Translator as reader

Response paper on Rosemary Arrojo’s “Writing, Interpreting, and the Power Struggle for the Control of Meaning: Scenes from Kafka, Borges, and Kosztolányi”

In her article, Rosemary Arrojo focuses on the controversial relationship between writing and interpreting, authorship and readership in the axis of creation of meaning. She introduces both triadic and multidimensional relation between the author, the reader and the text, and she explains why this net of relationships plays a crucial role in Translation Studies.

Arrojo, following Nietzche’s assertion that every act of reading “involves a fresh interpretation, an adaptation through which any previous ‘meaning’ and ‘purpose’ are necessarily obscured or even obliterated” (Nietzsche in Arrojo 2002:73). In Karamcheti’s terms, every act of interpreting is “subversion” of reality or the subversion of an essential meaning. As Arrojo states:

… we cannot separate the text from its reading, the latter is inextricably related to the will to power and, thus, is a way of taking over rather than protecting or merely reproducing someone else’s meaning (65)… we cannot help but to impose our own meaning on texts (…) we would not settle for a simple, “uninteresting” interpretation and are thus also caught by the narrator’s misleading clues as we approach his textual maze (72).

As Gayatri Spivak defines translation as “the most intimate act of reading”, the translator is first and foremost an interpreter and a reader. According to Arrojo’s deconstructive approach, there is no consensus, not even a motivation to compromise on a common meaning between the author and the reader/traslator. On the contrary, as Nietzche asserts, there is a “struggle” and this struggle is based on “power” and “control over meaning” As she states,

the implicit relationship between authors and interpreters is not exactly inspired by cooperation or collaboration (…) but, rather, is constituted by an underlying competition, by a struggle for the power to determine that which will be (provisionally) accepted as true and definite within certain context and under certain circumstances” (Arrojo 2002:73)

Arrojo’s article raises important questions on the task of the translator and his/her “rights and privileges of authorship” (74). First, she clarifies one of the main the reasons why, in translation, there will always be shifts of meaning and why it is irrational to expect from the translator to be “invisible and as humble as possible” (74). Then, she positions the translator with his/her double layered role as “reader” (or interpreter) and as the “creator” of a new text.

My first criticism towards Arrojo’s article is in philosophical order. I would like to ask, here, if we can really expand the concept of “power struggle” in every textual relations concerning “meaning”. Or, to put it in other way, is every act of interpretation can be defined as a “power struggle”? This is for sure that, when it comes to literary production and its interpretation, there is an absolute collision (or encounter) of two different intellects: Author’s (creator’s) intellect and reader’s (interpreter’s) intellect. In fact, it is quite difficult to establish this encounter or collision simply between these two agents and solely in the limits of “control over meaning”. Because various interpretations are in play. The author is not only a creator of meaning; s/he begins by interpreting a reality and goes on with creating his/her own. The “meaning” in case is already the result of the latter’s interpretation. Then comes the interpretation of the reader, or of the translator, who will create in turn and inescapably his/her own reality. His/her interpreation and translation will, inevitably be a “subversion” of the author’s meaning. If we base our theoretical approach on the difference of interpretations, we are forced to say that translation, by its very nature, is already a sort of subversion. Because reading, is a sort of subversion. Because interpreting, is a sort of subversion. If the creation of a new meaning in order to interpret another one is defined by the term “power struggle”, then conversing, dialoguing, communicating or reporting, they are all different kinds of semantic “struggles”. It would be very helpful if Arrojo have more clearly stated that the “power struggle” relation, that Nietzsche introduces, offered a valuable insight to analyze Kafka’s, Borges’, and Kosztolányi’s conceptualization of interpretation, but that this approach can not be expanded to all literary productions and reading.

My second criticism is in the practical order and is more related to Translation Studies. My question here, is, how this approach will affect translation criticism? If this is interpretation that shapes the translator’s work, how can we set up measures and criteria for assessing the quality of his/her work? It is not a sufficient step to qualify the translator simply as a reader with his/her own, passive interpretation. Readership is just the first step and the rest of his/her task is quite different. It is not solely his/her interpretations that shape his/her translation, but also the degree of knowledge s/he possesses on the literary text and the consciousness towards his/her task are important factors which redefines the effectiveness of this struggle. The variety of interpretations and different degrees of knowledge lead different kinds of shifts in the target text.

The translator, as an intellectual entity, has his/her own socio-cultural background. This background has some unconscious components which affect the way the translator interpret the text s/he is facing with and this unconscious forces will lead some inevitable shifts in the translation. But, these shifts are different than those which are related to the lack of knowledge about the text, the literary work and its author. Does preliminary research on the literary work and its author helps the translator to make a fuller access to the text? Does it change also the way s/he interprets the text and make him/her get closer to the reality of the author and the text? So, even though interpretation appears to be the main factor that creates the major shift between the original meaning and the interpreted meaning, the consciousness the translator has towards his/her task does not make him/her aware that s/he can easily be manipulated by his/her own perceptions and interpretations?

REFERENCES

Arrojo, Rosemary (2002) “Writing, Interpreting, and the Power Struggle for the Control of Meaning: Scenes from Kafka, Borges, and Kosztolányi”, in Edwin Gentzler and Mari Tymoczko (ed.) Translation and Power, pp. 63-79, University of Massachusetts Press, 2002.

Karamcheti, Indira (1995) “Aimé Césaire’s Subjective Geographies: Translating Place and the Difference It Makes”, in Between Languages and Cultures by Anuradha Dingwaney and Carol Maier, pp. 181-197, Pittsburgh and London: The University of Pittsburgh Press.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (1992) “The Politics of Translation”, in Lawrence Venuti (ed.) The Translation Studies Reader, pp. 397-416, London: Routledge, 2000.