Collected Fictions
Page 59
But while for many readers of these translations Borges was a new writer appearing as though out of nowhere, the truth was that by the time we were reading Borges for the first time in English, he had been writing for forty years or more, long enough to have become a self-conscious, self-possessed, and self-critical master of the craft.
The reader of the forewords to the fictions will note that Borges is forever commenting on the style of the stories or the entire volume, preparing the reader for what is to come stylistically as well as thematically. More than once he draws our attention to the "plain style" of the pieces, in contrast to his earlier "baroque." And he is right: Borges' prose style is characterized by a deter-mined economy of resources in which every word is weighted, every word (every mark of punctuation) "tells." It is a quiet style, whose effects are achieved not with bombast or pomp, but rather with a single exploding word or phrase, dropped almost as though offhandedly into a quiet sentence: "He examined his wounds and saw, without astonishment, that they had healed." This laconic detail ("without astonishment"), coming at the very beginning of "The Circular Ruins," will probably only at the end of the story be recalled by the reader, who will, retrospectively and somewhat abashedly, see that it changes everything in the story; it is quintessential Borges.
Quietness, subtlety, a laconic terseness—these are the marks of Borges' style. It is a style that has often been called intellectual, and indeed it is dense with allusion—to literature, to philosophy, to religion or theology, to myth, to the culture and history of Buenos Aires and Argentina and the Southern Cone of South America, to the other contexts in which his words may have appeared. But it is also a simple style: Borges' sentences are almost invariably classical in their symmetry, in their balance. Borges likes parallelism, chiasmus, subtle repetitions-with-variations; his only indulgence in "shocking" the reader (an effect he repudiated) may be the "Miltonian displacement of adjectives" to which he alludes in his foreword to The Maker.
Another clear mark of Borges' prose is its employment of certain words with, or for, their etymological value. Again, this is an adjectival device, and it is perhaps the technique that is most unsettling to the reader. One of the most famous opening lines in Spanish literature is this: Nadie lo vio desembarcar en la unánime noche:"No one saw him slip from the boat in the unanimous night." What an odd adjective, "unanimous." It is so odd, in fact, that other translations have not allowed it. But it is just as odd in Spanish, and it clearly responds to Borges' intention, explicitly expressed in such fictions as "The Immortal," to let the Latin root govern the Spanish (and, by extension, English) usage. There is, for instance, a "splendid" woman: Her red hair glows. If the translator strives for similarity of effect in the translation (as I have), then he or she cannot, I think, avoid using this technique—which is a technique that Borges' beloved Emerson and de Quincey and Sir Thomas Browne also used with great virtuosity.
Borges himself was a translator of some note, and in addition to the translations perse that he left to Spanish culture—a number of German lyrics, Faulkner, Woolf, Whitman, Melville, Carlyle , Swedenborg, and others—he left at least three essays on the act of translation itself. Two of these, I have found, are extraordinarily liberating to the translator. In "Versions of Homer" ("Lasversiones homéricas,"1932), Borges makes it unmistakably clear that every translation is a "version" —not the translation of Homer (or any other author) but a translation, one in a never-ending series, at least an infinite possible series. The very idea of the (definitive) translation is misguided, Borges tells us; there are only drafts, approximations— versions, as he insists on calling them. He chides us: "The concept of definitive text' is appealed to only by religion, or by weariness."Borges makes the point even more emphatically in his later essay "The Translators of the 1001 Nights"("Los traductores de las 1001 Noches" 1935).
If my count is correct, at least seventeen translators have preceded me in translating one or more of the fictions of Jorge Luis Borges. Inmost translator's notes, the translator would feel obliged to justify his or her new translation of a classic, to tell the potential reader of this new version that the shortcomings and errors of those seventeen or so prior translations have been met and conquered, as though they were enemies. Borges has tried in his essays to teach us, however, that we should not translate "against" our predecessors; a new translation is always justified by the new voice given the old work, by the new life in a new land that the translation confers on it, by the "shock of the new" that both old and new readers will experience from this inevitably new (or renewed) work. What Borges teaches is that we should simply commend the translation to the reader, with the hope that the reader will find in it a literary experience that is rich and moving. I have listened to Borges' advice as I have listened to Borges' fictions, and I—like the translators who have preceded me—have rendered Borges in the style that I hear when I listen to him. I think that the reader of my version will hear something of the genius of his storytelling and his style. For those who wish to read Borges as Borges wrote Borges, there is always levoyageà l'espagnol.
The text that the Borges estate specified to be used for this new translation is the three-volume Obras completas, published by Emecé Editores in 1989.
In producing this translation, it has not been our intention to produce anannotated or scholarly edition of Borges, but rather a "reader's edition." Thus, bibliographical information (which is often confused or terribly complex even in the most reliable of cases) has not been included except in a couple of clear instances, nor have we taken variants into account in any way; the Borges Foundation is reported to be working on a fully annotated, bibliographically reasoned variorum, and scholars of course can go to the several bibliographies and many other references that now exist. I have, however, tried to provide the Anglophone reader with at least a modicum of the general knowledge of the history, literature, and culture of Argentina and the Southern Cone of South America that a Hispanophone reader of the fictions, growing up in that culture, would inevitably have. To that end, asterisks have been inserted into the text of the fictions, tied to corresponding notes at the back of the book. (The notes often cite sources where interested readers can find further information.)
One particularly thorny translation decision that had to be made involved A Universal History of Iniquity. This volume is purportedly a series of biographies of reprehensible evildoers, and as biography, the book might be expected to rely greatly upon "sources" of one sort or another—as indeed Borges'"Index of Sources" seems to imply. In his preface to the 1954 reprinting of the volume, however, Borges acknowledges the "fictive" nature of his stories: This is a case, he says, of "changing and distorting (sometimes without aesthetic justification) the stories of other men" to produce a work singularly his own. This sui generis use of sources, most of which were in English, presents the translator with something of a challenge: to translate Borges even while Borges is cribbing from, translating, and "changing and distorting" other writers' stories. The method I have chosen to employ is to go to the sources Borges names, to see the ground upon which those changes and distortions were wrought; where Borges is clearly translating phrases, sentences, or even larger pieces of text, I have used the English of the original source. Thus, the New York gangsters in "Monk Eastman" speak as Asbury quotes them, not as I might have translated Borges' Spanish into English had I been translating in the usual sense of the word; back-translating Borges' translation did not seem to make much sense. But even while returning to the sources, I have made no attempt, either in the text or in my notes, to "correct"Borges;he has changed names (or their spellings), dates, numbers, locations, etc., as his literary vision led him to, but the tracing of those "deviations" is a matter which the editors and I have decided should be left to critics and scholarly publications.
More often than one would imagine, Borges' characters are murderers, knife fighters, throat slitters, liars, evil or casually violent men and women—and of course many of them "live" in
a time different from our own. They sometimes use language that is strong, and that today may well be offensive— words denoting membership in ethnic and racial groups, for example. In the Hispanic culture, however, some of these expressions can be, and often are, used as terms of endearment— negro/negra and chino/china come at once to mind. (I am not claiming that Argentina is free of bigotry; Borges chronicles that, too.) All this is to explain a decision as to my translation of certain terms—specifically rustió(literally "little Russian," but with the force of "Jew," "sheeny"), pardo/parda(literally "dark mulatto," "black-skinned"), and gringo (meaning Italian immigrants: "wops," etc.)—that Borges uses in his fictions. I have chosen to use the word "sheeny" for rusito and the word "wop" for gringo because in the stories in which these words appear, there is an intention to be offensive—a character's intention, not Borges'. I have also chosen to use the word "nigger" for pardo/parda. This decision is taken not without considerable soul-searching, but I feel there is historical justification for it. In the May 20, 1996, edition of The New Yorker magazine, p. 63, the respected historian and cultural critic Jonathan Raban noted the existence of a nineteenth-century "Nigger Bob's saloon," where, out on the Western frontier, husbands would await the arrival of the train bringing their wives from the East. Thus, when a character in one of Borges' stories says, "I knew I could count on you, old nigger," one can almost hear the slight tenderness, or respect, in the voice, even if, at the same time, one winces. In my view, it is not the translator's place to (as Borges put it) "soften or mitigate" these words. Therefore, I have translated the epithets with the words I believe would have been used in English—in the United States, say—at the time the stories take place.
The footnotes that appear throughout the text of the stories in the Collected Fictions are Borges' own, even when they say "Ed."
This translation commemorates the centenary of Borges' birth in 1899; I wish it also to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the first appearance of Borges in English, in 1948. It is to all translators, then, Borges included, that this translation is—unanimously—dedicated.
Andrew Hurley
San Juan, Puerto Rico, June 1998
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras for a sabbatical leave that enabled me to begin this project. My thanks to the administration, and to the College of Humanities and the Department of English, for their constant support of my work not only on this project but throughout my twenty-odd years at UPR.
The University of Texas at Austin, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and its director, Madeline Sutherland-Maier, were most gracious in welcoming the stranger among them. The department sponsored me as a Visiting Scholar with access to all the libraries at UT during my three years in Austin, where most of this translation was produced. My sincerest gratitude is also owed those libraries and their staffs, especially the Perry-Castañeda, the Benson Latin American Collection, and the Humanities Research Center (HRC). Most of the staff, I must abashedly confess, were nameless to me, but one person, Cathy Henderson, has been especially important, as the manuscripts for this project have been incorporated into the Translator Archives in the HRC.
For many reasons this project has been more than usually complex. At Viking Penguin, my editors, Kathryn Court and Michael Millman, have been steadfast, stalwart, and (probably more often than they would have liked) inspired in seeing it through. One could not possibly have had more supportive colleagues, or co-conspirators, who stuck by one with any greater solidarity.
Many, many people have given me advice, answered questions, and offered support of all kinds—they know who they are, and will forgive me, I know, for not mentioning them all personally; I have been asked to keep these acknowledgments brief. But two people, Carter Wheelock and Margaret Sayers Peden, have contributed in an especially important and intimate way, and my gratitude to them cannot go unexpressed here. Carter Wheelock read word by word through an "early-final" draft of the translation, comparing it against the Spanish for omissions, misperceptions and mistranslations, and errors of fact. This translation is the cleaner and more honest for his efforts. Margaret Sayers Peden (a.k.a. Fetch), one of the finest translators from Spanish working in the world today, was engaged by the publisher to be an outside editor for this volume. Fetch read through the late stages of the translation, comparing it with the Spanish, suggesting changes that ranged from punctuation to "readings."
Translators want to translate, love to translate; for a translator at the height of her powers to read a translation in this painstaking way and yet, while suggesting changes and improvements, to respect the other translator's work, his approach, his thought processes and creativity—even to applaud the other translator's (very) occasional strokes of brilliance—is to engage in an act of selflessness that is almost superhuman. She made the usual somewhat tedious editing process a joy.
I would never invoke Carter Wheelock's and Fetch Peden's readings of the manuscripts of this translation—or those of Michael Millman and the other readers at Viking Penguin—as giving it any authority or credentials or infallibility beyond its fair deserts, but I must say that those readings have given me a security in this translation that I almost surely would not have felt so strongly without them. I am deeply and humbly indebted.
First, last, always, and in number of words inversely proportional to my gratitude—I thank my wife, Isabel Garayta.
Andrew Hurley
San Juan, Puerto Rico, June 1998
Notes to the Fictions
Notes to A Universal History of Iniquity
Preface to the First Edition
Preface to the 1954 Edition
The Cruel Redeemer Lazarus Morell
The Widow Ching—Pirate
Monk Eastman, Purveyor of Iniquities
The Disinterested Killer Bill Harrigan
The Uncivil Teacher of Court Etiquette Kôtsuké no Suké
Man on Pink Corner
Et cetera
Index of Sources
Notes to Fictions ("The Garden of Forking Paths" and "Artifices")
THE GARDEN OF FORKING PATHS
Foreword
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote
A Survey of the Works of Herbert Quain
ARTIFICES
Funes, His Memory
Three Versions of Judas
The End
The South
Notes to The Aleph
The Dead Man
A Biography of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz (1829-1874)
Emma Zunz
The Other Death
Averroës' Search
The Zahir
The Writing of the God
The Wait
The Aleph
Notes to The Maker
Foreword
Dreamtigers
Toenails
Covered Mirrors
The Mountebank
Delia Elena San Marco
A Dialog Between Dead Men
The Yellow Rose
Martín Fierro
Paradiso, XXXI, 108
Everything and Nothing
Ragnarök
In Memoriam, J.F.K.
Notes to In Praise of Darkness
Foreword
Pedro Salvadores
Notes to Brodie's Report
Foreword
The Interloper
Unworthy
The Story from Rosendo Juárez
The Encounter
Juan Muraña
The Elderly Lady
The Duel
The Other Duel
Guayaquil
Brodie's Report
Notes to The Book of Sand
The Other
The Congress
There Are More Things
The Night of the Gifts
A Weary Man's Utopia
Avelino Arredondo
The Book of Sand
Notes to Shakespeare's Me
mory
August 25, 1983
The Rose of Paracelsus
Shakespeare's Memory
These notes are intended only to supply information that a Latin American (and especially Argentine or Uruguayan) reader would have and that would color or determine his or her reading of the stories.
Generally, therefore, the notes cover only Argentine history and culture; I have presumed the reader to possess more or less the range of general or world history or culture that JLB makes constant reference to, or to have access to such reference books and other sources as would supply any need there. There is no intention here to produce an "annotated Borges," but rather only to illuminate certain passages that might remain obscure, or even be misunderstood, without that information.
For these notes, I am deeply indebted to A Dictionary of Borges by Evelyn Fishburn and Psiche Hughes (London: Duckworth, 1990). Other dictionaries, encyclopedias, reference books, biographies, and works of criticism have been consulted, but none has been as thorough and immediately useful as the Dictionary of Borges. In many places, and especially where I quote Fishburn and Hughes directly, I cite their contribution, but I have often paraphrased them without direct attribution; I would not want anyone to think, however, that I am unaware or unappreciative of the use I have made of them. Any errors are my own responsibility, of course, and should not be taken to reflect on them or their work in any way.
Another book that has been invaluable is Emir Rodriguez Monegal's Jorge Luis Borges: A Literary Biography(New York: Paragon Press, [paper] 1988), now out of print. In the notes, I have cited this work as "Rodriguez Monegal, p. x."