Twenty Thousand Leagues Beneath Comprehension

(I found these great pictures at The Annotated Jules Verne, a website that collects lots of beautiful and fun old artwork from Verne’s works. There’s a ton of stuff there, and I highly recommend browsing it.)

I hate translation problems. Part of this probably comes from growing up the son of a film buff (and a Kurosawa-worshiping one, at that) who had nothing but the highest disdain for dubbing, and was (and still is) always quick to point out the way in which a terrible translation can entirely change a work. This concept is probably even more important when it comes to translations of books because, after all, if you fuck up the words in a prose work, what’s left?

This is already an issue whenever I peruse various versions of Dumas works, (what with him being my favorite author of all time, and such) especially when one considers that his books were damn long, and it’s much easier for a “translation” to cut up a book without technically calling it “abridged.” I have generally, when it comes to Dumas, found myself preferring the Oxford World’s Classics editions, as their translations feel very old-school, and are long as hell, which is a hopeful sign. But nonetheless, whereas with classic English-language authors, one can pick up any cheap, crappy copy of one of their books and still expect the same magic, one must be wary when grabbing, say, any copy of a Dumas novel that they just find lying about.

Recently, much to my delight, my little write-up of Dumas’ Georges attracted the attention of one Tina A. Kover, the translator of this new, and much needed, edition of the book. (Her own blog can be found here.) As I said in the comments myself, it makes me extremely happy to know that nowadays there are people dedicated to getting good, accurate translations to us, especially concerning works that may have been changed or neglected due to material that was once deemed too sensitive. This is definitely the case for Georges, and as it turns out, it is also the case for many of the works of Jules Verne.

When I was a kid, my dad got me an omnibus edition of four of Jules Verne’s novels (three of his most famous… and also Blockade Runners) but I never got around to reading them. A little over a week ago, I finally opened the thing, with the intention of reading Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. I may not have ever actually read it, but as a child the classic film was awe-inspiring, and when I re-watched it a couple months back, it still was. Of course, the translation of the book’s title is, in and of itself, rather famous, as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea can be misconstrued in English: its wording suggesting travel to a depth of 20,000 leagues, which is impossible. As most of us know by now, the title actually means 20,000 leagues traveled (in whatever direction) while beneath the sea, which, granted, is a little difficult to make into a decent English title.

Anyway, I started reading it, and there was certainly wonder, magic, and all that… but then I came to a sentence in the first chapter that made no goddamn sense, at least to me. When discussing the rumors of a sea monster:

Editors of scientific journals, quarrelling with believers in the supernatural, spilled seas of ink during this memorable campaign, some even drawing blood; for from the sea-serpent they came to direct personalities.

Now, is it just me, or does that last clause, after the semi-colon, make no goddamn sense? Confused by this, and quickly realizing that this omnibus edition didn’t say anything about the translation, I decided to check out the Project Gutenberg version. It was the same. So I took a look at Wikipedia, which is always right, (I’m joking, but actually in matters of pop culture it pretty much is) and found out that, apparently, for many decades Verne got far less respect in English-speaking countries than he deserved due to bad translation. Hmm, turns out the “standard” translations that English and American kids have grown up reading are pretty damned inferior. Problems with the science and calculations, expurgation of anything deemed “boring” or “anti-British,” and just an overall dumbing down seems to have taken place. Intent on seeing this for myself, I did some research in hopes of finding a better version of this classic novel.

This Miller and Walter translation published in 1993 was the one about which I heard the most good, and just a cursory look at the Amazon Online Reader thingy showed a marked improvement. In here, the above confusing sentence becomes:

Journalists making a profession of science quarreled with journalists making a profession of wit, spilling seas of ink during this memorable campaign, some even spilling two or three drops of blood as they went from sea serpents to personal insults.

Now that make a good deal more sense. Not to mention that, a few paragraphs earlier, the standard translation simply ends a passage about theories as to what the creature could be with the single sentence: “The legends of ancient times were even revived.” This doesn’t tell us much, whereas the newer one continues a good five more lines, discussing Aristotle, Pliny, and someone as recent as 1857 who believed in the existence of sea monsters. Quite a difference. I assume that the science makes more sense in this translation as well, but I don’t know from science, so I can’t comment.

It looks like Oxford World’s Classics has their own version of a complete and accurate translation–the more the better, but I went out and picked myself up a copy of this rather lauded 1993 edition, and I’ll probably start reading it later today, so that’s something to look forward to. Along with The Last Cavalier it seems that for a little while I’ll only be reading books by classic French authors… since this isn’t exactly a rare modus operandi for me, you can see why quality translations are important to me. So, I guess the moral is always make sure who this or that foreign book is filtered through before you judged the work or the author.