Eco (2015, trans. Galindo), shortly after the British edition.11 One should stress how a careful attention to the different challenges offered by each period of Beckett’s work stands behind these more recent translations into Brazilian Portuguese. For instance, when it comes to rendering the early Beckett into Brazilian Portuguese, if we assume translation is already a form of critical and active reading, it is essential to take seriously one of the strong mottoes that runs through his first novel: ‘in the beginning was the pun’. Here, one may see superposed at least two of the most important traits of young Beckett. First, the huge and evident burden of his debts to the ambitions of high modernism, by then, condensed in the inspiring, but oppressive figure of Joyce, the epitome of his esteem for the corrosive modernist project. In addition to that, this perception reduplicates in the thickening of the material dimension of language in Murphy, progressively releasing itself from traditional and referential representation of the world, leaving an agonizing realism behind. As far as the Brazilian cultural scene is concerned, the ambiguous nature of the parodic drive dominant in Murphy, reverent and innovative at the same time, is of great appeal and matches perfectly the ideal defended by native modernists of praising highly an anthropophagic cultural attitude, metaphorically swallowing Western values and knowledge and recreating them in a free combination with local traditions.

132

R. V. SHIMBO AND F.

DE

SOUZA ANDRADE

Nonetheless, parallel difficulties emerge immediately: the play with tradition within Murphy is very allusive and erudite, and this erudition is all but natural for those who insert themselves in this tradition of lettered European culture from a peripheral standpoint. ‘Each phase its speciality’, as Hamm might have said. Whereas Beckett’s late drama is founded on a linguistic concentration close to that of poetry and his early prose owes a lot to allusions, to witty wordplay and to manifest parodies, when we bear the post-war Parisian plays in mind, the main challenge for the translator seems to be approaching a complexity made out of very simple elements, a singular, musically recreated orality, which results in a completely new dramatic form. From a translator’s point of view, comparing En attendant Godot and Waiting for Godot , or Fin de partie and Endgame, is a quite liberating experience. At no point should the complex relation between the two originals burden the translator as an unsolvable dilemma or a potential torture. Quite the contrary, it opens a window into Beckett’s creative backstage, emphasizing the multiple expressions of a certain common forma mentalis shared by both texts. They are different, but in them deeply related expressions of a work are always in progress, driven ahead by a continuous rewriting impulse that relativizes the authority of published editions and the limits of single works.12 Taking into account the intricate genesis of Beckett’s works, self-translation and after-publication changes comprised, attempts of fusing the two fictive universes created by the bilingual work in a third, unitarian translated text, into a language that is not French or English should be abandoned. Residues seem to be welcome into Beckett’s works, as well as into Beckettian translation. The chronological precedence of the French text, on the one hand, and the existence of a definitive text in English, incorporating the cuts and corrections resultant from Beckett’s personal direction of Godot, on the other, do not entitle any of these versions to a hierarchical primacy.13 Both the English and the French texts carry evidence of a common core of expressive stimuli, impulses, figments and gestures that belong to a Beckettian diction. They are equally legitimate configurations of the same creative mind, bearing traces of a determined moment in Beckett’s journey as an author or a director. In that sense, each of them may teach something the others will not, even retrospectively introducing instability and incompletion in the previously printed text, supposedly finished.

7

THE MEREMOST MINIMUM: BECKETT’S TRANSLATIONS …

133

Beckett being an author published almost simultaneously in French and English, by different printing houses in the UK and the United States, the issue of editorial handling naturally matters a lot, printing mistakes and censorship included. All that taken into account, two originals are a considerable help for translators. In his drama, as well as in his prose works, the translation game is not won in a line, a dialogue or an image, but in the process as a whole. The relative achievement of any translation can only be evaluated as a whole, necessarily implying an enormous amount of frustration and giving up, only too natural in an architecture of ruins, made out of fragments and scattered syntax. Therefore, in the case of the particular rhythms or tempo of each play and novel, the criterion can neither be the accumulation of all possible references, synthetizing the French and English texts, nor the obsessive idea of maintaining at all costs a mention, a witty remark, an image which appears only in one version, but to make the most of the insights and possibilities provided by the act of reading them side-by-side. It is not a matter of looking for ‘the’ translation, a single and authorized re- or transcreation, but of multiplying ‘translations’, each one a critical, partial and interpretative appropriation, legitimate in itself from the very beginning. Examining briefly a particular case, i.e. the translation of Worstward Ho into Portuguese, the following section should be able to illustrate how complex and fruitful the process may prove to be. In the early 1980s, Beckett published three prose pieces – Company (1980), Ill Seen Ill Said (1981) and Worstward Ho (1983) – undeniably different from the residual faux departs , short texts, generally confined to a few pages or even paragraphs, he had worked on during the previous two decades. This so-called second ‘trilogy’ shared both a new aesthetic urge and a still more radical perception and expression of the linguistic nature of experience, of the gap between world and words, of the limits of representation.14 Like much of Beckett’s late prose, they naturally called for stage productions and, after David Warrilow’s The Lost Ones (1975), Company and Worstward Ho were soon presented to theatre audiences by another founding member of Mabou Mines, Frederic Neuman, in 1983 and 1986, respectively. The writing process of these three works that mix together fiction, poetry and drama to the point of near complete fusion, is particularly resistant to a neat description. When it comes to Beckettian bilingualism and the translation history of his works, they are a particularly interesting case. To illustrate the extraordinary complexity of the self-translation

134

R. V. SHIMBO AND F.

DE

SOUZA ANDRADE

process in Beckett, it is enough to bear in mind what the archives reveal about the backstage of his writing. Mal vu mal dit was first conceived in French (October 1979–February 1981), but translated into English at practically the same time (December 1980–January 1981). However, short extracts were published in the meanwhile (‘Un soir’/‘One evening’) and if the Éditions de Minuit book was released in May 1981, the English version, Ill Seen Ill Said, was already available in a New Yorker edition, only a few months later, in October 1981. The origin of Company is quite similar, except that, in this case, Beckett started working in English.15 Of all his major works, particularly when this trilogy is concerned, Worstward Ho is the particular one which Beckett has given up to completely translate himself, breaking the tendency of Beckettian bilingualism. When questioned about his decision, Beckett said he could not find, in French, the possibility of a translation that would not take away the force of the words, having in mind the very title and the opening paragraph, to begin with.16 Even though one concedes that, many times, the self-translation has proved itself a painful task for the author (Murphy, for instance, found its way into French only ten years after its publication in English), the resigning is atypical and eloquent. To ask oneself why seems to be a legitimate question and all the possible answers must take into consideration the unheard complexity of this specific text, even having Beckettian patterns in mind. At that moment Beckett did not want to face personally the work of mourning involved in translation, meant for failure and imperfection from the cradle, to the point of concluding a translation of his own.17 Resonating with the Shakespearian paradox ‘The worst is not as long as one can say, This is the worst’ (King Lear, act 4, scene 1), Worstward Ho forges a syntax and a vocabulary of its own, intensively exploring the extremes of linguistic obscurity. The minimal plot takes place in the intimacy of the narrator’s imaginative fabulation, the skull, his private Golgotha. We are no longer facing a plot and a storyteller, but actually witnessing a creation scene forged by a scattered language. Beckett forces words into unforeseen grammatical instability, mitigating conventional punctuation, privileging nominal clauses, placing them, ambiguously, inbetween nominal, adjective and adverbial functions, dissolving almost completely conventional referentiality. Provisional realities and minimal characters are reduced to a tentative sketch, imagined just in order to be cancelled, blotted out, at the next move. Only language’s performative drama is kept as an evidence of how demanding Beckett’s late poetics is,

7

THE MEREMOST MINIMUM: BECKETT’S TRANSLATIONS …

135

concentrated in the meagre and resilient remains of representation, the ‘unlessenable least’ that enables self and world to meet and defy each other. The empty too. Away. No hands in the –. No. Save for worse to say. Somehow worse somehow to say. Say for now still seen. Dimly seen. Dim white. Two dim white empty hands. In the dim void. So leastward on. So long as dim still. Dim undimmed. Or dimmed to dimmer still. To dimmost dim. Leastmost in dimmost dim. Utmost dim. Leastmost in utmost dim. Unworsenable worst. What words for what then? How almost they still ring. As somehow from some soft of mind they ooze. From it in it ooze. How all but uninane. To last unlessenable least how loath to leasten. For then in utmost dim to unutter leastmost all. (Beckett 1983: 34)

There is no possible overstating of the challenges involved in the translation of such a text. How to recreate such multi-layered structures and textures (sounds, meanings, images) in any other language? It is easy to understand why Beckett renounced self-translation in this case. If he usually works by subtraction and concentration, saying less or even nothing, how to translate, saying less, a text that already originates in the most radical determination of saying the minimum? What Beckett thought untranslatable in Worstward Ho is likely to be closely connected to what Gilles Deleuze, in his essay L´Épuisé, had called Language III.18 Even though the philosopher identified the first elements of this ‘language of images’ in Comment c’est, Language III seems to have invaded Beckett’s later works, particularly Worstward Ho. The concept is no stranger to Beckett’s own ‘literature of the unword’, a writing meant to explore the gulf between signified and signifier, evoking sensitive responses, visual and auditive, almost apart from the weight of representation words naturally bear. In that sense, Worstward Ho is a text whose dominant signifying resources are dependent on sound and rhythm, on ellipsis and paronomasia, as one of his translators into Portuguese, Ana Helena Souza, puts it: ‘Perhaps one might say that, for Beckett, [Worstward Ho] was not only a piece written in the English language, but elaborated within and by the English language itself, from its tiniest meanings and sounds’ (Souza 2014: 98. Our translation).

136

R. V. SHIMBO AND F.

DE

SOUZA ANDRADE

However, in the wake of Edith Fournier, the Brazilian Ana Helena Souza herself and the Portuguese Miguel Esteves Cardoso also risked reinventing Beckett’s late writings, translating Worstward Ho into Portuguese. Cardoso’s Pioravante Marche was published in 1988, and Ana Helena Souza’s Pra Frente o Pior, in 2012. While Cardoso’s translation seems to pay greater heed to the book’s strangeness and resistance to linguistic norm, resulting in a rather hermetic Portuguese text, Souza’s version of Worstward Ho focuses on occasionally recreating the resistant isles of clarity in the text, and at times sacrificing its enigmatic aspect. First, the titles themselves are quite striking. Having the many allusions (spatial, temporal, contextual) of the original in mind, Souza chose a translation that brings a specifically Brazilian resonance: Pra Frente o Pior. According to Souza, ‘bringing together “pra frente” [onward] and “pior” [worse] seemed to work as a Brazilian translation of “worstward ho”’ (Souza 2014: 94. Our translation).19 During the military dictatorship, between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s, nationalistic propaganda slogans proliferated. In that context, a very popular song was composed to inspire the National Football Team, during the 1970 FIFA World Cup, ‘Pra frente, Brasil’ [‘Go ahead, Brazil’]. Identified with the regime, the song’s title soon became a sort of official motto of that period, stimulating an unjustified general feeling that Brazil was a country ‘moving forward’ and experiencing a development that would eventually compensate for a chronic historical delay. As for Cardoso, he chose rather to recreate the original neologism in Portuguese, bringing together ‘pior’ [worst] and ‘avante’ [forward] into a single word. By doing so, he managed to keep the slightly old fashioned and unusual connotation of the word ‘worstward’. To the construction ‘pioravante’, he added the second person imperative form of the verb ‘marchar’, ‘marche’. ‘To march’ means, as in English, ‘to tread’, but also ‘to walk in military fashion’, given that ‘marchar’ usually refers to moving troops. How to be up to the challenging, essential and unorthodox word building process in Worstward Ho, defying discursive logic, intensifying superlatives? For instance, in Cardoso’s version, ‘Leastmost in utmost dim. Unworsenable worst’ (Beckett 1983: 33) has become ‘Inminorável no máximo obscuro. Pior impiorável’ (Beckett 1988: 29), whereas in Souza’s, the same passage reads ‘Minimáximo na penumbra máxima. Impiorável pior’ (Beckett 2012b: 80). Both translators arrived at the same alternative to translate ‘Unworsenable worst’, despite the different

7

THE MEREMOST MINIMUM: BECKETT’S TRANSLATIONS …

137

word order, a variation that is mainly due to different rhythmical choices. Nonetheless, Cardoso translated ‘leastmost’ as ‘inminorável’, a neologism derived from the verb ‘minorar’ (minimize), at first by adding a negative prefix in-, and then by adding the suffix -vel, which turns the verb into an adjective. He concentrated on the processual aspect implied, on the gradual approach to the minimum, instead of the final result evident in ‘leastmost’, describing it as ‘impossible to minimize’. Souza, on the other hand, attached the prefix ‘mini’ to the adjective ‘máximo’ (maximum), i.e. suggesting the smallest maximum possible.20 In addition to that, she repeated ‘máximo’ in order to intensify the word ‘penumbra’ (dim), beautifully emulating the parallel construction of the original. Word for word, Cardoso’s translation would read ‘impossible to make smaller (inminorável) in the maximum darkness (no máximo obscuro)’. Souza’s, in turn, would be close to something like ‘the smallest maximum (minimáximo) in the maximum dim (na penumbra máxima)’. If Cardoso concentrates on modifying a verb, ‘minorar’, attentive to the aspect of an interrupted, or made impossible, activity as the core of the passage, Souza’s interpretation gives special importance to the final result of this process. Her translation, excluding verbs and confined to modified nouns, suggests the portrayal of a still image. The difficulty here seems to lie in the passage’s extraordinary and suggestive use of sound. Beckett’s final prose, concise and close to the lyric, depends on a very particular kind of rhythm, musical and largely based on paronomasia, assonances and alliterations. A Portuguese language translator, unfortunately, can count neither on the plasticity, nor on the flexibility of the short tonic monosyllables provided by the English language. Forced to a more analytic writing, both translations result in longer texts, mainly because the original’s power of encapsulating many contradictory and diverse meanings into a single word or expression can hardly be replicated in Portuguese. Let us for example examine the occurrences of two key words, extensively repeated throughout the text: ‘dim’ and ‘on’. While Cardoso translates ‘dim’ as ‘obscuro’, Souza uses the word ‘penumbra’. Both translators were forced to fix upon a longer word, three syllables instead of one. However, both translators tried to overcome this initial disadvantage by recurring to calculated parallelisms, based on lexical and structural repetitions, and alliterative and assonantal chains. By doing this, the crucial role played by sound in Beckett’s late work is retained in these Portuguese versions, as the following passage illustrates quite well:

138

R. V. SHIMBO AND F.

DE

SOUZA ANDRADE

So leastward on. So long as dim still. Dim undimmed. Or dimmed to dimmer still. To dimmost dim. Leastmost in dimmost dim. Utmost dim. Leastmost in utmost dim. Unworsenable worst. (Beckett 1988: 480)

Cardoso’s version reads: Menoravante em diante então. Enquanto obscuro ainda. Obscuro inobscurecido. Ou obscurecido até mais obscuro ainda. Até obscuro inobscurecível. Inminorável no obscuro inobscurecível. Máximo obscuro. Inminorável no máximo obscuro. (Beckett 1988: 29)

And Souza’s: Assim pro mínimo adiante. Até quando ainda penumbra. Penumbra desensombrada. Ou ensombrada para mais sombria ainda. Para a mais sombria penumbra. Minimáximo na mais sombria penumbra. Penumbra máxima. Minimáximo na penumbra máxima. (Beckett 2012b: 80)

When reading both translations out loud, one cannot help noticing how the obsessive sound repetition, as well as the musical structure beneath the disposition of the stressed syllables, make Cardoso’s version approach the demanding suggestiveness of verse. Souza was also attentive to the same aspect: the recurring digraphs suggest a reading that forces internal pauses and avoids sound fluency, subdividing the text into smaller sections, introducing cuts and interruptions in the reading, as if the Brazilian translator were consciously resisting the charm of continuous flow in the name of clearness. ‘On’ opens the text and constantly recurs, as the first section clearly shows: ‘On. Say on. Be said on. Somehow on. Till nohow on. Said nohow on’ (Beckett 1983: 7). Out of 14 words, 11 are monosyllables that create a continuous and syncopated poetical rhythm. In Cardoso’s version, the passage reads as follows: ‘Em diante. Dizer em diante. Ser dito em diante. Dalgum modo em diante. Até de modo nenhum em diante. Dito de modo nenhum em diante’ (Beckett 1988: 21), whereas in Souza, it reads: ‘Adiante. Dizer adiante. Ser dito adiante. De algum modo adiante. Até que de nenhum modo adiante. Dito de nenhum modo adiante’ (Beckett 2012b: 65). While Cardoso chose to translate ‘on’ by ‘em diante’, Souza chose ‘adiante’ and justified her choice saying that she wanted to ‘find a word that could refer to a spatial rather than temporal progress, a word able to indicate the text movement as carried on by the writing drive,

7

THE MEREMOST MINIMUM: BECKETT’S TRANSLATIONS …

139

by an enunciation that moves ‘forward’ in the page” (Souza 2014: 94. Our translation).21 Though both solutions take the spatial and temporal aspects of on into consideration, the ambivalence between the two of them being thus maintained in Portuguese, some subtle differences result from their options. Cardoso’s choice of ‘em diante’ (on) admits many flexions in preposition + adverb combinations, such as ‘daqui em diante’ (from now on), ‘dali em diante’ (thereafter), ‘daí em diante’ (from then on) or even, as he translated, ‘ser dito em diante’ (be said on). By choosing ‘adiante’ (onward), on the other hand, Souza favours a wider range of derivation, as this word is also one of the possible flexions of the verb ‘adiantar’ (which means ‘to bring forward’, ‘advance’, ‘progress’, but also ‘be worthwhile’, ‘be of some use’).22 In that sense, the passage translated by Souza ‘Até que de nenhum modo adiante. Dito de nenhum modo adianta’ (Beckett 2012b, 65) can be read both as a statement of the impossibility of going forth, or the assertion that going ahead would be useless, an enunciation of failure, which matches her translation of the expression ‘missaid’ (Beckett 1983: 7) by ‘dito mal’. Her use of the adverb ‘mal’ (bad) modulates ‘dito’ (‘said’) in the sense of imperfection. Cardoso, on the other hand, translated ‘missaid’ by ‘desdito’. The prefix des- is roughly equivalent to the English prefix un- and implies a denial or an undoing, so that ‘desdito’ brings along the notion either of contradicting, or of taking back what was said. If, translating ‘missaid’, Cardoso chose to add the prefix des-, (‘desdito’), when facing, later on, the similar word ‘Misseen’ (Beckett 1983: 12), he chose this time ‘Mal visto’ (Beckett 1988: 11), introducing a new ambiguity into the text. In Portuguese, although ‘mal visto’ refers primarily to imperfectly distinguishing something with the eyes, it also comprises a sense of moral fault, of someone or something improperly seen. In addition to that, this translation does not observe the parallelism of the original version (‘missaid’/‘misseen’).23 In deciding on ‘Visto mal’ (Beckett 2012: 68), Souza at once avoids an imprecision and stays closer to Beckett’s love for symmetry. The two translators have kept, from the original version, the punctuation and the paragraph structure. The iconic Beckett quote from Worstward Ho – ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better’ (Beckett 1983: 7) – also had its essence preserved by very close translations. In the Portuguese edition we can read: ‘Nunca ter

140

R. V. SHIMBO AND F.

DE

SOUZA ANDRADE

tentado. Nunca ter falhado. Não importa. Tentar outra vez. Falhar outra vez. Falhar melhor’ (Beckett 1988: 7). In the Brazilian version: ‘Nunca tentado. Nunca falhado. Não importa. Tentar de novo. Falhar de novo. Falhar melhor’ (Beckett 2012: 65). Having a word-for-word translation of the original sentence in mind, the only differences are the suppression of the verb ‘ter’ (‘have’) and the changing of ‘outra vez’ (‘once more’) by ‘de novo’ (‘again’), which in Portuguese does not result in significant change of meaning. Yet, it is worth noting that the Brazilian version, shorter and sharper, reflects one of the main differences between the Brazilian and Portuguese written variants of the language, the latter always a bit more formal than the former. Even though Ana Helena Souza and Miguel Esteves Cardoso share the same willingness to violate their mother language with knowledge and intention, as Beckett once admitted he was ready to do in the so-called ‘German letter’ addressed to Axel Kaun,24 in order to find equivalents in Portuguese to Beckettian final prose, the amount of grammatical and lexical strangeness each one felt ready to admit substantially differs. Whereas Cardoso explores a charming, sonorous prosody, a trait of growing weight in Beckett’s late work in English, Souza sticks to a strict uncompromising literality, refusing to resolve the original’s cutting edges or ambiguities in the Brazilian Portuguese version. By recreating Worstward Ho in Portuguese, not only have the two translators produced distinct and equally legitimate versions, both deeply rooted in the radical linguistic drive of Beckett’s late work, but also proved to be highly inventive translators. The differences that surround the Portuguese language spoken in Brazil from the one used in Portugal go beyond normative grammatical structures; they emerge from a cultural filter, and communicative preferences and values must be taken into account in the translation. Therefore, thinking of Brazilian Portuguese as an autonomous language that has its own linguistic system is not a form of linguistic nationalism, but a reflection of what Ivo Castro (1991) describes as a fracture that separates the two languages, apparently very close. Recent research in the field of sociolinguistics, such as those by Aroldo de Andrade and Charlotte Galves (2019) and Marcos Bagno (2019), indicates that such differences are not only incorporated in the oral language or in the field of social contract, but establish marks in the grammar itself, which can be verified in official, academic and journalistic texts, to name a few examples.

7

THE MEREMOST MINIMUM: BECKETT’S TRANSLATIONS …

141

A striking aspect is that the Brazilian grammar is based on the subject + verb + predicate structure, unlike the predicate + verb + subject structure favoured by the Portuguese language in Portugal. As a consequence, Brazilian Portuguese has a greater focus on discourse, in which everything that is said is related to the person to whom it was mentioned. In addition, due to the mixture with African and indigenous languages, which also reflects the country’s population, the language used in Brazil has less rigidity and formality than the one used in Portugal, as we have sought to emphasize in our analysis. In view of the differences pointed out, we realize that the translation choices reflect not only the translators’ personal decisions, but also cultural elements that reverberate in the variants of the Portuguese language spoken in Brazil and Portugal. These are very similar languages in structure, so much that it is possible to refer to both by the same name, but their use is marked by a radical division that goes far beyond the split between American and British English (Bagno 2019). What we notice in this quick comparison between Worstward Ho’s translations into Portuguese is that, regardless of the choices made by the translators, both were faithful to the elements that make up the scarce language created by Beckett. Despite that, we see that the differences printed by the translators’ selections incorporate a greater proximity of each text with the peculiarities of the country for which the translation was intended. Although there are clear differences, especially for us, Portuguese speakers, these contrasts grant the text its particularity without, however, escaping from the Beckettian proposal.

Notes 1. For a historical survey of Brazilian stagings of Beckett’s plays, from Esperando Godot (July 1955), in São Paulo, directed by Alfredo Mesquita and performed by drama students from EAD (Escola de Arte Dramática), to recent productions by directors such as Gerald Thomas, Rubens Rusche, Isabel Teixeira, Isabel Cavalcanti and Adriano e Fernando Guimarães, see Andrade (2014), ‘Facing other Windows: Beckett in Brazil’, in S.E. Gontarski (ed.), The Edinburgh Companion to Samuel Beckett and the Arts, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press; and Andrade (2020), ‘Echoes, Rags and Bones: A Few Brazilian Becketts on the Way’, in Chakraborty and Vazquez (eds.), Samuel Beckett as World Literature, New York: Bloomsbury Academic. As a particularly remarkable sample of Brazilian contemporary reinvention of Beckett’s dramatic work,

142

R. V. SHIMBO AND F.

2.

3.

4. 5.

6.

7.

DE

SOUZA ANDRADE

S.E. Gontarski (2016) mentions the extraordinarily innovative work of Adriano and Fernando Guimarães, combining theatre, performance pieces, music, visual arts and literature ‘into a hybrid, composite art form … into a new poetic space...[they] create their own Beckett archive’ (‘Reinventing Beckett’, in Gontarski 2016, Beckett Matters: Essays on Beckett’s Late Modernism, Edinburgh: EUP, pp.195–6). Ossos de Eco (2016), translated by Caetano Galindo, São Paulo: Globo; Murphy (2015), translated by Fábio de Souza Andrade, São Paulo: Cosac Naify; Watt (2020), translated by Fábio de Souza Andrade, São Paulo: Companhia das Letras. ‘Brazilian leading actress, a former member of TBC and EAD, Cacilda Becker (1921–1969), who directed a company and owned a theatre bearing her name, played Estragon, and Walmor Chagas, her partner and husband, Vladimir, in a production that opened on 17 March 1969. … The season was tragically interrupted and the production acquired a mythical reputation in Brazil. During an intermission, practically on stage, Cacilda Becker suffered the rupture of an aneurysm, which eventually killed her after forty days in hospital. Anyway, this started a curious Brazilian tradition, that of having women playing Beckettian male roles’ (Andrade 2014: 446). Beckett (1986), Malone Morre, translated by Paulo Leminski, São Paulo: Brasiliense. Second edition: 2004. São Paulo: Códex. Since Alfredo Mesquita’s (São Paulo, 1955) and Luiz Carlos Maciel’s (Porto Alegre) Esperando Godot, as well as Carlos Kroeber’s Fim de Jogo (Belo Horizonte, 1958), the milestone of Beckett’s stage productions in Brazil include Flávio Rangel’s Esperando Godot (São Paulo, 1969), Amir Haddad’s Fim de Jogo (Rio de Janeiro, 1970), Antunes Filho’s Esperando Godot (São Paulo, 1977), Gerald Thomas’s Quatro vezes Beckett (Rio de Janeiro, 1985), Rubens Rusche’s Katastrophe (1986), as well as the many plays and performances directed by Adriano e Fernando Guimarães, from the 2000s on. One should mention O Parto de Godot e Outras Encenações Imaginárias (Ramos, 1999); Samuel Beckett: o Silêncio Possível (Andrade, 2001); Eu que não estou aí onde estou: o teatro de Samuel Beckett (Cavalcanti, 2006); A poética televisual de Samuel Beckett (Borges, 2009); Teatro Inferno: Samuel Beckett (Vasconcellos, 2013) and Samuel Beckett e seus duplos (Vasconcellos, 2017). Ana Helena Souza originally achieved a comparative reading of How It Is and Comment c’est as her Ph.D. thesis and only afterwards did she begin to translate Beckett’s prose works. Fabio de Souza Andrade first wrote on the post-war trilogy and then translated Beckett’s early novels and some of his plays. See Rabaté (ed.) (1984), Beckett avant Beckett. Essais sur le jeune Beckett (1930–1945), Paris: P.E.N.S; Pilling (1998), Beckett before Godot,

7

8. 9.

10.

11. 12.

13.

14.

15.

THE MEREMOST MINIMUM: BECKETT’S TRANSLATIONS …

143

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Feldman (2006), Beckett’s Books: A Cultural History of Samuel Beckett’s ‘Interwar Notes’, London: Continuum; and Nixon (2011), Samuel Beckett’s German Diaries 1936– 1937 (Historicizing Modernism), London: Continuum. Feldman and Nixon (ed.) (2007), Beckett’s Literary Legacies, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. See Nixon and Feldman (2009), The International Reception of Samuel Beckett, London: Continuum, but also the above mentioned, Chakraborty and Vazquez (ed.) (2020), Samuel Beckett as World Literature, New York: Bloomsbury Academic. See Fitch (1988), Beckett and Babel: An Investigation into the Status of the Bilingual Work, Toronto: University of Toronto Press; Friedman and Rossman (eds.) (1990), Beckett Translating/Translating Beckett, Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press; Sardin-Damestoy (2002), Samuel Beckett Auto-Traducteur ou l’Art de l’Empêchement’, Arras: Artois Presses Université; Montini (2007), La bataille du soliloque. Genèse de la poétique bilingue de Samuel Beckett (1929–1946), Amsterdam: Brill Rodopi; Mooney (2011), A Tongue Not Mine: Beckett and Translation, Oxford: Oxford University Press; and Louar (2018), Figure(s) du Bilinguisme Beckettien, Paris: Garnier. Beckett (2014), Echo’s Bones, edited by Mark Nixon, London: Faber & Faber. Analysing the genesis of Nohow On, Dirk van Hulle conceived the idea of a ‘work in –gress’ (instead of ‘in progress’, always in movement, but not to reach a summit) to describe Beckett’s need to perpetually extend the writing of his texts, even after publication, self-translation playing a crucial role in this never-ending creative process, mark of a genuinely bilingual work (Van Hulle 2015a: 12–13). See S.E. Gontarski introduction to his bilingual edition of the play, ‘The Plurality of Godot: An Introduction’, in Gontarski (2006), Waiting for Godot /En attendant Godot , New York: Grove; and Knowlson and McMillan (eds.) (1993), The Theatrical Notebooks of Samuel Beckett. Vol. I Waiting for Godot , London: Faber & Faber. See Locatelli (1990), ‘Worstward Ho: The Persistence of Missaying against the Limits of Representation’, in Unwording the World: Samuel Beckett’s Prose Works after the Nobel Prize, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press. On the genesis of Mal Vu Mal Dit and Company, see Charles Krance’s introductions to Krance (1996), Samuel Beckett’s Mal Vu Mal Dit/Ill Seen Ill Said: A Bilingual, Evolutionary, and Synoptic Variorum Edition, New York: Garland, and to Krance (1993), Samuel Beckett’s Company/Compagnie and A Piece of Monologue/Solo: A Bilingual Variorum Edition, New York: Garland.

144

R. V. SHIMBO AND F.

DE

SOUZA ANDRADE

16. ‘On. Say on. Be said on. Somehow on. Till nohow on. Said nohow on’ (Beckett 2006: 471). 17. Ultimately, Beckett agreed to have a French translation published. The French final title, Cap au pire (1991) was his personal choice, among the suggestions offered by the translator, his friend Edith Fournier. In fact, as Dirk van Hulle (van Hulle 2015a, b) first stated, and Anthony Cordingley (Cordingley 2017) confirmed, the discovery of a sample of self-translation in a Beckett letter to Jerôme Lindon (7 May 1985) shows that Beckett did occupy himself, for quite a long time, with the excruciating task of rendering the text into French. In her published Cap au pire, Fournier’s translation’s solutions in the same passage offered by Beckett to Lindon are remarkably close to his version, convincingly suggesting, as Cordingley argues, some kind of effective collaboration between them. 18. In his essay L’Épuisé, Gilles Deleuze writes about the presence, in Beckett’s writing, of three languages. Tied to representation, names and things, Language I would prevail in the author’s first English novels. Language II, connected to the mix of concurrent voices, an Other that speaks through Beckett, corresponds roughly to the post-war trilogy, from which The Unnamable is the emblematic novel. Language III, finally, would be the one dominated by the emergence of images of another nature, disruptive, disconnected from conventional meaning, eroding syntax and opening holes in traditional language. 19. ‘a junção do “pra frente” com “o pior” me pareceu funcionar bem como a tradução brasileira de “worstward ho”’ (Souza 2014: 94). 20. There is, in economic game theory, the concept of minimax, a method used in decision making by a player in search of an ideal movement, minimizing his possible maximum loss. Given the technical nature of this expression, this meaning might not have been consciously intended by Souza, but, since the English expression is current in Portuguese, one cannot ignore its possible resonance. 21. ‘… manter uma palavra que indicasse uma progressão mais espacial que temporal, que mostrasse o andamento do texto como um impulso de escrita, de um dizer que se move “adiante” na página’ (Souza 2014: 94). 22. In Brazilian Portuguese, it is usual to answer ‘adiante’ to a knock at the door asking for permission to get into the room. 23. The Brazilian translator of Mal Vu Mal Dit (1981), published as Mal Visto, Mal Dito (2008), was Eloísa Araújo Ribeiro. 24. ‘In the meantime I am doing nothing. Only from time to time do I have the consolation, as now, of being allowed to violate a foreign language as involuntarily, as with knowledge and intention, I would like to do against my own language, and – Deo Juvante – shall do.’ Letter to Axel Kaun, 9/7/37 (Beckett 2009: 520).

7

THE MEREMOST MINIMUM: BECKETT’S TRANSLATIONS …

145

Apppendix: Brazilian Translations and Secondary Sources [Note: Many other Beckett translations into Brazilian Portuguese remain unpublished to this day, accessible, if so, only in private archives. João Marschner and Silvano Santiago, the latter a distinguished Brazilian professor and novelist, translated Endgame, for the 1958 Brazilian première in Belo Horizonte; Amir Haddad and Sérgio Britto, celebrated director and actor, respectively, translated the same play for their 1970 production, in Rio de Janeiro; Gerald Thomas, a Brazilian director, did so for his Fim de Jogo, in 1990. Maria Adelaide Amaral, a playwright herself, translated A Última Gravação de Krapp, performed by Antonio Pétrin, in 2000. Millôr Fernandes, a polygraphic author and talented artist and illustrator, as well as translator, provided the text for Francisco Medeiro’s Fim de Jogo, in 2001. Since 1986, Rubens Rusche, has systematically directed a great part of Beckett’s dramatic works, from Endgame to the late dramaticules, always taking advantage of his own translations.]

Plays (1973), Malone Morre/Dias Felizes, translated by Roberto Ballalai, São Paulo: Opera Mundi. (2010), Dias Felizes, translated by Fábio de Souza Andrade, São Paulo: Cosac Naify. (1976), Esperando Godot, translated by Flávio Rangel, São Paulo: Ed. Abril. (1996), Improviso de Ohio, translated by Leyla Perrone-Moisés, Folha de São Paulo: Caderno Mais! 08/09/1996. (2005), Esperando Godot, translated by Fábio de Souza Andrade, São Paulo: Cosac Naify [2nd. ed: 2017. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras]. (1998), Eu Não, translated by Rubens Rusche and Luiz Benati, São Paulo: Olavobrás. (2002), Fim de Partida, translated by Fábio de Souza Andrade, São Paulo: Cosac Naify.

Prose (1973), Malone Morre/Dias Felizes, translated by Roberto Ballalai, São Paulo: Opera Mundi. (1982), Companhia, translated by Elsa Martins, Rio de Janeiro: Francisco Alves. (1986), Malone Morre, translated by Paulo Leminski, São Paulo: Brasiliense [Second edition: 2004. São Paulo: Códex]. (1987), Molloy, translated by Leo Schlafman, Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira.

146

R. V. SHIMBO AND F.

DE

SOUZA ANDRADE

(1987), Primeiro Amor, translated by Waltensir Dutra (biling.), Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira. (1989), O Inominável, translated by Waltensir Dutra, Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira. (1996), ‘Ping’, translated by Haroldo de Campos and Maria H. Kopschitz, in Guirlanda de histórias: uma antologia do conto irlandês, organized by Munira H. Mutran, São Paulo: ABEI/Olavobrás. (2003), Como É, translated by Ana Helena Souza, São Paulo: Iluminuras. (2003), Primeiro Amor, translated by Célia Euvaldo, São Paulo: Cosac Naify. (2006), ‘Dante e a lagosta’, translated by Munira H. Mutran, in O Mundo e suas Criaturas - Uma Antologia do Conto Irlandês, organized by Munira H. Mutran, São Paulo: Humanitas. (2006), Mal Visto Mal Dito. O Despovoador, translated by Eloísa Araújo, São Paulo: Martins Fontes. (2006), Novelas, translated by Eloísa Araújo, São Paulo: Martins Fontes. (2007), Molloy, translated by Ana Helena Souza, São Paulo: Globo. (2009), O Inominável, translated by Ana Helena Souza, São Paulo: Globo. (2012), Companhia e Outros textos: Companhia, Pra frente o pior, Sobressaltos, O caminho, Teto, Ouvido no escuro I e II , translated by Ana Helena Souza, São Paulo: Globo. (2015), Murphy, translated by Fabio de Souza Andrade, São Paulo: Cosac Naify. (2015), Textos por Nada, translated by Eloiza Araújo, São Paulo: Cosac Naify. (2016), Ossos de Eco, translated by Caetano Galindo, São Paulo: Globo.

Essays (1992), ‘Dante…Bruno. Vico..Joyce’, translated by Lya Luft, in Riverrun: Ensaios sobre James Joyce, Organized by Arthur Nestrovski, Rio de Janeiro: Imago. (2003), Proust, translated by Arthur Nestrovski, São Paulo: Cosac Naify.

About Beckett Andrade, Fábio de Souza (2001), Samuel Beckett: o Silêncio Possível, São Paulo: Ateliê Editorial. Araújo, Rosanne (2012), Niilismo Heroico em Samuel Beckett e Hilda Hilst: Fim e Recomeço da Narrativa, Natal, RN: ABEU. Berretini, Célia (1977), A Linguagem de Beckett, São Paulo: Perspectiva. Berretini, Célia (2004), Samuel Beckett: Escritor Plural, São Paulo: Perspectiva. Borges, Gabriela (2009), A Poética Televisual de Samuel Beckett, São Paulo: AnnaBlume/Fapesp.

7

THE MEREMOST MINIMUM: BECKETT’S TRANSLATIONS …

147

Cavalcanti, Isabel (2006), Eu Que Não Estou Aí Onde Estou, Rio de Janeiro: 7Letras. Diniz, Lívia Gonçalves (2018), Em Busca de Companhia: O Universo da Prosa Final de Samuel Beckett, São Paulo: Humanitas/Fapesp. Lima, Luiz Costa (2017), Melancolia: Literatura, São Paulo: Editora da UNESP. Maciel, Luis Carlos (1959), Samuel Beckett e a Solidão Humana, Porto Alegre: Instituto Estadual do Livro. Marfuz, Luiz (2013), Beckett e a Implosão da Cena: Poética Teatral e Estratégias de Encenação, São Paulo: Perspectiva. Ramos, Luiz Fernando (1999), O Parto de Godot e Outras Encenações Imaginárias, São Paulo: Hucitec/Fapesp. Sagayama, Mario (2018), Ele Fala De Si Como De Um Outro: Ensaio Sobre a Voz em Samuel Beckett, São Paulo: AnnaBlume. Souza, Ana Helena (2006), A Tradução Como um Outro Original: ‘Como é’ de Samuel Beckett, Rio de Janeiro: 7Letras. Vasconcellos, Cláudia Maria (2012), Teatro inferno: Samuel Beckett, São Paulo: Terracota. Vasconcellos, Cláudia Maria (2017), Beckett e Seus Duplos, São Paulo: Iluminuras.

Works Cited Andrade, Fábio de Souza. 2014. “Facing Other Windows”: Beckett in Brazil. In The Edinburgh Companion to Samuel Beckett and The Arts, ed. S. E. Gontarski, 445-52. Edinburgh: EUP. de Andrade, Aroldo, and Charlotte Galves. 2019. Contrast and Word Order: A Case Study on the History of Portuguese. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 4: 107–129. Bagno, Marcos. 2019. Para desmistificar a história da língua portuguesa. Cadernos de Estudos Lingüísticos 58 (1): 185–192. Beckett, Samuel. 1983. Worstward Ho. New York: Grove. ———. 1988. Pioravante Marche. In Últimos Trabalhos de Samuel Beckett, trans. Miguel Esteves Cardoso. Lisboa: O independente. ———. 2006. Samuel Beckett: The Grove Centenary Edition. Vol. 4 Poems, Short Fiction, and Criticism, ed. Paul Auster. New York: Grove. ———. 2009. The Letters of Samuel Beckett. Vol. I: 1929–1940, ed. Martha Dow Fehsenfeld and Lois More Overbeck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2012a. Companhia e outros textos: Companhia, Pra frente o pior, Sobressaltos, O caminho, Teto, Ouvido no escuro I e II , trans. Ana Helena Souza. São Paulo: Globo. ———. 2012b. Pra Frente o Pior. In Companhia e Outros Textos, trans. Ana Helena Souza. São Paulo: Globo. Birkenhauer, Klaus. 1976. Samuel Beckett. Madrid: Alianza Editorial.

148

R. V. SHIMBO AND F.

DE

SOUZA ANDRADE

Blanchot, Maurice. 1959. Où maintenant? Qui maintenant. In Le Livre à Venir. Paris: Gallimard. Castro, Ivo. 1991. Curso de História da Língua Portuguesa. Lisboa: Universidade aberta. Clément, Bruno. 1994. L’Oeuvre Sans Qualités: Rhétorique de Samuel Beckett. Paris: Seuil. Cordingley, Anthony. 2017. Samuel Beckett and Edith Fournier Translating the “Untranslatable” Worstward Ho. Journal of Beckett Studies 26 (2): 239–256. Deleuze, Gilles. 1992. L’Épuisé. Quad et autres pièces pour la télévision, Samuel Beckett. Paris: Minuit. Gontarski, Stanley Eugene. 2016. Reinventing Beckett. In Beckett Matters: Essays on Beckett’s Late Modernism, by S. E. Gontarski, 175-202. Edinburgh: EUP. Krance, Charles. 1993. Samuel Beckett’s Company/Compagnie and A Piece of Monologue/Solo: A Bilingual Variorum Edition. New York: Garland. ———. 1996. Samuel Beckett’s Mal Vu Mal Dit/Ill Seen Ill Said: A Bilingual, Evolutionary, and Synoptic Variorum Edition. New York: Garland. Souza, Ana Helena. 2014. Melhor pior: sobre a tradução de Company e Worstward Ho de Samuel Beckett. Cadernos de tradução, 85–100. https:// periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/traducao/article/view/2175-7968.2014v2 n34p85. Van Hulle, Dirk. 2015a. “Plus loin ne se peut”: Beckett et la genèse de Nohow On, Roman 20–50 – Samuel Beckett. Compagnie, Mal vu mal dit, Cap au pire, N°60 - décembre, 11–26. ———. 2015b. Translation and Genetic Criticism: Genetic and Editorial Approaches to the “untranslatable” in Joyce and Beckett. Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series: Themes in Translation Studies, 14, 40–53.

PART III

Middle East and Asia

CHAPTER 8

Translating Samuel Beckett into a ‘Non-Western’ Culture: The Journey of Waiting for Godot in Turkey Mehmet Zeki Giritli

When Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot was translated into Turkish by Muhsin Ertu˘grul, and premiered in Istanbul in September 1954 at Küçük Sahne Tiyatrosu (Small Stage Theatre), it received binary reactions of either appreciation or abhorrence, as was the case in most countries. Since then, the play has been staged regularly by theatre companies with distinct identities, ranging from state theatres funded by the government, to small black box theatres with a seated capacity of no more than 100. A 2017 production, having received extremely positive reactions from audience and alike, was directed by Sahika ¸ Tekand, who is renowned for her ‘anti-realist’ staging techniques and ‘performative’ (as named by herself) acting methods. Tekand based her production on a translation by U˘gur Ün, who has translated most of the works of Beckett into Turkish

M. Z. Giritli (B) College of Social Sciences and Humanities, Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. F. Fernández and P. Sardin (eds.), Translating Samuel Beckett around the World, New Interpretations of Beckett in the Twenty-First Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71730-8_8

151

152

M. Z. GIRITLI

since the 1990s.1 In an interview conducted by myself on 15 February 2019, Ün discussed many aspects of his translation process and of Beckett’s journey in Turkey. In this chapter, the main question to be posed is whether translating Beckett’s Waiting for Godot into a ‘Non-Western’ culture and theatrical tradition has required a specific approach.2 As translation cannot be isolated from cultural and historical factors, the history of Turkish theatre will first be examined. Secondly, the main concern will be to analyze the translation process through specific examples taken from the two major translations of Waiting for Godot into Turkish. The purpose is to provide the reader with a case analysis focusing on the most striking distinctions in the different versions, in relation to the specific cultural and linguistic challenges faced when translating Beckett’s drama into Turkish.

Staging Waiting for Godot in Turkey in 1954 and in 1963 The Turkish theatrical tradition is derived from unwritten theatrical forms such as shadow plays and puppetry, and is based on improvisational storytelling rather than on a dramatic structure. Contrary to the commonly held belief, the underlying reasons for this are not confined to the effects of the Islamic religion that prohibited any form of mimetic representation. Plays with dramatic structures were not completely nonexistent during the reign of the Ottoman Empire, which ruled in accordance with Islamic laws. What is more, unwritten theatrical forms were part of a much older history. However, with the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, these traditional forms were mostly replaced by Western theatrical forms, as part of the modernization and westernization ideals of the founding fathers of the new republic. Nermin Menemencio˘glu (1983: 48) dates this cultural transformation further back to the mid-nineteenth century, a time period identified with the emergence of a new group of Ottoman intelligentsia, mostly under the influence of French culture and literature. French culture had a prominent role on both the Ottoman intelligentsia in the nineteenth century and the intelligentsia of the Republican period in the first half of the twentieth century, mostly by virtue of the French ambassadors in Istanbul. Mahmut II, who ruled in the first part of the nineteenth century, had 500 French plays in his private library. He then founded The Imperial School of Music, the primary objective of which was to

8

TRANSLATING SAMUEL BECKETT INTO A ‘NON-WESTERN’ CULTURE …

153

train the students as Western-style musicians. The famous Italian musician Giuseppe Donizetti remained in charge of the school until his death in Turkey in 1856 (Menemencio˘glu 1983: 49). Most of the theatres were located around the Pera district, where Jews, Armenians, and Greeks resided. For a few decades, theatre companies founded by Armenian artists held a predominant position in the artistic life of Istanbul. Menemencio˘glu refers to three major companies, Opera Naum or Naum Theatre Company (1844–1870), Güllü Agop Tiyatrosu (Güllü Agop Theatre Company or Ottoman Theatre,1868–1884), and Imperial Theatre, which dominated the field at the time (1983: 50). These companies paved the way for translating French plays into Turkish, mostly the plays of Molière, while producing their own plays. Having started in the mid-nineteenth century, this process of translating and adapting Western plays culminated in Western-style theatre being recognized as the fundamental approach to create a modernized Turkish theatre in the first fifty years of the Republic. Turkish theatre was still under the influence of ‘Western’ theatre, the word bearing a different connotation now. In the nineteenth century the ‘West’ was mostly associated with France and Europe in general; however, it is now associated with the United States, as well. French and European influence was outweighed by the American. Out of twenty-nine plays staged by major theatres in 1953, only nine were written by Turkish playwrights (Stewart 1954: 214). In 1954 Stewart mentioned four plays having been staged in the major theatres in Istanbul: A Streetcar Named Desire, The Circle, Of Mice and Men, and Death of Salesman. Waiting for Godot , although having premiered in the same year, is not mentioned in the list.3 There were seven English plays, five American, four French, two Italian, one Greek, and one Spanish. Beckett entered the Turkish stage in such an artistic atmosphere, thanks to Muhsin Ertu˘grul, who is commonly regarded as the founder of modern Turkish theatre. Muhsin Ertu˘grul was one of the 75 people who saw Waiting for Godot on its opening night at Babylone Theatre in Paris in January 1953. Deeply influenced by the play, he translated it into Turkish at once, from its French original, and staged the play in September 1954 at Küçük Sahne in Istanbul, with the most famous actors of the time Sükran ¸ Güngör, Cahit Irgat, Agah Ün, and Kamran Yüce. This premiere was a great success; however, after a few performances, the play was banned by the government of the time (Adnan Menderes government), as the text was blamed for being communist propaganda, and this first translation by Muhsin

154

M. Z. GIRITLI

Ertu˘grul is not available anymore. Only after the 1961 Constitution, which provided a relatively freer artistic environment, was the play staged for the second time in September 1963. It was produced by Ankara Art Theatre, which is renowned for its political plays. Thus, Beckett’s journey in Turkey has mostly been correlated with the power fluctuations in the political environment of the country, and Beckett’s theatre has commonly been associated with politics. Even today, there are quite a number of critics who see Beckett as an extremely political playwright, not only in Turkey but also worldwide. To name a few, Emilie Morin, in her 2017 monograph Beckett’s Political Imagination suggests to approach Beckett’s work under the light of political developments which affected the writer’s work deeply. Morin claims: Beckett’s texts, with their numerous portrayals of violence, torture, dispossession, internment and subjugation, harbor a real political immediacy, while his notebooks, manuscripts and correspondence reveal a fine and astute observer of political symbols, attuned to the long history of political myths in the Irish Free State, Nazi Germany and France in the aftermath of the Second World War and during the Algerian War of Independence. The literary cultures in which he worked were intensely politicized, and there is little in his translations, his collaborations, the publishing and dissemination of his texts that does not carry a political charge. (2017: 1)

Morin then continues to explain how Beckett’s works were shaped by the political environment. Although Morin underlines that ‘political’ has been defined in numerous ways and that her primary purpose is not to claim Beckett is a political writer, she suggests that Beckett’s works cannot be appreciated truly without reading them in the light of politics. Furthermore, in her article ‘Endgame and Shorter Plays: Religious, Political and Other Readings’, Morin, referring back to Adorno’s article on Endgame,4 implies that reading Beckett through existentialism and universal themes is an old-fashioned tradition, and the current tendency is to approach Beckett from ‘anti-humanist philosophies that posit forms of reasoning about the human condition as, of necessity, weighted by historical, cultural, and politically charged imperatives, and as of obfuscating questions of power, history, gender, language, race, and ethnicity’ (Morin 2015: 63). Ay¸segül Yüksel, one of the renowned theatre scholars in Turkey, undertakes a similar attempt in Samuel Beckett Tiyatrosu (The Theatre of

8

TRANSLATING SAMUEL BECKETT INTO A ‘NON-WESTERN’ CULTURE …

155

Samuel Beckett) and going a step further, suggests a reading of Waiting for Godot , the radio plays and dramaticules through political symbols and messages the plays include. Yüksel (2012: 10) claims that the character of Pozzo was a symbol for Hitler at the time the play was written and that in today’s world he can be considered to be a personification of the U.S.A. Cüneyt Özata, similar to Yüksel’s claim, argues that Beckett is ‘concerned in his works with the lives of individuals corrupted by capitalism, global politics and globalization, in which they can no longer perceive hope and reality’ (2019: 87).

From Locality to Universality One of the primary concerns when translating Beckett is the musicality of his works. Beckett’s works, both in French and English, have a specific music, which mostly depends on his choice of words. As Catherine Laws underlines, ‘in many of his works, the referential content is reduced and the construction involves expansion from minimal linguistics units as a result of the compositional implications of both the sounding qualities of the syllables and the minimal semantics which unavoidably remains’ (2003: 26). Laws, in that sense, underlines the significance of ‘the elements of alliteration’, ‘the repetition of key words’, and ‘the use of similar sounding or otherwise related words’ (126–127) in plays such as Play. The significance of specific words for Beckett is also apparent in his self-translations. An admirer of Louis Ferdinand Céline’s prose, Beckett was fascinated by colloquial French, which appears repeatedly in En Attendant Godot . For instance, in the very first pages of the text, Estragon says to Vladimir: ‘Assez. Aide-moi à enlever cette saloperie’, (Beckett 1952: 10) using the coarse word saloperie to designate his shoe, when Vladimir uses an oldfashioned phrase to speak of past times: ‘On portait beau alors’ (Beckett 1952: 11). Likewise, when self-translating into English, Beckett introduced Irish English turns of phrase with studied dramatic effect. For instance, the first of the previous examples is rewritten as ‘Ah stop blathering and help me off with this bloody thing’ (Beckett 1965: 10). Here Beckett expands upon the very brief ‘Assez’ by introducing the Irishism blathering. On the previous page, Vladimir had celebrated his reunion with Estragon by saying ‘Get up till I embrace you’ (Beckett 1965: 1), which will be repeated in Act II with a slight variation: ‘Come here till I embrace you’ (Beckett 1965: 49). This time the Irishism is not lexical but

156

M. Z. GIRITLI

syntactic as Beckett uses the Irish English phrase ‘till’ to mean ‘so that I may’. Can these specific national voices and lexical differences be rendered in a third language? If Beckett used certain specific voices in French, and conversely in English, intentionally to create specific musics,5 should it not be necessary to appreciate the writer’s work for non-speakers of French or English, and would it not turn translation of Beckett into a third language a vain attempt? In her study of Beckett’s bilingualism, Ann Beer raises a similar issue: ‘If bilingual awareness is so important, should the unilingual reader have to feel excluded from Beckett’s world?’ (1994: 219). Beer then responds: Obviously, the answer is no. Only in a few countries are English and French spoken by large numbers of a single community on a daily basis. Individuals and the intelligentsia of many other countries may speak both, but they are far outnumbered by readers and spectators of Beckett who do not. (Ibid.)

For Beer (Ibid.), the cornerstone of Beckett’s style is ‘elemental human themes’ independent from linguistic restrictions. Similarly, when asked about the specific voices in Beckett’s works, U˘gur Ün agreed that Beckett adopted specific voices and linguistic variation under the influence of Joyce in his works until the 1940s, prior to the publication of Murphy; however, for him, these should not be taken as the essential elements of Beckett’s style, but rather as efforts to imitate Joyce’s style. Ün further claims that Beckett turned his back to language games and specific voices in the mid-1960s when his writing started to be more technical and repetitive. Thus, he refuses the hypothesis that Beckett’s deliberate use of voices specific to French (or English) poses a particular challenge to the translator of Beckett, as he firmly believes it should not be the primary concern of the Beckett translator. For him, as for Beer, what is really important about Beckett is his universality. For Ün, the primary task of the translator is to try and convey this universal dimension. In his own words: Schizophrenia is one of the most prominent universal themes in all the works of Beckett. Molloy, Malone, Hamm, Clov, and even Estragon and Vladimir are characters who suffer from schizophrenia. This is not to say that Beckett writes about the problems of schizophrenic individuals, but to argue that he utilizes this universal theme to create his unique artistic

8

TRANSLATING SAMUEL BECKETT INTO A ‘NON-WESTERN’ CULTURE …

157

style. Schizophrenia does not belong to a certain specific culture, but is a universal human condition, which forms the foundational element of Beckett’s style. Thus, a translator’s primary commitment should be to conveying these universal themes to the readers. Voices specific to French language are not a main concern here. (2019)

The Apparent Cultural Challenges of Presenting Waiting for Godot to a Turkish Audience As aforementioned, classical Turkish theatre is based on oral tradition, puppetry, shadow plays, and improvisation rather than on a Westernstyle dramatic written script. Dramatic structure in literature and theatre emerged as the result of westernization and modernization movements, which started in the middle of the nineteenth century, during the reign of the Ottoman Empire, and extended to the first 25 years of the new Republic. Kerem Karabo˘ga et al. (2011: 23) mentions three major theatrical environments where Western-style theatre was performed in the mid-nineteenth century: performances within the palace, performances by foreign theatre companies in Beyo˘glu (Pera), and performances by theatre companies founded by Armenian artists – the most famous of whom is Güllü Agop, who monopolized the theatre scene in Istanbul for twelve years, between 1868 and 1880, with the support of the palace. Most of the plays staged in these theatres were translations of European plays although there were a few Turkish playwrights as well. This historical background is important to understand the distinctions between the Turkish theatrical tradition and Western theatre and how these factors may have influenced the reception of Beckett in Turkey. Differences between Turkey and Europe were not limited to the theatrical field. The Second World War, alongside having devastating effects on everyday life, turned into one of the determining factors which shaped European literature and theatre especially in the second half of the twentieth century, when playwrights such as Ionesco, Genet, and Beckett gained recognition by a wide audience. Thus, analyzing Beckett’s work and style without taking the effects of the war into consideration would not be possible. The Turkish government of the time decided not to take sides in the Second World War until the very last moment when it declared war on Germany and Japan. As a result, the effects of the war on European countries and on Turkey were not of the same magnitude, although

158

M. Z. GIRITLI

Turkey suffered from severe economic hardship caused by the war, as did Europe. These major distinctions between the Turkish and Western theatrical backgrounds may lead to the false assumption that the so-called ‘theatre of the absurd’ failed to appeal to Turkish audiences and that cultural and historical differences were an obstacle to the translating of Beckett into Turkish, and in the presenting of his work to a Turkish audience. This hypothesis would be disproved for at least two reasons. The first one is that, as already mentioned, Beckett’s work is universal. For this very reason, restricting Beckett to a specifically European culture would be a flawed approach to the writer. As Beer underlines, the ‘paradox of this most language-conscious of artists is the way his art triumphs over language-barriers altogether’ (1994: 219). The second one is that Beckett’s texts are ‘freed from much mimetic detail’ (Ibid.). Extending the argument to the Turkish theatrical context, it can thus be asserted that it is possible to find striking resemblances between Beckett’s style and the Turkish theatrical tradition. As Nurtaç Ergün (2015) has contended, there was a precipitous increase in the number of plays that challenged mimetic representation and the traditional dramatic structure in Turkish theatre in the 1960s. Even though developments in European theatre facilitated this transformation, Turkish theatre was already in a process of self-transformation, turning back to its roots and questioning the rapid change during the foundation years of the Republic, aiming at a Western-style theatre. Beckett’s plays entered the Turkish stage around this period and one reason for his adoption by wide audiences and theatre artists could be attributed to their resemblance to the Turkish theatrical tradition, which had long been devalued and neglected. Ergün highlights this similarity: ‘through techniques such as misunderstanding, pretending not to understand and making up words, traditional Turkish theatre plays with words and refers to the absurdity observed in the multi-cultural social structure of the time. In that sense, the use of language in traditional Turkish theatre parallels the failure of language as a means of communication in the theatre of the absurd’ (2015: 170. My translation). The resemblance was not restricted to the use of language. In Turkish traditional theatre, it is very common to see two characters on stage who have a kind of interdependency, and the plays are generally constructed around their failure to communicate, which is mostly comedic. Karagöz and Hacivat (the two main characters of shadow plays), and Pi¸sekar and

8

TRANSLATING SAMUEL BECKETT INTO A ‘NON-WESTERN’ CULTURE …

159

Kavuklu (the two main characters of orta oyunu, which literally means ‘theatre-in-the-round’) are the most prominent examples of this movement. These couples are all male characters who are bound to each other although there is never any real communication between them. The relationship between each couple is strikingly similar to the relationship between Vladimir and Estragon, or between Hamm and Clov. In a recent study, Hülya Adak (2018) takes the discussion further and argues that the famous female Turkish novelist and activist Halide Edib Adıvar published a play6 which deconstructed mimetic representation and pioneered absurd theatre in Turkey even before the publication of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros and Beckett’s Waiting for Godot ; however, her work was neglected by the theoreticians of the theatre of the absurd due to the Eurocentric and male-centred approach in the world of theatre. Adak writes: As Martin Esslin and other scholars started theorizing on the ‘Theatre of the Absurd,’ they explored only a Western European male canon of works, dismissing all other playwrights. Even though Halide Edib had written two versions [of her absurdist play] in Turkish and the play was published in English as well, her work did not receive much theoretical discussion in Turkey or in the Euro-American context prior to 2013. (2018: 275)

The argument is not only valid for the work of Edib and the problem still continues today. Turkish women playwrights such as Sevim Burak and Adalet A˘gao˘glu, who were contemporaries of Beckett and who created their unique theatrical style challenging the mimetic representation and dramatic structure, have not received wide universal acclaim. So contrary to the common belief, anti-mimetic approaches to theatre were not an invention of the European or Western canon. It is actually possible to observe a similar trend in different parts of the world during the post-war period. Turkish theatrical tradition and Beckett’s style share a number of characteristics, which have long been neglected. As a consequence, assuming Turkey is a ‘non-Western’ culture, cultural distinctions did not pose a significant challenge in presenting Beckett’s early theatre to a Turkish audience. Nevertheless, as we will see, there are linguistic challenges to the translation of Beckett into Turkish.

160

M. Z. GIRITLI

The Linguistic Challenges of Translating Beckett into Turkish Comprehension of the linguistic challenges faced by translators in the process of translating Beckett from either French or English into Turkish requires a brief analysis of language families. Both French and English belong to the Indo-European language family, French belonging to the branch of Roman languages and English to that of Germanic languages. On the other hand, Turkish belongs to the Altay branch of the Ural-Altaic language family, which has an absolutely distinct sentence structure and vocabulary. The typical sentence structure in Turkish follows the subject-objectverb pattern, and all the words in Turkish, excluding the ones borrowed from other languages, should align with the phonological rule of vowel harmony, meaning that all vowels in the same word must harmonize. Furthermore, contrary to English and French, there is no distinction between spelling and pronunciation of words. Along with these elemental features, the most prominent characteristic, which commonly poses a challenge in translating literary works from Indo-European languages into Turkish, is the fact that Turkish is an agglutinative language, meaning that there are no prefixes in Turkish. This, alongside the rule concerning word order, might cause a change in the meaning of the source text, reverting the order of significance. Turkish translations of the titles of Beckett’s first two plays Waiting for Godot , and Endgame exemplify this challenge. Waiting for Godot in English and En attendant Godot in French become Godot’yu Beklerken in Turkish. The suffix ‘-u’ stands for the preposition ‘for’ in English and ‘beklerken’ can be translated into English as ‘while waiting’. The first difference is that the three words in French and English versions are diminished to two words in the Turkish translation, due to the lack of prefixes in Turkish. Secondly, because of the suffix –u in Turkish, Godot is assigned a private identity, and this is highlighted by the use of the apostrophe, as apostrophes are used in Turkish to indicate that the word is a proper noun. As a result, any embedded reference to God or to a common noun like a godillot (a boot in colloquial French) is absent from the Turkish title. The change in the word order in Turkish causes a change in the order of significance, as well. In the Turkish the title of the play, Godot’yu Beklerken, the emphasis is on the act of waiting and the duration of the act rather than on Godot.

8

TRANSLATING SAMUEL BECKETT INTO A ‘NON-WESTERN’ CULTURE …

161

To give another example of the significance of prefix-suffix transformation, the title Endgame has been translated into Turkish as Oyun Sonu, ‘oyun’ signifying a game and ‘son’ standing for ‘the end’. The suffix –u at the end of the word son acts like a possessive and highlights that it is ‘the end of the game’; however, the original title bears multiple meanings. It can be either the end of a particular game, as in Turkish, or the last game of a series of games, or a reference to chess game, as well as a political meaning relative to diplomatic negotiations. Thus, the suffix –u in the Turkish translation of the title restricts the multiple meanings to a single one. A further example for the shift of meaning in Turkish caused by linguistic distinctions would be the Turkish translation of Lucky’s speech in Act I of Waiting for Godot . Ün, while translating this part, used the syllable –ka instead of –qua to express a similar sound; however, when the syllable –ka is repeated twice, ‘kaka’ bears a new connotation in Turkish, meaning ‘poop’. Thus, the Turkish would assume that Lucky is repeatedly uttering the word ‘poop’ during his speech. Obviously, this is not the case in the English text. However, this should not be considered as a loss, but as a gain instead, as this is also the case in the French text, which creates an effect of humour. If they bring about losses, these syntactical variations also bring about gains, as in the last example; what is more, as we will see in the following section, they are also accompanied by other kinds of variations, due to time of publication and the choice of source texts.

A Comparative Analysis of the Two Major Turkish Translations of Waiting for Godot According to the records of publishing houses and to resources about the history of Turkish theatre, since 1954 Waiting for Godot has been translated into Turkish by eight different translators, excluding the directors who translated the work for performance and whose translations have never been published. As mentioned in the introduction, the play was first translated by Muhsin Ertu˘grul in 1953, who also staged the play for the first time in Istanbul. This translation is no longer available. Today, the only available translation in bookstores is U˘gur Ün and Tarık Günersel’s collaborative work published in 2000 by Kabalci Publications. Ün first translated Waiting for Godot in 1993, published by Mitos-Boyut Publications; the 2000 text is a revised version of the original with the

162

M. Z. GIRITLI

contribution of Tarık Günersel. Günersel is an actor, a playwright, and a dramaturgist in Istanbul City Theatres, an organization supported by the municipality. Although his main field of interest is not translation, he translated Waiting for Godot in collaboration with U˘gur Ün for the archives of Istanbul City Theatres and this translation was then published. U˘gur Ün is not an actor himself but his father Memduh Ün (1920–2015) was one of the most important film directors in Turkey. His father’s wife Fatma Girik is considered one of the four most important woman actors in Turkish cinema, who are referred to as ‘four-leafed clover’. In collaboration with his father, Ün started working as a film producer in 1979 at U˘gur Productions and, during this period, he also started his career in translation so, both translators are in a way connected to acting/directing. Their translation is the version which is most commonly used by theatre companies today, and the first version to be analyzed here. The second version is Ferit Edgü’s translation published in July 1963 by Çan Publications. This translation was used by Ankara Art Theatre in the second staging of Waiting for Godot in September 1963. The rationale behind centering the discussion on these two versions is to compare the first and the latest published versions, and also to scrutinize whether the language of the source text (French, English, or English and French) has influenced translation process. In Sinem Sancaktaro˘glu Bozkurt’s survey of Beckett translations found in the Turkish National Library, she argues that ‘some of these texts were translated from either the first (“original”) version or the second (self-translated) version almost until 1995. After this date, almost all of the translations were created by using the two versions of the works’ (2014: 79). Ün, confirming Sancaktaro˘glu Bozkurt, underlined that he has always used both the French version and the self-translated English version of the texts together in his translation process. On the preface of Edgü’s version, the editor notes that the play was translated from the French original published in 1952 by Les Editions de Minuit. However, it is also noted that at some points only, Beckett’s self-translation to English was ‘utilized’ as well (1963: 4). Comparing the two versions reveals that source text preferences of the translators and the publishing houses have led to quite a number of differences, if not discrepancies, between the two translations. It should also be noted that the vocabulary used in 1963 obviously differed from that used in 1993; thus, the two versions vary in terms of word preferences, as well.

8

TRANSLATING SAMUEL BECKETT INTO A ‘NON-WESTERN’ CULTURE …

163

What is more, some differences can be accounted for by sociocultural factors. Some very striking differences between the two translations can be seen in the very first stage directions. In Edgü’s translation ‘a tree’ is surprisingly omitted from the stage directions. In his version, there are only two words literally meaning ‘A country road. Evening’. Edgü also changes ‘sitting on a low mound’ to ‘sitting on the floor’ (1963: 5. My emphasis). It is not clear why Edgü preferred to omit ‘a tree’ although he used the French version of the text mostly, and as the French text mentions: ‘Route à la champagne, avec arbre./Soir/Estragon, assis sur une pierre, essaie d’enlever sa chaussure’ (Beckett 1952: 9), when the English reads: ‘A country road. A tree. Evening/Estragon sitting on a low mound, is trying to take off his boot’ (Beckett 1965: 7–9). Obviously, this is a significant difference between the two versions as the settings alter; in Edgü’s version, the tree is not mentioned, and Estragon is sitting on the floor whereas in Ün and Günersel’s translation, there is a tree and Estragon is sitting on a mound, as in the English version. Although Edgü excluded ‘a tree’ from the stage directions, Ankara Art Theatre, which used Edgü’s translation in their staging of the play in September 1963, used ‘a tree’ on the stage, which brings forth the possibility that stage directions were revised during the rehearsal process. Some similar discrepancies can be seen in the dialogue, as well. At the very beginning of the play, Vladimir says ‘I’m glad to see you back. I thought you were gone forever’ (Beckett 1965: 9). Table 8.1 shows how this line was translated, respectively by Edgü (1963) and Ün & Günersel (2006). Table 8.1 Turkish translations of Waiting for Godot [Comparison] Edgü (Beckett 1963: 6)

Ün & Günersel (Beckett 2000: 9)

‘Seni gördü˘güme çok memnunum. Geri dönmiyeceksin sanıyordum.’ (I am very glad to see you. I was thinking you wouldn’t return.)

‘Dönmene sevindim. Ebediyen gittin sanıyordum.’ (I am happy that you have returned. I assumed that you had gone forever.)

The word ‘dönmiyeceksin’ in Edgü’s version exemplifies a difference based on the time periods of each translation. The standard spelling of the word is dönmeyeceksin; however, some writers in the 1950s and 60s

164

M. Z. GIRITLI

transformed the first ‘e’ into ‘i’, in a way preferring to spell the word in the form that it is used in spoken Turkish. On the other hand, the word ‘ebediyen’, used by Ün and Günersel, literally means ‘forever’; however, the context in which the word is used in Turkish differs. The root of the word is Arabic and it is not a word which is commonly used in everyday Turkish. It is considered ornamental language. This change in the form of the word would certainly influence the reception of the characters by the Turkish audience who are not familiar with either the French or English versions of the play. ‘Dönmiyeceksin’ is an old-fashioned spelling of the word and is mostly used by an older generation which belongs to a higher social class in terms of education and economic conditions. Thus, the use of this spelling may suggest that the characters belong to a ‘high’ social class. The same is valid for the word ‘ebediyen’. In everyday speech, this word is very uncommon among less educated groups, and peosple who are living in rural areas. A good example of the distinctions in the meanings of the words in two languages would be the translations of Vladimir’s line which could be seen in Table 8.2 ‘We were presentable in those days’ (Beckett 1965: 10), while the French original reads ‘On portait beau alors’ (Beckett 1952: 11). Table 8.2 Turkish translations of Waiting for Godot [Comparison] Edgü (Beckett 1963: 7)

Ün & Günersel (Beckett 2000: 10)

‘O sıralar saygıde˘ger ki¸silerdik.’ (In those days, we were respectable people.)

‘Üstümüz ba¸sımız düzgündü o zamanlar.’ (We had decent clothes then.)

In Edgü’s translation, the adjective refers to the personalities and social positions of the two characters whereas in Ün & Günersel’s translation, it relates to the physical appearance. It should also be noted that the word order in the two translations differs in terms of the position of the time phrase. Edgü prefers to insert it at the beginning of the sentence while Ün & Günersel keep the position of the time phrase as it is in the English and French versions. The second translation is thus closest to Beckett’s original phrasing. Word preference may even change the nature of the relationship between the two characters. When Estragon tries to take off his boots while Vladimir remains indifferent, Estragon grumbles ‘Help me!’

8

TRANSLATING SAMUEL BECKETT INTO A ‘NON-WESTERN’ CULTURE …

165

(Beckett 2006b: 12), which was translated by Ün & Günersel as an imperative sentence ‘Yardım etsene!’ (Help me!) (Beckett 2000: 11) contrary to Edgü who preferred to translate this line as a real interrogative sentence: ‘Neden yardım etmek istemiyorsun bana?’ (Why don’t you want to help me?) (Beckett 1963: 8). Obviously, in Edgü’s version, there is not necessarily as much anger or reproach towards Vladimir, perhaps because the translator was following the French text. A part where the two translations strikingly differ is the dialogue about the Bible in the First Act. In the French and English texts, the dialogue reads as follows (Table 8.3): Table 8.3 Examples of French and English texts of Waiting for Godot Beckett (1952: 13–14)

Beckett (1965: 12)

ESTRAGON: La Bible… (Il réfléchit.) J’ai dû y jeter un coup d’oeil. VLADIMIR: (étonné) A l’école sans Dieu? ESTRAGON: Sais pas si elle était avec ou sans. VLADIMIR: Tu dois confondre avec la Roquette.

ESTRAGON: The Bible… (he reflects) I must have taken a look at it. VLADIMIR: Do you remember the Gospels?

The table below compares the two Turkish translations (Table 8.4): Table 8.4 Turkish translations of Waiting for Godot [Comparison] Edgü (Beckett 1963: 9)

Ün & Günersel (Beckett 2000: 12)

˙ ESTRAGON: ‘Incil… (dü¸sünür) Söyle ¸ bir göz atmı¸s olmalıyım. (Bir an)’ (The Bible… [he reflects] I must have glanced at it.) (A moment) VLADIMIR: (¸sa¸skın) Okulda, Tanrısız? ([surprised] At School? Without God?) ESTRAGON: Beraber miydi de˘gil miydi bilmiyorum. (I don’t remember whether they were together or not.) VLADIMIR: Okuldan çok kodeste olmasın? (Was it in the prison instead of the school?)

˙ ESTRAGON: ‘Incil mi? (Dü¸sünür). Göz atmı¸sımdır herhalde.’ (The Bible? [he reflects]. I must have glanced at it.) ˙ VLADIMIR: Ilahileri hatırlar mısın? (Do you remember the Gospels?)

166

M. Z. GIRITLI

This part demonstrates one of the major distinctions between the two translations – the choice of source texts. In Ün & Günersel’s version, the dialogue about ‘the school without God’ contains a French reference to the separation of State and Church that took place in France in 1905. This is omitted while the part about the Gospels, which replaces it in Beckett’s own Anglicized version, does not appear in Edgü’s version. The second translation also logically omits the French reference to ‘La Roquette’, a Paris prison that no longer exists. Another missing line in Edgü’s translation can be found in Act I, when Pozzo asks Estragon to guess Vladimir’s age. In Ün and Günersel’s translation, Estragon says ‘onbir (eleven)’; however, this line is missing in Edgü’s translation, due to the difference in source texts used, the French including no mention of Estragon’s answer (see Beckett 1952: 37). A different case is found towards the end of this opening dialogue between Estragon and Vladimir. In the English text, Estragon says ‘I find this really most extraordinarily interesting’ upon Vladimir’s story of the thieves in the Bible, which is translated word for word by Ün & Günersel (Beckett 2000: 14). In Edgü’s translation, Estragon just says ‘Dinliyorum. (I am listening)’, a literal translation of the line as it reads in the French version (Beckett 1963: 15). Other instances when the original source text changes the Turkish text have to do with cultural references that Beckett himself changed and adapted to his public when self-translating. One example of this can be found in Pozzo’s line ‘I’ve lost my Kapp and Peterson!’, a brand of pipe made in Dublin (Beckett 1965: 35), which was translated word by word by Ün & Günersel whereas Edgü follows here the French text which refers to another common pipe brand-name found in France in the 1950s: ‘J’ai perdu mon Abdullah!’ (Beckett 1952: 48). This is one of the points that would sound pointless to the modern reader in Edgü’s translation, as the Turkish (originally Arabic) name Edgü uses has no overt reference in Turkish. As a second example, when Pozzo asks Estragon ‘What is your name?’ (Beckett 1965: 37), Estragon’s response ‘Adam’ has been replaced by ‘Catullus’ in Edgü’s version because here again he is simply following the French version of the play (Beckett 1952: 51). Towards the end of the first Act, during Lucky’s long speech, the private names Lucky uses differ in two translations, as well because of the source texts used. Likewise, ‘Voltaire’ in Edgü’s translation (Beckett 1963: 53) has been replaced by ‘Berkeley’ in Ün & Günersel’s version (Beckett 2000: 56) in compliance with Beckett’s Anglicized and sometimes Hibernicized version. Most

8

TRANSLATING SAMUEL BECKETT INTO A ‘NON-WESTERN’ CULTURE …

167

interestingly, ‘Poinçon and Wattman’ in Edgü’s text (Beckett 1963: 51) is replaced by ‘Puncher and Wattman’ (Beckett 2006a: 55) following the English text; ‘Testu and Conard’ in Edgü’s version (Beckett 1963: 52) is replaced by ‘Testisof and Vajen’ in Ün & Günersel’s version (Beckett 2000: 55). A most interesting change is observed towards the middle of the speech, when Lucky says in the English version ‘…for reasons unknown in Feckham Peckham Fulham Clapham…’ (Beckett 2006a: 43). While translating this part, Edgü used the names of some districts in ˙ Istanbul, such as ‘Karaköy and Bakırköy’ (Beckett 1963: 53). The possible reason for this is to localize the speech. In the aforementioned dialogue about the Bible, other adaptations are to be noted, not so much coming from Beckett himself, but decided by the translators themselves to make their text either more accessible or more acceptable to the public. When Estragon asks ‘Our what?’, Vladimir responds ‘Our Saviour’ (Beckett 1965: 12), ‘Le Sauveur’ in the French original (Beckett 1952: 14). The word ‘saviour’ in Edgü’s translation is ‘kurtarıcı’, meaning someone who saves something or someone, whereas ˙ Ün & Günersel translated this part as ‘Kurtarıcımız Hazreti Isa’ (Our Saviour Jesus Christ) (Beckett 2000: 13), thereby introducing a reference to Christianity probably with the aim of clarifying the reference for a predominantly non-Christian audience. In the English version of the text, the word ‘Saviour’ does not necessarily have a religious connotation. Similarly, another change possibly motivated by a sociocultural reason happens when the two characters are talking about hanging themselves on the tree; Estragon says: ‘Ce serait un moyen de bander’ (Beckett 1952: 21) – ‘It’d give us an erection’ (Beckett 1965: 17) in English –, which Edgü translated as ‘Düzü¸smenin bir yolu da bu’ (This is one of the ways of fucking) (Beckett 1963: 16). The sexual innuendo is omitted in Ün & Günersel’s version of the play as if the translators had felt the necessity to self-censor. Missing lines are not restricted to the dialogue between Vladimir and Estragon. In the middle of Act I, Vladimir asks Pozzo ‘A knook?’ (Beckett 2006a: 33), which Edgü translated as ‘Ne demek bir vurgan?’ (What does a ???? mean?) (Beckett 1963: 37), to which Pozzo responds ‘Buralardan de˘gil misiniz? Bu ça˘gda ya¸samıyor musunuz? Eskiden soytarılar vardı, s¸ imdi de vurganlar. Tabii bunu hakedenlere…’ (You are not from here? You are not living in this age? There used to be fools, and now ??????) (Beckett 1963: 37). This dialogue proves crucial in two senses; first, it was left out in Ün & Günersel’s version, second, there is no entry for the

168

M. Z. GIRITLI

word ‘vurgan’ in the official dictionary of the Turkish Language Association; thus, it is not clear whether the word was made up by the translator or if it was a typo. The reason why Ün & Günersel preferred to leave out this part is most probably due to the fact that there is no counterpart in Turkish for the word ‘knook’, and the word ‘vurgan’ was obviously created by Edgü. Ün & Günersel, on the other hand, instead of creating a new word, preferred to leave out the passage completely.

Conclusion The challenges to the reception and translation of Beckett’s drama in Turkey are varied – these can be of a sociocultural or of a linguistic nature. The basic challenge in terms of linguistic distinctions is the fact that Turkish belongs to a different language family, and prefixes in English and French had to be replaced by suffixes in Turkish. This may have led to changes in the music of the original text; however, it does not necessarily mean that the stylistic features of the original text have been completely distorted during the translation process. Contrary to common assumption, cultural differences have not had such an important influence on the translation process since, as demonstrated, Beckett’s artistic style bears significant resemblance to the stylistic features of traditional Turkish theatre. Ün even believes that Beckett’s style of theatre was as new to a Western as it was to Turkish audiences in the fifties and early sixties: ‘Beckett’s style was unfamiliar for the Western audience as well; thus, it would be a flawed interpretation to claim that Beckett belongs to the Western theatrical tradition’ (2019). Ün’s argument is that the translator’s primary concern should be to convey the universal themes of the playwright. However, this is not to claim that linguistic variations did not pose a specific challenge in the translation of Waiting for Godot into Turkish. Analyzing two versions of Godot in Turkish actually means paying attention to the editions of the source texts and specific preferences of the translators, as well as the time period in which the translations were published. Indeed, the most prominent distinctions have to do with the editions used by the translators. Different choices of source texts led to lines being omitted or added, and words being changed. This generated very different target texts in Turkish, and confirms the prismatic dimension of translation, that is to say the fact that the translation process releases multiple signifying possibilities, and opens the source text to

8

TRANSLATING SAMUEL BECKETT INTO A ‘NON-WESTERN’ CULTURE …

169

plurality. This is especially the case with Beckett, a bilingual writer, as his translators can reasonably work from two source texts. When the two translations are compared, it is obvious that while Edgü mostly used the French original as the source text, Ün & Günersel depended on the English self-translation, which led to most of the distinctions between the two Turkish translations. It should also be noted that Edgü’s translation (1963) was done for staging purposes. This translation was used in the 1963 staging of Waiting for Godot at Ankara Art Theatre; by contrast, Ün & Günersel’s translation served literary purposes. This is important to explain why Edgü (1963) aimed at localizing the text at some points whereas Ün & Günersel do not seem to have had such concerns. However, audience members today are most likely to find Edgü’s translation outdated due to the vocabulary used in 1963. This explains why Ün & Günersel’s translation is preferred more for staging although it was not the original purpose of the translation. Finally, Turkish translations of Beckett’s theatrical work and the artist’s wide recognition in a non-Western culture offer evidence of his success in demolishing the culture and language barriers through his specific theatrical style and voice. For all these reasons, the relationship between Beckett’s theatre and Turkish traditional theatre may be a promising field of research.

Notes 1. ‘Üçleme (Beckett Trilogy: Molloy, Malone Dies , The Unnamable) – 2010 – Ayrıntı Yayınları’, ‘Mercier ve Camier (Mercier and Camier) – 2014 – ˙ Ayrıntı Yayınları’, ‘Hiç Için Metinler (Texts for Nothing ) – 2016 – Ayrıntı Yayınları’, ‘E¸slik (Company) – 2017, Ayrıntı Yayınları’, ‘Murphy – 1999 – Ayrıntı Yayınları’, ‘Godot’yu Beklerken (Waiting for Godot ) – 1993 – Kabalcı Yayınevi’, ‘Acaba Nasıl? (How It Is ) – 2001 – Ayrıntı Yayınları’, ˙ skiler (More Pricks Than Kicks ) – 2009 – Ayrıntı Yayınları’. ‘A¸sksız Ili¸ 2. The translation of the prose work, which would require a completely different approach, has not been included in this study. 3. Stewart, having missed the point that the aforementioned transformation had deep roots in the previous century, defined this as ‘a change, the like of which has rarely, if ever, been witnessed by any other nation at any other time. Almost overnight the Turks have substituted the new for the old’ (1954: 213). 4. See Adorno T. (1982), ‘Trying to Understand Endgame’, translated by Michael J. Jones, New German Critique, Vol. 26: 119–150.

170

M. Z. GIRITLI

5. See Germoni, Karine, and Pascale Sardin (2012), ‘Tensions if the InBetween: Rhythm, Tonelessness and Lyricism in Fin De Partie/Endgame’, Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui, Vol. 24, 335–350. JSTOR, www.jstor. org/stable/41698656. Accessed 17 Mar 2020. 6. See Adıvar, Halide Edip (1953), ‘Masks or Souls? A Play in Five Acts’, London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.

Appendix: A Selection of Works by Samuel Beckett in Turkish ˙ (1963), Godot’yu Beklerken, translated by Ferit Edgü, Istanbul: Çan Yayınları. ˙ (1990), Godot’yu Beklerken, translated by Hasan Anamur, Istanbul: Can Yayınları. ˙ (1992), Godot’yu Beklerken, translated by Tuncay Birkan, Istanbul: Kabalcı Yayınevi. ˙ (1993), Watt, translated by U˘gur Ün, Istanbul: Ayrıntı Yayınları. ˙ (1999), Murphy, translated by U˘gur Ün, Istanbul: Ayrıntı Yayınları. (1999) [2011], Üçleme: Molloy, Malone Ölüyor, Adlandırılamayan, translated by ˙ U˘gur Ün, Istanbul: Ayrıntı Yayınları. (2000) [2006], Godot’yu Beklerken, translated by U˘gur Ün&Tarık Günersel, ˙ Istanbul: Kabalcı Yayınevi. ˙ (2001) [2014], Acaba Nasıl? translated by U˘gur Ün, Istanbul: Ayrıntı Yayınları. ˙ (2007), Oyun Sonu, translated by Genco Erkal, Istanbul: Mitos-Boyut. ˙ ˙ (2009) [2016], Hiç Için Metinler, translated by U˘gur Ün, Istanbul: Ayrıntı Yayınları. ˙ ˙ skiler, translated by U˘gur Ün, Istanbul: (2009) [2016], A¸sksız Ili¸ Ayrıntı Yayınları. ˙ (2014), Mercier ile Camier, translated by U˘gur Ün, Istanbul: Ayrıntı Yayınları. ˙ (2016), Proust, translated by Orhan Koçak, Istanbul: Metis Yayıncılık. ˙ (2016), Echo’nun Kemikleri, translated by Süha Sertabibo˘glu, Istanbul: Ayrıntı Yayınları. ˙ (2017), E¸slik, translated by U˘gur Ün, Istanbul: Ayrıntı Yayınları. ˙ Kırmızı Kedi. (2018), Malone Ölüyor, translated by U˘gur Ün, Istanbul: ˙ (2018), Molloy, translated by U˘gur Ün, Istanbul: Kırmızı Kedi. ˙ (2018), Felaket ve Sair Kısa Oyunlar, translated by U˘gur Ün, Istanbul: Kırmızı Kedi. ˙ ˙ (2019), Dünya ve Pantolon, translated by Cem Ileri, Istanbul: Kırmızı Kedi.

Works Cited Adak, Hülya. 2018. Unsettling the Canon of the Theatre of the Absurd: Halide Edib’s Masks or Souls? and Its Other Lives. Comparative Drama 52 (3–4): 275–299. https://doi.org/10.1353/cdr.2018.0012.

8

TRANSLATING SAMUEL BECKETT INTO A ‘NON-WESTERN’ CULTURE …

171

Beckett, Samuel. 1952. En attendant Godot. Paris: Editions de Minuit. ˙ ———. 1963. Godot’yu Beklerken, trans. Ferit Edgü. Istanbul: Çan Yayınları. ———. 1965 [1956]. Waiting for Godot, 2nd ed. London: Faber and Faber. ———. 2006a [2000]. Godot’yu Beklerken, trans. U˘gur Ün and Tarık Günersel. ˙ Istanbul: Kabalcı Yayınevi. ———. 2006b. The Complete Dramatic Works of Samuel Beckett. London: Faber and Faber. ———. 2014. The Letters of Samuel Beckett: 1957–1965, vol. III, ed. George Craig, Martha Dow Fehsenfeld, Dan Gunn, and Lois More Overbeck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Beer, Ann. 1994. Beckett’s Bilingualism. In The Cambridge Companion to Beckett, ed. John Pilling, 209–221. https://doi.org/10.1017/ccol05214136 64.012. Ergün, Nurtaç. 2015. Ça˘gda¸s türk tiyatrosunda Samuel Beckett etkisi: Güle güle godot ve Godot’yu beklemezken. türkbilig, no. 29: 161–190. Karabo˘ga, Kerem, Yavuz Pekman, Fakiye Özsoysal, and Metin Balay. 2011. ˙ ˙ Gelece˘ge perde açan gelenek: geçmi¸sten günümüze Istanbul tiyatroları. Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları. Laws, Catherine. 2003. The Music of Beckett’s Theatre. Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui 13: 121–133. www.jstor.org/stable/25781439. Menemencio˘glu, Nermin. 1983. The Ottoman Theatre 1839–1923. British Society for Middle Eastern Studies. Bulletin 10 (1): 48–58. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/13530198308705362. Morin, Emilie. 2015. Endgame and Shorter Plays: Religious, Political and Other Readings. In The New Cambridge Companion to Beckett, ed. Dirk Van Hulle, 60–72. New York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2017. Beckett’s Political Imagination. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Özata, Cüneyt. 2019. Beckett’in Godot’yu Beklerken’inde Baudrillard’ın Postmodern Hiper Gerçeklik Anlayı¸sı. Pamukkale Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi 37: 87–95. https://doi.org/10.30794/pausbed.546009. Sancaktaro˘glu Bozkurt, Sinem. 2014. Self-Translated: Beckett. In One Day, Samuel Beckett, ed. Burçin Erol, 71–81. Ankara: Hacettepe University. Stewart, David C. 1954. Recent Developments in the Turkish Theater. Educational Theatre Journal 6 (3): 213–216. https://doi.org/10.237/3203961, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3203961. ˙ Ün, U˘gur. 2019. Personal Interview. Istanbul, February 15. Yüksel, Ay¸segül. 2012. Samuel Beckett Tiyatrosu. Istanbul: Habitus.

CHAPTER 9

Beckett in ‘A Distant Place’: Early Translations in Hebrew Einat Adar and Ronen Sonis

In a letter to Israeli writer Matti Megged from 3rd December 1962 Samuel Beckett wrote that there is little chance of him ‘ever going to Israel – or to any other distant place’ (Beckett 2014: 518).1 His work, however, travelled well, with Israeli translators adapting his work for a new audience from the 1950s onwards. The circumstances of the first translations of Beckett theatre are involved, as this chapter will show, with the internal discussion of the desired proximity or distance between the new state and European culture, revolving around issues of avant-garde

E. Adar (B) ˇ Department of English Studies, University of South Bohemia, Ceské Budˇejovice, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected] R. Sonis Department of Translation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. F. Fernández and P. Sardin (eds.), Translating Samuel Beckett around the World, New Interpretations of Beckett in the Twenty-First Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71730-8_9

173

174

E. ADAR AND R. SONIS

and experimental writing. Beckett’s liminal figures have become paradoxically emblematic of a major cultural influence in a country which is itself poised between East and West, nationalism and cosmopolitanism. Questions of distance and proximity are prevalent in translation, a word which etymologically means ‘to carry across’. In his seminal monograph The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation, Lawrence Venuti underlines the fact that translation is more than just a linguistic transfer; for him, translation ‘is not an untroubled communication of a foreign text, but an interpretation that is always limited by its address to specific audiences and by the cultural or institutional situations where the translated text is intended to circulate and function’. For Venuti, this domesticating process is an act that perpetrates violence on the original text in order to make it legible for readers in the target language (Venuti 2008: 14). In the process, foreign cultural elements, which may subsist to an extent, will necessarily ‘undergo a reduction’ (Ibid.). Translators are thus faced with the dilemma of reflecting the foreign original or forcibly adapting it to the norms accepted in the target language. Every step in the translating process – from selecting a foreign text to implementing a translation strategy to editing, reviewing, and reading the translation – is mediated by the diverse values, beliefs, and representations that circulate in the translating language, always in some hierarchical order. The translator, who works with varying degrees of calculation, under continuous self-monitoring and with active consultation of cultural rules and resources … may submit to or resist the forms, practices, and institutions that have accrued the greatest prestige and power in the translating language … Submission assumes an ethics of domestication at work in the translation process … Resistance assumes an ethics of foreignization, locating the alien in a cultural other, pursuing cultural diversity, signalling linguistic and cultural differences and unsettling the hierarchies in the translating language. (Venuti 2008: 266)

Venuti thus differentiates between two attitudes towards translation according to their proximity or distance from the target language and culture. A foreignizing translation keeps the difference of the original visible by disrupting the linguistic and literary norms of the receiving culture, while a domesticating translation aims to reduce difference and conform to readers’ assumptions and expectations, to make the translated text acceptable to the receiving audience in both form and content.

9

BECKETT IN ‘A DISTANT PLACE’ …

175

As this chapter will show, translations of Beckett often combine both foreignizing and domesticating attitudes. It will focus on two translations, which coincided with the establishment of important platforms for experimental writing – the first regular season of Israel’s first avant-garde theatre in 1955, and the founding of Keshet magazine which has discovered and promoted young writers since its initiation in 1958. Both of these events were accompanied by a translation of a Beckett play – Waiting for Godot at the Zira Theatre, and Krapp’s Last Tape in Keshet. A study of the circumstances and discourse around these two publications shows a clear intent to disrupt Hebrew literature through the introduction of the Irish avant-garde writer from Paris. In order to understand the context into which the plays were translated, a short introduction to the literary tradition in Hebrew being formed in the 1950s will provide the necessary background for the subsequent analysis of the two pioneering translations. A discussion of later experimental translations of Waiting for Godot will further illustrate how Beckett’s work continued to inspire artists who were seeking to change theatrical norms and other aspects of Israeli culture.

First Love: Introducing Beckett to the Israeli Audience Beckett’s rise on the world stage with the success of En attendant Godot coincided with a period of literary renewal in the newly formed State of Israel. Like other literatures of revival, modern Hebrew literature was born as part of a national political project. Following World War I and the Russian revolution, the very decision by Jewish authors to write in Hebrew rather than in the local language, or in Yiddish, which they spoke in everyday life, often implied a tacit agreement with the goals of Zionism and a wish to break away from traditional diasporic existence. During the first half of the twentieth century, literature played a key role in the Zionist movement’s struggle to establish a national Jewish state in Palestine. According to Michael Gluzman, politics and literature ‘were entirely intertwined: writers addressed political questions and political leaders in turn expressed their views on literary and aesthetic issues’ (Gluzman 2003: 7). A critical aspect of the Zionist educational and promotional effort was denying the value of Jewish diasporic existence, offering an alternative in the form of a New Jew who would be strong and unaffected by antisemitism. As Oz Almog explains:

176

E. ADAR AND R. SONIS

Zionism may have been founded primarily to solve the problem of antiSemitism, but it also grew out of the envy of the gentiles … A corollary of this envy was the rejection of the figure of the Diaspora Jew, a rejection sometimes so strong that, paradoxically, it resembled anti-Semitic characterizations of Jews. (Almog 2000: 76)

This envy and rejection often created a pressure on writers to avoid European models and focus, instead, on nourishing a new literature for a new people. While most Jewish European writers were committed to the Zionist agenda, their degree of adherence to the aesthetic project of creating a uniquely Hebrew literature varied, and a modernist influence can be discerned in the poetics of many Hebrew writers, including the national poet Hayim Nachman Bialik, or the dominant figure of Nathan Alterman, who became the target of many subsequent attacks. The shock of the Second World War and the decimation of European Jewry in the Holocaust only served to reinforce the need to break away from diasporic existence, rather than elicit empathy with the survivors. Zionists who emigrated to Israel before the war were tacitly ‘reprimanding the survivors for remaining in the Diaspora and not answering the call of Zionism’ (Almog 2000: 82). Hebrew writers of the 1940s and 1950s who were born in the Holy Land gained a privileged status as being the first generation of Jews who had never experienced life in the diaspora. It fell to them to evolve a new image of the emerging nation as a strong and independent people who are able to defend themselves in a dangerous world. Prominent writers of the time, such as Aharon Megged, Nathan Shaham, Yigal Mosinzon and others, were named the ‘Palmah generation’ after the resistance movement that fought against the British occupation, and was absorbed into the newly formed Israeli army. Identifying these writers with the paramilitary group emphasised their physical prowess and ability to defend themselves in dangerous situations. According to Joseph Cohen, their writing generally reflected this role: Their writing, by and large, had a political visionary stance. It was exhortative, explicit, and … simplistic in its aims and techniques. The protagonist in a typical Palmah novel usually lived and worked on a kibbutz and was trained to be a fighter as occasion demanded. In the novel’s enveloping action … the hero confronted a problem that pitted ‘personal fulfilment’ against the ‘collective good’. Usually, society’s goal prevailed … [T]he

9

BECKETT IN ‘A DISTANT PLACE’ …

177

themes … were enveloped in an idealistic aura, a romanticism that transcended the difficult realities of everyday life in Palestine. (Cohen 1990: 4)

This romantic view of the New Jew faced a crisis after the State of Israel was established, partly because the international recognition of the new country marked the successful completion of the national struggle, and partly due to the gap between the idealistic image of this generation and the concrete difficulties the new nation was facing (Cohen 1990: 4). Writing in 1953, the historian Bernard D. Weinryb saw marks of disillusion and a hopeless search in the post-independence literature of the Palmah generation. He compared Palestine-born writers to the post World War I writers of the Anglo-American Lost Generation, claiming that the ‘young native-born generation either [was] opposed to the very ideals which were the foundation of modern Jewish Palestine-Israel or look[ed] upon the moral values and ideas of their parents as outmoded trends of no practical value’ (Weinryb 1953: 428). In the theatre, this new generation was ‘shown wandering aimlessly, doing evil as well as good, not for any rhyme or reason, but simply from some sort of detachment or imitation’ (Weinryb 1953: 428). The literary culture in the 1950s was thus, according to Shimon Levy, ‘transitioning from the “we” of a pioneering, fighting group experience to the insecurities of the lonely “I”’ (Levy 2017: 314). It is no wonder then that Israeli audiences became interested in a play that expresses purposelessness and scepticism about the future which opened on 3rd January 1953, the very same year Weinryb wrote these lines, at Théâtre de Babylone in Paris – En attendant Godot . According to James Knowlson, the success of Beckett’s play ‘was assured when it became controversial, for it surprised and shocked many conventional theatregoers … During a stormy intermission, the most irate protesters came to blows with the play’s supporters’ with the result that ‘Godot became the talk of theatrical Paris’ (Knowlson 1996: 350). Although Tel Aviv seemed rather distant for Beckett, the echoes of this controversy reached its literary circles through individuals travelling between the two countries and the pages of literary magazines. On April 29th 1955 for example, Yesha‘yahu Ben Porat wrote in Zmanim, a supplement for literature and the arts, about a new wave of writers who avoided political activism, among whom ‘Samuel Beckett, of Irish origins,

178

E. ADAR AND R. SONIS

writer of While Waiting for Godot , who became famous in all European countries’ (Ben Porat 1955. Our translation). Ben Porat’s rendering of the title of the play indicates the first challenge facing translators – how to translate the title into Hebrew. The gerund of the French title ‘En attendant’ (‘while waiting’) was rendered into English as the present continuous ‘Waiting for’ but the Hebrew language lacks either of these grammatical constructions or other means of specifying temporal aspects of the action beyond the simple present. This leaves the translator with the choice of either stating explicitly that something is taking place simultaneously with the waiting, as Ben Porat did when he translated the title as ‫‘(תוך צפיה לגודו‬while waiting for Godot’), or leaving out this meaning of the title and opting for the more natural present simple which was the solution chosen by Michael Almaz, the first person to translate Beckett into Hebrew.

‘Gloomy Idiotism’: Waiting for Godot in Hebrew Beckett was first introduced to the general Israeli public when the Zira theatre produced the play on 25 November 1955 (Anon 1955a). The theatre had been founded by Michael Almaz who had studied theatre direction at Fordham University in New York and film direction at New York City College. He moved back to Israel and established the country’s first avant-garde group in 1949 (Yaffe et al. 1964: 128), only one year after the 1948 Israeli Declaration of Independence. After a few years of precarious operations, the theatre opened its first regular season with the controversial play of the up and coming writer that had caused a scandal in Paris in January of 1953. As could be expected, the play met with a mixed critical response, which should also be read within the context of the argument about national literature. Positive reviews emphasised the achievement of bringing an avant-garde French play to the Israeli stage and welcomed it as an achievement that expands the range of Hebrew culture. The critic Asher Nahor, for example, mentions the play as one of the noteworthy events of the previous year in the newspaper of the liberal party Herut, writing that ‘despite the play being devoid of plot and wholly consisting of waiting, the audience are alert throughout the play … The Zira theatre … contributes to the variety of our [theatre] and reduces its dependence on Broadway alone’ (Nahor 1956. Our translation). The play was attacked, however, for its lack of clearly communicated meaning

9

BECKETT IN ‘A DISTANT PLACE’ …

179

and political commitment by reviewers such as Michael Harsegor.2 In his opinion the play had ‘no living truth, logic, or purpose, except for the effort to seem deep by including religious and pornographic hints’ so that it was ‘hard to grasp what motivated the Zira theatre to present this gloomy idiotism’ (Harsegor 1955. Our translation). Both of these reviews testify to the perceived foreignness of the play in the Israeli literary landscape of the time. It brought a different type of dramatic experience to the Israeli stage and helped open up the theatre to European influences and tastes. The reception by theatre-goers was, moreover, positive according to Levy who reports that ‘the audience response to Waiting for Godot was much warmer than that of the critics’ (Levy 2017: 316). The text was translated from French by Almaz himself, who directed the play. His translation is preserved as a typescript in the archive of the Theatre Department at Tel Aviv University. The typescript contains notes and corrections that seem to have been made by or for Yehuda Fuchs, the actor who played Vladimir, whose lines in the play are highlighted. Harsegor’s complaint about religious clues may be at least partly justified by the choice to ‘translate’ the name Godot. The name of this mysterious character was transformed into Marel ( ‫) מחכים למראל‬, a made-up name that resembles common names such as Rafael or Michael, but literally means ‘Mr. God’. Identifying Godot with God was not unusual in the early reception of Beckett’s play, yet the translation makes it unnecessarily explicit. The full title ‫ אנו מחכים למראל‬diverges further from the original by the addition of ‘ ‫‘( ’ אנו‬we’), so that the title in Hebrew reads ‘we are waiting for Mr. God’, a change that may be understood as a domesticating attempt to bring the play closer to its audience by clearly identifying the situation of the two tramps with the condition of the audience. A contemporary review commented on the choice, judging it to be ‘a rather primitive hint that Godot-Marel is none other than the God himself, for whom humanity has vainly waited to arrive and save it’ (M.G. 1955: 13. Our translation). Another adaptation can be found in the rendering of Pozzo as Paz-el ( ‫) פזאל‬, which plays on the word paz ( ‫ ) פז‬meaning ‘gold’. This change makes Pozzo’s new name – Pazel – acoustically similar to the name Godot – Marel, which implies some relation between them, while expressing Pozzo’s gross materialism. On the positive side, the similarity in names makes the confusion of Pozzo with Godot more convincing. The translation of the play as a whole follows the French original with small deviations. For example, Estragon’s famous opening ‘Rien à faire’ (Beckett 2007: 9) is rendered as ‘ .‫ אי אפשר‬.‫( ’ אי אפשר‬Almaz

180

E. ADAR AND R. SONIS

1955: 1), which means literally ‘Impossible, impossible’ implying the futility of doing anything. Almaz conveys the direct meaning of the phrase, but misses the pun of doing ‘nothing’. A little later in the play, Vladimir is asking whether Estragon was beaten during the night, and receives the answer ‘Si… Pas trop’ (Beckett 2007: 10) which Almaz renders as ‘ ‫ אבל לא מאוד‬.‫( ’ דווקא כן‬Almaz 1955: 1) meaning literally ‘on the contrary, they did’ instead of the simple affirmation of the original text. In this case, the negation of Vladimir’s proposition may have been intended to establish a contrast between the two characters at this early stage of the play. The translation as a whole suffers from the frequent use of unnecessarily formal register to render Beckett’s colloquial French, alongside simpler Hebrew constructions and vocabulary. Thus, when Estragon is remembering the colour of the sea in his old school bible he says ‘J’avais soif rien qu’en le regardant’ (Beckett 2007: 13) [‘The very look of it made me thirsty’ (Beckett 2012: 12)], which Almaz translated with a cumbersome grammatical construction ‘ ‫ מיד הייתי מתחיל לחוש צמא‬,‫( ’ אך הייתי מביט בו‬Almaz 1955: 3) that employs the literary words for look (‘ ‫ ’מביט‬instead of ‘ ‫ )’ מסתכל‬and introduces the unnecessary verb to feel (‘ ‫ )’לחוש‬which is also of a high register. These deviations led Levy to criticise Almaz’s version, since ‘it was not sensitive to the Beckettian style and linguistic registers. It has the inconsistency of speech registers that was characteristic of dialogues in both drama and prose at the time’ (Levy 1986: 179. Our translation). Levy further points out examples of simple errors, e.g. the ‘deux larrons’ (Beckett 2007: 12–13) or ‘deux voleurs’ (Beckett 2007: 14) were translated as ‘ ‫’ לסטים‬, literally ‘robbers’ instead of the ‘thieves’ as they are known in Luke’s account of the crucifixion of Jesus in the New Testament (Almaz 1955: 3). On the other hand, Almaz also compensates for such losses at times. For example in that same dialogue about the two thieves, he introduces a rather elaborate pun based on the word ‘ ‫’נצלו‬ (Almaz 1955: 5) which may mean both ‘saved’ and ‘roasted’ in Hebrew, adding to Estragon’s confusion about the story. Such word play definitely adds interest to the text, but it also increases the distance from Beckett’s original play by creating a confusion where none existed in the original. While Levy is undoubtedly correct in his criticism of a certain carelessness in this translation, examining this version of the play in the

9

BECKETT IN ‘A DISTANT PLACE’ …

181

context in which it was created may soften the harsh judgement of insensitivity to Beckett’s language. First, we need to consider the fact that Almaz was translating a text that was only beginning to receive the interest and scrutiny that are necessary to appreciate its artistic achievements and complexity, and that the translator had few resources to rely on when attempting to render the nuances of Beckett’s writing into a completely different language. In addition, the practicalities of theatre meant that Almaz had a limited time to translate the play which he also directed himself, and this haste, rather than lack of understanding, may be responsible for some of the errors and infelicities of expression. Moreover, as Levy himself notes, confusion of linguistic registers was characteristic of the literary Hebrew of the time, perhaps a natural phenomenon in a new language that is still in flux. It is important to note that in the 1950s a high register was considered a virtue in Hebrew translation, as contributing to the development of a literary idiom in the renewing language. A need to translate in a spoken, everyday language was only beginning to be felt, although not yet formulated as a norm. In 1959, four years after the Zira production of Godot, Nathan Zach published a famous attack on the older generation of poets in which he accuses them of using an artificially lofty language and formulates the new demand for the living word: Indeed, you cannot say of Alterman that he does not hear the new or revived, contemporary words … but these are in the main ‘official’ words, lacking connotative value, which have just emerged from the workshops of military term committees and language associations of various kinds … Alterman does not hear the phrases that are walking the actual streets, nor does he consider them worthy of being used in his poems. (Zach 1959: 110–111. Our translation)

Against this background, Almaz’s translation, despite its shortcomings, should be commended for its early effort to bring spoken language to the stage. One contemporary review in particular bears out this point as it praises the translation for its use of colloquial speech that rises to poetical heights. Haim Gamzu, whose criticism of theatrical performances was so scathing at times that a verb was created from his name meaning ‘to destroy or ruin’, could also offer praise where he found merit and his review of We are Waiting for Marel is one of the few to comment on the language of the play. He complimented the production for introducing

182

E. ADAR AND R. SONIS

‘living people. They speak a living language. Sometimes quite prosaic, sometimes too prosaic, often highly lyrical. Poetic lines that do not adorn themselves with rhymes and rhythm and parallelisms, but flow out of the spoken tongue itself’ (Gamzu 1955. Our translation). The translation, alongside Almaz’s work as a director, is also singled out for positive comment in another review of the play which found little else to recommend in the play and its author (Anon 1955b). Indeed, the reviewer M.G. whose criticism of the play’s title was cited above also concludes that ‘the romantic-melancholy atmosphere of the work was well delivered in the translation and directing’ (1955). It would seem, therefore, that for contemporary audiences the Hebrew spoken by the characters sounded fluent and even refreshing, conveying the spirit, if not the details, of Beckett’s language. Almaz’s translation should therefore be seen as leaning towards the foreignizing pole, despite the domesticating translation of its title. Almaz also translated and directed Beckett’s second play, Fin de partie, for performance at the Zira theatre in 1957 (Anon 1957). This second production received less attention, perhaps because Beckett’s avant-garde theatre was no longer a novelty, or maybe for lack of publicity. Whatever the reason, the play seems to have been ignored by critics and it failed to save the experimental theatre, which was in serious financial difficulties by that time. Almaz revived the play in 1968 in a bid to re-open Zira, but this production also failed commercially and the run was cut short (Avidar 1969).

Domesticating Godot Even though the first production of Godot in Hebrew encountered a mixed reception, the play went on to become a classic in Israeli theatre, with numerous successful productions in various theatres, many of them in new translations. Among the notable translations, it is important to mention the version by the prominent author of the Palmah generation Moshe Shamir, which was produced at the request of Habima, the national Israeli theatre, for a 1968 production that brought the avantgarde play into the Israeli mainstream and established its canonical status (Levy 2017: 317–319). According to Dorit Yerushalmi, the choice of Beckett’s play can be seen as taking part in the effort of young directors to expand the canonical repertory of the established theatre, and yet the production as a whole and especially its translation exhibits a strong

9

BECKETT IN ‘A DISTANT PLACE’ …

183

domesticating impulse (Yerushalmi 2009: 202–203). The director, Yossi Yizraeli, chose to highlight the comic elements of the play and made significant departures from the original conception which included a stage design in the form of a circus ring, with Beckett’s own portrait hanging over the stage (Yerushalmi 2009: 202; see also Levy 2017: 317). While Yizraeli’s direction emphasised the low comedy aspects of Waiting for Godot , the translation uses a lofty language, that is often much more formal than the original, and its changes of register may be confusing rather than humorous (Levy 1986: 200). Overall, the theatrical performance is a clear domestication of the play that caters for an audience looking for popular entertainment. Another notable translation is Hava Ortman’s translation for a majority female production that premiered in 1995 at the International Fringe Festival in Acco [Acre], which is devoted to experimental and avantgarde drama, alongside street theatre, and other types of performance. Both Didi and Gogo in this production were played by women, while Pozzo was the tyrannical man. Since in Hebrew the gender of the speaker is specified in almost every utterance, the language of the play had to be adjusted to female, rather than male, speakers. Another important linguistic departure can be found in the bilingual translation of Waiting for Godot into Hebrew and Arabic by Anton Shammas in 1984. The director, Ilan Ronen, freely confesses to his wish to domesticate the play, writing that ‘I decided in my production to transform Beckett’s two tramps into two Palestinian labourers waiting for a Godot to deliver them from their misery. I had no doubt that by portraying Vladimir and Estragon in the Israeli political reality of the period I would only deepen the audience’s identification with the characters’ (Ronen 1997: 240). At the same time, the decision to stage a bilingual version of the play was exceptional within the context of Beckett performances, and perhaps even more importantly, on the Israeli stage. The translation by Shammas plays on linguistic difference in order to make the different characters identifiable to the Arab-speaking audience of the first production: The bilingual translation was part of our conception of bringing together the Israeli and the Palestinian on the same stage, confronting each other also through the medium of the two languages … Gogo would represent the Arab villager speaking a more common language, while Didi was a city dweller … The third Arabic-speaking character in the play was Lucky – an elderly man, of the old generation, his speech in (sic) literary Arabic … The fourth character is the messenger … We chose to portray him as

184

E. ADAR AND R. SONIS

a young boy from a refugee camp who spoke very simple Arabic. Pozzo represented the Israeli and naturally spoke Hebrew, except for a few curses and orders to Lucky in Arabic. (Ronen 1997: 242–243)

Shammas’ translation thus highlights the foreign elements within the domestic territory, complicating the distinction between foreignizing and domesticating translations, while exposing the tensions within Israeli society itself.

Opening Windows: Krapp ’s Last Tape in Keshet Translations of Samuel Beckett are associated not only with Israel’s first avant-garde theatre, but also with its first independent literary magazine. As already mentioned, in Israel Beckett became associated with the ‘State Generation’ writers, who challenged both the poetics and the canon of the previous generation. To take but one example, in 1957 in the literary supplement of Maariv daily paper, one column complained that modern writers like Beckett and others failed to offer a hope for change (Avrahami 1957), while another claimed that the poetry of David Avidan, one of the ‘State Generation’ writers, was thought to be focused on questioning and dismantling truth but did not build anything new (Ben Zvi 1957). It is only fitting, therefore, that when a new independent literary magazine was established to bring new voices into Hebrew writing, a translation of a new Beckett play should be featured in the very first issue. The circumstances surrounding this translation reveal the deep impact of the Parisian literary scene on Hebrew-language writing, as well as shed light on some details of Beckett’s life. The magazine Keshet ( ‫ )קשת‬was founded by Aharon Amir who had been contemplating the idea of founding a literary journal for more than 10 years before it came to fruition (Amir 1998: 7). Nissim Rejwan, a friend of Amir and a frequent contributor, testifies that ‘Amir “did” Keshet virtually single-handedly – taking care of the editing, translating, proofreading, assembling of pages, advertising, and promoting’ (Rejwan 2006: 72). This one-man project became a central venue for new writers in need of a publishing outlet outside the established literary supplements of the daily newspapers. The first issue included a short manifesto which defined its mission as bringing new literary works from abroad, alongside high quality original writing, an inclusive approach which is hinted at by the magazine’s name which means ‘A Rainbow’:

9

BECKETT IN ‘A DISTANT PLACE’ …

185

‘Keshet’ seeks to bring the literary and spiritual movements of our generation closer to the Hebrew Reader, as well as studies in the general area of human heritage… ‘Keshet’ seeks to open windows and bring a fresh wind into the rooms of Hebrew literature and thought, become a meeting place for artists and thinkers who adhere to different schools and camps, aid the growth of original talent, express non-conformism and path finding. (Amir 1958, internal cover. Our translation)

The goals of the magazine truly partake of the ethics of foreignization as defined by Venuti: ‘pursuing cultural diversity, signalling linguistic and cultural differences, and unsettling the hierarchies in the translating language’ (Venuti 2008: 266). The first issue fulfilled this promise by publishing work by young Israeli authors, many of whom became recognised as prominent writers. The third item in the table of contents is ‘Samuel Beckett: Krapp’s Last Tape’, a significant achievement in the autumn of 1958 given that Beckett had only completed the play in March of that same year (Knowlson 1996: 400) and the publication of the translation preceded the first performance of the play in London (Knowlson 1996: 409–410). In a celebratory issue commemorating 40 years since the first publication of Keshet , Amir highlights the publication of this translation to illustrate the way in which he fulfilled the promise of the manifesto. In a parenthesis he adds that it was made possible thanks to the connections of Avidgor Arikha in Paris, with whom Amir was staying at the time. These Parisian connections seem to be none other than Beckett himself, who wrote to Arikha on 6th May 1958 that ‘I hope to be able to give you Krapp’s Last Tape next week. For the moment I have only my own copy, which I can’t let go of’ (Beckett 2014: 146). Beckett does not specify the reason for providing Arikha with a copy of the play at such an early stage, and the editors of the volume of letters offer no further information, but the urgency implied by Beckett’s mention of a date, as well as the timing of this letter two months after the play was completed and before the appearance of the Hebrew translation, seems to indicate that the copy in question was the one provided to Amir for translation. Like Almaz’s version of Waiting for Godot , Amir’s translation suffers from deficiencies, ranging from awkward confusion of linguistic registers and excessive use of traditional Jewish sources, to simple typing mistakes. One of the most interesting problems presented for the Israeli translator

186

E. ADAR AND R. SONIS

of Krapp’s Last Tape is the vocabulary associated with the recording technology, which was not in domestic or common use at the time. The term used to translate the word ‘tape recorder’, ‘ ‫’ מקלטה‬, was proposed by the Academy of the Hebrew Language, whose role includes the suggestion of new words for terms that are missing in the Hebrew language. This specific term, however, was not accepted by the public and would be unfamiliar to readers today, creating an interesting parallel with the tape recorder itself which went from being a novelty on stage to a relic of the past. Other terms without a Hebrew parallel, such as ‘equinox’, were simply replaced with short explanations. Another specific problem is the use of Christian symbolism and terms. For example Amir replaced the name of Jesus with God in Krapp’s cry ‘Jesus! Take his mind off his homework!’ (Beckett 2012: 194). He also changed ‘his homework’ to ‘my homework’ (Amir 1958: 24), using a term, ‘ ‫’ מתלמודי‬, which evokes the traditional Jewish learning of the Talmud, providing Krapp with the fully domesticated background of a traditional Jewish scholar. Similarly, Krapp’s attendance at vespers (Beckett 2012: 196) is replaced with the Jewish evening prayer (Beckett 2012: 25). The text, however, is not completely ‘judaised’ as Christmas Eve (Beckett 2012: 196) is rendered by the equivalent Hebrew term for the Christian holiday. It would seem that the translator took the liberty of rendering Christian terms as Jewish ones when the text allowed for some generality, but stopped short of converting Krapp to Judaism.

Domestic Beckett, Foreign Beckett These first translations of Beckett plays by Almaz and Amir have not survived the test of time, neither artistically, nor as performance texts for the theatre. Both of them were created in haste, fail to fully convey Beckett’s artistic style in Hebrew, and abound in choices that are more domesticating than foreignizing. Domestication and foreignization are, however, time-dependent concepts. Nowadays critics are no longer shocked by Beckett’s radical stagings, and Hebrew readers can enjoy the plays in the excellent, and much more accurate, translations of Shimon Levy who published a full edition of Beckett’s theatrical work in Hebrew. The importance of the first translations, we would argue, lies in their encouragement of avant-garde tendencies in a young state that expected its writers to be committed to the national struggle rather than to a personal artistic vision. They were motivated by a desire to bring a breath

9

BECKETT IN ‘A DISTANT PLACE’ …

187

of fresh air to Israeli literature and culture, and it is this context that makes their effect foreignizing, even when they make domesticating compromises or outright mistakes. The impact of this influence can be assessed by the continued popularity of Beckett’s work, with Waiting for Godot being ‘one of the most produced plays in Israel’s theatrical history’ (Levy 2017: 313). The bibliography of the main translations of Beckett’s work included in the appendix also serves to illustrate the breadth and depth of Beckett translations in a language that is spoken by less than 10 million people worldwide. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Dr. Olga Levitan and the Israeli Center for the Documentation of the Performing Arts for their help in providing access to archive materials.

Notes 1. Megged was introduced to Beckett when he visited Paris with Judith Schmidt, who worked for the Grove Press, Beckett’s American publisher (Beckett 2014: 702). Beckett grew fond of the young Israeli whom he described to Barbara Bray as ‘Nice rugged handsome revolted imbibbing Israel-haunted chap’ (Beckett 2014: 494). Megged went on to translate two of Beckett’s plays – Endgame and Happy Days . 2. For more information about the negative critical response to the Zira production, see Levy (2017: 314–315).

Appendix: Selected Translations of Samuel Beckett’s Works into Hebrew Waiting for Godot (1955), Anu Mehakim leMarel [We are Waiting for Marel ], translated by Michael Almaz, Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University—Theatre Department. (1968)(?), Mehakim leGodo: Tragicomedia Bishtey Ma’arakhot [Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts ], translated by Edna Shavit, Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University—Theatre Department. (1968), Mehakim leGodo: Mahazeh Bishte Ma’arakhot [Waiting for Godot: A Play in Two Acts ], translated by Moshe Shamir, Jerusalem: Tarshish Books. (1984), Mehakim leGodo [Waiting for Godot ], translated by Anton Shammas, Haifa.

188

E. ADAR AND R. SONIS

(1985), Mehakim leGodo: Mahazeh Bishte Ma’arakhot [Waiting for Godot: A Play in Two Acts ], translated by Muli Meltzer, Tel Aviv: Adam. (2002), Mehakim leGodo [Waiting for Godot ], translated by Hava Ortman. (2002), Mehakim leGodo [Waiting for Godot ], translated by Yosef El-Dror, Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University—Theatre Department.

Endgame (1969)(?), Sofmishak: Mahaze [Endgame: A Play], translated from the French by Matti Megged, Tel Aviv: Israeli Centre for Drama. (1985), Sof Mishak [Endgame], translated from English by Yael Renan, Tel Aviv: Adam.

Krapp’s Last Tape (1958), ‘Sirto Ha’aharon shel Krapp’ [Krapp’s Last Ribbon], Keshet 1, 17–26. (1983), Hatep Haaharon shel Krapp [Krapp’s Last Tape], translation by Hilit Yeshurun, Jerusalem: Bialik Institute.

Other Plays (1967), Yamin Tovim: Mahazeh Bishte Ma’arakhot [Happy Days: A Play in Two Acts ], translated from English by Matti Megged, Jerusalem: Tarshish Books. (1971), Milim ve Muzika: Taskit [Words and Music: Radio Play], trans. Shimon Levy, Tel Aviv: Theatre Department at Tel Aviv University. (1985), Ah Hayamim Hayafim [Happy Days ], translated from English by Muli Meltzer, Tel Aviv: Adam. (1985), Taskitim [Radio Plays ], translation from English by Shimon Levy, Jerusalem: Keter. (2007), Samuel Beckett, Kol Yetsirotav Bidrama [Complete Dramatic Works ], translated from English and French by Shimon Levy, Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Arts School—Theatre Department. (2007), Samuel Beckett —Makhazot: Mikhlol Yetzirato Ha’Dramatit [Samuel Beckett—Plays: Complete Dramatic Works ], translated bz Shimon Levy, Tel Aviv: Asaf.

Prose (1976), Molloy, translated from French by Hilit Yeshurun, Tel Aviv: University Publishing Projects.

9

BECKETT IN ‘A DISTANT PLACE’ …

189

(1979), Mercier ve Camier [Mercier and Camier], translated from French by Muli Meltzer, Jerusalem: Adam. (1980), Mot Malon [Malone Dies ], translation from French by Hilit Yeshurun, Tel Aviv: Hakibuts Hameuhad. (1982), Ahava Rishona: Sipurim [First Love: Stories ], translated by Muli Meltzer, Jerusalem: Adam. (1983), Eloshem [The Unnamable], translation from French by Hilit Yeshurun, Tel Aviv: Hakibuts Hameuhad. (1991), Arba Yetsirot: Damu Benafshekhem Shehadimyon Met; Ha-avudim; Ping; Lelo [Four Works: Imagination Dead Imagine; The Lost Ones; Ping; Lessness ], translated from English and French by Ora Segal, Jerusalem: Karmel. (1997), Enekh Halah (Novelot Meuharot) [Nohow On: Late Novellas ], translated by Shimon Levy, Tel Aviv: Hakibuts Hameuhad. (2005), Proust, translated from English by Idit Shorer, French quotations translated by Hilit Yeshurun, Tel Aviv: Resling.

Works Cited Almaz, Michael. 1955. Anu Mehakim leMarel [We are Waiting for Marel ]. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Theatre Department. Almog, Oz. 2000. The Sabra: The Creation of the New Jew, trans. Haim Watzmann. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Amir, Aharon. 1958. Sirto Haaharon shel Krapp [Krapps Last Ribbon]. Keshet 1: 17–26. [Introduction]. Amir, Aharon. 1998. ‫פתח דברים‬ [Keshet: ‫ עיון וביקורת לציון מלאות ארבעים שנה לייסוד הרבעון‬,‫ דברי ספרות‬:‫קשת‬ Literary, Academic, and Critical Studies to Commemorate 40 Years of the Quarterly]. Jerusalem: Keshet Sofrim. Anon. 1955a. ‫“[ תאטרון זירה מגביר את פעילותו‬Zira” Theatre Expands Its Activities]. Kol Ha’am, October 21. Anon. 1955b. ‫[ גם אנו מחכים‬We Are Waiting, Too]. Al Hamishmar, November 24. Anon. 1957. ‫[ הצגות חדשות יועלו בתיאטרונים‬New Plays in Theatres]. Lamerhav, November 15. Avidar, Tamar. 1969. ‫ברודווי שלנו‬-‫[ האוף‬Our Off-Broadway]. Maariv, January 9. Avrahami, Yitzhak. 1957. ‫[ דראמטורגיה של יאוש‬The Dramaturgy of Despair]. Maariv, December 20. Beckett, Samuel. 2007 [1952]. En attendant Godot. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit. ———. 2012. The Complete Dramatic Works. London: Faber and Faber.

190

E. ADAR AND R. SONIS

———. 2014. The Letters of Samuel Beckett: Volume III, 1957–1965, ed. George Craig, Martha Dow Fehsenfeld, Dan Gunn, and Lois More Overbeck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ben Porat, Yesha‘yahu. 1955. ‫[ צרפת מגלה את ברט ברכט‬France Discovers Bertolt Brecht]. Zmanim, April 29. [In a Storm—And in a Whisper]. Maariv, Ben Zvi, Hanan. 1957. December 20. Cohen, Joseph. 1990. Voices of Israel: Essays on and Interviews with Yehuda Amichai, A.B. Yehoshua, T. Carmi, Aharon Appelfeld, and Amos Oz. Albany: State University of New York Press. Gamzu, Haim. 1955. ‫[ אנו מחכים למראל בזירה‬We Are Waiting for Marel at Zira]. Haaretz, December 16. Gluzman, Michael. 2003. The Politics of Canonicity: Lines of Resistance in Modernist Hebrew Poetry. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Harsegor, Michael. 1955. ‫[ כשהרפרטואר מכשיל‬When the Repertoire Causes Failure]. Kol Ha’am, November 25. Knowlson, James. 1996. Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett. New York: Grove Press. Levy, Shimon 1986. ‫ שלושים שנות ביקורת בקט‬1956–1986 [Thirty Years of Beckett Criticism 1956–1986]. Tel Aviv: Dionon. ———. 2017. Godot, an Israeli Critic. Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui: Beckett at the Margins, 29: 312–324. M.G. 1955. ‫[ שום דבר לא מתרחש‬Nothing Happens]. Davar, December 9. Nahor, Asher. 1956. ‫[ השנה החולפת בתיאטרון העברי‬The Previous Year in Hebrew Theatre]. Herut, September 5. Rejwan, Nissim. 2006. Outsider in the Promised Land: An Iraqi Jew in Israel. Austin: University of Texas Press. Ronen, Ilan. 1997. Waiting for Godot as Political Theater, Directing Beckett, ed. Lois Oppenheim, 239–249. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Venuti, Lawrence. 2008. The Translator’s Invisibility. A History of Translation, 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge. Weinryb, Bernard D. 1953. The Lost Generation in Israel. Middle East Journal 7 (4): 415–429. Yaffe, A.B., Bartonov Shlomo, and Katz Yona (eds.). 1964. ‫אמנות הבמה בישראל‬ [Theatrical Art in Israel]. Tel Aviv: Orna Publishing. Yerushalmi, Dorit. 2009. The Theatrical Ammunition of the 1967 War. Journal of Israeli History: Politics, Society, Culture 28 (2): 195–212. Zach, Nathan. 1959. ‫[ הרהורים על שירת אלתרמן‬Thoughts About Alterman’s Poetry]. Akhshav, 3–4, 109–122.

CHAPTER 10

Domesticating Beckett: The Religious and Political Complexity of Pakistan and Waiting for Godot Muhammad Saeed Nasir

Over the last few decades, Samuel Beckett scholarship has emerged as a flourishing and inspiring literary business that categorises Beckett as something of a ‘scholarly nirvana’ (Singer 2005: 69). Beckett, indeed, has left us a rich corpus of work containing considerable issues in need of interpretation, one of these being the idea of God and the question of religion, which have been addressed by many scholars to this day.1 A comprehensive exploration of Beckett studies reveals that Beckett has, fascinatingly, crossed the Western boundaries and is also a popular writer in the Asian World. In this regard, Thirthankar Chakraborty extensively explores the ways Beckett was adapted and translated in various parts of India.2 However, a comprehensive exploration of Beckett studies reveals that very few discussions of Beckett have been undertaken from the angle

M. S. Nasir (B) School of Language and Literature, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. F. Fernández and P. Sardin (eds.), Translating Samuel Beckett around the World, New Interpretations of Beckett in the Twenty-First Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71730-8_10

191

192

M. S. NASIR

of Muslim readers and cultures. This study attempts to fill this void in the current academic discourse by analysing a significant attempt at domesticating Beckett through a 2008 adaptation3 of Waiting for Godot in the Muslim context of Pakistan. Most of Beckett’s works allude to religion in more or less direct ways, and thereby raise questions about religion, even if only incidentally. The list of the themes evoked is long and might include the story of two thieves, salvation, or the crucifixion if we are to think only of Waiting for Godot . What is more, the situation of Beckett’s characters seems very often to suggest the idea of God’s indifference to His creatures – think of the deprived tramps in Waiting for Godot, the crippled characters in Endgame, the ill-fated Rooneys in All that Fall , helpless Krapp in Krapp’s Last Tape, dysfunctional Winnie and Willie in Happy Days , and the protagonist’s helplessness in Act Without Words I . Beckett even questions the very existence of God in the prayer scene in Endgame.4 Ironically, Beckett does not answer any of the questions that he raises; instead, he leaves it to the readers and to the spectators to understand and interpret allusions as they wish. As is well documented, Beckett’s texts had experienced censorship in various countries, including the UK, when the Lord Chamberlain asked emendations to be made to the texts of Waiting for Godot in 1954 and Endgame in 1958, a play which was deemed blasphemous in a Christian context (Stanton and Banham 1996: 60). Likewise, Beckett’s stance towards religion can be very problematic for Muslims. In the Islamic world, raising questions against a belief system5 or events like Estragon’s comparison with Christ in Waiting for Godot may hardly seem acceptable.6 This is particularly the case in Pakistan, which is an Islamic republic and in which Islam is an unswervingly dominant force. A quick reminder of the history of Pakistan will help grasp religion is an obvious prompting factor in every walk of life, and how it starts influencing individuals from their very birth from education to constitution, from social gatherings to politics. Pakistan was carved out of British India in 1947 for the Muslim population living in the Indian Empire. At the time, Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948), the founder and first Governor-General of Pakistan, flatly refused to adopt theocracy as a form of government (Ahmed 2005: 195). After the death of Jinnah, however, subsequent rulers and religious groups strove to establish a theocratic state. Consequently, history has pushed the country towards the adoption of the medieval religious

10

DOMESTICATING BECKETT: THE RELIGIOUS …

193

laws of Islam, such as the Hudood Ordinances, which replaced parts of the colonial era Pakistan Penal Code on adultery, theft, fornication, false accusations and drinking,7 and Blasphemy laws,8 for the constitution of Pakistan. Blasphemy laws find their root in the British Raj as the colonisers prohibited insulting any religion. Pakistan inherited this law and kept it as it was until Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (1924–1988), who became the sixth President of Pakistan in 1977, introduced its explicit and religious version through amendments to the PPC (Pakistan Penal Code) and the CrPC (Criminal Procedure Code) in 1980, 1982, and 1986. In the 1980s as well, the Soviet-Afghanistan war caused the development of an even more rigid atmosphere. Pakistan worked as an ally with the USA and the Arab states in the 1980s to fight against the Soviet Union. During this era, religion was used as a force to gather support and human resources (fighters). Thus, Jihadi culture was promoted in Pakistan and Taliban came into being. Later, after 9/11, Pakistan, as an ally of the USA, fought against the same forces (Taliban), which were once allies of the USA and Pakistan in the 1980s. As a result, the country experienced polarisation based on religion. The increasing problem of sectarianism divided the country within its own borders. The by-product of this phenomenon is experienced when every act of an individual is scrutinised from a religious perspective. This religious dimension is explicitly discernible in and voiced by specific groups of people taking an extreme position regarding religious matters.9 It is an observable phenomenon that the religious force gives a pattern to life and hardly allows believers to cross certain limits in religious matters. Therefore, a close consideration of Beckett’s subject matter and the contemporary situation of Pakistan reveals that they appear to be opposing forces. While Beckett challenges religious belief systems, the religious background of Muslim readers and spectators in Pakistan scarcely allow them to follow Beckett’s lead by questioning religious beliefs. Therefore, bridging the gap between Beckett’s textual implications and the Muslim context of Pakistan appears to be a difficult task. This study aims to analyse a specific production of Waiting for Godot in Pakistan with an idea of understanding the ways in which the play was adapted within an overtly religious context. An NGO with the name of Tehreek-e-Niswaan [the Women’s Movement] produced the play to highlight women’s issues; but the adaptation also evokes the socio-political situation of Pakistan at large. It is an apparent matter that the content

194

M. S. NASIR

of Waiting for Godot is religiously problematic for Pakistani Muslims; thus, this particular adaptation offers many angles of exploration. One can first wonder how the religious content of Waiting for Godot has been translated. The question is whether the religious matter was adapted or omitted in the production. Second, it will be interesting to see to what extent the text was domesticated to suit a Pakistani audience. Third, the chapter will focus on the religious intertext and its treatment in Insha ka Entezaar.

Insha ka Entezaar: Localisation and Modernisation In the Islamic context of Pakistan, a translation of Waiting for Godot, titled Insha ka Entezaar meaning ‘waiting for Insha’, was staged at the Arts Council, Karachi in 2008. The play was translated into Urdu10 by Anwer Jafri, who also directed the production. Anwer Jafri is among the most senior theatre practitioners and human rights activists in Pakistan. We find several major theatre productions to his credit. His work has been performed in many theatre festivals in Bangladesh, India, Iraq, Nepal, USA, and Germany. Jafri’s involvement in theatre began in the 1970s. He has written and directed more than 30 theatre and street plays. Jafri has also written and directed many award-winning plays, music videos, and documentaries for television. Most notable among his works have been Kirchi Kirchi Karachi, Insha Ka Intezaar, an adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot , and Gurrya Ka Ghar, based on Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Jang Ab Nahin Hogi, Birjees Qadar ka Kunba, and Jinnay Lahore Nahin Vekhya, which he co-directed and designed, also earned him critical acclaim. In a conversation, Jafri told me that Beckett’s Waiting for Godot provided him with an excellent structure that could lend itself easily to many interpretations. Therefore, he considered that his production would focus on the idea of highlighting the issues of women, and also it was an unambiguous political comment along with a portrayal of the sociopolitical reality of Pakistan.11 This production is an adaptation as it is marked by a few explicit differentiating points that clearly distinguish the production from the original text of Waiting for Godot.12 Contrary to the original text, this adaptation is not placeless, nor is it timeless. Indeed there are direct references in the Urdu text to Pakistan. In the same

10

DOMESTICATING BECKETT: THE RELIGIOUS …

195

way, its time-period revolves around the religious and socio-political situation of Pakistan in 2008 and before. So the play is both modernised and localised. The setting of the adaptation is ordinary, and a critical eye can recognise a deliberate or unconscious change in it. The tree hardly looks like a tree; to an extent, it reminds us of a dead trunk, and it may not symbolise what a tree may. The symbol of the tree in Islam and Christianity entails many significant allusions. For instance, Islam considers the tree a sign of blessing in this world and the world hereafter while the tree of knowledge is of considerable importance in Christianity. The time of the setting no more looks like evening; instead, the lighting suggests that it is already night. Thus, this time signifies that the situation, in which the characters live, connotes gloominess, tensions, and anxiety. It cannot even convey the least hope of light that the time of evening can have. Interestingly, the ‘country road’ of Waiting for Godot looks more like a meeting-place in the adaptation. The deviation from the original appears to be intentional and purposive. While the road implies the continuity of a struggle, a sitting place shows a dead-end. It is a dead-end in the sense that people keep coming back to the same place instead of moving forward by road. This point allows us to contend that Jafri wanted to denote the current situation of the people of Pakistan; it is the state which demonstrates that they have reached such a stage where they do not have any way of either going back or moving forward. It may be argued that they are clueless now and stick to where they are. They may have the intention to move away from where they have been, while circumstances may prevent them from doing so.13 Characterisation also sets the adaptation apart from the original. Although the number of characters remains the same, there is a majority of female characters in Insha ka Entezaar as three female, and two male actors perform in it. The female characters include Zulekha 14 (who plays the role of Vladimir) and Naseebun who acts as Lucky. Moreover, the messenger’s role is enacted by a girl. Karmu and Mansha are male characters who subsequently play the roles of Estragon and Pozzo. Some of the names chosen bear a resemblance with their Irish English and French originals. Naseebun takes its origin from the Arabic word, Naseeb, which means ‘fated’ or ‘destiny’. In Urdu and Persian, however, Naseeb mostly conveys the meaning of ‘being fortunate’. Thus, Naseebun may mean ‘lucky’. Karmu’s complete name is Karm-u-din, which means ‘the one

196

M. S. NASIR

who is blessed with Deen, faith’. While Mansha in Urdu means ‘wish’, ‘will’. Literally, Mansha implies that whatever the character wants, he can have; all his desire can be fulfilled. The story of the play vividly captures the torment and displeasure of ordinary Pakistanis. Zulekha (Vladimir) and Karmu (Estragon) represent the group that is living a subhuman life and waiting for Insha to come and free them from the brutal scarcities of life. Lucky acts as a voice for those who are unaware of their own rights. Mansha appears as a person who, directly or indirectly, subordinates, subjugates, exploits, and oppresses both these groups. And the adaptation explicitly depicts Insha (Godot) as the symbol of deliverance, for whom a couple, Zulekha and Karmu, have been waiting for decades. Ironically, Zulekha and Karmu do not express exactly what it is that they are waiting for, yet their physical and mental conditions offer clues to their expectations. For instance, their apparent poverty, helplessness, and hunger suggest that their economic condition is not ideal. In this regard, Karmu’s request for sucked bones and later his wish to obtain five rupees from Mansha are strong hints about their bitter economic condition. However, they are unclear about their demand and the offer that Insha could make them. This situation compels them to guess the outcome of their wait. Their assumed expectations, nonetheless, revolve around their hope of having economic betterment that might come from Insha. Various fears also taint this possibility. They say that Insha would be able to rescue them only after discussing the matter with his family or after taking care of his Swiss Bank accounts and negotiating with IMF agents. The references to these institutions are allusions to the corruption of Pakistani rulers. It is believed that Pakistani rulers cunningly laundered money to Swiss banks and other world institutions through corruption and evasion of taxes. As a result, the general public does not get any benefit from the money borrowed from the IMF.15 There is little hope for the characters in this situation. Thus, Insha ka Entezaar not only depicts the economic condition of Pakistan up to 2008 but also displays a dwindling hope of achieving financial relief. The characters believe that their situation will remain the same, that they will have to ‘crawl their whole lives long’ as is suggested by Zulekha. This idea illustrates that they are hopeful, but that their hope is stained as they have no other option except to wait for Insha. The same idea is represented in the following lines:

10

DOMESTICATING BECKETT: THE RELIGIOUS …

197

Karmu (Estragon): If we give up waiting? Zulekha (Vladimir): Then what we will do?16

The fact of waiting compels Karmu and Zulekha not to relinquish the hope they have placed in Insha, the saviour, whom they believe may lead them to justice and peace, and put an end to all their sufferings. At the same time, Zulekha raises the critical question of the status of waiting when she links it with past experiences. She says they had to keep their hopes up for sixty years, but that nothing good has happened. The bitter lives of the characters and their feelings of anguish and misery support Zulekha’s doubts. Essentially, the play exposes the general plight of the masses whose existence has become so oppressive and crushing that they can only bear everyday pain stoically. They do not show any concern about their fundamental rights. Possibly, it reminds us of an unsuccessful struggle they have had in the past that led them to obliterate such matters. This idea is conveyed in the following lines from Waiting for Godot which were transposed literally in Insha ka Entezaar: Karmu [Estragon]: We’ve lost our rights? Zulekha [Vladimir]: [Distinctly.] We got rid of them. (Beckett 2006: 20)

Here, Zulekha explicitly offers a clue about the submissiveness and powerlessness of ordinary Pakistani citizens in present-day Pakistan. She represents the afflicted groups who wait for a messiah-like character who will change the situation by launching socio-economic reforms in the country and by establishing the rule of law and justice. The persistent wait of both Zulekha and Karmu suggests that they are waiting for an entity that may not only help them externally but also encourage them internally. Zulekha, in this adaptation, indicates that people no longer show concern for raising questions about any situation they find themselves in. She says: ‘People are used to carrying the weight, and they don’t think about anything else (possibly she refers to a bright future)’.

The Women’s Issue in Insha ka Entezaar The subject matter of Insha ka Entezaar conveys explicit references to the common socio-political problems faced by the Pakistani people in recent times. Still, more specifically, it was also primarily produced to

198

M. S. NASIR

create awareness about women’s issues in Pakistan. Jafri, the adaptor and director of the play, is an active member of Tehrik-e-Niswaan, the Women’s Movement, Pakistan. Along with the general social and economic condition of the people, the adaptation attempts to unveil the gender-based discrimination that Pakistani women face. In particular, it highlights the exploitative cultural traditions associated with women that make them inferior. A few explicit references suggest that women’s behaviour is implicitly directed – what is deemed acceptable or not. One particular reference is to the freedom of smiling and laughter. In the adaptation, Zulekha and Karmu discuss the hardships of life. Zulekha wants to laugh at the situation, but she cannot. In the original text, this happens with Vladimir when he cannot laugh due to his bladder problem: Zulekha (Vladimir): One daren’t even laugh any more. Karmu (Estragon): Dreadful privation. (Beckett 2006: 13)

In the adaptation, contrary to the original, a female actor plays the role of Vladimir. This replacement is in stark contrast to Beckett’s instruction about the gender of the characters. As is well documented, he strictly forbade women to play the part of Vladimir as, for him, ‘Women don’t have prostates’ (Ben-Zvi 1992: x). For this adaptation, however, the director considered it necessary to replace a male character with a female to expose the prevalent inequality and injustice in Pakistani society. Here, the translated phrase does not show the sickness of the character; it depicts the sickness of the tradition of society where a woman is to face social restrictions as her laughter is hardly acceptable. It is customary that she should keep her voice low and avoid laughing. However, she can smile.17 Moreover, plenty of gendered invectives are hurled at Naseebun (Lucky), mostly by Mansha. For example, Mansha calls her ‘swine’s daughter’, (which is an extremely offensive term as Islam strictly prohibits the eating of pork and taking its name without purpose), ‘monkey’s generation’, and ‘bitch’. He also orders her to stand or dance, not calling her by name but by calling her ‘a vile soul’ and other similar names. What is more, when Karmu and Zulekha start abusing each other, Kramu’s choice of words instigates not only political allusion but also gendered discrimination. Karmu calls Zulekha ‘bitch’, ‘American Sundi’ (cotton bollworm), and ‘drain-fly’. Such gendered abuse cannot but remind the Pakistani audience of the predicament of female workers in Pakistan who

10

DOMESTICATING BECKETT: THE RELIGIOUS …

199

not only suffer from physical exploitation, but also face mental torture, a practice that can hurt both their minds and souls. Sexual connotations in the play are also present, and more often than not, sexuality is associated with women, who are referred to as sexual objects: Mansha (Pozzo): This is a problematic matter. If she falls ill, what will happen? Zulekha (Vladimir): It is heinous. Mansha (Pozzo): Are you referring to a specific matter?

In the previous lines, the way Mansha asks the question suggests that, if Naseebun fell ill, she would not be able to have sex. The issue of sexuality is also highlighted when the messenger girl tells the characters that Insha does not beat her, but that her sister is beaten up by him, to which, Zulekha says it shows he (Insha) likes her. Also, there are a few allusions to homosexuality and male impotency. For example, Mansha says, ‘for moving forward, one needs to start from the back’. Later, Zulekha suggests to Karmu that hanging can cure male impotency. This all shows that, on the one hand, women are seen as a symbol of sexuality; on the other, this trend has pushed women to think they are inferior. Resultantly, they do not show resistance against this ideology; rather, they apparently opt for a complacent attitude towards it. Moreover, the adaptation also underlines the fact that women are treated as second-class citizens in Pakistan. It shows women performing more physical work than men, and work that is not acknowledged. Naseebun works for Mansha and is constantly laden with a heavy burden. And it is suggested that this has been her fate for uncountable years. Nonetheless, Mansha is not happy at all. Also, the girl who acts as a messenger informs Zulekha and Karmu that she mops while her sister cooks food for Insha. This appears like an illustration of the hard domestic work usually accomplished by women, who are still likely to be beaten up and whose toil remains more often than not unacknowledged. This adaptation encapsulates the political situation of Pakistan at large. In this regard, the character of Mansha (Pozzo) is very significant; he demonstrates disgust and coercion. He is a spine-chilling person who violently whips Naseebun (Lucky), his female slave. He is brutal and does not show any sign of empathy. He justifies his exploitative behaviour by saying that Naseebun does extra work to please him so that he may

200

M. S. NASIR

not sack her. He argues that he is only keeping her with him due to his kindness; otherwise, he could hire others. In a way, he describes the situation of Pakistan’s economy where people are underemployed but cannot leave their job because they do not have other options. As a result, the exploitation of the worker has become the norm. The character of Mansha reminds us of the ruling class of Pakistan – the trilateral force comprising the military dictators, politicians, and bureaucracy. He shows that the people from this class cannot accept free-thinking, prosperity, and liberty in ordinary citizens. He even raises doubts about the thinking ability of the general masses. In this regard, the adaptation offers two examples. Firstly, Zulekha and Karmu cannot believe that Naseebun can think. So Mansha tries to convince them that it is not the case and orders Naseebun to ‘Think!’. At this point, Karmu asks Mansha, ‘who should think?’ and Mansha replies ‘Naseebun, she will think’. What is more, Mansha also mocks Zulekha and Karmu by saying, ‘Do you think, you can think?’. Here, Mansha, as a representative of the Pakistani ruling class, is of the view that the general public is unable to think. Secondly, he strives to distance Naseebun from Zulekha and Karmu. Mansha postulates that living with him, Naseebun has adopted some of his ‘civilised habits’; thinking is one of these. As proof, he allows Naseebun to think and speak in front of the unwise people (Zulekha and Karmu). However, when Naseebun starts thinking, she questions the system ruling the country, primarily focusing on religious, political, and social issues. Such speech demonstrates that she is a free thinker. However, her speech becomes unbearable not only for Mansha but also for the other characters. Mansha cannot tolerate genuine thoughts and ideas coming from a servant, as these could jeopardise his authority; as for Karmu and Zulekha, they are afraid of thinking along the same lines as Naseebun, as if this way of thinking were likely to endanger them, by depriving them of their freedom and making them face persecution. Thus, the play succeeds in establishing the idea that the process of thinking is either reserved to the ruling class or censored due to the fear of questions being raised against the authorities.

The Religious Intertexts While the adaptation centres on the contradictory relationship between the powerful and the powerless in Pakistan, it avoids many religious allusions found in the original text of Waiting for Godot . It is difficult

10

DOMESTICATING BECKETT: THE RELIGIOUS …

201

to identify whether it was a conscious effort because of the context of domestication or was unconscious self-censorship. But, as we will see, the evasion of Beckett’s religious material ironically makes the adaptation even more religious. It allows the adaptation to thrive on the idea of revealing the exploitation of religion in Pakistan and shows how the exploitation of religion has radicalised the country by befooling the masses. As a result, the adaptation demonstrates the paradox that, in avoiding the Christian religious ideas interwoven in the original, this Pakistani version is also actually very religious in a homegrown way. The religious dimension of the play starts with the translation of the title Waiting for Godot as Insha ka Entezaar. This new title contains unmistakable Islamic religious overtones. In Urdu, the word insha refers to an ‘essay’; it is a ‘dialogue’ or an ‘article’ (Ferozuddin 1984: 130). If we were to follow this meaning, then the title would seem to make no sense. This suggests that the translator is, in fact, referring here, to the Arabic word Insha meaning ‘if willing’ and which is usually combined in the common religious phrase Insha Allah meaning ‘God-willing’ or ‘if God wills, it will happen’.18 Once in the play Mansha calls himself ‘Mansha Allaha’ and talks of Insha as ‘Insha Allah’. Such explicit references enable us to analyse Insha and Insha Allah in two ways. First, we see the linguistic importance of insha. If this word is used without Allah, it becomes meaningless or will not convey any specific meaning. This word, indeed, carries explicitly religious implications that make it highly symbolic. However, it is an interesting fact that Insha, without Allah or on its own, is hollow and meaningless. Thus, it may be noted that it is a complete word but does not have, as such, a complete meaning. Furthermore, it can be argued that ‘Insha’, the title word, demonstrates a strong and intrinsic relationship with ‘Godot’. Both these words, Insha and Godot, apparently possess exceeding similarities both in English and Urdu. Thus, this aspect compels us to attach many inferences with them. However, none leads us to a conclusive interpretation. In the context of the adaptation, waiting for Insha works as the metaphor for hope but mostly conveys the bleakness and hollowness attached with the act of waiting. The second important point is the significance of the term Insha Allah. The utilisation of this religious term points to the aforementioned association of Pakistan with the religion of Islam. A majority of Pakistani citizens believe in the idea that God will improve their situation, and they use the religious term Insha Allah to refer to the foreseeable better future. This

202

M. S. NASIR

adaptation, however, suggests this hope has not been materialised. Also, it suggests that the religious link has not benefitted the country at all. At the end of the adaptation, Zulekha refers to this situation. She says: the night is to fall shortly, then there will be another day, we will again wait for Insha, but Mansha will turn up differently. He will threaten us for some time, will show his tricks, and then will leave.

She further adds, ‘Karmu will go to sleep then, and when he gets up, he will have forgotten everything’. In the context of Pakistan, she may be referring to Pakistani people who wait for Insha and who discover that each new ruler who comes to power proves to be Insha. People keep forgetting what happened in the past, and they keep cherishing the hope that something good will happen in the future. Thus, this chain remains unbroken, Pakistani people always waiting for a Godot to arrive and save them and finding a Mansha instead. Such is the contradiction that the characters illustrate in various occasions as they say that they are not tied to Insha nor are they his prisoners, but still they do not cease to wait for him. The translated names of the adapted play are another significant point. The name of Zulekha finds its origin in the Quranic story of Hadrat Yousuf A.S (or Joseph son of Jaoca, an important figure in the Book of Genesis) and a lady Zulekha who seduced him. She is a valiant character who exerts all her efforts to fight for her rights. In the play, however, Zulekha is the exact opposite of the historical character. Jafri’s Zulekha does not fight; instead, she is dependent on fate. As for the word Naseebun, it means ‘fortunate’, and is, therefore, an apt translation of the word lucky. Ironically, Jafri’s character is obliged to serve the fortunate; and she is not lucky at all. Karmu (or Karm-u-din) means the one who is blessed with Deen, ‘religion’. In the adaptation, the character, rather, symbolises the disenfranchised marginalised person and not his religious belief (din) which has not blessed him with any fortune. The religious dimension of both names, Naseebun and Karmu, also points to the fact that the poor class shows more concern with religion even though they suffer more. As for Mansha, it is derived originally from Arabic, and means ‘what he wishes’ or ‘what he wills’. If Mansha is associated with the word Allah as in Mansha Allah, then the phrase means ‘it is what God wants’. In the adaptation, ‘Mansha Allah’ suggests that whatever is happening in Pakistan is the will of God. Thus, Mansha represents the ruling class, and

10

DOMESTICATING BECKETT: THE RELIGIOUS …

203

his merciless and suppressive behaviour suits him. Implicitly, the translator here questions the paradox that religion is only helping the ruling class, and no other class, in Pakistan. Lucky’s speech is significantly altered to offer a lens to examine the way religion is exploited in Pakistan. In particular, Nassebun hints at sectarianism when she refers to the fact that ‘each one has created his own God’. She also says that religious scholars have created a difference, not harmony in the country. The characters also direct their criticism to a military ruler, General Zia, who introduced the Hudood Ordinances, Blasphemy Laws, and Jihadi Culture with his slogan of ‘Islam first’. In the moment of abusing each other, the protagonists do not use abusive slang terms; instead, they speak about the constitutional and legal issues which directly harmed or are still harming democratic norms. For instance, they refer to PCO,19 the Seventeenth Amendment,20 58(2) (b),21 and the Hudood Ordinances. While most of the references offer a grim picture of Pakistani democracy, the ultimate reference speaks about religious exploitation in Pakistan. Firstly, the characters depict how easily military rulers sabotaged democratic norms in the country. Secondly, the reference to Hudood Ordinances shows the exploitation of religious idea that works to rule the nation. This idea remained a central ruling strategy during the Zia regime in Pakistan. On the one hand, he initiated an Islamisation drive within the country to seek internal support, and popularised on the other the concept of Jihad by participating in the Soviet-Afghan war to please the Western powers who had strengthened his rule. What is more, the systematic and institutional failure has been ridiculed to allow people to think and take the message of the play as mental nourishment. For instance, the characters speak about ‘KSC’22 and ‘WAPDA’.23 These acronyms represent institutions that supply electricity in Pakistan, while Pakistani consumers actually face continuous load shedding. Moreover, electricity-theft is a norm and common consumers have to pay the losses.24 Thus, the characters remain successful in showing the complexity of the matters like corruption, religious exploitation, and vulnerable democracy in Pakistan. Also, the adaptation offers a hint about the hollowness of Pakistani dictators and their promises as well as the inability to move the country forward. This adaptation, thus, reminds us about Donald Rumsfeld famous idea of knowability and unknowability. In 2002, he drew the world’s attention by proposing that ‘There are things we know we know. We also know

204

M. S. NASIR

there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there is something we do not know. However, there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know’.25 Steven Connor supplements the missing corner of this ‘epistemological quadrangle’, by asking: ‘are there not also unknown knowns, things we do not know that we know? Belief is perhaps in this corner’ (Connor 2014: 133). Agreeing with Connor’s hypothesis that there are ‘unknown knowns’, I suggest that this is not the last stage as we can find a situation of ‘unknowns must not be known’. This happens in an overtly religious culture like that of Pakistan, where ‘We want – we must know’; however, the influential religious and socio-political context puts a complete full-stop on such proceedings and does not allow us to cross a specific limit. This adaptation provides us an example of this. Insha Ka Entezaar aesthetically shows that the characters have the option to leave the monotonous routine of their life by striving to go beyond their knowledge. However, as soon as they realise that this may lead to new venues that may contradict what they know, they draw back. At this point, they realise ‘they must not move to know something new’. It is the situation of ‘unknowns must not be known’. Zulekha and Karmu best describe this situation in their concluding lines, which is a literal translation of the original text: Zulekha (VLADIMIR): Well? Shall we go? Karmu (ESTRAGON): Yes, let’s go. [They do not move]. (Beckett 2006: 88)

After this, no word follows. This is a typical Pakistani conundrum. A vast majority of Pakistani nationals subscribe to the notion that Islam has been the leitmotif of the ‘Pakistan movement’ which led to the creation of the republic. Different nationalities and castes whose interests often lay diametrically opposite to one another, throwing their differences overboard, rallied behind the idea of Pakistan because it meant a renaissance of the Islamic culture and civilisation. However, their act of throwing off the colonial yoke did not engender the envisioned change, as the transfer of power from the British to the local elite did not mean decolonisation for most Pakistanis. With time, instead, religious differences widened, causing a divide within the religion of Islam. What is more, limitations on thinking and censorship worsened the situation. Therefore, there is something typically Pakistani in the ending lines of Waiting for Godot where things do not move, even when people make a show of doing so. Despite

10

DOMESTICATING BECKETT: THE RELIGIOUS …

205

the mounting awareness about the need for going beyond the existing situation, not moving is preferred. Thus, the wait for Godot (Insha) does not come to an end.

Conclusion This adaptation reveals that the people of Pakistan have a very complicated relationship with religion and politics. The analysis of this adaptation suggests that Waiting for Godot intrinsically prompted the translator to connect this play with his personal context. In this regard, the context of the translator provided him with the lens to domesticate the play. Therefore, the adaptation mostly focuses on ideas that may be unknown to the vast majority of Beckett scholars. This free translation certainly distances itself from the original text. Nonetheless, it provides the Pakistani audience with food for thought. Such a production can lead the audience to realise that they must think beyond what they know, or better still, that they must muster their courage to discover what they think they must not. This production can be criticised for its free translation; however, this freedom actually increases the value of the literary work. Its significance can be categorised in two ways. Firstly, it can be seen as a literary commentary on the socio-political and religious situation of Pakistan. It offers us an instance of the religious and socio-political situation affecting and limiting the activities of common Pakistani citizens. In particular, the poor class and women are forced to adopt certain behaviours that may not cross a specified limit. Secondly, it also blue-pencils the original religious content of Waiting for Godot due to the challenging factors involved in it. Instead, it injects the religious milieu of Pakistan to make the production more meaningful for the audience. Thus, this adaptation avoids Beckett’s version of religion, but religion is not absent from it, quite the contrary.

Notes 1. See Bryden, Mary (1992), ‘Figures of Golgotha: Beckett’s Pinioned People’, in The Ideal Core of the Onion, Reading: Beckett International Foundation, 45–62; Butler, Lance (1992), ‘“A Mythology with Which I Am Perfectly Familiar”: Samuel Beckett and the Absence of God’, in R. Welch (ed.), Irish Writers and Religion, London: Colin Smythe, 169–184; Bryden, Mary (1998), Samuel Beckett and the Idea of God,

206

M. S. NASIR

2.

3.

4. 5. 6.

London: Macmillan; Bryden, Mary (2004), ‘Beckett and Religion’, in L. Oppenheim (ed), Palgrave Advances in Samuel Beckett Studies, London: Palgrave Macmillan; and Marius Buning, Matthijs Engelberts and Onno Kosters (eds) (2004), Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui 9: Beckett and Religion/Beckett/Aesthetics/Politics, Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi. Chakraborty focuses on various adaptations and translations of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in India. A few of them include Su Yee (Kashmiri), Kalpo Ke Kalpana Mari Parvari Chhe (Gujarati), Godor Pratikshay (Bengali), Edin Ahibo Teu (Assamese), Eppo Varuvaru (Tamil), and Godot ke Intezar Mein (Hindi). The author mentions translations of Godot in different languages spoken in India. See Chakraborty, Thirthankar (2017), Samuel Beckett and Indian Literature, PhD thesis, University of Kent. The recording of this adaptation in various parts is available at: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Insha+Ka+Intezaar+ part+1.mp4. It is, here, pertinent to mention that this play was reenacted in Islamabad (Pakistan, 2011) and New Dehli (India, 2012). See Mavra Bari (2011), ‘National Drama Festival: A Pakistani Twist on Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot”’, The Express Tribune, December 25. https://tribune.com.pk/story/311572/national-drama-festival-a-pak istani-twist-on-becketts-waiting-for-godot/; and Chaman Lal (2012), ‘Partitions Within’, The Hindu, January 26. https://www.thehindu.com/ features/friday-review/theatre/Partitions-within/article13381968.ece. ‘Hamm: The bastard! He doesn’t exist!’ (Beckett 2006: 119). For example, the story of two thieves and Lucky’s opinion about the indifference of God make us think about our beliefs and their outcomes. In Islam, the prophets are given a higher ranking in comparison with common followers. Thus, it is not acceptable that a follower should make a comparison, in any sense of the word, with a prophet as it happens in Waiting for Godot : VLADIMIR: … You’re not going to compare yourself to Christ! ESTRAGON: All my life I’ve compared myself to him. (Beckett 2006: 51)

7. Hudood laws were enforsed in 1979 and they replaced parts of the colonial era Pakistan Penal Code on adultery, theft, and fornication. ‘Hud’ means ‘limit’: when you cross a certain limit, you are punished. Sana Loue says Hud includes those ‘offenses against Allah that have textually prescribed penalties’. Usmani writes that ‘The hudud are the penalties that the Qur’an and Sunnah of the Prophet have prescribed for certain crimes’. He argues that Islamic criminal law is lenient and prescribes penalities to only a few crimes. He enlists, ‘Theft, robbery, Zina (fornication, adultery

10

8.

9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

15.

DOMESTICATING BECKETT: THE RELIGIOUS …

207

and rape), false accusation and drinking are crimes for which hudud have been prescribed’. Muhammad Taqi Usmani (2006), ‘The Islamization of Laws in Pakistan: The Case of Hudud Ordinances’, The Muslim World, Vol. 96, No. 2, 287–288. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10. 1111/j.1478-1913.2006.00129.x; and Sana Loue (2017), Handbook of Religion and Spirituality in Social Work Practice and Research, New York: Springer, 269. Pakistan Penal Code (Act XLV of 1860), Fmu.Gov.Pk, 2019. http:// www.fmu.gov.pk/docs/laws/Pakistan%20Penal%20Code.pdf. Accessed 6 July 2019. For example, in 2018, Geert Wilders, a Dutch right-wing politician, announced that he would hold a cartoon competition on the Prophet of Islam (PBUH). This announcement created anger in almost all the Muslims of Pakistan, while the Arab Islamic world was almost silent. Pakistanis staged massive demonstrations against this competition. See Chris Baynes (2018), ‘Dutch Anti-Islam Politician Geert Wilders to Hold Prophet Muhammad Cartoon Competition’, Independent, June 13. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/geert-wilders-pro phet-muhammad-cartoon-competition-islamophobia-dutch-netherlandsa8396386.html. Moreover, the recent judgement of the Supreme Court of Pakistan in favour of a Christian woman, who was charged with blasphemy, angered religious groups and caused demonstrations against the court and the government. See Memphis Barker and Aamir Iqbal (2018), ‘Asia Bibi: Anti-Blasphemy Protests Spread across Pakistan’, The Guardian, November 1. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018???/ nov/01/asia-bibi-anti-blasphemy-protests-spread-across-pakistan. Urdu is the official national language of Pakistan. Interview with Muhammad Saeed Nasir, 6 December, 2019. Waiting for Godot in Samuel Beckett (2006). This idea will be taken up with detail in the concluding section. Zulekha is a symbol of beauty, influence, and power in Islam. In the Holy Quran, the story of beautiful Zulekha is told. A valiant lady, she attempted to seduce Hadrat Yousuf A.S (Joseph). (The Holy Quran, 12: 24). See Elizabeth Olson (1998), ‘Swiss Want Bhutto Indicted in Pakistan for Money Laundering’, The New York Times, August 20. https:// www.nytimes.com/1998/08/20/world/swiss-want-bhutto-indicted-inpakistan-for-money-laundering.html; Waseem Shehzad (2012), ‘Corrupt Rulers Root Cause of Pakistan’s Problems’, Crescent International, May 1. https://crescent.icit-digital.org/articles/corrupt-rulers-root-cause-ofpakistan-s-problems; and Shahbaz Rana (2019), ‘Money Stashed by Pakistanis in Swiss Banks Down 34%’, The Express Tribune, June 28. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2001835/2-money-stashed-pakistanisswiss-banks-34/.

208

M. S. NASIR

16. It is pertinent to mention that when I identify differences between the original and adapted texts, this is from Urdu into English. However, if there is an exact translation in the adaptation, I quote from the original text. 17. The patriarchal society in Pakistan shows a mixture of Indian cultural influence and Islamic traditions. For women, in particular, there exist certain rules for which we cannot find origins. See Mustafa Akyol (2014), ‘Why Women Should Not Laugh in Public’, Hurriyet Daily News, August 2. https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/opinion/mustafa-akyol/ why-women-should-not-laugh-in-public-69868. 18. This phrase is not only a combination of words rather it conveys deeper meanings. Uttering this phrase, a Muslim, in fact, assures himself that all the future-plans are not in his hands. This is the way of building and tightening the relation with God while placing one’s trust in Him that He is the Knower and the Doer of everything. As a result, whatever the consequences appear, it is considered that God wants this and there is something good in everything. 19. Military rulers in Pakistan used an emergency and extra-constitutional order, known as the Provisional Constitutional Order, for partial or complete suspension of the existing Constitution of Pakistan, which is the supreme law of land. General Zia-Ul-Haq and General Pervez Musharraf introduced PCO in various years. Lau, Martin (2006), The Role of Islam in the Legal System of Pakistan, Leiden, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 129. See Human Rights Watch’s Report, ‘Consolidation of Military Rule’. https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/pakistan/pakio0903.htm; and David Rohde (2007), ‘Musharraf Declares State of Emergency’, The New York Times, November 3. https://www.nytimes.com/ 2007???/11/03/world/asia/04pakistan.html. 20. It is believed that the seventeenth amendment exerted a negative influence on parliamentary democracy in Pakistan. It was introduced to empower General Musharraf, then president of Pakistan, by enabling him to use Article 58(2)(b). See Raja Asghar (2003), ‘NA Okays 17th Amendment: ARD, Allies Boycott Vote’, The Dawn, December 30. https://www.dawn. com/news/131650. 21. Under Article 58(2)(b), the President of Pakistan could dissolve the parliament of Pakistan. This provision was issued to dismiss the democratic system in Pakistan. In 2010, the 18th Amendment to the constitution of Pakistan removed this infamous article. See Colin Cookman (2010), ‘The 18th Amendment and Pakistan’s Political Transitions’, Center for American Progress, April 19. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/news/2010/04/ 19/7587/the-18th-amendment-and-pakistans-political-transitions/.

10

DOMESTICATING BECKETT: THE RELIGIOUS …

209

22. KSC (Karachi Electric Supply Company Limited) is now know as KElectric (KE). 23. The Pakistan Water & Power Development Authority (WAPDA) is a public institution. It maintains power and water in Pakistan. 24. Asad Hashim (2019), ‘Lights out: “Circular Debt” Cripples Pakistan’s Power Sector’, AlJazeera, May 24. https://www.aljazeera.com/aji mpact/lights-circular-debt-cripples-pakistans-power-sector190524055240 222.html. 25. Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Myers (2002), ‘Defense.Gov Transcript: Dod News Briefing – Secretary RumsfeldandGen.Myers’, Archive.Defense.Gov. https://archive.defense.gov/Transcripts/Transcript. aspx?TranscriptID=2636.

Works Cited Akyol, Mustafa. 2014. Why Women Should Not Laugh in Public. Hurriyet Daily News, August 2. https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/opinion/mus tafa-akyol/why-women-should-not-laugh-in-public-69868. Ahmed, Akbar S. Jinnah. 2005. Pakistan and Islamic Identity: The Search for Saladin. London: Routledge. Asghar, Raja. 2003. NA Okays 17th Amendment: ARD, Allies Boycott Vote. The Dawn, December 30. https://www.dawn.com/news/131650. Barker, Memphis, and Aamir Iqbal. 2018. Asia Bibi: Anti-Blasphemy Protests Spread Across Pakistan. The Guardian, November 1. https://www.thegua rdian.com/world/2018/nov/01/asia-bibi-anti-blasphemy-protests-spreadacross-pakistan. Bari, Mavra. 2011. National Drama Festival: A Pakistani Twist on Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot”. The Express Tribune, December 25. https://tribune. com.pk/story/311572/national-drama-festival-a-pakistani-twist-on-beckettswaiting-for-godot/. Baynes, Chris. 2018. Dutch Anti-Islam Politician Geert Wilders to Hold Prophet Muhammad Cartoon Competition. Independent, June 13. https://www.ind ependent.co.uk/news/world/europe/geert-wilders-prophet-muhammad-car toon-competition-islamophobia-dutch-netherlands-a8396386.html. Beckett, Samuel. 2006. The Complete Dramatic Works. London: Faber and Faber. Ben-Zvi, Linda. 1992. Introduction. In Women in Beckett: Performance and Critical Perspectives, ed. Linda Ben-Zvi, ix–xviii. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Buning, Marius, Matthijs Engelberts, and Onno Kosters (eds.). 2004. Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui 9: Beckett and Religion/Beckett/Aesthetics/Politics. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi.

210

M. S. NASIR

Bryden, Mary. 1992. Figures of Golgotha: Beckett’s Pinioned People. In The Ideal Core of the Onion: Reading Beckett Archives, ed. John Pilling and Mary Bryden, 54–62. Beckett International Foundation: Reading. ———. 1998. Samuel Beckett and the Idea of God. London: Macmillan. ———. 2004. Beckett and Religion. In Palgrave Advances in Samuel Beckett Studies, ed. L. Oppenheim, 154–171. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Butler, Lance. 1992. “A Mythology with Which I Am Perfectly Familiar”: Samuel Beckett and the Absence of God. In Irish Writers and Religion, ed. R. Welch, 169–184. London: Colin Smythe. Chakraborty, Thirthankar. 2017. Samuel Beckett and Indian Literature. Ph.D. thesis, University of Kent. Connor, Steven. 2014. Beckett, Modernism and the Material Imagination. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cookman, Colin. 2010. The 18th Amendment and Pakistan’s Political Transitions. Center for American Progress, April 19. https://www.americanprog ress.org/issues/security/news/2010/04/19/7587/the-18th-amendmentand-pakistans-political-transitions/. Ferozuddin, Maulvi. 1984. Feroz Ul Lughat. Lahore: Ferozsons. Hashim, Asad. 2019. Lights Out: “Circular Debt” Cripples Pakistan’s Power Sector. AlJazeera, May 24. https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/lights-cir cular-debt-cripples-pakistans-power-sector-190524055240222.html. Human Rights Watch’s Report, Consolidation of Military Rule. https://www. hrw.org/reports/2000/pakistan/pakio09-03.htm. Lal, Chaman. 2012. Partitions Within. The Hindu, January 26. https://www. thehindu.com/features/friday-review/theatre/Partitions-within/article13 381968.ece. Lau, Martin. 2006. The Role of Islam in the Legal System of Pakistan. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Loue, Sana. 2017. Handbook of Religion and Spirituality in Social Work Practice and Research. New York: Springer. Olson, Elizabeth. 1998. Swiss Want Bhutto Indicted in Pakistan for Money Laundering. The New York Times, August 20. https://www.nytimes.com/ 1998/08/20/world/swiss-want-bhutto-indicted-in-pakistan-for-money-lau ndering.html. Pakistan Penal Code. 2019. (Act XLV of 1860), Fmu.Gov.Pk. http://www.fmu. gov.pk/docs/laws/Pakistan%20Penal%20Code.pdf. Rana, Shahbaz. 2019. Money Stashed by Pakistanis in Swiss Banks Down 34%. The Express Tribune, June 28. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2001835/2money-stashed-pakistanis-swiss-banks-34/. Rohde, David. 2007. Musharraf Declares State of Emergency. The New York Times, November 3. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/03/world/asia/ 04pakistan.html.

10

DOMESTICATING BECKETT: THE RELIGIOUS …

211

Rumsfeld, Donald H., and Gen Myers. 2002. Defense.Gov Transcript: Dod News Briefing—Secretary Rumsfeld and Gen Myers. Archive.Defense.Gov. https://archive.defense.gov/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=2636. Shehzad, Waseem. 2012. Corrupt Rulers Root Cause of Pakistan’s Problems. Crescent International, May 1. https://crescent.icit-digital.org/articles/cor rupt-rulers-root-cause-of-pakistan-s-problems. Singer, Armand E. 2005. Beckett and the Daunting Problems of Modern Research. The European Legacy 10: 69–72. Stanton, Sarah, and Martin Banham. 1996. The Cambridge Paperback Guide to Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Usmani, Muhammad Taqi. 2006. The Islamization of Laws in Pakistan: The Case of Hudud Ordinances. The Muslim World 96 (2): 287–304.

CHAPTER 11

Translating Samuel Beckett into Hindi Thirthankar Chakraborty

Translation in multilingual India is a hugely politicized domain, especially when it comes to theatrical productions around the country that engage directly with a local audience. Indian drama is written, directed, performed, translated, and circulated in the twenty-two official Indian languages,1 and further dialects and sub-dialects. Playwrights and directors have used the stage, the streets, and social media as a means of not only voicing the polyphonic views of the people, but also to create awareness, spread ideology, and express dissent. When a theatrical work is translated across national and state borders it no doubt carries with it some of the socio-cultural associations of the original language; more importantly, however, it gains nuances, and at times paradigm shifts, that corroborate the work’s place among the target audience. It is into this richly contested Indian scenario, around ten years after its independence, that the first Bengali translation of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot was introduced. It was produced on 23 November 1957 by the Bhawanipur Sandhanir Club (Biswas 2006: 6), four years after

T. Chakraborty (B) Department of Liberal Arts, Indian Institute of Technology Bhilai, Bhilai, India e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. F. Fernández and P. Sardin (eds.), Translating Samuel Beckett around the World, New Interpretations of Beckett in the Twenty-First Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71730-8_11

213

214

T. CHAKRABORTY

its première in Paris and Berlin, two years after London and Dublin, and only a year after Miami and Broadway. Ashok Sen, the translator, ˇ mentions that the play resembles Capek’s R.U.R. (1920), T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922), and, to contextualize it for the Bengali audience, Tagore’s Raktakarabi or Red Oleanders (Biswas 2006: 6). The play is thus placed not just alongside one of the most prominent Indian writers, but is also explained as sharing a similar post-apocalyptic mood as one of the most important modernist poems of the twentieth century, and the highly politicized robotic environment of R.U.R that mirrors the stratified society of postcolonial India, maybe in connection with the relationship that Pozzo and Lucky share. In his introduction, Sen also stresses that the play ‘embodies a sympathetic but desperate portrayal of an utterly mechanical way of life not merely in the European world, but also all the world over’ (Biswas 2006: 6), which in turn is a reflection about the largely Eurocentric globalization taking over the country. A review of a 1970 performance of the same translation suggests that although the version lacked the tragic farce of the original, the parallel between the Vladimir and Estragon duo and Laurel and Hardy was well enacted and kept the audience engaged (see Biswas 2006: 23). The mention of the Hollywood duo indicates the Indian theatregoers’ ability to assimilate a European play, not so much on the basis of its complying with a set of local aesthetics, as much as being a part of the Hollywood wave that spread globally with classics such as the Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, and Buster Keaton films that were by then immensely popular in India due to their widely applauded slapstick comedy. In addition to the numerous performances in English by popular theatre groups such as Motley, Beckett’s plays have been translated into various other Indian languages besides Bengali. In a 1975 interview, Ebrahim Alkazi, a renowned Indian director and teacher of drama2 who studied in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and later headed India’s National School of Drama (NSD), discusses his attempt to put together a theatre group in Mumbai in 1951. Within a few years, the group had gathered around 3000 people as their regular audiences, and they staged plays as diverse as Beckett’s Godot, the Greek tragedy Medea, and a Strindberg play in Hindi translation (Alkazi 1975: 294).3 Alkazi explains why these particular plays were chosen for production:

11

TRANSLATING SAMUEL BECKETT INTO HINDI

215

We built a small theater (on the sixth floor) which would accommodate between 150 and 200 persons who would have to walk up six flights of stairs. Then I said, well, if this theater is going to be meaningful, it must be meaningful to people in its immediate vicinity. We must cater to audiences within a radius of one mile from here. We should not expect people to come from long distances and cope with problems of parking their cars and so forth, and climbing up my six flights of stairs (since the theatre’s location was directly above his own flat). We did things like Waiting for Godot , which was an extraordinarily successful production … I discovered that people were prepared to go anywhere for theatre as long as it was exciting. Quite frequently, for example, we were washed out by the rain, but that made no difference to our audiences. They invariably invaded our flat downstairs and had coffee and came on another day to see the show without demanding any refunds for their original tickets. (Alkazi 1975: 294)

The use of Godot for such a local and intimate (almost private) performance is telling about the nature of the play. Having crossed continents to reach India, the translated Godot finds itself at home within a local community of Mumbai. The ability to postpone the production at short notice, and to hold the performance on the sixth floor, reveals the benefits of a minimal set and a small cast who are able to step into character without all the paraphernalia required in an Elizabethan tragedy or even a Sanskrit classic. The easy-going and relaxed approach of the director, actors, and audiences when performing Beckett suggests moreover a familiarity with the absurd banalities, humour, and existential desolation of the play. Two men dressed in rags and conversing about nothing in particular is a common enough sight anywhere in India. Starving and unpaid labourers exploited by the upper classes, coolies carrying heavy bags, beggars scavenging for food in waste bins, homeless tramps sleeping rough on the street: these are all to be seen on the city streets. Pozzo’s cruelty might have appeared drastic and even implausible in the play when performed in front of an audience in Paris, London, or Florida; Lucky’s tenacity might have seemed farfetched; sleeping in ditches might have seemed unusual; and the setting might have appeared to be the indicative of a past or future post-apocalyptic world. But these and other disconcerting representations found in Beckett’s work are aspects one encounters in everyday life for an audience in Mumbai. As Alkazi affirms in the same interview:

216

T. CHAKRABORTY

There would be no difficulty whatsoever in audiences here understanding Waiting for Godot . None. Not at all. We couldn’t understand the ‘hoohah’ that went on in England when the play was first produced there. We couldn’t understand why people found it incomprehensible. I teach it year after year to my classes and it is immediately comprehensible to our audiences, to our students. (Alkazi 1975: 306)

This reaction to the play explains why a Hindi translation of Godot would be organic to Indian soil, while also being perfectly aligned with Beckett’s own objection to sophisticated exegesis. Understanding, accessibility, and familiarity are thus major factors when it comes to the reception and translatability of a work of theatre. However, these do not necessarily ensure the work’s longevity or pervasive influence. This is where Beckett’s drama stands out, unlike other playwrights who may have written about India and yet failed to capture the Indian imagination in the long run. The closest Beckett comes to an allusion to Indian culture in Godot is when Vladimir and Estragon are seen doing the tree, which, based on Beckett’s illustration in his letter to Peter Hall, resembles the vriksha yoga (see Beckett 2011: 578). But while Yoga Day has today become an international phenomenon, the reference to vriksha yoga would appear to be a ‘demented particular’ and even the Hindi translations discussed later in this essay do not elaborate on this obscure allusion. Indian translations and adaptations of Beckett have frequently inserted a sense of Indianness into Beckett’s plays, which has been a common practice ever since the first ‘Indianised’ proscenium stage productions of European theatre, as Rustom Bharucha observes (see Bharucha 1983: 8).4 These modifications are at times reflected in the title of the plays. For instance, while there have been literal translations such as Godor Pratikshay in Bengali and Godot Ke Intezaar Mein in Hindi, there have also been adaptations such as Iswaker Aashaye (In the Hope of Love) and Godot Aaya Kya? (Has Godot Come?). Other than Bengali and Hindi, there have been translations and adaptations into other languages as well, such as Godoye Kaathu in Malayalam, Godo Ree Udeek Main in Rajasthani, and Godot di Udeek Vich in Punjabi. Further adaptations include Su Yee (He Will Come) in Kashmiri, Edin Ahibo Teu (One Day He Will Come) in Assamese, Eppo Varuvaro (When Will He Come?) in Tamil, among numerous other versions of the play. One of the first things to note in these adaptations is the missing signifier ‘Godot’, which is adapted as the pronoun ‘he’, abstractifying the untranslatable proper noun that

11

TRANSLATING SAMUEL BECKETT INTO HINDI

217

never appears on stage. The large number of translations and further adaptations also suggest that Beckett has been increasingly ‘Indianized’ through (mis)appropriations and recreations, so that his play can also be considered to be the influence behind works such as the Gujarati playwright Labhshankar Thakar’s Ek Undar Ane Jadunath (A Rat and God), Chandan Roy Sanyal’s English play Two Blind Mice, Ashish Avikunthak’s Bengali cinematic adaptation Kalkimanthankatha, and the more recent Abhinav Grover’s Hindi play Raamji Aayenge (Ram will Come), also called Bhagua Ki Prateeksha Me (Waiting for Bhagua), which weaves stories from the Ramayana into Beckett’s tragicomedy. Beckett’s play has thus pervaded the country through its numerous translations from north (Kashmir) to south (Tamil Nadu), and east (Gujarat) to west (Assam). Not only has the play gained attention in the Indian theatrical scene, but it has also been translated across the border in countries such as China and Pakistan. Following a similar approach as Grover’s Raamji Aayenge, there has also been a Pakistani, Karachi-based production of the play, which was performed in New Delhi at the Bharat Rang Mahotsav in 2012. This cross-border interaction between India and Pakistan is revelatory about the nature of the play, despite the two countries being frequently at war against one another. Directed by Anwar Jafri, this is a realistic Urdu adaptation entitled Insha Ka Intezar, where Godot is cleverly translated as Insha. The play reflects some of the everyday turmoil in Pakistan, such as frequently prolonged military domination represented through Mansha’s mistreatment of his wife and slave Naseeban (adapted names and interpretation for the Pozzo and Lucky duo) (see Lal 2012: n.p.). Despite Beckett’s strict view that the sex of his characters is not interchangeable,5 one of the actors discusses Anwar Jafri’s attempt to subvert Beckett’s all-male cast by including women. While the female character Zulekha substitutes for Vladimir as the intellectual wedded to the artist Karimuddin (Estragon), Naseeban takes on Lucky’s role as the most socially oppressed. Although ‘Insha’ is not God, the word is most often used in conjunction with Allah, as in the Urdu ‘in sha’Allah’, ‘if Allah wills (it)’. For Islamic audiences and readers, the word may thus invoke a form of prayer that is used not just in the Qur’an, but also as a common expression in everyday discourse. This is reminiscent of the brief exchange between the Beckettian couple:

218

T. CHAKRABORTY

ESTRAGON : What exactly did we ask him (Godot) for? VLADIMIR: Were you not there? ESTRAGON : I can’t have been listening. VLADIMIR: Oh . . . Nothing very definite. ESTRAGON : A kind of prayer. VLADIMIR: Precisely. ESTRAGON : A vague supplication. VLADIMIR: Exactly. (Beckett 2006: 19)

So while God is a textual presence in Godot, Allah is a conceptual absence in the name ‘Insha’, which could thus trigger the conversation above in the Urdu version of the play. While in a political and feminist context, the wait for Insha in the play symbolizes the hope for an ever-receding redemptive society, and also the dread of apocalypse.6 These interpretations of Godot make the play a powerful social critique not only of Pakistan but also of India, addressing the common deep rooted problems within the two countries in the face of their popular differences, thus making a Pakistani adaptation such as this relevant to an Indian audience. Such appropriations of ‘Godot’ do not mean that the proper noun has been in any way unpopular in India. On the contrary, Godot has become such a common term that apart from all the clichéd references to the play in Indian newspapers, it also figures in Bollywood cinema. Jaane Tu … Ya Jaane Na (loosely translated from Hindi as Whether You Know … or Whether You Don’t ), a 2008 romantic comedy by Abbas Tyrewala, is a film about a group of young adults at Mumbai airport as they wait for their friends’ flight to land. The final shot in this Hindi film is of an old man holding a board that reads ‘Mr. Godot’. While this clearly seems to be a decontextualization of Beckett, Godot’s absence throughout the original play may work as a justification for relocating his name at Mumbai airport, where waiting is an everyday act that is felt only too tangibly. Despite the otherwise stereotypical romantic plot of the film, the undisguised reference in this film can hardly be overlooked. Moreover, the film has Naseeruddin Shah playing the role of the protagonist Jai Singh Rathore’s deceased father who speaks to his widowed wife from his portrait hanging on the wall. As mentioned in his autobiography And Then One Day: A Memoir (2014), Shah and Benjamin Gilani launched their theatrical careers with Waiting for Godot in 1979,

11

TRANSLATING SAMUEL BECKETT INTO HINDI

219

although Shah had read and disliked the play as a student at the National School of Drama (NSD). The duo went on to form the Motley theatre company in Mumbai along with Tom Alter and other graduates from NSD, which has since then produced Godot in English as well as in Hindi translation around the country ‘more than sixty times and plans to keep on doing it’ (Hashmi 2012: n.p.). Thus, as Priyanka Chatterjee claims, it was Motley Production’s Waiting for Godot that introduced Beckett formally to the Indian audience (405). It is, then, not too farfetched to assume that Naseeruddin Shah, being overly familiar with Beckett, may have raised the suggestion of including the final scene in Jaane Tu … Ya Jaane Na or that Abbas Tyrewala, the director and screenwriter, selected Shah based on the affinity between his script and Beckett’s oeuvre.7 While it could no doubt be claimed that the numerous translations, adaptations and appropriations of Waiting for Godot in India have moved Beckett’s play away from authorial intentions or directions, there have also been cases that have echoed the sort of early reception that Beckett’s theatre had in America and Britain. For example, in one of the adaptations of Waiting for Godot by Ashok Shahane in Marathi, first performed on 29 May 2009 in Mumbai, Tom Alter, a renowned actor in India, plays the part of Lucky. An interesting fact about this particular adaptation is that its twenty-fifth performance was held at Arthur Road jail in Mumbai before 150 prison inmates who identified very well with the drama (see Gehi 2011: n.p.). There is a clear continuity here with the renowned 1957 San Francisco Actors’ Workshop production of Waiting for Godot at San Quentin Prison in the United States (see Knowlson 1997: 611–612). Reviews of the various translations and productions of Godot in Indian languages have been mixed. Amongst these, as Tapu Biswas records in his study of Beckett’s reception in India, one published in the Statesman Weekly on 31 March 1970 notes: ‘for play-goers in Calcutta Godot has lost much of its novelty because of frequent productions in the past ten years’ (Biswas 2006: 23). Besides highlighting the popularity that Beckett found in Bengal within 20 years of its publication, such a claim regarding its loss of novelty can be questionable when placed alongside the review of another theatre critic in the Telegraph, thirty-five years later: It was just the other day that we covered a new production of Waiting for Godot . Hard on its well-worn heels comes another one, staged by ‘Theatrician’ on June 19. Actually, there is a Bengali version as well – Dream Theatre’s Godor Pratikshay – still running, which had a repeat show

220

T. CHAKRABORTY

on June 17 – but it dates back several years, though it newly features a Bangladeshi actor in the role of Estragon. The fact that the metro can support so many interpretations at one time suggests that Calcuttans sympathise enormously with the existential predicament of Beckett’s tramps. (Biswas 2006: 75)

In fact, the popularity of productions of Beckett’s plays in translation has quite evidently grown over the years, to the extent that recent productions of the play have transformed it into the sort of non-literary and idiomatic Hindi that is spoken across the country. To give an example, in a review of Satyabrata Rout’s Hindi adaptation of Godot produced by Avartan Theatre, Sumanaspati Reddy notes that ‘it begins with a subtle semantic shift in the title of the play itself. It’s Godot Aya Kya (Has Godot Come?) instead of Godot Ke Liye Intezaar (Waiting for Godot)’ (Reddy 2011: n.p.). This also renders the title of the play more conversational, inviting spectators not only to learn about Godot’s coming, but also to discover who Godot might be. It generates anticipation for an answer to the question, which along with Godot’s permanently deferred arrival adds to the existential angst embodied by the actors and felt by the spectators. Moreover, Reddy adds, the characters speak in ‘idiomatic, rustic-small town Hindi lingo’, while Rout ‘manages to seamlessly incorporate references to the Panchatantra, the Jataka stories and the frustrations of contemporary Indian social and political situation’ (n.p.). Beckett never alludes to Panchatantra or the Jataka stories in his plays, while there is yet to be a comparative study between Aesop’s fables and Beckett’s play; so the question arises why and how does Rout include these elements? To begin with, Satyabrata Rout makes it clear at the start of his trans) rather than lation that his version of the play is an adaptation ( a word-to-word translation of Beckett’s original play (Rout 2011: 1). However, the character names and the setting stay the same, while the vaudevillian aspect of the characters is retained in the rags they wear. Although the script has no mention of this, the theatrical production in Hyderabad by Avartan Theatre has the additional sound and light effects of a train speeding past the two characters at the start of the play, which contextualizes the setting and suggests that the two protagonists could in fact represent the homeless tramps seen squatting near railway tracks across India. Moreover, instead of the more reticent ‘Nothing to be done’ (Beckett 2006: 1), as in the original text, Estragon says,

11

TRANSLATING SAMUEL BECKETT INTO HINDI

221

‘ कुछ हो सकता ! सब बकवास ... सब बकवास !’ (‘Nothing can be done! All rubbish… all rubbish!’) before spitting on the ground. The frustration expressed at the start of this Hindi version is not the same as the resigned feeling that we find in Beckett’s text, for the calamity of homelessness becomes an everyday reality that the poor face in a country that is strictly stratified into upper, middle, and lower classes. In fact, this is key to understanding the rest of this Hindi adaptation. For Rout, the characters have already experienced the act of waiting pointlessly for a long time, and this act is thus far from absurdist. The ‘ditch’ that Estragon sleeps in is elaborated as a pig’s enclosure where ‘they’ beat him, a further comment about the maltreatment of the poor and homeless (Beckett 2006: 2). These changes make Estragon stand for the poverty-stricken people who have experienced dire conditions without food and shelter despite the rising standards of living for the middle and upper class societies across the country; or, the play can be regarded as a commentary about the existence of such people and a means of drawing social awareness. In terms of humour, Satyabrata Rout retains the slapstick elements of Beckett’s play, but omits some of the verbal humour. For instance, the half-narrated story about the Englishman in the brothel is left out; instead, Estragon tickles Vladimir, making him laugh, before embracing him. While in the original play Estragon and Vladimir do not attempt to actually hang themselves from the tree’s bough, in the Hindi version they do so. In the process, they break the branch and tumble down, although Vladimir’s mention of an ‘erection’ while hanging and the mandrake myth are entirely left out. Moreover, the language in Rout’s adaptation is highly colloquial and occasionally vulgar; for instance, the first word that Estragon utters is ‘ साला ’ (sala), which is a common derogatory manner of addressing a person. This is repeated twice in his very first line. So while the language is vulgar in places, the sexual and vulgar innuendos are omitted, which suggests that humour and myths are harder to translate between languages and cultures, since they are not likely to be understood by the target audience. The same goes for specific geographic locations, such as the ‘Eiffel Tower’, which is translated as just a tower ( मीनार ) that the two visited hand in hand when young, and the ‘Pyrenees’ become simply ‘mountains’. So while the French and English texts interact across national borders by retaining the cultural icon at Paris and mountain range in the south of France, the Hindi version of the play makes it more abstract by omitting this reference.

222

T. CHAKRABORTY

Furthermore, while Vladimir asks Estragon whether he has read the Bible, he also questions whether he knows about Jesus’ life in Rout’s version of the play, to which Estragon replies that he does not. This suggests that this particular Hindi translation shows a lack of familiarity with Christianity by replacing the question about the ‘Gospels’ with a more simple question about Jesus’ life (Beckett 2006: 13). Yet another occasion where a Christian allusion is omitted is when Vladimir says: ‘To every man his little cross’ (Beckett 2006: 58), which is translated as ‘ हर एक आदमी को एक खबू सरू त फासं ी का फंदा ’ (‘every man has his head in a beautiful noose’). Moreover, the story about the two thieves is entirely replaced by a story about the monkey and the crocodile from the Panchatantra, which Vladimir says signifies ‘the essence of our life’: ‘ यिह तो हमारे जीवन राग है। ’ (Beckett 2006: 7). In this fable, the monkey outsmarts the crocodile as it tries to eat its liver, after inviting the monkey to dinner. The monkey’s intelligence saves it from being devoured by the crocodile when he points out that he has left his liver in the tree where he lives and must return home to bring it for the feast. The crocodile’s stupidity upon taking the monkey back to his tree becomes a metaphoric representation of Estragon’s verdict in the original text: ‘People are bloody ignorant apes’ (Beckett 2006: 27); only in this case, the ape is the one who is clever while the crocodile symbolizes human ignorance and greed. Rout also rewrites Lucky’s entire monologue, making it into a social proclamation for justice for the poor who have been made false promises by those in power. It takes on a Marxist tone in support of the proletariat who will turn into the mythical asura Raktabeej out of whose droplets of blood more proletariats will be born. It subsequently becomes an ecocritical reflection when Lucky accuses those in power of destroying nature or opposing natural laws since the time of the earliest civilizations. The speech then randomly lists the names of several Indian rivers that are flooded, various war-torn countries (e.g. Vietnam, Afghan, Iraq), prominent political figures (Nehru, Patel, Jinnah, George Washington, President Bush, Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein) and celebrities and musicians (Tendulkar, Shah Rukh Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Bismillah Khan, Zakir Hussain). He finally comes to halt with the name of Bill Gates, which he rhymes with gate, fate, seth, rate, and hate, following which Pozzo urgently orders Vladimir to remove Lucky’s hat and Lucky finally collapses. So if Lucky’s speech in the original version of the play is mostly incoherent, formed of paratactic phrases, the Hindi translation has more of a definite purpose, as does the rest of Rout’s play. In other

11

TRANSLATING SAMUEL BECKETT INTO HINDI

223

words, the openness to interpretation that we find in Beckett’s original is limited through contextualization in Rout’s Hindi translation that makes it relevant to India. In contrast to Godot Aya Kya?, Krishna Baldev Ved’s Hindi translation Godot Ka Intezaar Mein as adapted by Renaissance Theatre under Mohit Tripathi’s direction,8 sticks closer to Beckett’s English script (Tripathi 2019). However, this translation too has minor adjustments and omissions, starting with the guitar score that runs throughout the two acts of the play. With regards to the script, Pan is translated as the ‘god of the का दवेता ’); ‘you’ll catch your death’ is jungle and of animals’ (‘ जंगल और translated as ‘you’ll catch a cold’; ‘Adam’ (or ‘Catulle’ in French) becomes ‘Baba Adam’ from the Urdu and Islamic tradition and ‘Jesus’ is translated as ‘Isa Masih’; ‘ten francs’ becomes ‘ten rupees’; the obscure ‘knook’ (or ‘knouk’ in French) is translated as ‘ जानवर ’ or animal in Hindi. Moreover, the names of the various dances9 that Lucky could once perform are left out altogether; the rapid exchange between the duo discussing movements, elevations, relaxations, is translated as drill, asanas, and pranayama. When insulting each other, Vladimir and Estragon add the terms ‘ हरामी ’ ू (owl), which are not there in the English, but work (bastard) and well contextually in Hindi, as also ‘ उससे गोली मार दो ’ (‘shoot him’) in place of ‘Don’t mind him’ (Beckett 2006: 77). While Lucky’s monologue is by and large a translation of the original, the ordering of phrases is altered, with several proper names Indianised (e.g. Balvan, Sridhakar, Sripadmar, etc.) while others, such as Miranda, Wattman, Testew, and Cunard, remain the same. At the end of Lucky’s tirade, once he collapses and Pozzo orders the duo to lift him back up on his feet, Estragon comments, ‘Are we his servants?’ instead of ‘What does he take us for?’ (Beckett 2006: 44), which again works well in the Indian context where house-helps and cleaners are treated as servants even today. Yet, for the most part, Ved’s Hindi translation sticks to the original version of the play. The song about the dog in the kitchen is translated word for word into Hindi, proper names such as ‘Mâcon country’ and ‘Cain’ stay the same, even Estragon’s exclamation ‘Oh tray bong, tray tray tray bong’, mimicking the French ‘très bon’ is retained in the Hindi version, with an extra comment saying, ‘ यािन बहत खबू सरू त ’ (‘that is, very beautiful’), which isn’t exactly a precise translation of the French. While this may reflect the Indian theatregoer’s ability to assimilate references to a foreign language, location, and culture, it is more possible that the untranslatability of these instances together with the humour that lies in

224

T. CHAKRABORTY

them reflect the nature of Beckett’s play: stemming from its European origin (whether Irish, French, or somewhere in between), but branching out into the universal and adaptable. It is not surprising therefore that, as Priyanka Chatterjee points out, it is only Beckett’s Waiting for Godot that has been most frequently translated and performed across the country, while his other renowned works, such as Endgame and Krapp’s Last Tape have remained somewhat obscure (2017: 404). While it is true that, as a self-translator from French to English and English to French, Beckett took considerable creative liberties with his own texts, it is also important to bear in mind his appeal for directorial and verbal precision when it came to the staging of his plays.10 A translation or an adaptation may go too far out of its way in imposing its own values and entirely misrepresenting the original. One of the major theorists of world literature today, David Damrosch, cautions: ‘The variability of a work of world literature is one of its constitutive features – one of its greatest strengths when the work is well presented and read well, and its greatest vulnerability when it is mishandled or misappropriated by its newfound foreign friends’ (Damrosch 2003: 5). When analysed closely, artistic liberty is not the same as the flagrant violation of an author’s vision and artistic creation, even supposing this is done with good intentions, as is the case with certain translations and adaptations of Beckett’s works. Simultaneously, it is important to keep in mind Ranjan Ghosh’s words: … Beckett’s works are about the human condition and, hence, cannot avoid being dialogic with different worldviews. They bring in their wake ambivalence and the splitting of concepts that only transculturalism, with its odd mix of congruence and contradiction, can generate. Thus, … the play, when read and performed in India, can predominantly, albeit arguably, remap itself within a Hindu worldview. (2016: 157)

Whether Hindu in their worldview or not, both translations of Waiting for Godot into Hindi demonstrate how transculturally this theatrical work can operate, even with the slightest appropriations of the text to fit a local context. The same goes with Beckett’s numerous translations into various other Indian languages that have negotiated with a text that is bilingual at its very source. As Ghosh further states: Indeed, transcultural poetics is committed to what I consider to be ‘worlding,’ performative interventions, where historicality, contextualism, and a vibrantly alive existence in the ‘now’ result in the past emerging

11

TRANSLATING SAMUEL BECKETT INTO HINDI

225

in many ‘presents.’ Worlding the text is enactment and ingemination in voices, reanimation in time, in fluidity of concepts, and reading of the writing furthered through intertextuality, translation, and interference. (2016: 261)

This process of ‘worlding’ when it comes to Waiting for Godot reflects not just the play’s universal appeal, but also its transphenomenal feature that validates its translations into every context that the play is brought into. Even through appropriations and recreations, the translations of the play into Indian languages make it not just a part of a globalizing process, but also an organic and living presence that addresses and comments about the intricate contexts of local audiences and readers of the vernacular languages of India.

Notes 1. This number includes the recently recognised Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, and Santhali. There are additionally thirty-eight languages currently listed under the Eighth Schedule, including English, which are awaiting the government’s approval to be listed as official languages (see Ministry of Home Affairs, Internal Security Division—III, n.d.). Several of these languages have a flourishing theatrical and literary culture. 2. He taught prominent actors such as Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri, and, as the director of NSD, he also actively promoted Hindi as a major language of Indian theatre, being well versed in Hindi, Urdu, and English (see Dharwadker 2005: 96). 3. The first official translation of Godot (Godot Ke Intezaar Mein) was, however, completed much later by Krishna Baldev Vaid in 1968, and published in 1999 along with Endgame (Aakhri Khel ) by Rajpal Press. 4. For instance, when the Russian Herasim Lebedeff produced M. Jodrelle’s The Disguise (1787) and Molière’s L’Amour médecin (1665) in Bengali translation in 1795, not only was the playhouse ‘decorated in the Bengalee style’, but the characters were also adapted and there were excerpts of Hindustani music included in the performance (see Bharucha 1983: 8; Prasad 2005: 309). 5. For a more detailed discussion see Knowlson (1997: 694–696). 6. Priyanka Chatterjee notes another instance of a Malayali adaptation of Godot, that has female characters taking on the roles of Pozzo and Lucky, thus attempting to portray the oppression of women, frequently committed by women themselves in the Indian context (Chatterjee 2017: 405).

226

T. CHAKRABORTY

7. In the film, the person holding the board with Godot’s name, most probably a taxi driver, not only resembles the Boy’s description of Godot in the second act as a white-bearded figure who does nothing (see Beckett 2006: 85–86), but also wears dark glasses similar to those worn by Hamm in Endgame (1957). Naseeruddin Shah’s role as Amar Singh’s portrait (Amar literally translated as deathless or undying) is also reminiscent of ‘the face of God the Father’ in Beckett’s Film (327), while the board with Mr. Godot’s name is comparable to the huge label of ‘WATER’ attached to the ‘tiny carafe’ in Act Without Words I (204), although in the Hindi film ‘Godot’ denominates a felt absence while in the play ‘WATER’ is labelled to an unreachable presence. ‘Godot’ is thus recast into a space where the notions of home and the outside are in constant flux, and where passengers walk to and fro with provisional homes in their luggage. Albeit devoid of actual tramps, having someone waiting for ‘Godot’ while seated before luggage trolleys cleverly replaces the missing Estragon, Vladimir, Pozzo and Lucky with businessmen, urban travellers, backpackers, and taxi drivers. 8. Tripathi also plays the character of Estragon in the play, alongside Lakshya Goel as Vladimir. Besides Godot, he has also directed and adapted Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms (1924) as a Hindi feature film, along with various theatrical adaptations of works by prominent Indian playwrights from Girish Karnad, to Mahesh Dattani and Mahesh Elkunchwar. 9. In Rout’s version, these are adapted into a modern Indian context, with Western dance forms like Breakdance and Salsa, put together with Bharatanatyam and Kathak (33). 10. See, for instance, Chapters 11 and 12 in Pilling (2006): Anna McMullan’s ‘Beckett as director’ and Ann Beer’s ‘Beckett’s bilingualism’, in order to view the two distinct sides of the same person.

Appendix: List of Indian Translations of Waiting for Godot Hindi (1970), Godo ke Intezaar Mein, trans. Krishna Baldev Vaid, Delhi: Radhakrishna Prakasana. (1991), Waiting for Godot, trans. Rajat Kapoor, New Delhi: Chingari. (1999), Godot Ke Intezaar Mein Aur Akhri Khel [Waiting for Godot and Endgame], trans. Krishna BaldevVaid, Delhi: Rajpal.

11

TRANSLATING SAMUEL BECKETT INTO HINDI

227

Bengali (n.d.), Waiting for Godot, trans. Ashok Sen, Kolkata: A Mukherjee. (1981), Godor Pratikhyay, trans. Kabir Choudhuri, Dacca: Muktadhara. (1995), Iswarbabu Aschhen, trans. Pradeep K. Banerjee, Kolkata: Writers Workshop. (2006), Godor Apekkhyay, trans. Koushik Sanyal, Kolkata: Ganaman Prokashan. (2006), Godor Janna Apekkha, trans. Vibhash Chanda, Mednipur: Bhab Publishing.

Marathi (1995), Waiting for Godot , trans. Madhuri Purandare, Pune: Rajhans Prakashan.

Punjabi (1971), Godo di Udik, trans. Surender Mohan, Jalandhar: Sanket Prakashan.

Kannada (1974), Waiting for Godot, trans. A. N. Prasanna, Sagar: Akshara Prakashan.

Assamese (1978), Godor Pratikhaya, trans. Sailen Bharali, Guwahati: Bani Prakash.

Rajasthani (2000), Godot ree Udeek Mein, trans. Chandraprakash Deval, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi.

Works Cited Alkazi, Ebrahim. 1975. Journal of South Asian Literature Interviews Ebrahim Alkazi. Journal of South Asian Literature 10 (2/4): 289–325. Beckett, Samuel. 2006. The Complete Dramatic Works. London: Faber and Faber. ———. 2011. The Letters of Samuel Beckett, Vol. 2, ed. George Craig et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bharucha, Rustom. 1983. Rehearsals of Revolution. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

228

T. CHAKRABORTY

Biswas, Tapu. 2006. Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot: Indian Interpretations Through Critical and Analytical Studies, Translations and Stage Productions. Kolkata: Avantgarde. Chatterjee, Priyanka. 2017. Staging Beckett in Bengal: Revisiting History and Art. Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui 29: 403–413. Damrosch, David. 2003. What Is World Literature? Princeton: Princeton University Press. Dharwadker, Aparna. 2005. Theatres of Independence: Drama, Theory, and Urban Performance in India Since 1947 . Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. Gehi, Reema. 2011. Alter-Native. Mumbai Mirror, October 16. [Online]. Available from: http://www.mumbaimirror.com/others/sunday-read/Alternative/articleshow/16172983.cms. Ghosh, Ranjan, and J. Hillis Miller. 2016. Thinking Literature Across Continents. Durham: Duke University Press. Government of India: Ministry of Home Affairs, Internal Security Division—III. n.d. Constitutional Provisions Relating to Eighth Schedule. [Online]. Available from: https://www.mha.gov.in/sites/default/files/EighthSchedule_190 52017.pdf. Hashmi, Ali Madeeh. 2012. Theatre Is My First Love: An Interview with Naseeruddin Shah. Friday Times, December 7. Knowlson, James. 1997. Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett, Paperback ed. London: Bloomsbury. Lal, Chaman. 2012. Partitions Within. The Hindu, January 27. [Online]. Available from: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-fridayrev iew/partitions-within/article2835416.ece. Pilling, John (ed.). 2006. The Cambridge Companion to Samuel Beckett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Prasad, Amar Nath. 2005. Indian Writing in English: Critical Appraisals. New Delhi: Sarup and Sons. Reddy, Sumanaspati. 2011. A Worthy Interpretation. The Hindu, May 16. [Online]. Available from: http://www.thehindu.com/features/friday-review/ theatre/a-worthy-interpretation/article2023499.ece. Rout, Satyabrata. 2011. Godot Aya Kya? An Indian Adaptation of Waiting for Godot. Unpublished Script in the Author’s Possession. Tripathi, Mohit (dir.). 2019. Godot Ka Intezaar Mein, trans. Krishna Baldev Vaid, Produced by Renaissance Theatre Society. July 16, video, 1:59:08. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw6fz1HyP5A.

CHAPTER 12

From Bits and Pieces to an Ensemble: Translating Samuel Beckett in Mainland China Aiying Liu

If Samuel Beckett’s oeuvre is profoundly rooted in the European cultural tradition, Chinese sources are not absent from the Irish writer’s works, especially his early ones. Indeed the very title of Dream of Fair to Middling Women is partly based on the famous Chinese novel by Cao Xueqin published in English in 1929 under the title Dream of the Red Chamber (Pilling 2004: 10), while references to Chinese K’in music appear in ‘Alba’ and ‘Dortmunder’, two poems written in 1931 and 1932 (Lin 2010b).1 Conversely, the engagement of Chinese scholars and literati with Beckett’s works seems to have been very slow in coming, the first Beckett book having been translated and published in Chinese only in 1965 (Lie and Ingham 2009: 130).

A. Liu (B) School of English Studies, Sichuan International Studies University, Chongqing, China e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. F. Fernández and P. Sardin (eds.), Translating Samuel Beckett around the World, New Interpretations of Beckett in the Twenty-First Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71730-8_12

229

230

A. LIU

A quick search in China’s popularly used database CNKI2 on translating Beckett into the Chinese language reveals how necessary and important the present study is. If terms like 翻译,贝克特 (Chinese characters for ‘translate/translating/translation, Beckett’ in English) are used, the keyword search brings out nothing. The search by title leads to one hit: ‘A Collection of Beckett’s Early Narrative Works Was Translated and Published in France’. Only the search by subject seems to be rewarding – nine hits including the aforementioned ‘Collection’. In terms of relevancy, however, only three of the nine titles bear the Chinese character 译 which is short for and means the same as 翻译; and only one of these three is pertinent to the present discussion. If 贝克特,译 (Chinese characters for ‘Beckett, translate/translating/translation’ in English) are used, the search by subject and author leads to 71 results, with however only one additional result relevant to the present task: ‘Part Three Translation and Reception of Becket in China’ by Cao Bo and Yao Zhong, which is a section of a chapter in the essay collection entitled Sino-Irish Relations: Cross-Cultural Perspectives published in 2011 on the basis of the 2009 international conference – China and Ireland: 1979–2009. Nevertheless, the scarcity of related data thus retrieved in CNKI does not necessarily mean that translating Beckett into the Chinese language has never been a serious concern of Chinese Beckett scholars. As a matter of fact, in the past decade, essays by both Chinese scholars and foreign experts, essays that partly introduce Chinese translations of Beckett’s works, appeared in both Chinese and English. In addition to the aforementioned chapter section, the MA thesis A Report on the E–C Translation of Excerpts from The Letters of Samuel Beckett (I) by Hu Qiaolin (2017); ‘The Reception of Samuel Beckett in China’ by Lie Jianxi and Mike Ingham (2009); ‘The Chinese Response to Samuel Beckett (1906–89)’ by Lin Lidan and Zhang Helong (2011); ‘Samuel Beckett on Chinese Stage (1964–2011): A Study of Intercultural Performances’ by Shi Qingjing (2013), ‘China’s Reception of Beckett’s Drama’ by Liu Xiuyu (2013) and ‘A Study of China’s Reception of Beckett’s Drama’ by Li Yanshi (2016) are undoubtedly valuable endeavours for the academic study and internationalization of Samuel Beckett. Yet, as some of the titles of these articles suggest, these critics have mainly focused their attention on the reception of Beckett’s drama rather than on the complicated

12

FROM BITS AND PIECES TO AN ENSEMBLE …

231

story of the process that has led, in recent years, to the publication of his collected works in Mandarin Chinese. This chapter, therefore, will focus exclusively on the history of translating Samuel Beckett in mainland China and investigate the sociopolitical parameters relevant to the progressive translation and reception of his written works in contemporary China. This diachronic study will try to address the following questions and issues: What motivated the first Chinese translation of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot ? How did Beckett’s image change in China from that of a French playwright representing Western decadent art to that of an almost saintly master of modernistpostmodernist literature? Why was it possible for Beckett’s oeuvre to be translated into Chinese and made available to a greater readership? What unites this chapter is the primacy of a fuller account of the history of translating Samuel Beckett in mainland China. For this purpose, the present chapter will contextualize translating Samuel Beckett in mainland China, provide an overview of how Beckett has been translated into the Chinese language in the past decades, and assess the existing translations by pointing out their merits as well as deficiencies. In the historical context of the 1950s and early 1960s mainland China, top priority was given to the urgent needs of the People’s Republic of China which was founded in 1949. In the light of the Leftist Line of thinking, political standards came before artistic standards. Naturally, as an instrument of ideological struggles, canonical literature (in both Chinese and foreign languages) was redefined, published, distributed and researched through politicized and institutionalized mechanisms. The translation, publication and circulation of any foreign literature had to cater for the political agenda of the new government. Tight censorship, of course, was not congenial to the reception of Beckett whose unconventionality is often marked by the troublesome ‘counter-’ labelling. Translations 《译文》 ( ), which was attached to the Chinese Writers Association, was actually the only state-sponsored journal publishing foreign literature in the 1950s and 1960s, and it published mainly its planned translations in accordance with the dominant ideology.3 There was, however, a self-imposed loosening of the censorship in 1962 when the Central Committee of the Communist Party issued a document entitled ‘Issues Concerning the Current Status of Literature and Art’, which identified both the need to learn about canonical foreign writers (indeed foreign literature and culture at large) and the need to

232

A. LIU

criticize them (often negatively) for the ultimate purpose of developing, establishing and consolidating a socialist literary culture. It was in such a milieu that Beckett was avoided by Translations . As a matter of fact, Chinese critics responded to Samuel Beckett comparatively earlier than translators, though the beginning was not at all encouraging. The publication of Cheng Yisi’s 1962 essay ‘An Anatomy of Plays by the French Avant-Garde’ in China’s official media People’s Daily both marked the beginning of Beckett criticism in China and pronounced the impossibility of different interpretations. To Cheng, Godot is a typical example of Beckett’s ‘downright anti-theatre’ which lacks artistic appeal, propagates death and champions escape from reality; what Beckett represents is the decline of bourgeoisie literary currents of modern France already trapped in a ‘quagmire’ (Cheng 1962: 5). Cheng’s politically charged reading actually served as an exemplary critical paradigm for later critics and made translating Beckett an untimely issue. An opportunity for people to see why it should be a pressing task to translate Beckett into the Chinese language was yet to come. The ground-breaking event took place three years later. The year 1965 witnessed the publication of the first translation of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot by Shi Xianrong who started to work with People’s Literature Publishing House upon graduation from Peking University in 1953. Shi’s translation of Waiting for Godot was published in the form of a ‘yellow-covered book’, which was circulated only to a limited readership composed of cadres above a certain level and famous writers, and it provided no copyright information of Beckett’s work. This omission posed some difficulty to later research and translation studies. Shi specialized in English when an undergraduate at Peking University, and is often remembered as one of the distinguished translators in China for his translations of numerous classic works of American literature as well as British literature. Despite being a specialist of the English language, it so happened that Shi Xianrong actually translated from the French text of En attendant Godot because, according to his son Shi Liang, he had been educated in French at a church school, and he wanted to ‘test his own proficiency in translating French literature’ (Shi 2006: 89). Regrettably, before this belated arrival of Godot could have any chance to meet ordinary Chinese readers and help challenge earlier criticisms of Beckett and influence Chinese theatre and performance, China was thrown into the ten-year turmoil of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), a period in which dominant discourses were

12

FROM BITS AND PIECES TO AN ENSEMBLE …

233

reflected largely in stereotypical official literature and art. After the implementation of the policy of reform and opening to the outside world in the late 1970s, profound all-round changes in Chinese society and culture took place, including widespread ideological emancipation. What literary culture benefited from this emancipation was the shattering of the longstanding ‘Politics before art’ criterion after the post-cultural-revolution debates over the nature of literature and art. In the new era an event crucial to the reception of Beckett as a central figure of Western absurdist drama was the academic conference entitled ‘The National Conference for Foreign Literature Research Planning’ held in Guangzhou in November, 1978. At the conference, Liu Mingjiu, a celebrated professor affiliated with the Institute of Foreign Literature Studies (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, CASS) particularly cited Waiting for Godot as an example and argued that the ‘play seems absurd, but it has profound implied meanings. Metaphorically, Godot is disappointed at reality, waiting for transformation and new hope. Therefore, epistemologically, such works also have some positive significance’ (Li Jingduan 2005). To a certain extent, this conference served as a weathervane directing the course of introducing, translating and studying foreign literature in mainland China. The favourable reception of Beckett picked up momentum when the importance of learning from foreign literature was officially recognized in ‘Speech Greeting the Fourth Congress of Chinese Writers and Artists’ made by the Communist Party of China (CPC) leader Deng Xiaoping on 30 October 1979: ‘We should draw on and learn from all that is progressive and advanced in the literature, art and performing arts of old China, and of other countries as well’,4 (Deng 1984b: 203) and indeed in a very broad sense ‘all that is best in the literary and artistic techniques of every land and every age’ (Deng 1984b: 205). In this speech, Deng also stressed CPC’s determination to adhere to the policy of ‘letting a hundred flowers bloom, a hundred schools of thought contend’, (Deng 1984b: 207) the policy which he emphasized again in his speech ‘The Present Situation and the Tasks before Us’ made on 16th January, 1980. The official termination of the instrumental function of literature and art also marked the beginning of great intellectual and artistic emancipation as well as prosperity of literary and artistic production. It was in such a climate that the cultural elite in Chinese official spheres could pay tribute to Shi’s crucial contribution in terms of translation and academic research. At the forum ‘Shi Xianrong’s Life and

234

A. LIU

Scholarly Work’ held in Beijing on 17 June, 1993, one month after his death on 18 May, noted scholars and critics placed Waiting for Godot among other classic works in British and American literature. They further stressed Shi’s role in a joint effort with other translators to enable China’s literary and artistic circles to ‘go through shock, self-reflection and subversion of the shackles of cultural autocracy, and thus prepare for the high tide of ideological emancipation’ (Zhao 1993: 159–160). This particular contribution by Shi Xianrong was also a keynote at the symposium ‘Shi Xianrong’s Translation and Scholarly Work’ held on 8 November, 2004, a conference attended by China’s noted translators, scholars and theorists and CPC leaders. Drama theorist Du Gao, in particular, spoke highly of Shi’s contribution: It was Shi Xianrong’s translation of Waiting for Godot that introduced Western theatre of the absurd to China, greatly shocked the theatrical circles in China, and hence the appearance of the brand-new avant-garde theatre in Beijing and Shanghai, which further promoted the reform of theatre. Thus it can be seen that in China’s reform and opening-up, translators functioned as forerunners of thinking. (Su 2004)

In retrospect, the end of the Great Cultural Revolution did signal the beginning of a new era distinct for alternative discourses, which made possible a Beckett other than the stereotype representing Western decadent art. Along with such discourses came ‘the booming publication of translations and criticisms of the theatre of the absurd, which almost invariably placed Beckett at the centre of this literary school’ (Lin and Zhang 2011: 416). As Cao Xueping sums up, this centrality of Beckett in the Chinese literary scene is also largely due to the fact that ‘The subversive power in his works coincidentally resonated with the yearning of the intellectuals in China to throw off whatever shackles in their time’ (Cao 2006). As a matter of fact, in the two decades after the end of the Great Cultural Revolution, Beckett indeed attracted more and more critical attention, but progress in translation still remained slow. In the 1980s, for instance, only very few of Beckett’s works were translated into Chinese. What was especially noteworthy was the popularity of Shi’s translation of Godot, which was included in three publications of selected readings; in the meantime, two more Beckett works were translated into Chinese. In 1980, Beckett’s Waiting for Godot was included in Collected Works of the Theatre of the Absurd, which came out in the Foreign Literature

12

FROM BITS AND PIECES TO AN ENSEMBLE …

235

and Art series of Shanghai Translation Publishing House, China’s largest comprehensive translation publishing house. This publication, undeniably a milestone in the reception of Beckett, seemed to highlight the centrality of Beckett in the theatre of the absurd. Two out of the four production photos next to the main title page represent Beckett’s Godot, most probably from Beckett’s 1961 re-staging of Waiting for Godot in Paris.5 Also in the preface by Zhu Hong, a well-known CASS scholar, Zhu has only one section of scholarly study for Eugène Ionesco, Harold Pinter, and Edward Albee respectively, but she has two sections for Beckett: ‘Waiting for Godot and the Meaning of “Absurd”’ and ‘Beckett and the Absurd State of Existence’. Moreover, Waiting for Godot by Beckett identified as an Irish author appears as the first play in this collection. In 1981, the second issue of China’s popular journal Contemporary Foreign Literature published two translations of Beckett’s works in French: Xia Lian and Jiang Fan’s translation of Oh les beaux jours and Feng Hanlv’s translation of Fin de partie. Unlike the ‘yellow-covered book’, these later translations were meant for ordinary readers. In addition, as the translations and publications grew in number, the previous politically charged argument identifying Beckett as a decadent artist seemed to fade away, too. In 1983, two of Beckett’s plays were included in Selected Works of the Theatre of the Absurd published by Foreign Literature Publishing House (1979–2009), a wholly owned subsidiary of People’s Literature Publishing House: Waiting for Godot translated by Shi and Oh les beaux jours re-translated by Jin Zhiping. Following the title page of Waiting for Godot is a brief introduction of an Irish Beckett who writes plays, poems, and novels in both English and French. Beckett’s major dramatic works are mentioned as well. What is more, there is a very rough explanation of the plot of Waiting for Godot and of that of Oh les beaux jours . The criticism in the last paragraph regards Beckett’s work as an epitome of the spiritual crisis of the post-World-War-II Western society, as an indication of people who have lost faith in the future, and as an indirect reflection of Capitalism doomed to failure. Again, there is no specification about the original editions on which the translations are based. So far as Beckett’s second translated work is concerned, both the Chinese title and the educational background of the translator, a major in French, suggest that the translation most probably was based on a French edition. In 1984, two works by Beckett were included in Volume Three of the four-volume Selected Works of Foreign Modernist Writers published

236

A. LIU

by Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, a comprehensive publishing house established in 1952 by the merging of several smaller publishing houses in the form of joint state–private ownership: Shi’s translation of Waiting for Godot in Section I entitled ‘Absurdist Literature’ and Tu Lifang’s translation of Beckett’s L’Expulsé in Section II entitled ‘Le Nouveau Roman’. Beckett’s Waiting for Godot appears as the first work in the selection. Before the main text, Shi provides a short biography of Beckett, comments briefly on the absurdity and qualities of anti-theatre in Waiting for Godot , and introduces how the play was received as a work representing the theatre of the absurd. Beckett turns out to be the only writer who has two works included in the selection. In the editors’ note of this selection, there is a particular explanation about using the domicile of origin to determine the nationality of some writers, which is problematic because of their experiences of emigration or exile. Beckett, however, is identified as French in both translations. As before, there is no specification as to the editions on which the two translations are based. In 2006, the four-volume work was re-published by Beijing Yanshan Publishing House under the title Modernism: A Selection. Because Shi’s translation of Waiting for Godot was included in several publications, Beckett’s first performed play is naturally the work of Beckett that has attracted the greatest readership and critical attention in mainland China as elsewhere in the world. The 1990s saw two more translations of Beckett’s other works. In 1992, Shu Xiaomei’s translation of Krapp’s Last Tape was published in Issue No. 4 of Foreign Literatures, still with no specification about the original edition this translation is based on. Shu identifies Beckett as English, and, before the translated text, Shu provides a translator’s note, which contains a general introduction to Beckett as a famous Irish dramatist and novelist, a list of Beckett’s major works, a brief comment on Beckett’s oeuvre, and a summary of Krapp’s Last Tape. In 1999, Beckett’s Proust translated by Shen Rui and Huang Wei was included in a namesake publication Proust in the Literature and Ideas series published by China’s Social Sciences Academic Press, a top-ranking press specializing in humanities and social sciences. This publication is actually a collection of translated writings on Proust by eminent writers and scholars from different countries, such as Samuel Beckett from Ireland, Malcolm Bradbury from the UK, and Stephen Greenblatt from the USA. In Shen and Huang’s translation, Beckett is identified as an Irish writer. The translators’ note inserted after the main

12

FROM BITS AND PIECES TO AN ENSEMBLE …

237

text comprises an introduction to Samuel Beckett, a piece on the importance of Beckett’s Proust on the studies both of Proust and of Beckett himself, and a brief summary of Beckett’s Proust . The new millennium ushered in another translation of Beckett’s works. In 2002, Qiu Zhikang’s translation of Beckett’s ‘One Evening’ was included in An Anthology of Foreign Short Stories: Great Britain published by People’s Literature Publishing House. As in previous translations, Qiu fails to specify the original edition but provides a short biography of Beckett. After introducing Beckett as an Irish dramatist, novelist and Nobel Prize winner, Qiu writes that he ‘was born into a Jewish [sic] family in Dublin, and he graduated from Trinity College Dublin’ (Qiu 2002: 1008). For a long time, Shi’s translation of Waiting for Godot was virtually the only work by Beckett available to many Chinese readers, and no doubt it was also the most discussed. As the most famous translation of Beckett’s work in mainland China, it was republished by People’s Literature Publishing House in 2002 in the University Students Must-read series, a reading-list of 100 books recommended to university students by the Counselling Committee of the Discipline of the Chinese Language for China’s Institutions of Higher Learning, which is one of the committees attached to the PRC Ministry of Education. With this must-read list, Wu Yuetian, a scholar who specializes in French literature,6 provided a three-page introduction to Beckett entitled ‘Beckett and His Absurdist Plays’. Wu not only gives an account of Beckett’s life and important works like Proust , Murphy, Molloy, Malone meurt , L’Innommable, En attendant Godot , Fin de partie, and Oh les beaux jours , he also relates Beckett’s creation to his experience, and regards Beckett’s plays as reflections of the tragedies of his time, the traumatic war experience of Western people, and their despair at the social reality in the Cold War. Wu’s final comment goes beyond the absurdity of Beckett’s drama in terms of form and content, and reveals a deeper understanding of Beckett: ‘shocking the audience to some awareness, like the purging effect of Greek tragedy’ (Wu 2002: 4). While Shi’s translation of Waiting for Godot has been repeatedly republished since the early 1980s, only very few of Beckett’s works were available in Chinese before the early 2000s, and, as we saw, there was a lack of variety in terms of genre, too. However, from the yellow-covered internal publication to publications for the mass market, and from local to national and academic publishers, in that period, translating Beckett gradually progressed, which was encouraging to the ordinary readers and

238

A. LIU

scholars in mainland China. From the perspective of Chinese culture, these translations are like the few scales on the colossal body of a dragon, the bits and pieces that happen to shine in the light of personal and/or academic interests. This gradually wider acceptance of Beckett took place in a time when China deepened its reform and was opening up to the outside world. With these translations, Beckett became known to a greater readership. He not only made his way into university curriculum, textbooks, lectures, and even conversation topics by well-educated people, he was also staged by university students, famous drama studios, and theatre troupes in China. Furthermore, these early translations allowed more readers a glimpse into the tremendous influence of Beckett in the modernist-postmodernist scene of world literature and culture. Like the divide between two rivers, the year 2006 marked two periods in translating Beckett in mainland China. Before 2006, only six of Beckett’s works had been translated into Chinese: one in the 1960s, three in the 1980s, and two in the 1990s. In 2006, a series of activities were organized in mainland China to celebrate Beckett’s centenary, including the publishing of some of Beckett’s works translated into Chinese. As a matter of fact, since 2006, Chinese translations of Beckett’s works have been largely related with Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House (HLAPH), a Class A publishing house in China, established in 1985, and often ranking 3rd among publishing houses dedicated to literature and art. HLAPH started its Collection Minuit series in the 1990s, aiming to introduce to the Chinese readers the French Nouveau roman. So, from the initial dead-end reception of Beckett to decades of scattered translations, the task of translating Beckett developed as China’s economy soared and prospered: the more open China was to the outside world, the greater the need and chance for the Chinese enthusiasts of Beckett to see a fuller and complete picture of Beckett’s contribution to world literature (Fig. 12.1).

12

FROM BITS AND PIECES TO AN ENSEMBLE …

239

Fig. 12.1 HLAPH Selected Works of Samuel Beckett, 2016

In 2006, HLAPH published China’s first collection of works by Beckett, the five-volume Selected Works of Samuel Beckett with Xie Buzhou (谢不周) and Tang Ming (唐明) as general editors. HLAPH published Yu Zhongxian’s translation of Claude Simon’s Le Jardin des plantes in 1999. So the five-volume work, as announced by HLAPH in its promotion advertisements, was its second project in the Collection Minuit series, dedicated to the celebration of Beckett’s centenary. Included in the five volumes are Beckett’s major novels and dramatic works originally written in French, as the series is based on the French Éditions de Minuit texts. However, the series failed to specify Beckett’s nationality, and more importantly, according to Lie and Ingham, the series could have been better in terms of ‘the quality of the language or scholarship’ (Lie and Ingham 2009: 140). According to the copyright page, the HLAPH series ‘was published with the support of the French Foreign Affairs Ministry’ (‘Ouvrage publié avec le concours du Ministère Français des Affaires Etrangères ’). To help readers understand how original Beckett’s fiction is, in the advertisements, there is also a special introduction to Beckett’s Trilogy (Molloy, Malone meurt , and L’Innommable) stating that the three novels are unconventional and pay little attention to plot and characterization but more attention to interior monologue. In this sense, it is presented as a contribution to the literary experimentation of French new novels. The five-volume work engaged ten translators mostly from

240

A. LIU

China’s distinguished institutions of higher learning and research institutes. Altogether thirty-six of Beckett’s works are included in HLAPH’s Selected Works of Samuel Beckett. In 2011, Yunnan People’s Publishing House joined in the great cause of translating Beckett’s works. Translations of Malone meurt , En attendant Godot , and Fin de partie now appeared in a single publication also entitled Selected Works of Samuel Beckett in the Irish Literature series of Yunnan People’s Publishing House. The page preceding the general preface to Irish literature is a tribute to Beckett with a photo of him and, below it, an introduction including Beckett’s full name, his literary achievements as a famous Irish writer, critic and playwright, and a piece on the uniqueness of his style. An event of great momentum in 2012 and 2013 was the expansion of HLAPH’s Collection Minuit series – originally published under the title Selected Works of Samuel Beckett. The original plan was to expand the fivevolume work into nine volumes still based on the French Les Éditions de Minuit. It turned out that HLAPH’s new Collection Minuit series, with Tang Ming and Wu Jian (吴健) as general editors, eventually evolved into an eleven-volume project (Fig. 12.2).

Fig. 12.2 HLAPH Minuit Series of the Works of Samuel Beckett, 2012–13

12

FROM BITS AND PIECES TO AN ENSEMBLE …

241

The editors added to the previous five-volume translation project Beckett’s two English novels Murphy and Watt , exceptionally based on the Faber and Faber’s 2009 editions, and financially supported by Ireland Literature Exchanges, a not-for-profit organisation, funded by the Arts Council and Culture Ireland, which helps fund translations of Irish literature into diverse languages around the world. No doubt, the expansion was also a chance for translators of the five-volume work to improve their previous translations. Together with those early translations, these new translations help show more and more clearly the colossal body of the dragon, which is the oeuvre of Samuel Beckett. In the second decade of the new millennium, it just seemed natural that those early scattered translations should develop into an ensemble. In 2013, HLAPH’s young editor Wu Jian submitted a translation project entitled The Complete Works of Samuel Beckett to the General Administration of Press and Publication of the People’s Republic of China (GAPP), which also functions as the National Copyright Administration in charge of the country’s press, publication, radio, film, and television sectors as well as the administration of copyright matters. Fortunately, the application was approved and was included in GAPP’S publication plan called China’s Twelfth Five-Year Plan for the National Key Publishing Projects.7 For the first time, Beckett’s works with copyrights authorized by Editions de Minuit, Faber and Faber, Rosica Colin Limited, and Grove Press, could make their panoramic presence in the Chinese world, as an ensemble of all of Beckett’s works. This was no doubt a laudable achievement. For this 22-volume work, nineteen Chinese translators, including several brilliant young scholars, who formerly worked on their own in their interested areas of Beckett studies, were thus connected through peer recommendation. These translators are mostly from China’s prestigious universities and research institutions such as the Institute of Foreign Literature Studies (CASS), Nanjing University, Shanghai International Studies University, Sichuan International Studies University, Fudan University, and East China Normal University. As one of the translators, I was working on Beckett’s Happy Days and Shorter Plays I while visiting Florida State University under the supervision of S.E. Gontarski. He was very happy to know that HLAPH would introduce The Complete Works of Samuel Beckett to Chinese readers. He not only helped me by clarifying the puzzling details in Beckett’s texts but also gladly accepted my request to write a preface for my own translations, which turned out to be the General Preface to the whole series

242

A. LIU

as Editor Wu Jian learned about my idea and thought Gontarski’s preface essential for the ordinary Chinese readers of Beckett’s oeuvre (Fig. 12.3).

Fig. 12.3 HLAPH The Complete Works of Samuel Beckett, 2016

Eventually, in 2016, with Wu Jian as general editor, Beckett’s works made their collective debut with Gontarski’s remarkable general preface to the whole series. Gontarski’s introduction to Beckett’s life, the related historical, literary, and intellectual contexts, and worldwide Beckett reception and criticism is a most helpful guide for Chinese-speaking readers who enter Beckett’s world often feeling perplexed. Gontarski also envisions future promising dynamic interactions between Beckett’s oeuvre and Chinese culture: With such publication of the full range of Beckett’s work in Chinese, he becomes even more fully a ‘global’ artist as not only is his work now available to over a billion more potential readers, but that work will interact, germinate, and cross pollinate with the long and rich tradition of Chinese literature and performance. (Gontarski 2016: 21–22)

The series was eventually made complete in 2017 with the publications of the last four volumes: Dream of Fair to Middling Women (Vol. 3), More Pricks than Kicks (Vol. 4), Echo’s Bones (Vol. 5), and Proust (Vol. 21). What is more, for this ensemble, HLAPH launched a series of activities in the form of book news and reviews via popular social media such as Douban (豆瓣网), Sina Weibo (新浪微博), and Wechat Public (微信公众 号); print media and network-based media such as The Paper (澎湃新闻),

12

FROM BITS AND PIECES TO AN ENSEMBLE …

243

Jiemian (界面新闻), The Beijing Youth Daily (北京青年报), The Beijing Evening News (北京晚报), and Rednet (红网). The Enterprise Resource Planning statistics from HLAPH show that of all Beckett’s works translated into Chinese, Waiting for Godot is the most popular in terms of copies printed and sold. This data hardly comes as a surprise. Equally important are the facts that Waiting for Godot , Beckett’s most frequently staged play worldwide, familiarized the Chinese readers with the new concepts of Western drama (the absurdist drama in particular) in the 1980s; and that since then, Beckett has become a formative and informative source of influence to Chinese writers and artists so that the Beckettian waiting has become a familiar motif and scene in contemporary Chinese literature and theatre. According to Wu Jian, in the years to come (2020–2022), HLAPH will publish the Chinese translations of The Letters of Samuel Beckett with the assistance of more and younger Beckett scholars. Undoubtedly, together with the previous translations, this on-going project will make the global Beckett better known to more Chinese readers, providing further avenues of Beckett studies in mainland China. In terms of the aforementioned culture-specific figure, the dragon will appear whole, soar into the sky and show its charm and miraculous power to a world populated with more than 1.3 billion Chinese people.

Notes 1. The title is also based on Chaucer’s The Legend of Good Women and on Tennyson’s A Dream of Fair Women. In the late twenties and early thirties Beckett read French musicologist and sinologist Louis Laloy’s Chinese Music (La musique chinoise, Paris, 1903) as well as Cambridge professor Herbert Allen Giles’s The Civilization of China (London, 1911); he also became acquainted with Buddhism from his reading of Schopenhauer (see Lin 2010b). See also Lin (2010a). In the main text, Chinese names are provided by following the Chinese convention of putting the last name before the first name. In the References section, the last name is followed by a comma. 2. CNKI, known as 中国知网 in the Chinese language, refers to China National Knowledge Infrastructure, a key national information construction project launched in 1996. The project is led by Tsinghua University and supported by several governmental institutions such as the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Ministry of Education, PRC Ministry of Science, and PRC General Administration of Press and Publication. With its rich resources of knowledge including journals, doctoral dissertations, masters’ theses, newspapers, and so on, CNKI is widely used in China’s universities, research institutes, and governmental institutions.

244

A. LIU

3. The journal was renamed as World Literature 《世界文学》 ( ) in 1959 and remains an important journal introducing foreign literature in mainland China. 4. All translations from Chinese are mine, except noted otherwise. 5. It was hard to decide which production these photos were because no caption was provided. I am grateful to Prof. S.E. Gontarski for his email interpreting these photos. 6. For this reason, in this paragraph, the titles of Beckett’s works are quoted in French. 7. This section is partly based on the data provided by Wu Jian, Associate Senior Editor, Deputy Director of the Editorial Department of Foreign Literature, Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House. I am grateful to Wu for his kind assistance.

Appendix: A Chronology of Beckett’s Works Translated into Chinese (The titles of Beckett’s works are quoted in either French or English to show the basis of the related translations). 1965 En attendant Godot 《等待戈多》 ( ), with Shi Xianrong (施咸荣) as translator, appeared in the form of ‘yellow-covered book’ (黄皮书) which was an internal publication. 1980 En attendant Godot 《等待戈多》 ( ), translated by Shi Xianrong, was included in Collected Works of the Theatre of the Absurd (1980) 《荒诞 ( 派戏剧集》 ) published by Shanghai Translation Publishing House (上海译 文出版社). 1981 Oh les beaux jours 《哦,美好的日子!》 ( ), with Xia Lian(夏莲) as translator, and Fin de partie 《剧终》 ( ), with Feng Hanlv (冯汉律) as translator, appeared in Contemporary Foreign Literature 《当代外国文学》 ( ), Issue No. 2.

12

FROM BITS AND PIECES TO AN ENSEMBLE …

245

1983 En attendant Godot 《等待戈多》 ( ), with Shi Xianrong (施咸荣) as translator, and Oh les beaux jours 《哦,美好的日子!》 ( ), with Jin Zhiping (金 志平) as translator, were included in Selected Works of the Theatre of the Absurd 《荒诞派戏剧选》 ( ) published by Foreign Literature Publishing House (外国文学出版社). 1984 En attendant Godot 《等待戈多》 ( ), with Shi Xianrong (施咸荣) as translator, and L’Expulsé 《逐客自叙》 ( ), with Tu Lifang (涂丽芳) as translator, were included in Selected Works of Foreign Modernist Writers: Vol. 3 《外国现代派作品选•第三卷》 ( ) published by Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House (上海文艺出版社). The book was republished in 2006 as Modernism: A Selection, Vol.C by Beijing Yanshan Publishing House (北京燕山出版社). 1992 Krapp’s Last Tape 《最后一盘录音带》 ( ), with Shu Xiaomei (舒笑梅) as translator, appeared in Foreign Literatures (Issue No. 4, 1992) 《国外 ( 文学》 ). 1999 Proust 《普鲁斯特论》 ( ), with Shen Rui (沈睿) and Huang Wei (黄伟) as translators, was included in On Proust 《普鲁斯特论》 ( ) published by China’s Social Sciences Academic Press (社会科学文献出版社). 2002 ‘One Evening’ 《一个黑夜》 ( ), with Qiu Zhikang (裘志康) as translator, was included in An Anthology of Foreign Short Stories: Great Britain 《二十世纪外国短篇小说编年·英国卷》 ( ) published by People’s Literature Publishing House (人民文学出版社).

246

A. LIU

2006 A five-volume Selected Works of Samuel Beckett 《贝克特选集》 ( ) in the Collection Minuit series was published by Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House (湖南文艺出版社) with details as follows (Table 12.1). Table 12.1 HLAPH Selected Works of Samuel Beckett, 2006 [Comparison] Vol. no.

French/English titles

1.

Le monde et le pantalon 《 ( 世界与裤子》 ) (1) Le monde et le 《世界与裤子》 pantalon (2) Le calmant 《镇静剂》 (3) La fin 《结局》 (4) L’Expulsé 《被驱逐的人》 (5) Premier amour 《初恋》 (6) Eleutheria

2.

3.

4.

Chinese titles

《自由》

(7) Peintres de 《障碍的画家》 l’empe  chement Malone meurt 《 ( 马龙之死》 ) Molloy 《莫洛伊》 Malone meurt 《马龙之死》 En attendant Godot 《 ( 等待戈多》 ) (1) L’Innommable 《无法称呼的人》

(2) En attendant Godot

《等待戈多》

Comment c’est 《 ( 是如何》 ) (1) Fin de partie (2) Acte sans paroles I (3) Acte sans paroles II (4) L’image

《终局》 《默剧一》 《默剧二》 《画面》

(5) Comment c’est

《是如何》

Translators

Guo Changjing (郭昌 京) Tu Weiqun (涂卫群) Zou Yan (邹琰) Zeng Xiaoyang (曾晓 阳) Fang Songhua (方颂 华) Guo Changjing (郭昌 京) Ruan Bei (阮蓓) Yu Zhongxian (余中 先) Yu Zhongxian (余中 先); Guo Changjing (郭昌 京) Yu Zhongxian (余中 先) Zhao Jiahe (赵家鹤)

Zeng Xiaoyang (曾晓 阳) Yu Zhongxian (余中 先)

(continued)

12

FROM BITS AND PIECES TO AN ENSEMBLE …

247

Table 12.1 (continued) Vol. no.

French/English titles

Chinese titles

5.

Mal vu mal dit 《 ( 看不清道不明》 ) (1) Fragment de théâtre 《戏剧片段一》 I (2) Fragment de théâtre 《戏剧片段二》 II (3) Pas 《脚步》 (4) Pochade 《无线电速写》 radiophonique (5) Esquisse 《无线电图像》 radiophonique (6) Au loin un oiseau 《远方一只鸟》 (7) Se voir 《往来》 (8) Assez 《够了》

Translators

Xie Qiang (谢强); Yuan Xiaoguang (袁晓 光)

Guo Changjing (郭昌 京) Zeng Xiaoyang (曾晓 阳) Guo Changjing (郭昌 京)

(9) Immobile (10) Pour finir encore (11) Poèmes

《静止》 《为了再次摆脱》 《诗歌》

(12) La falaise (13) Un soir (14) Mal vu mal dit

《悬崖》 《一个晚上》 《看不清道不明》

(15) Catastrophe (16) Quoi où (17) Imagination morte imaginez (18) Bing (19) Textes pour rien (20) Mercier et Camier

《收场》 《什么哪里》 《枯萎的想象力想象吧》 Yu Zhongxian (余中 先) 《乒》 Zou Yan (邹琰) 《无所谓的文本》 Fang Songhua (方颂 《梅西埃和卡米耶》 华)

Yu Zhongxian (余中 先) Guo Changjing (郭昌 京) Yu Zhongxian (余中 先) Zeng Xiaoyang (曾晓 阳)

2011 Malone meurt 《马龙之死》 ( ) and En attendant Godot 《等待戈多》 ( ), with Yu Zhongxian (余中先) as translator, and Fin de partie 《终局》 ( ), with Zhao Jiahe (赵家鹤) as translator, appeared in Selected Works of Samuel Beckett 《贝克特选集》 ( ) in the Irish Literature series of Yunnan People’s Publishing House (云南人民出版社).

248

A. LIU

2012–2013 An 11-volume work entitled Selected Works of Samuel Beckett 《贝克特作 ( 品选集》 ) still based on Les Éditions de Minuit was published by Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House (湖南文艺出版社) with details as follows (Table 12.2). Table 12.2 HLAPH Minuit Series of the Works of Samuel Beckett, 2012–13 [Contents] Vol. no.

French/English titles

Chinese titles

1.

Contes et poems 《 ( 短篇和诗歌集》 ) (1) Le monde et le 《世界与裤子》 pantalon (2) Le calmant 《镇静剂》 (3) La fin 《结局》 (4) L’Expulsé 《被驱逐的人》 (5) Premier amour 《初恋》

Translators

Guo Changjing (郭昌 京) Tu Weiqun (涂卫群) Zou Yan (邹琰) Zeng Xiaoyang (曾晓 阳) Guo Changjing (郭昌 京) Zeng Xiaoyang (曾晓 阳) Guo Changjing (郭昌 京)

(6) Peintres de l’empe  chement (7) L’image

《障碍的画家》

(8) Au loin un oiseau (9) Se voir (10) Assez

《远方一只鸟》 《往来》 《够了》

(11) Pour finir encore

《为了再次摆脱》

(12) (13) (14) (15) (16)

《诗歌》 《悬崖》 《一个晚上》 Yu Zhongxian (余中先) 《看不清道不明》 《枯萎的想象力想象吧》

Poèmes La falaise Un soir Mal vu mal dit Imagination morte imaginez (17) Bing

《画面》

Zeng Xiaoyang (曾晓 阳) Guo Changjing (郭昌 京) Yu Zhongxian (余中先) Guo Changjing (郭昌 京)

《乒》

(continued)

12

FROM BITS AND PIECES TO AN ENSEMBLE …

249

Table 12.2 (continued) Vol. no.

French/English titles

2. 3. 4. 5.

(18) Textes pour rien Eleutheria Molloy Malone meurt L’Innommable

《无所谓的文本》 《自由》 《莫洛伊》 《马龙之死》 《无法称呼的人》 《等待戈多》

8. 9. 10.

En attendant Godot Théâtre 《 ( 戏剧集》 ) (1) Fin de partie (2) Acte sans paroles I (3) Acte sans paroles II (4) Fragment de théâtre I (5) Fragment de théâtre II (6) Pochade radiophonique (7) Esquisse radiophonique (8) Catastrophe (9) Quoi où Comment c’est Mercier et Camier Murphy

《收场》 《什么哪里》 《是如何》 《梅西埃与卡米耶》 《莫菲》

11.

Watt

《瓦特》

6. 7.

Chinese titles

《终局》 《默剧一》 《默剧二》 《戏剧片段一》 《戏剧片段二》

Translators Zou Yan (邹琰) Fang Songhua (方颂华) Ruan Bei (阮蓓) Yu Zhongxian (余中先) Yu Zhongxian (余中先); Guo Changjing (郭昌 京) Yu Zhongxian (余中先) Zhao Jiahe (赵家鹤)

Xie Qiang (谢强); Yuan Xiaoguang(袁晓 光)

《广播剧速写》 《广播剧草稿》 Zeng Xiaoyang (曾晓 阳) Yu Zhongxian (余中先) Fang Songhua (方颂华) Cao Bo (曹波); Yao Zhong (姚忠) Cao Bo (曹波); Yao Zhong (姚忠)

2016–2017 A 22-volume work entitled The Complete Works of Samuel Beckett 《贝克特全集》 ( , 2016–2017) was published by Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House with details as follows (Table 12.3).

250

A. LIU

Table 12.3 HLAPH The Complete Works of Samuel Beckett, 2016 [Contents] Vol. no.

French/English titles

Chinese titles

1.

Poems

2.

Short Prose 《短篇集》 (1) Assumption 《臆断》 (2) Sedendo et 《坐与歇》 Quiescendo (3) Text 《文本》 (4) A Case in a 《一个罕见的病例》 Thousand (5) The Capital of the 《废墟之都》 Ruins (6) Textes pour rien 《无所谓的文本》 (1–13) (7) From an Abandoned 《来自被抛弃的作品》 Work (8) L’image 《画面》

《诗集》

(9) Faux Départs (10) All Strange Away (11) Imagination morte imaginez (12) Assez

《错误的开始》 《所有的奇异远离》 《想象力死去想象吧》

(13) (14) (15) (16)

《灭绝者》 《乒》 《无》 《败笔》

Le Dépeupleur Bing Sans Foirades

《够了》

(17) Sounds (18) Still 3 (19) As the Story was Told (20) La falaise

《众声》 《静之三》 《故事是这样讲述的》

(21) neither (22) Heard in the Dark 1 (23) Heard in the Dark 2

《非此非彼》 《黑暗中所闻之一》

《悬崖》

Translators Hai An (海岸); Yu Zhongxian (余中先) Gong Rong (龚蓉) Zhu Xuefeng (朱雪峰)

Gong Rong (龚蓉)

Zou Yan (邹琰) Zhang Ling (张凌) Zeng Xiaoyang (曾晓 阳) Jin Jufang (金桔芳) Zhang Ling (张凌) Yu Zhongxian (余中先) Zeng Xiaoyang (曾晓 阳) Jin Jufang (金桔芳) Yu Zhongxian (余中先) Jin Jufang (金桔芳) Guo Changjing (郭昌 京); Zhang Ling (张凌) Zhang Ling (张凌)

Guo Changjing (郭昌 京) Zhang Ling (张凌) Gong Rong (龚蓉)

《黑暗中所闻之二》

(continued)

12

FROM BITS AND PIECES TO AN ENSEMBLE …

251

Table 12.3 (continued) Vol. no.

French/English titles

Chinese titles

Translators

(24) Un soir

《一个晚上》

Guo Changjing (郭昌 京) Gong Rong (龚蓉)

4.

(25) The Way 《那条路》 (26) Ceiling 《天花板》 (27) Stirrings Still 《静止的微动》 Dream of Fair to 《梦中佳人至庸女》 Middling Women More Pricks than Kicks 《徒劳无益》

5. 6.

Echo’s Bones Murphy

《回声之骨》 《莫菲》

7.

Watt

《瓦特》

8. 9.

Mercier et Camier Quatre nouvelles

《梅西埃与卡米耶》 《四故事》

10. 11. 12.

Molloy Malone meurt L’Innommable

《莫洛伊》 《马龙之死》 《无法称呼的人》

13. 14.

Comment c’est Nohow On

《是如何》 《无法继续》

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

Eleutheria En attendant Godot Fin de partie Happy Days Shorter Plays I Shorter Plays II

《自由》 《等待戈多》 《终局》 《开心的日子》 《短剧集(上 上)》 》 《短剧集(下 下)》 》

3.

(1) Acte sans paroles I

《默剧一》

Zhu Xuefeng (朱雪峰) Liu Lixia (刘丽霞); Cao Bo (曹波) Zhu Xuefeng (朱雪峰) Cao Bo (曹波); Yao Zhong (姚忠) Cao Bo (曹波); Yao Zhong (姚忠) Fang Songhua (方颂华) Zou Yan (邹琰); Tu Weiqun (涂卫群); Zeng Xiaoyang (曾晓 阳) Ruan Bei (阮蓓) Yu Zhongxian (余中先) Yu Zhongxian (余中 先); Guo Changjing (郭昌 京) Yu Zhongxian (余中先) Gong Rong (龚蓉); Yu Zhongxian (余中先) Fang Songhua (方颂华) Yu Zhongxian (余中先) Zhao Jiahe (赵家鹤) Liu Aiying (刘爱英) Xie Qiang (谢强); Yuan Xiaoguang (袁晓 光); Zeng Xiaoyang (曾 晓阳); Zhao Jiahe (赵家鹤); Jin Jufang (金桔芳) Zhao Jiahe (赵家鹤)

(continued)

252

A. LIU

Table 12.3 (continued) Vol. no.

21. 22.

French/English titles

Chinese titles

(2) Acte sans paroles II 《默剧二》 (3) Fragment de théâtre 《戏剧片段一》 I (4) Fragment de théâtre 《戏剧片段二》 II (5) Pochade 《广播剧速写》 radiophonique (6) Esquisse 《广播剧草稿》 radiophonique (7) Cascando 《渐弱》 (8) Catastrophe 《收场》 (9) Quoi où 《什么哪里》 Proust 《论普鲁斯特》 Disjecta: Miscellaneous 《碎片集:杂 杂谈及一个戏 Writings and a 剧片段》 Dramatic Fragment

Translators

Xie Qiang (谢强); Yuan Xiaoguang (袁晓 光)

Jin Jufang (金桔芳) Zeng Xiaoyang (曾晓 阳) Chen Junsong (陈俊松) Cao Bo (曹波); Jin Jufang (金桔芳); Guo Changjing (郭昌 京); Zhu Xuefeng (朱雪峰)

Works Cited Beckett, Samuel. 2002. One Evening. In An Anthology of Foreign Short Stories: Great Britain, trans. Qiu Zhikang, 1008–1009. Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House. ———. 2016–2017. The Complete Works of Samuel Beckett. Changsha: Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House. Cao, Xueping. 2006. Beckett’s Centenary: Endgame or Waiting, posted April 29. http://www.china.com.cn/chinese/MATERIAL/1197594.htm. Cheng, Yisi. 1962. An Anatomy of Plays by the French Avant-Garde. People’s Daily, October 21, 5. Deng, Xiaoping. 1984a. The Present Situation and the Tasks before Us, January 16, 1980. In Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping (1975–1982), trans. The Bureau for the Compilation and Translation of Works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, 224– 258. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. ———. 1984b. Speech Greeting the Fourth Congress of Chinese Writers and Artists, October 30, 1979. In Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping (1975–1982), trans. The Bureau for the Compilation and Translation of Works of Marx,

12

FROM BITS AND PIECES TO AN ENSEMBLE …

253

Engels, Lenin and Stalin under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, 200–207. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. Gontarski, S.E. 2016. Introducing Samuel Beckett, General Preface. In The Complete Works of Samuel Beckett, vol. 1, ed. Wu Jian, trans. Liu Aiying, 9–22. Changsha: Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House. Hu, Qiaolin. 2017. A Report on the E–C Translation of Excerpts from The Letters of Samuel Beckett (I). MA dissertation, Hunan Normal University. Li, Jingduan. 2005. An Academic Conference with Far-Reaching Significance. Chinese Reader’s Weekly, October 19. Li, Yanshi. 2016. A Study of China’s Reception of Beckett’s Drama. Drama Literature 7: 75–80. Lie, Jianxi, and Mike Ingham. 2009. The Reception of Samuel Beckett in China. In The International Reception of Samuel Beckett, ed. Mark Nixon and Matthew Feldman, 129–146. New York: Continuum. Lin, Lidan. 2010a. Chinese Music as a Narrative Model: The Aesthetics of Liu Liu and Metafiction in Samuel Beckett’s Dream of Fair to Middling Women. English Studies 91 (3, May): 289–302. ———. 2010b. Samuel Beckett’s Encounter with the East. English Studies 91 (6, October): 623–642. Lin, Lidan, and Helong Zhang. 2011. The Chinese Response to Samuel Beckett (1906–89). Irish Studies Review 19 (4): 413–425. Liu, Xiuyu. 2013. China’s Reception of Beckett’s Drama. Literature and Art Forum 7: 142–144. Pilling, John. 2004. A Companion to Dream of Fair to Middling Women. Tallahassee: Journal of Beckett Studies Books. Shi, Liang. 2006. About the Yellowed-Covered Books. Chinese Book Review Monthly 4: 89–90. Shi, Qingjing. 2013. Samuel Beckett on Chinese Stage (1964–2011): A Study of Intercultural Performances. PhD dissertation, Nanjing University. Su, Rong. 2004. An Issue Triggered by the Symposium “Shi Xianrong’s Translation and Scholarly Work”: An Affirmative Evaluation of the Historical Contribution of the Senior Translators. Chinese Reader’s Weekly, November 17. Wu, Yuetian. 2002. Beckett and His Absurdist Plays, foreword. In Waiting for Godot, trans. Shi Xianrong, 1–4. Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House. Zhao, Mei. 1993. “Shi Xianrong’s Life and Scholarly Work” Was Held in Beijing. American Studies Quarterly 3: 157–160.

Index

A Absurd, Theatre of the, 5, 8, 11, 74, 158, 159, 234–236 Ackerley, Chris, 48, 49 Adak, Hülya, 159 Adamov, Arthur, 5, 79 Adivar, Halide Edib, 159, 170 Adorno, Theodor, 154, 169 A˘gao˘glu, Adalet, 159 Agop, Güllü, 153, 157 Albee, Edward, 235 Alkazi, Ebrahim, 214–216 Almaz, Michael, 178–182, 185, 186 Almog, Oz, 175, 176 Alterman, Nathan, 176, 181 Alter, Tom, 219 Amir, Aharon, 184–186 Anouilh, Jean, 112 Araújo, Eloiza, 131 Arikha, Avigdor, xvi, xxiv, 185 Ariosto, Ludovico, 90 Armstrong, Louis, 76, 81 Arrabal, Fernando, xx, 8, 66, 77

Arrabal, Luce Moreau, xxi, 64, 69, 80 Asselberg, Willem (van Duinkerken, Anton), 43 Auden, W.H., 93 Audiberti, Jacques, 112 Audivert, Pompeyo, 121 Auster, Paul, 131 avant-garde, x, xi, xv, xx, xxii, 8, 46, 64, 77, 111, 130, 173, 175, 178, 182–184, 186, 232, 234 Avidan, David, 184 Avikunthak, Ashish, 217

B Bachchan, Amitabh, 222 Bagno, Marcos, 140, 141 Bair, Deirdre, 52 Baldursson, Gylfi, 8 Ballesteros González, Antonio, 67, 79 Barletta, Leónidas, 111, 122 Battistón, Matías, 118 Beckett Estate, 42

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. F. Fernández and P. Sardin (eds.), Translating Samuel Beckett around the World, New Interpretations of Beckett in the Twenty-First Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71730-8

255

256

INDEX

Beckettiana journal, xxii, 118, 119, 121 Beckett, Samuel and self-translation, xi, 28, 128, 132–135, 143, 144, 155, 162, 169 as a bilingual writer, 101, 130, 169 as a political writer, 154 works Act without Words , xv, xxii, 5, 110, 115, 119, 192, 226 ‘Alba’, 88, 229 All that Fall , xii, 9, 11, 52, 192 A Piece of Monologue, 15, 24, 47, 53, 143 Catastrophe, xii, 68, 116 Come and Go, 9, 11 ‘Comment dire’, 53, 116 Company, 11, 47, 89, 129, 131, 133, 134 ‘Dante and the Lobster’, 48, 90 ‘Dante…Bruno. Vico..Joyce’, 112, 129 ‘Dortmunder’, 229 Dream of Fair to Middling Women, 48, 229, 242, 251 Echo’s Bones and Other Precipitates , 47, 51 En attendant Godot , ix, xv, 42, 43, 89, 111, 132, 143, 155, 160, 175, 177, 232, 237, 240, 246, 249, 251 Endgame, xii, xv, 3–5, 8, 11, 14, 37, 70–74, 81, 115, 116, 132, 145, 154, 160, 161, 187, 192, 224, 225 Enough, 11 Expelled, The, 11, 131 faux departs , 131, 133

Fin de partie, xxi, 43, 44, 71–74, 100, 132, 182, 235, 237, 240, 246, 249, 251 First Love, 11, 129, 175 Footfalls , 15, 89 Happy Days , 8, 14, 43, 44, 48, 79, 90, 187, 192, 241, 251 ‘I gave up before birth’, 11 Ill Seen, Ill Said, 131 Imagination Dead Imagine, 11 ‘Immobile’, xv, xxi, 88–90, 94–100, 247 Krapp’s Last Tape, xv, xxiv, 8, 9, 11, 43, 44, 52, 175, 184–186, 192, 224, 236 L’Image, 47, 246, 248, 250 L’Innommable, 43, 45, 48, 51, 237, 239 Malone Dies , 14, 115, 118, 129, 169 Malone meurt , 14, 43, 45, 48, 51, 100, 237, 239, 240, 246, 249, 251 Mal vu mal dit , 47, 89, 134, 143, 144, 247, 248 Mercier and Camier, 169 Molloy, xii, xix, xxii, 13, 14, 16, 43, 45, 51, 92, 93, 100, 115, 118, 129, 130, 156, 169, 237, 239, 246, 249, 251 More Pricks than Kicks , xx, 51, 67, 169, 242, 251 Murphy, 43, 51, 93, 128, 131, 134, 142, 156, 169, 237, 241, 249, 251 ‘Neither’, xviii, 53, 68 Not I , 9–11, 15, 67, 101 Ohio Impromptu, xii, 9–11, 92 Oh les beaux jours , 235, 237

INDEX

‘One Evening’, 68, 134, 237 Play, 43, 155 Premier amour, 46, 48, 246, 248 Proust , 53, 129, 236, 237, 242, 252 ‘que ferais-je’, 46 Rockaby, xii, 9, 11, 68 ‘Still’, xxi, 88, 93, 95, 97–101 Stirrings Still , 47, 53, 116, 251 Stories and Texts for Nothing , 45 Unnamable, The, 46, 118, 129, 144, 169 Waiting for Godot , xix–xxi, xxiii–xxv, 3, 4, 7, 9, 11, 14, 15, 20, 21, 24, 34, 35, 42, 52, 67, 68, 74, 79, 81, 110–113, 115, 116, 122, 129, 132, 143, 151–153, 155, 159–163, 168, 169, 175, 178, 179, 183, 185, 187, 192–195, 197, 200, 201, 204–207, 213, 215, 216, 218–220, 224, 225, 231–237, 243 Watt , xx, 13, 48, 49, 51, 53, 54, 128, 142, 241, 249, 251 Worstward Ho, xv, xvi, xxii, xxiii, 47, 48, 53, 129, 131, 133–136, 139–141, 144 Beer, Anne, 156, 158 Beethoven, Ludwig van, 76, 81 Ben-Zvi, Linda, 118, 198 Bergsson, Guðbergur, 13, 14 Berkeley, George, 166 Berman, Antoine, 21, 23, 24, 28, 35 Bernlef, J., 47 Bharucha, Rustom, 216, 225 Bialik, Hayim Nachman, 176

257

Bible, the, 165–167, 222 bilingualism, xi, xviii, 93, 101, 130, 133, 134, 156, 226 Biswas, Tapu, 213, 214, 219, 220 Bixio, Roberto, 115 Bizzio, Sergio, 116 Björnsson, Oddur, 8, 9, 12, 13 Blanchot, Maurice, 127 Blin, Roger, 43, 92 Bloem, Rein, 46 Borges, Jorge Luis, 115, 122, 142 Boulter, Jonathan, 24 Bozkurt, Sinem Sancaktaro˘glu, 162 Bradbury, Malcolm, 236 Brassinga, Anneke, 48, 51 Burak, Sevim, 159 Bush, George, 222

C Calvino, Italo, 92 Camus, Carmen, 67 Cao Bo, 230, 249, 251, 252 Cao Xueping, 234 Cao Xueqin, 229 ˇ Capek, Karel, 214 Cardoso, Miguel Esteves, xxii, 129, 136–140 Carrera, María José, 76, 78 Cascetta, Annamaria, 92 Caselli, Daniela, 90, 92, 93, 118 Céline, Louis Ferdinand, 155 censorship, xiv, xv, xxi, 70, 74, 75, 80, 110, 133, 192, 204, 231 Cerrato, Laura, xxii, 116–118, 122 Césaire, Aimé, 120 Chakraborty, Thirthankar, x, xiii, xxiv, 141, 143, 191, 206 Char, René, 120 Chatterjee, Priyanka, 219, 224, 225 Cheng Yisi, 232 Christianity, 167, 195, 222

258

INDEX

Claus, Hugo, 42, 52, 53 Clément, Bruno, 127 Cohen, Joseph, 176, 177 Cohn, Ruby, 80, 91, 95, 98, 99 comedy, 31, 92, 183, 214, 218 Connor, Steven, x, 89, 204 cosmopolitanism, 174 Crane, Hart, 93 Cronin, Anthony, 65, 68 Cuéntame cómo pasó (TV series), 63, 77 Cultural Revolution (China), xxv, 232, 234 D Dagskrá journal, 5 D’Amico, Silvio, 92 Damrosch, David, x, 224 da Vinci, Leonardo, 76, 81 defective translation, mistranslation, 26 deforming practices, 21–23, 28, 31, 35 Deleuze, Gilles, 135, 144 Delgado, María, 75 Deng Xiaoping, 233 De’ Resmini, Pietro Carpi, 92 de Ruyter, Daniëlle, 53 de Souza Andrade, Fábio, xxii, 68, 76, 142 domestication, x, xvi, xxiii, 174, 183, 201 Donizetti, Giuseppe, 153 Douze, Lotte, 45 Dow Fehsenfeld, Martha, 25 Du Gao, 234 E Edgü, Ferit, 162–169 Eggertsson, Viðar, 9–11, 13, 15 Einarsson, Sveinn, 5–7, 12

Eliot, T.S., 93, 214 Engelberts, Matthijs, x, 45, 53, 206 Ergün, Nurtaç, 158 Eriksson, Göran O., 21, 22, 24, 35 Eriksson, Lill-Inger, 21, 22, 24, 35, 37 Erlendsson, Eyvindur, 14 Ertu˘grul, Muhsin, 151, 153, 154, 161 Esposito, Bianca, 90 Esslin, Martin, 11, 74, 159 existentialism, 11, 12, 113, 154 experimental writing, xix, 174, 175 F Falco, Giovanni, 92 Faulkner, William, xxii, 7, 13, 115 Feiling, C.E., 116 Feldman, Matthew, x, xi, xiii, xiv, 130 Feng, Hanlv, 235 Fernández, José Francisco, xi, xviii, 65, 66, 68, 76–78, 81, 123 Fernández-Quesada, Nuria, xxv, 70, 76, 80, 81 fidelity, 92, 119 Fifield, Peter, xiv foreignization, xxiii, 174, 185 Franco, Francisco, xxi, 69, 75, 77 Frasca, Gabriele, 89, 91, 93, 95, 97, 100, 101 Fresnay, Pierre, 111 Fruttero, Carlo, 89–93 Fuchs, Yehuda, 179 G Galindo, Caetano, 131, 142 Galves, Charlotte, 140 Gambaro, Griselda, 115, 116 Gamzu, Haim, 181, 182 Gascoyne, David, 93 Gates, Bill, 222 gender, 154, 183, 198

INDEX

Genet, Jean, 157 Gerbrandy, Piet, 48, 53 Ghosh, Ranjan, 224 Gilani, Benjamin, 218 Girik, Fatma, 162 Gluzman, Michael, 175 Gombrowicz, Witold, 120 Gómez Picazo, Elías, 67 Gontarski, S.E., x, 23, 25, 26, 28, 36, 77, 81, 118, 141–143, 241, 242, 244 González Bruno, Luis, 121 Gospels, the, 26, 165, 166, 222 Greenblatt, Stephen, 236 Grover, Abhinav, 217 Gruppo 63, 93, 101 Guebel, Daniel, 116 Guelincx, Arnold, 130 Günersel, Tarik, 161–169 Güngör, Sükran, ¸ 153 Gunnarsdóttir, Anna S., 8 Gunnlaugsson, Hrafn, 8

H Halldórsson, Baldvin, 7, 12 Halldórsson, Erlingur E., 8 Hall, Peter, 216 Harsegor, Michael, 179 Hayter, Stanley William, xxi, 87, 88, 97, 98 Hedlund, Magnus, 21–33, 35 Hermano lobo magazine, 67 Hermans, W.F., 46 Hernández Esteve, Vicente, 67 Het Beckett Blad, 45, 47 Hisgen, Ruud, xix, 47, 48, 53, 68, 79 Hoek, Jona, 51 Hogendoorn, Wiebe, 48 Holierhoek, Jeanne, 45 Houppermans, Sjef, 53 Huang Wei, 236

259

humanism, humanities, xiv, 20, 92, 120, 179, 236 Hu Qiaolin, 230 Hussain, Zakir, 222 Hussein, Saddam, 222

I Ibsen, Árni, 9–15 Ibsen, Henrik, 34, 194 Ingham, Mike, 230, 239 Ionesco, Eugène, xix, 5, 8, 11, 67, 79, 157, 159, 235 Irgat, Cahit, 153 Islam, xxiv, 192, 193, 195, 198, 201, 203, 204, 206, 207

J Jafri, Anwar, 194, 195, 198, 202, 217 Janvier, Agnès, 49, 54 Janvier, Ludovic, 49, 54 Jarry, Alfred, 11 Javier, Francisco, 115, 122 Jiang Fan, 235 Jinnah, Muhammad Ali, 192, 222 Jin Zhiping, 235 Johnson, Samuel, 130 Jökulsson, Illugi, 13, 15 Jónsson, Ólafur, 5, 6, 8, 12, 13 Journal of Beckett Studies , xiii, 77 Joyce, James, xi, 7, 51, 54, 93, 131, 156 Judaism, 186

K Kafka, Franz, 7, 8 Karabo˘ga, Kerem, 157 Kaun, Axel, 140, 144 K˛edzierski, Marek, xii, 34 Keshet magazine, xxiv, 175, 184, 185 Khan, Bismillah, 222

260

INDEX

Khan, Shah Rukh, 222 Khomeini, Ayatollah, 222 Knowlson, James, xxi, 41, 43, 47–49, 52, 65, 77, 88, 90, 95, 118, 143, 177, 185, 219, 225 Korn, Karl, 112 Kuipers, Frits, 42, 45, 48, 52 L Larkin, Philip, 93 Lawrence, D.H., 93 Laws, Catherine, 155 Laxness, Halldór, 6, 8 Lemarchand, Jacques, 112 Leminski, Paulo, 129, 142 Lenormand, Henri-René, 111 Levy, Shimon, 177, 179–183, 186, 187 Lie Jianxi, 230, 239 Lindon, Jérôme, 44, 79, 112, 144 Lin Lidan, 229, 230, 234, 243 Liu Mingjiu, 233 Liu Xiuyu, 230 Li Yanshi, 230 López Mozo, Jerónimo, 66 Lord Chamberlain, 70, 192 Lucchese, Romeo, 91, 92 Lucentini, Franco, 89 Ludvigsen, Christian, xii

McDonald, Rónán, x, xi McGuire, James, xvii McMillan, Dougald, 25–28, 36, 143 Megas (Magnús Þór Jónsson), 12, 13 Megged, Aharon, 176, 187 Megged, Matti, 173 Melon, Edda, 93, 100 Menderes, Adnan, 153 Menemencio˘glu, Nermin, 152, 153 Merli, Joan, 111, 122 Mesquita, Alfredo, 68, 141, 142 Michiels, Ivo, 46 Milton, John, 93 Mitchell, Pamela, 87, 88, 90, 97, 111 Modernism, x, xv, xix, 6, 7, 13, 15, 130, 131 Moix, Ana María, 69–71, 79, 80 Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin), 153, 225 Möller, Jakob, 8 Mondolfo, Luciano, 89, 91, 92 Montale, Eugenio, 90 Montini, Chiara, xi, 93, 143 Morales, Mario, 119, 123 Morin, Emilie, 154 Mosinzon, Yigal, 176 Mulder, Reinjan, 46 Mulisch, Harry, 46 Mussapi, Roberto, 89 Myhálycsa, Erika, xvii

M Magnússon, Sigurður A., 4, 5, 12–14 Mahmut II, 152 Majno, Luigi, xxi, 87, 88, 90, 93–101 Manzano, Carlos, 67 Margarit, Lucas, x, xxi, 118, 123 Marqueríe, Alfredo, 67, 77, 78 M’Arte (art gallery), 87 Martel Cedrés, David, 122 Martínez-Lage, Miguel, 67, 68 Martínez Trives, Trino, 66, 67, 78, 79

N Nahor, Asher, 178 nationalism, 140, 174 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 222 Neuman, Frederic, 133 Newton, Isaac, 76, 81 nihilism, xix, 4, 46 Nixon, Mark, x, xi, xiii, xiv, 77, 90, 130, 143 Nobel Prize, xv, xxvi, 14, 19, 87, 115, 237

INDEX

Nouveau Roman, xv, 238

O O’Byrne, Patricia, 69 Ocampo, Victoria, xv, xxii, 115, 122 Oggi magazine, 91 Orozco, Patricio, 121 Ortman, Hava, 183 Özata, Cüneyt, 155

P Palant, Pablo, xxii, 68, 69, 74, 75, 79–81, 111–115, 120, 122 Patel, Sardar, 222 Pavlovsky, Eduardo, 115, 116 Pellegrini, Aldo, 120 Péron, Alfred, 93 Pétursson, Hannes, 8 Pilling, John, 90, 91, 101, 118, 142, 226, 229 Pinget, Robert, xii Pinter, Harold, xix, 8, 235 Pirandello, Luigi, 7 Pires, Rubén, 121 Pizarnik, Alejandra, 120 Poesía =Poesía journal, 119, 120 poetry, 6, 11, 19, 20, 46, 51, 91, 93, 117, 119–123, 132, 133, 184 Porat, Yesha’yahu Ben, 177, 178 Pozanco, Víctor, 67 Prego, Adolfo, 67, 78 Prix Formentor, 115 Propato, Cecilia, 121 Proust, Marcel, 7, 236, 237 Pynchon, Thomas, 131

Q Qiu Zhikang, 237

261

R Rabaté, Jean-Michel, xiv, 142 reception, x, xi, xiv, xix, xx, xxii, xxv, 4, 5, 9, 10, 12, 42, 65, 68, 74, 75, 92, 128, 130, 157, 164, 168, 179, 182, 216, 219, 230, 231, 233, 235, 238, 242 Reddy, Sumanaspati, 220 Regeer, Paul, 47 Rejwan, Nissim, 184 religion, xxiv, 4, 152, 191–193, 201–205 Rembrandt (Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn), 41 remembering, 26–28, 36, 180 Reve, Gerard, 46 Rey, Leal, 115, 122 Rod, Carlos, 74 Rodríguez-Gago, Antonia, xii, xviii, 66–69, 75, 77, 79, 80 Ronen, Ilan, 183, 184 Rosset, Barney, xii, 112 Rout, Satyabrata, xxiv, 220–223, 226 Roy, Sanyal Chandan, 217

S Sala Beckett (Barcelona), 75 Sánchez Pedreño, Josefina, 70–73 Sanesi, Roberto, 87, 93, 94 Sardin-Damestoy, Pascale, xi, 99, 143 Sbarbaro, Camilo, 91 Scheepmaker, Henny, 46 Schneider, Alan, 69 Segalen, Victor, 120 Self-censorship, xv, 67, 201 Sen, Ashok, 214 Shaham, Nathan, 176 Shahane, Ashok, 219 Shah, Naseeruddin, 218, 219, 225, 226 Shakespeare, William, 30, 34, 35

262

INDEX

Shamir, Moshe, 182 Shammas, Anton, 183, 184 Shen Rui, 236 Shi Liang, 232 Shi Qingjing, 230 Shi Xianrong, 232–234 Shu Xiaomei, 236 Simon, Claude, 239 Sontrop, Th. A., 45 source text, xviii, xx, xxiii, 22, 24, 25, 27–33, 49, 50, 160–162, 166, 168, 169 Souza, Ana Helena, xxii, 129–131, 135–140, 142, 144 Starkie, Walter, 66 Steinsson, Guðmundur, 8 Steinsson, Trausti, 13, 16 Stevens, Wallace, 93 Strindberg, August, 34, 214 Sugai, Kumi, 87

T Tagliaferri, Aldo, 89–91, 93, 100, 101 Tagore, Rabindranath, 214 Tamayo, José, 64 Tanaka, Mariko Hori, xviii Tang Ming, 239, 240 Tardieu, Jean, 8 target audience, xv, 29, 33, 213, 221 target text, 21, 29, 32, 33, 168 Tarn, Nathaniel, 87 Tekand, Sahika, ¸ 151 Tendulkar, Sachin, 222 Tentije, Hans, 46 Thakar, Labhshankar, 217 Thie, Jos, 44, 45 Þorsteinsson, Indriði G., 7, 8, 11, 15 Tophoven, Elmar, xi, xxi, 41, 49, 52, 54, 89, 91 Tophoven, Erika, xi, xxi, 41, 89, 91 Transition Era (Spain), 75

Translations journal, 231, 232 Tripathi, Mohit, xxiv, 223, 226 Tryggvason, Árni, 8, 9, 12 Tyrewala, Abbas, 218, 219

U Ün, Agah, 153 Ün, Memduh, 162 Ün, U˘gur, xxiii, 151, 156, 161, 162 Unword, literature of the, xvi, 135

V Vancrevel, Laurens, 47 van der Weel, Adriaan, xix, 47, 53, 68, 79 Van Goyen, 41 van Heeteren, Lucia, 42, 43, 53 Van Hulle, Dirk, xi, 42, 43, 46, 48, 51–53, 143, 144 Van Ruisdael, Jacob, 41 van Santen, Karina, 47, 48 van Schaik-Willing, Jeanne, 52 van Velde, Bram, 43, 44 van Velde, Geer, 43, 44 van Velde, Jacoba, xvi, xx, 41–44, 47, 52 Ved, Krishna Baldev, 223, 225 Venuti, Lawrence, xvi, 23, 174, 185 Verhulst, Pim, xi Vermeer, Hans J., 32, 41 Vilhjálmsson, Thor, 6, 13, 14 Villanueva, Roberto, 115, 122 Vogelaar, Jacq, 46 Voltaire, 166 Vosmaer, Martine, 47, 48

W Warrilow, David, 133 Washington, George, 222 Weinryb, Bernard D., 177

INDEX

Whitman, Walt, 93 Wiche, Marie-Dominique, 44 Wiesel, Elie, 111 Wilcock, Rodolfo J., 94 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 46 Wolkers, Jan, 46 Woolf, Virginia, xxii, 7, 115 Wu Jian, 240–244 Wu Yuetian, 237 X Xia Lian, 235 Xie Buzhou, 239 Y Yao Zhong, 230, 249, 251

263

Yeats, W.B., 93 Yerushalmi, Dorit, 182, 183 Yizraeli, Yossi, 183 Yüce, Kamran, 153 Yüksel, Ay¸segül, 154, 155 Yu Zhongxian, 239, 246–251

Z Zach, Nathan, 181 Zaidenwerg, Ezequiel, 117, 123 Zhang Helong, 230, 234 Zhu Hong, 235 Zionism, xxiii, 175, 176 Zipes, Jack, xiii Zmanim supplement for the arts, 177