Chapter 58 Don't think about it (4)

I tried to talk to my friends that if "Red Mansions" were to be translated into English, Eileen Chang would be the ideal translator of choice, and no one else could do it, including some Chinese and foreign translations. I said again: her translation should be a test for the translation of "Red Mansion". Coincidentally, Lin Yutang seems to have long had the ambition to translate "Red Mansions" into English, but he first wrote a book called "Moment in Peking", translated into Chinese as "Jinghua Yanyun" (four flat tones, none of which can understand the rhythm of Chinese characters), intending to emulate Xueqin's book.Both of these two have profound English attainments, and even if they dare not do it lightly, we can see that it is difficult.

I mentioned that when I was at Yenching University, I told my classmate Xu Zhengyang (later a professor at Nankai University): Almost all the novels in the late Qing Dynasty imitated "Red Mansions", but the most similar style of writing was only three-thirds similar.Later, I saw that Zhang Ailing also had the same words.Sigh as "heroes see the same thing". Looking back on the past, it was pure Wu dialect, and I didn’t know Wu dialect, so I learned from Brother Xu—he is from Kip Stone Village, Haining, but grew up in Shanghai, so that’s fine.I learned quickly and could read through, which I consider a pleasure.

The purpose of citing this anecdote is to illustrate that the perception of Xueqin's writing style also requires a "sixth sense" ability.Those who say that Gao E's Pseudo-Continuation is the "original work" are due to, among other reasons, the lack of this kind of sensibility.I wonder why she gave up her career in English translation of The Red Chamber.This is a great loss and regret in the cultural exchange between China and the West! For example, translators translated Pinger's name as Patience. I am really unpredictable. How did he "think"?Another example is that Hauks blatantly translated "Huo Qi" into Calamity, which is even more appalling.Did officials and eunuchs in the Qing Dynasty give their servants this name?I always want to ask wise people for advice.

I think it is absurd to "freely translate" the names of people in the book.The best way is to "transliterate", and then add footnotes, indicating what the original meaning is, and where are the ingenuity of puns and homonyms, so that foreign readers can understand clearly and taste a little bit of the special taste of Chinese characters. Now that Ms. Zhang is no longer alive, and there are very few people in China who are proficient in both red studies and English, who should I discuss these topics with? The poem says: Melancholy, no one talks about ingenuity, and the Chinese and Western languages ​​are different.

The Red Chamber cannot be translated by Zhang Jun, and the dream pen is in vain to find flowers.