Diacritiques

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.

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.]

Ian Rankin is one of a small handful of mystery writers whose work I particularly enjoy. And since, let’s face it, I read faster than he can write new novels, I had postponed reading the latest one of his Detective Inspector John Rebus series, Fleshmarket Close.

It’s as good as all the others — the plot revolves around asylum seekers, murdered rapists and strange skeletons turning up in stranger places, and there’s a bit more tension between the protagonists than usual — and offers a particular bonus: DI Rebus and DS Ellen Wylie get to visit the Edinburgh University linguistics department. And witness phonetics research in the making.

‘There’s a linguistics department — we’ve used them in the past for voice tests.’ A grey-uniformed servitor sat in the reception booth.
‘Dr Maybury,’ Rebus said.
‘Room two-twelve.’ […]
The language lab was at the end of a corridor, through a set of double doors. Four students sat in a row of booths, unable to see each other. They wore headphones, and spoke into microphones, repeating a set of random-seeming words:
  Bread
  Mother
  Think
  Properly
  Lake
  Allegory
  Entertainment
  Interesting
  Impressive
They looked up as Rebus and Wylie entered. A woman was facing them, seated at a large desk with what looked like a switchboard attached to it, and a large cassette recorder hooked up to that. She made an impatient sound and switched off the recorder.
‘What is it?’ she snapped.
[Dr Maybury sends the two detectives to her office, where they proceed to make coffee while they wait for her. Two pages later, she joins them.]
‘Can I get you a coffee, Dr Maybury?’ Wylie asked.
‘I’m awash with the stuff,’ Maybury said briskly. Then she uttered another apology, thanking Wylie for the offer.
Rebus remembererd this about her: that she was easily flustered, and she always apologised more than was necessary.
‘Sorry,’ she said again, for no apparent reason, as she shuffled together some of the papers in front of her.
‘What was happening downstairs?’ Wylie asked.
‘You mean the reeling off those lists?’ Maybury’s mouth twitched. ‘I’m doing some research into elision …’
Wylie held up a hand, like a pupil in class. ‘While you and I know what that means, Doctor, maybe you could explain it for DI Rebus?’
‘I think, when you came in, the word I was interested in was “properly”. People have started pronouncing it with part of its middle missing — that’s what elision is.’
Rebus had to stop himself from asking what the point of such research was. Instead, he tapped the table in front of him with his fingertips. ‘We’ve got a tape we’d like you to listen to,’ he said.
[The detectives conclude their business and return to the police station. Still, they are not convinced of the importance of Maybury’s research.]
‘Elision,’ Rebus said, leaving the word hang there. […]
‘Elision,’ Wylie agreed, nodding. ‘Good to know research is being done into it.’
‘And done “proply”.’ Rebus snorted to himself. ‘You ever study geography, Ellen?’
‘I did at school. You reckon it’s more important than linguistics?’
‘I was just thinking of Whitemire [a refugee detention centre] … some of the nationalities there — Angola, Namibia, Albania — I couldn’t point to them on a map.’
‘Me neither.’

Now please don’t start accusing Ian Rankin of being anti-linguistics. DI Rebus is far from being a model in many respects. Plus, his bumbling, but ultimately successful attempts at locating Senegal offsets his low opinion of phonetics. Not to mention that the Edinburgh linguistics department does make a small but significant contribution to his case in the end.

On a more eggcornological note or two, there’s some talk of bailing rejected asylum seekers out of that pre-deportation holding centre — a sinister place, however clean and in compliance with regulations. So I was a bit surprised to find a variant spelling in a place where bail (well, I think it ought to be bail) is used in a different sense:

• Even having been coaxed into the passenger seat, it took Kate a while to pull the door closed, and longer still to fasten her seatbelt, Rebus fearing that she might bale out at any time.

A one-time slip-up, or Rankin’s preferred spelling, the other instances having been corrected by the editor? The Eggcorn Database has an entry (by Ben Zimmer) in the other direction: baling»bailing as in bailing wire.

Finally, I’m happy to report a perfectly natural occurrence of zone in on, which Mark Liberman at Language Log considers a “further development” of the eggcorn home in»hone in:

• ‘Funny,’ Siobhan said, ‘Donny Cruikshank died in a town full of enemies, and the one person we’ve zoned in on is just about the only friend he had.’

All these little discoveries make me wonder if my reading habits haven’t changed lately, with part of my attention focussed on this sort of stuff.

Il neige dans mon coeur Comme il neige sur la ville, Quelle est cette langueur Qui recouvre mon coeur? O chuchotis de la neige Par terre et sur les toits! Pour un coeur qui se piège O musique de la neige! Il neige sans raison Dans ce coeur qui s’écoeure. Quoi! nulle trahison? Ce deuil est sans raison. C’est bien la pire peine De ne savoir pourquoi, Sans amour […]

Une amie vient de m’indiquer le Dictionnaire International des Termes Littéraires (DITL), concu par un groupe de chercheurs de l’Université de Limoges. Les articles, majoritairement en français pour l’instant, ont l’air utiles.

Qui dit qu’il ne peut en avoir qu’un seul MdlS par semaine ? D’autant plus que celui-ci n’est même pas une locution; mais quand on sait s’y prendre, il peut toujours servir comme métaphore. Pour expliquer ce qui m’a incitée à écrire ce billet sur l’expression moineau de Lesbie et comment je suis tombée dessus, il va […]