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...that thousands, even hundreds of thousands of people, have experienced reading this book in recent months, a great boon to cervantistas' (or at least my) desire to see a Quijote on everyone's bookshelf. Our collective hats should collectively be tipped in the direction of New York's Upper West Side to congratulate Edith Grossman on her achievement.
This is a trade book destined for the general reader, and in this role Grossman's text is ideal--you read it, you get the story, you get lots of footnotes--in an altogether readable format.
In the first two paragraphs of the novel itself, it matters little to the man in the street whether don Quijote's lance was stored on a shelf (as the translation says [19]) (1) or on a lance rack, or if Don Quijote's greyhound was used for racing (as in the translation) or if he was merely swift. (A parallel with "galgo corredor" is in II, 41, where "cohetes tronadotes" was translated as just "fireworks" [724].) It equally doesn't make any difference to that same fellow if don Quijote lived "Somewhere in La Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember" (as the translation says), or "In a village in La Mancha, whose name I do not care to remember" (italics are mine), because villages are places after all. But these little details should be a caveat about the translations's familiarity with the Golden Age idiom, where "lugar" in this context, does mean 'village.'
There has been a flood of "reviews" of this translation, all favorable, and none with much, if any, analysis: some of these are those of James Wood (The New Yorker), Tania Barrientos (The Philadelphia Inquirer), The San Francisco Chronicle, Carlos Fuentes (The New York Times, with a rebuttal by Roberto Carlos Echevarría in a letter to the editor), Craig McDonald (This Week, UK), Jay Tolson (U.S. News), Julian Evans (The Daily Telegraph, UK), Max Gross (Forward), Robert McCrum (The Observer, UK), Terry Castle (The Atlantic Monthly), and Richard Eder. (2) I hope to give quite a bit of analysis here.
Part of the problem Don Quixote translators face is that of which edition to use to translate from. (3) Grossman says that she used "Martin de Riquer's edition"--but Riquer has done two different editions, the one from 1955 and the one from 1980, the latter of which he (naturally) considers superior. Looking at the footnote on p. 67 of the translation, where "Benengeli" is associated with "berenjena" and the Moors' predilection for dishes made with eggplant, it seems to reflect the use of the 1955 edition instead of the 1980 edition, which no longer insists on the Moors' culinary tastes.
An example of how the edition leads the translator astray is in the Captive's Tale, where the renegade decides to take on a partner with whom he can buy a boat, a certain "Moro Tangerino" (folio 242v in the 1605 princeps) 'A Moor from Tangier.' Since the same fellow is called a "Tagarino" 'Moor from Aragón' later, almost everyone considers the Tangier reference to be an error and homogenize the text so that both are "Tagarinos." So, "Tagarino" it is in Riquer, with no note about the change, and "Tagarino" it is in the translation (351). Again, when don Quijote and others arrive at an inn, the famous "cousin," who was leading don Quijote to the Cave of Montesinos, is suddenly identified as the "sobrino" in the Spanish text. It looks like dopey old Cervantes has made another obvious gaffe! Virtually all editors "fix" it silently back to "cousin," doubtless thinking they are doing Cervantes a favor. Riquer changes it to "primo" without a note, which Grossman translates in all innocence. So, where Riquer has gone astray, so has Grossman unsuspectingly gone astray as well.
Finding the right word in a second language for plays on words in the original can be sticky. Here is a successful translation of a tricky passage. The muleteer in I, 3 goes to get water for his animals: "The muleteer cared nothing for these words [of admonishment by don Quijote]--and it would have been better for him if he had, because it meant caring for his health and well being" (32). Spanish: "No se curd el arriero destas razones (y fuera mejor que se curara ..." (italics in both texts are of course mine). How to fix the problem of "tantas letras tiene un no como un si" in I, 22 is handled in this way, which works just fine: "they say no has even fewer letters than yes" (165). Proverbs are another problem, and the translation handles some of them very well by giving appropriate English equivalents. Sancho says: "the proverb fits: birds of a feather flock together" (610) for the Spanish "dime con quien andas; decirte he quién eres." After Maese Pedro's ape escapes, he says: "It would be like pulling teeth to get him back" (653). This is a good English equivalent for the Spanish, which says: "me han de sudar los dientes." In a scene where Sancho apologizes to don Quijote, he says: "If I talk too much, it comes more from weakness than from malice, and to err is human, to forgive divine" (646). A fine equivalent for "quien yerra y se enmienda, a Dios se encomienda."
On the other hand, the translation sometimes misses the boat, such as when Ginés de Pasamonte says that demanding that the galley slaves go to El Toboso is "like asking pears from an elm tree" (172) with similar variants of the same expression on pp. 726 and 799. Wouldn't "trying to get blood from a turnip" be the best equivalent? Similarly, when don Quijote speaks of Durandarte, he says that he was "of pure flesh and pure bone" (606)--wouldn't "pure flesh and blood" be better? And as for "Zamora was not won in an hour" (922), wouldn't "Rome was not built in a day" be more logical?
I like it when the flavor of the Spanish is kept by using Spanish words that everyone knows, instead of their translations. Andrés in I, 4 says: "I won't do it again, Señor, by the Passion of Christ" (36). Similarly, Sancho's promised insula is kept as "insula" in the translation. When other characters are named, it is very good that their Spanish names are kept, such as Grisóstomo and Ambrosio (81).
I also like it when Spanish currency is used instead of foreign money, such as dollars and farthings. Footnotes can explain what they are worth. "Don Quijote calculated the sum and found that it amounted to seventy-three reales" (36). (And we should be grateful that "seventy-three" was retained as well; some editions correct Don Quixote's "mistaken" arithmetic.) Later, don Quijote explains to Dorotea that he wanted to make Juan Haldudo pay Andros "down to the last maravedí" (265).
When the text says that our narrator was "en el Alcaná de Toledo," just what is this "Alcaná"? The translation edifies by saying "One day when I was in the Alcaná market in Toledo" (67). The clarification is good...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos
have been removed from this article.
More articles from Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America
Hearing voices of satire in Don Quixote., March 22, 2006
Eric J. Kartchner. Unhappily Ever After: Deceptive Idealism in Cervant..., March 22, 2006
Alberto Rivas Yanes, ed. El hidalgo fuerte: Siete miradas al Quijote, March 22, 2006
Barbara Fuchs. Passing for Spain: Cervantes and the Fictions of Identi..., March 22, 2006
Ciriaco Moron. Para entender el Quijote.(Rese�a de libro), March 22, 2006
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