The DD Book Collective discussion

I'm not going to bother to read this book, but anyway, the following to samples seem to be translations of the same text (published alternately under the titles "Stingray," and "The Thornback Fish).

What can one make of the fact that two different translators would produce these disparate versions? How much latitude is reasonable in translation? I know that Korean is *very* distant from English in terms of grammar, diction, idiom, etc., but still there must be one translator who is adding details never expressed in the original, or one who is omitting many details to create a retold version. WTH?

Stingray:
It was early morning. Snowflakes, white as goose feathers, danced in the air before piling up everywhere.

Although daybreak was approaching, it was still warm in the room. That's why I always slept late on snowy mornings. I could barely hear my mother breathing from the other side of the bed I shared with her. It was as if the falling snow had muffled the sound of her breath.

The room was as quiet as the bottom of a deep sea. And this tranquility, where even time had seemingly stopped, was seducing me into an early morning's sweet sleep.

The sun had risen long before, but the room was still dim. This was because of the snow's magic, something that also gave the villagers an excuse to sleep to their hearts' content.

The Thornback Fish:
Dawn that morning brought snow, like a billion trillion fatted feathers of geese, falling in spiraling waves. The break of day found the room still warm and me lying on the mat beside mother, so quietly, so calmly, pressing my back towards the melting warmth rising up from the floor. I held my eyes shut as I lay there, not wanting to move, inviting the melting glow beneath me to continue welding my butt and hips ever more firmly to the spot where I lay. Mother, like myself, lacked the guts to simply spring up from the mat without hesitation. For on those mornings when the snow would come, it was my habit to sleep on like this, late into the morning, even after the sun had risen. Sometimes her tiny, ever so gentle, movements echoed from the other side of the blanket as her steady, serene breathing, continued on as the only sound rising in the quiet stillness embracing us, while my every breath continued drawing in those many unified scents swirling in the heated air of our low-ceilinged house. Everything that made up our lives seemed now to be creating that delicate fatigue wrapped all around me, as the falling snow went on quietly muffling the sounds of our every breath. We had been enveloped in an invincible cocoon that now stood protecting us against the ragings of the storm, the sounds of which were all pervasive far, far away.

The room lay calm, as if under the sea. The early dawn, foggy as an evening, the tranquility inside the room, where even time seemed pausing, together created a relaxing aphrodisiac, urging me to sleep on. Even though dawn seems like the appropriate expression to use, mother would probably have simply said that this was nothing more than a moment of illusional magic brought on by the cloudy morning. The inside of the room still remained only faintly lit though the sun had probably risen some time before. Contrary to their usual behavior, on those mornings when the snow would come, every one of the villagers, on the pretext of just such illusional magic, dared to have shame enough to sleep so late that their noses would have to be twisted to awaken them. That aphrodisiac, that tranquility, was a happiness beyond calmness of relaxation of laziness. For this was a special moment, bringing me feelings of utter peacefulness, the smaller and larger bones inside my body untying their firm and hardened chain of connection, each scattering asunder, one by one.


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Now, I would guess that both are bad translations. The first, I imagine, may be rather truncated, but it does seem to be a form of English. The second, unless the translator is just tripping out and rhapsodizing on his/her own initiative, seems to be a too literal translation hobbled by diction errors and a total lack of competence in English idiom (or perhaps there's an effort to retain the Koreanness or exoticism by using literally translated idioms that come across rather awkwardly in English).

Randomly placed commas are as found, and I don't really want to know what this kid is doing taking aphrodisiacs while in bed with his mom, but I suppose the translator meant soporific or tranquilizer. Fused butts and scattered bones don't sound quite as relaxing to my ear as they may have been intended.

I'm amazed.

OR

I feel as though my brain's butt had been welded to a zillion, squillion, goose fat feathers, spiralling like a hardened chain of waves. In the snow, a snow of illusional magic.

Haha!

Aargh, every time I look back at either text, I find something to gripe about. Why, in the Stingray version, is there a contrast between daybreak approaching and it being warm in the room (which by the way, is clearly heated by traditional Korean underfloor "ondol" heating). And why is it a matter of sleeping late and being lazy to still be asleep at daybreak? And how did approaching daybreak become "The sun had risen long ago?"... unless there's a time elipsis... well, anyway, the Stingray looks more palatable (and bland... and characterless) than whackadoodle Thornback Fish.