Reading Little Women

À la suite du billet précédent, quelques réflexions sur Little Women, le livre de Louisa May Alcott.

I just posted about how several French translations of Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women are wretchedly bowdlerised, pale reflections of the original, and that there is indeed an entire editorial history of a) removing all references to religion (the entire Pilgrim’s Progress dimension, the profession of the girls’ father, the Catholicism of the maid Estelle …), b) cutting down the wildness, queerness of Jo and c) generally pouring heaps of sugar into word choice and descriptions. (To attenuate this harsh judgement, at least two recent translations appear to be doing much better.)

It is likely that the German version I must have come across during my youth — I haunted forever the public library and the book stores — suffered from similar faults, because I had never actually read the book.#[1] But now I’ve rectified the omission, and want to write up a few impressions.

First of all, it’s really quite good. Certainly an enjoyable read, given how little attractive I find the bildungsroman genre#[2]. To be sure, there’s a fair bit of very protestant moralising of the type “every moral failure, however small, will bring the appropriate punishment in its wake”, and at times there’s just a little too much goodness all around. Still, the characters are psychologically complex, even the most faultless ones, the book’s dramatic at times, and I like Alcott’s humour.

A few points about how the author deploys English sprang to mind. There’s singular (undetermined) antecedent themselves:

Jo announced that the coffee was ready, and everyone settled themselves to a hearty meal; for youth is seldom dyspeptic, and exercise develops wholesome appetites.

The bunch of (mostly) adolescents for whom Jo is making coffee here consists of boys and girls, and the preceding passages have been dealing with the interaction between the girls, between the boys, and between boys and girls. The mixed-sex nature of the group is acutely before the reader’s mental eye. To claim that himself would be gender-neutral in this case would be rather preposterous.

There are three occurrences of wet-blanket, two of which as verbs:

‘I know Meg would wet-blanket such a proposal, but I thought you had more spirit,’ began Laurie, insinuatingly.
A few other topics of general interest were introduced by Mr. Brooke and wet-blanketed by Mrs. Brooke, and conversation languished.

Of course! The idiom comes from extinguishing fire with a wet blanket — I’d never thought of this before.

There’s also a sentence that looks like a mild case of Neal Whitman’s “FLOP coordination”:

[…] if he had not possessed a talisman against evil in the memory of the kind old man who was bound up in his success, the motherly friend who watched over him as if he were her son, and last, but not least by any means, the knowledge that four innocent girls loved, admired, and believed in him with all their hearts.

Amy, the youngest and vainest of the sisters, is frequently shown to produce malapropisms. In the beginning, this happens mostly when, out of desire to distinguish herself in front of her older sisters, she employs words that are too big for her and is duly laughed at by the straightforward Jo. But as the books (both volumes) progress, her stabs at elaborate vocabulary and, sometimes, French, becomes just a way to characterise her. In the following bit, the misinterpretation is attributed to the servant Hannah, but it’s Amy speaking, and in a way that’s typical for her:

“Why, Mother, how can you think of such a thing? Not more than six or eight will probably come, so I shall hire a beach wagon and borrow Mr. Laurence’s cherry-bounce.” (Hannah’s pronunciation of charabanc.)

The eggcorn is quite ingenious: You can just imagine Amy and her rich friends bouncing along under the cherry trees in a horse-dawn carriage. (Charabanc comes from the French char à banc(s), i.e. a coach or carriage equipped with benches. In contemporary French, char means tank, though in the Quebecois dialect, the word can also refer to a car.)

Last, just to cite a sentence I admired for its dramatic effect, a bit from the beginning of the second volume, in which Jo has just received a positive reply from a publisher who is prepared to accept her first novel, provided she shortens the text:

So, with Spartan firmness, the young authoress laid her first-born on her table, and chopped it up as ruthlessly as any ogre.


[1]: The German title is Betty und ihre Schwestern (”Betty and her Sisters”). Compare this with the French Les quatre filles du Docteur March (”Doctor March’s four daughters”). Titles tend to survive from the first translations, which, by modern standards, tend to leave much to be desired. They are, after all, what the book is know by. Still, strange choices. At least in French, a literal translation of the title would be entirely feasible without sounding odd. [2]: Embarrassing secret: I just can’t stand Goethe.


Little Women en V.F. : c’est la consternation

A fellow blogger discovers that his French translation of Louisa May Alcott’s classic Little Women (French title: Les quatre filles du Docteur March) is a horribly bowdlerised text. If you wonder where the “doctor” part in the title comes from, you’ve caught the first strand of what turns out to be the fascinating editorial history of the French version. Starting at the end of the 19th century, the references to religion and the characterisation of Jo, one the novel’s heroines, have been highly problematic, as far as the French editors and translators have been concerned.

Pascal de chez Finis Africae découvre que la lecture de Little Women (titre français : Les quatre filles du Docteur March), le roman de formation de Louisa May Alcott, en version française appelle quelques interrogations critiques. Principale mise en cause : la traduction, dans son cas celle de Anne Joba pour Le Livre de Poche Jeunesse :

  • Seule la première partie du roman est traduite, la seconde n’étant semble-t-il pas disponible chez nous. Ainsi, pour les lecteurs francophones, Beth ne tombe pas malade, ne meurt pas à la fin, et le roman se termine sur un happy end. Et sur cette première partie elle-même, il manque trois chapitres. […]
  • Toute référence à la religion est supprimée. Par exemple, on ne parle pas du Pilgrim’s Progress dans cette version française, et si la gouvernante est toujours française, elle n’est plus catholique. […]
  • Les références à la littérature sont également supprimées. Ainsi, au chapitre 3, Jo ne pleure plus sur The Heir of Redclyffe mais sur « un livre qu’elle lisait », et au chapitre 5, Meg ne se replonge plus dans Ivanhoe mais dans « son livre ». […]

Pascal fournit un lien vers un autre site détaillant les mutilations qu’a subi ce classique de la littérature de jeunesse américaine du 19ème siècle aux mains de la traductrice et de l’éditeur.

Après quelques recherches, on se rend compte que les versions expurgées et édulcorées de ce roman en langue française ne datent pas d’hier. L’excellent article De Little Women de Louisa May Alcott aux Quatre filles du docteur March. Les traductions françaises d’un roman de formation au féminin de Claire Le Brun (Université Concordia, Montréal, Canada) — disponible en ligne sur le site extrêmement intéressant d’édition scientifique erudit.org — fait la comparaison de six traductions françaises entre 1880 et la fin du 20ème siècle. (Celle de Anna Joba n’en fait pas partie.) En effet, Claire Le Brun observe :

[E]n 1880, Pierre-Jules Hetzel, célèbre éditeur français pour la jeunesse, publie sous le pseudonyme de P.-J. Stahl, Les Quatre filles du docteur Marsch [sic] d’après L.M. Alcott, pour son « Magasin d’éducation et de récréation », fondé en 1864. P.-J. Stahl a joué un rôle décisif dans la transmission de Little Women en domaine francophone. Cette adaptation, plus ou moins retouchée par les éditeurs et des adaptateurs anonymes, continue d’avoir cours et nous l’avons incluse dans le choix de traductions. Elle a imposé au récit des distorsions qui n’ont pas été rectifiées depuis.

Ainsi c’est Stahl qui impose cette fiction du « docteur » March, en faisant jouer au père dans l’armée nordiste, non pas le rôle d’un aumônier, mais celui d’un médecin. Version plus acceptable dans une France républicaine où s’affrontent les tenants du catholicisme ultramontain et de la laïcité, peu réceptive dans son ensemble au mariage des guides spirituels. L’éditeur estimait en effet que le livre « tel qu’il était, n’aurait pu […] réussir en France ». Si les traductions récentes ont corrigé l’erreur dans le texte, le titre demeure inchangé, et les lectrices francophones continuent de croire que le père des soeurs March est docteur en médecine. Son absence dans le premier tome permet d’ailleurs de ne pas se poser trop de questions. La seconde modification substantielle apportée au texte est le gommage systématique de l’intertexte bunyanien. Chez Stahl, la Morale familière remplace le Pilgrim’s Progress. Or, ce texte clé de la spiritualité protestante (1678), évoqué dès le premier chapitre, imprime son mouvement au texte d’Alcott ;

L’étude de Claire Le Brun traite d’ailleurs longuement des passages touchant au personnage de Jo — garçon manqué, reflet autobiographique de l’auteure et de loin le personnage le plus intéressant du livre. Sa caractérisation ne sort que rarement indemne des traductions ; de l’adolescente complexe, forte tête dans tous les sens du mot, il ne reste souvent qu’un pâle reflet. Plusieurs tableaux comparatifs (je trouve particulièrement intéressants celui-ci et celui-ci) compètent l’article. En guise de conclusion, si aucune des six traductions n’est irréprochable, on peut s’attendre à ce que celle de Paulette Vielhomme-Callais (Gallimard Folio/Junior) et celle de Maud Godoc (Castor-Poche) soient à peu près buvables.

Il est passablement surprenant de constater qu’à une époque où la version cinématographique de la trilogie His Dark Materials (titre français : À la croisée des mondes) de Phillip Pullman est expurgée de toute référence à la religion pour cause de frilosité présumée du marché étatsunien, celle-ci est supprimée dans la traduction française d’un livré américain. Dans le premier cas, le projet de carrément tuer Dieu étant au centre de la trilogie, on redoute une réaction de rejet d’une société empreinte d’un christianisme militant. Dans le deuxième, on sous-estime les jeunes lecteurs et lectrices, et leur rend un piètre service en leur servant une sorte de bouillie insipide à force d’avoir ôté du plat original les épices peu familières.

Quand les jeunes américains lisent que Harry Potter et ses amis mangent des cheeseburgers alors qu’en version britannique, on leur sert des des bangers and mash (saucisses-purée), je peux encore en rire ; peut-être. Mais des atteintes à l’intégrité d’une œuvre et des tromperies du lectorat sur son contexte social et historique de cette étendue me semblent inexcusables.

[Cette démarche n’est bien sûr pas propre à la France et aux traducteurs français. Voici une perspective qui vient des États-Unis, sous forme de critique d’un livre sur la censure des idées potentiellement troublantes dans les recueils de textes utilisés dans l’enseignement, écrite par une bibliothécaire qui sait de quoi elle parle.]


Oh bugger! (A public service announcement)

Le sketch The Word “Fuck” [mp3] [script], bien que confidentiel, a été largement attribué à Monty Python. Il semble que cela ait été par erreur : un témoignage affirme que l’auteur de la version finale fut un certain Jack Walker, connu pour ayant été «la voix de Disney» dans les parcs d’attraction de cette société. Ceci collerait également mieux à l’accent nord-américain cultivé qu’on peut entendre sur l’enregistrement.

I may have inadvertently contributed to circulating a falsehood. It concerns a brilliant bit of comedy that goes by the title The Usage of the Word “Fuck” or The History of the Word “Fuck” or simply Fuck, The Word. Neither the script nor the recording is particularly easy to find, but wherever I saw it referenced, it was attributed to Monty Python. The delivery and format are sufficiently Pythonesque that it never occurred to me to doubt their authorship, even though the cultured American-accented voice on the recording doesn’t seem to belong to any of the Pythons and the skit is not part of their famous collections.

This morning on IRC, Dan Dickinson kept insisting that this work couldn’t be Monty Python’s. He came up with a page that quotes an e-mail claiming that while the origins of the recording are still in the dark, the author and speaker of the final version was one Jack Wagner:

The guy who does the audio on the “Fuck, The Word” (aka “The Word Fuck”) track is NOT George Carlin, nor is it Monty Python, as is often credited.

It is the late Jack Wagner, the former ‘voice of Disneyland’.

I know, since I gave him the ORIGINAL copy on tape (before the internet) in 1989 during a time when we worked together. I have NO IDEA who did that version, but it was much shorter & the quality of the tape was quite poor. (Musicians, voiceover artists, engineers and other recording guys often traded tapes of rare & funny stuff. Unfortunately, quality was lost in generation after generations of copies.) Jack decided to re-do it, correcting some grammar and adding a few more examples of his own, then backed the whole thing up with the Vivaldi music.

I know this - I had the original copy and heard it first. Later, I heard from other techies at the park that he was so proud of it that he’d share it with everyone. I had always worried it would get him into trouble, but if ANYONE at Disneyland had ‘job security’, it would be him!

Years later when I heard it on the internet (the world’s bulletin board or bathroom wall), I just had to snicker. But we need to give credit where credit is due. His family may wish to forget it - the ‘park’ certainly does! - but he seemed to have been proud of it, so give him the creds.

The author of this missive wants to remain anonymous so as not to endanger his employment. But as anonymous e-mails go, this one is rather convincing. I’m happy to give credits to Jack Wagner. Even better: if this story is true, I see no reason not to make the recording [mp3] available for download.

Update, 2007-06-03: This little document is responsible for an astonishing part of my download bandwidth. I have therefore uploaded it to the Internet Archive and changed the link to their service. Many thanks.


Seen in a few places on the web lately, this is what I want on a t-shirt: I � Unicode During yesterday’s Paris blogger meet-up Paris Carnet, Mouche noted that a sticker might be even better; and was worried about what it meant that she not only understood the joke but even found it funny. The character […]

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Via Bridget Samuels at ilani ilani: The IPA council has adopted the first new phonetic symbol in twelve years. SIL explains that the “right hook v” will symbolise a labiodental flap, and how to produce this sound. It is a phoneme in several African languages, among which Mono. The latest beta versions of the Doulos SIL […]

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