For the past several weeks, I’ve been finishing a novel translation for HarperCollins. As each day passes, and the delivery date draws closer, my anxiety level rises higher, reaching Mount Everest proportions. (At this point, apologies are in order to everyone who had to deal with me, particularly Jon who had to *live* with me.) Did I make the right decisions? Did I follow the style closely enough? Too closely? Have I balanced that by also making the translation my own, so that it reads well in English?
There are endless choices to be made when translating. In this case, Voltaire’s Calligrapher is the story of – well, guess who? It is years after Dalessius worked for Voltaire; he is now in exile in Argentina and writing his memoir. The events he describes take place in 1650s France. Obviously, the vocabulary must be appropriate to that time period. Has an errant, modern-day word slipped in? Did I correct that use of “gym” (a word that only appears in English in the 1800s) to “gymnasium” (a word that dates back to 1598)? www.etymonline.com is a dear friend.
Then, what about titles? Mention is made of the marquis d’Argenson, a French statesman who was a close friend of Voltaire’s. (The Encyclopaedia Britannica was another constant companion.) If Argenson’s title is appropriately left in French, what about Dalessius’ uncle? He’s a marshal, a society title that is not terribly common, at least in English. Should I maintain consistency and use the French, maréchal? Yes. Absolutely But then, when Jon read “maréchal Dalessius” the first time, he thought it was a typo, that I had forgotten to capitalize his first name. So I should use the English title, Marshal Dalessius. No. That most certainly sounds like a first and last name, which it’s not. So what’s the right decision?!
Now, what about style? I initially translated Chapter 1 as a sample for the author to review before I was awarded the contract. I submitted that, oh, in October or November of 2008. It wasn’t until March of 2009 when I got the go ahead. I could thus look at Chapter 1 with completely fresh eyes, and revise it accordingly. Now, as I was revising the entire novel, I really liked that chapter, it felt right, deep down in my gut, but things immediately started to go awry in Chapter 2. Why was that? What was the difference? I had to sit down and analyze the two, comparing the translation versus the Spanish. What had I done? Aha! In Chapter 1 I had mimicked the author’s style quite closely, but when a sentence didn’t work in English, I very much made it my own (while still respecting the way the author writes, no easy task). In subsequent chapters I tried to make the sentence style a little more true to English, one an editor should love. Only it lost the flavor that makes Pablo De Santis‘ work Pablo De Santis’ work! The motto I jotted in my notebook: “BALANCE: Stay true to PDS, but also to yourself.”
After long weeks of long days, I reached a point where I could no longer see the forest for the trees, or the trees for the forest, or trees or forests or the printed page or my computer screen. My head was *full*. I had done my very best. It was time to let go. It was time to attach the manuscript to an e-mail and just hit that Send button. Done. Gone. Phew. Relief. Or that’s what you’d think… A job well done. Time to put the drafts in the filing cabinet, the reference materials back on the shelf, to dust the eraser bits off the desk, to clear my mind for what comes next. But instead the anxiety only grows. Why hasn’t the editor acknowledged receipt? Did it get lost in cyberspace? Does he therefore think I’ve missed my deadline? Or maybe he hates it. Maybe I’ve done a terrible job and he’s drafting a legal document to demand the first half of the payment back! No. He’s just busy. It takes a few days. But he says that what he’s read so far is “wonderful”! Yay!
OK, so now I should definitely be feeling calm, excited about taking a little time to refresh and regroup. Instead I feel a bit bereft. Like a piece of me is gone. It has been my entire purpose over the last seven months, it is the work that defines me, and now that it’s gone, it’s out of my hands and into another’s, who am I? I sit at my desk, but there’s no all-consuming purpose to be there, so I wander into the kitchen for coffee. I feel that familiar need to gulp hot coffee as I gobble my toast, to hurry and get back to my desk, only I don’t *have* to do that any longer. So I sit on the couch, determined to find pleasure in relaxing over breakfast, but there’s a nagging emptiness in my belly. And it makes me feel sad. Unbidden, unwanted, tears spring to my eyes. I’m grieving.
If you hadn’t noticed already, I have a slight propensity for being overly emotional. It’s not that I’m unaware of this. I am quite conscious of it. So I dive in and allow myself to mourn the loss of my project, my baby, in the knowledge that soon enough (I hope) I’ll swing to the manic high of a new manuscript in hand, a new project to vest heart and soul into, a new voice to capture, new translation challenges to tackle. Oooh, the very thought of it brings the start of a Cheshire cat smile to my face.
How vested are you in your work? Bare your soul in a comment… please. 
