Customer Reviews

Collected Fictions Pb (Penguin Classics)

5 star:		(49)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Some earlier reviewers complained about the quality of the translation of this collection of stories by Andrew Hurley, especially when compared to the collaboration between Jorge Luis Borges, (JLB, as he liked to sign), and Norman Thomas di Giovanni in preparing Labyrinths. (I suggest you read all reviews in the order they were written.) As one reasonably familiar with JLB's oeuvre, (a word JLB disliked), I state unequivocally that paying six dollars more for four times the number of stories in Labyrinths is a great bargain. Beyond nickels and dimes, it is precisely because the works of JLB were erstwhile translated into English in bits and pieces that his recognition as a gifted writer took so long in coming. (Jean-Pierre Berne's two-volume French translation, Oeuvres completes, is highly recommended.)

American-born writer, editor, translator and collaborator, di Giovanni, was JLB's personal assistant in Buenos Aires from 1968 to 1972. I shall now illustrate specifically how his style of translation differed from that of Hurley with the story "The Gospel According to Saint Mark." In characterizing the Gutre family when they first met Espinosa, di Giovanni wrote "They were barely articulate," (in English, that is), while Hurley scribed "They rarely spoke." While the former sentence explains why "the Gutres, who knew so much about things in the country, did not know how to explain them," (page 398 in this book), the latter indicated an aloofness if not suspicion of Espinosa from their first meeting which addresses the irony of the ending. In depicting their eagerness to have St. Mark read to them after dinner, Hurley wrote "In the following days, the Gutres would wolf down the spitted beef and canned sardines in order to arrive sooner at the Gospel" while di Giovanni essayed "The Gutres took to bolting their barbecued meat and their sardines so as not to delay the Gospel." Where di Giovanni deciphered JLB's allusions to Herbert Spencer, W. H. Hudson and Charles I, Hurley explicated the origin of Baltasar Espinosa, the whereabouts of Ramos Mejia and the theme of the novel, Don Segundo Sombra. Take your pick.

Finally, JLB habitually changed texts from edition to edition, especially in his poetry. It is then problematic to determine the faithfulness of the translations. Rest assured that, though rhyme and rhythm are compromised in any translation, in Hurley's rendering, the brilliance and magic of each story is preserved down to, say, the symbolism of the goldfinch at the conclusion of the illustrative yarn, "The Gospel According to Saint Mark."

I have always been hesitant to read fiction originally written in any language except English. I'm fickle enough as it is without needing another person's biases and tendencies interfering with my own... and so it was with great trepidation that I bought Hurley's collection.

The stories in summation: marvelous. Hurley's work? I'll never be able to read these Borges stories again without Hurley's translation heavily influencing, and that is an endorsement. I suspect that for most people their first experience of Borges will always be their most memorable, and their preferred. I don't think there are many "On first reading Chapman's Homer" instances: that initial shock of strange and monstrous (perhaps my favorite Borgesian adjective) is evident through any kind of translation so long as it is basically competent. Whatever arguments others may have with Hurley's, they can at least admit that his is that.

But I feel there's more: a playful lilt to the language, one that isn't overly scholarly or mechanical. Hurley's introduction briefly talks about the particular style Borges would become famous for: a laconic, matter-of-fact myth disguised as mere sentences, with the employment of words normally alien to each other. Hurley serves this style well, and his presentation of the most memorable lines of each story were the ones that stayed with me even after readings of several different versions. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I sat down with four different versions of "The Library of Babel" and compared them sentence by sentence. I was living in a bookstore at the time, stuck on an island in the middle of the Aegean and co-habitating with an Englishman who held Irby's version as the superior. I listened politely, and compared, and found that even after ouzo and attempts at persuasion it was my original experience that resonated. Reading Irby's left in me a strange longing for Hurley's words. I remember this line in particular:

"They were urged on by the delirium of trying to reach the books in the Crimson Hexagon: books whose format is smaller than usual, all-powerful, illustrated and magical." (Irby)

"They were spurred on by the holy zeal to reach - someday, through unrelenting effort - the books of the Crimson Hexagon - books smaller than natural books, books omnipotent, illustrated, and magical." (Hurley)

It was that "someday, through unrelenting effort" which stuck with me, and its absence in Irby doomed the entire enterprise. Is this a lack of Irby's, or my own bias towards the translation I first read? I'm not sure, but in almost every way I preferred Hurley.

There seems to be a distinct wave of anti-Hurley sentiment, and it's of the "I read a review that said it, but I'll assume that opinion as my own" variety. I eventually found that the Irby-devoted Englishman hadn't even bothered to read the Hurley version. Don't make his mistake of dismissal-by-proxy: try it for yourself.

As is so often the case, there is good news and there is bad news. The good news is obvious: all of Borges' fiction collected into one beautiful volume. These short stories, parables, and other writings explore the nature of literature, identity, and existence itself in a style that is simultaneously mundane and fantastic. The bad news is the extent to which that style is buried in the new translation. I have read many pieces by Borges translated by many different translators, and all shared a common, instantly identifiable voice that transcended the translation. Hurley's translations are in every case inferior. They are overly wordy and do not capture the dry, succint language that somehow heightens the imaginative power of the stories. One must still give this book a high rating, as these are very important pieces of fiction, and their ideas still shine through, but a better translation would have guaranteed five stars. My recommendation: if you have not yet read any Borges, start with one of the other, smaller volumes (e.g., Fictions, Labyrinths). If you are fond of his writing already and want to have it all in one volume, glance through this book in a bookstore and see for yourself whether you can live with this translation.

Thank God! I was beginning to think I had gone mad. Someone else had the courage and the lucidity to point out that this is a terrible translation of Borges. Sadly, many young readers have not had access to the translations of Di Giovanni, Alastair Reid, John Hollander, Anthony Kerrigan, and yes, even the late great Selden Rodman. It was in reading Selden Rodman's translation of the poem 'Limits' as compared to the translation in the compilation by Monegal & Reid that it came home to me how important it is that Borges be translated by someone who comprehends Borges. (If it may be said that anyone truly comprehends Borges) Rodman's translation is brilliant as is Alastair Reid's; but they are almost two separate poems.

Amazon offers used titles and it is important for those who want to read Borges correctly that they seek out the translations of Norman Thomas Di Giovanni as they are infinitely superior to the translations of Andrew Hurley, so much so that Hurley actually does harm to Borges, while Di Giovanni, allows the magic that Borges created to be accessible to the reader. Di Giovanni worked hand in hand with Borges. They were friends and Di Giovanni understood what Borges was about.

What I believe has occurred is that Borges second wife Maria Kodama did not like Di Giovanni and has attempted to stifle the translations of Di Giovanni. Kodama is an intelligent woman, but intelligence is no guarantee that one can comprehend the hidden meanings of Borges writing. Doubtless she means well, but if she has chosen Hurley over Di Giovanni for personal reasons, she has done a tremendous injustice to the legacy of Jorge Luis Borges.

Get a used copy with a translation by Di Giovanni. You will learn a great deal more about what Borges was saying. This translation by Hurley is an insult to Jorge Luis Borges.

What a tragedy! Who could have possibly authorized this grievous translation? It is crucial for all readers to know that the very important works of Jorge Luis Borges are not in this case being properly translated. If you cannot purchase the translations of Emir Rodriguez Monegal, Alastair Reid, or Norman Thomas di Giovanni it would be better not to buy or read the works of Borges. Undoubtedly there are other translators who did good translations, but Andrew Hurley is certainly not one of them. Doubtless Mr. Hurley is a brilliant man, but he does not understand Borges subtle use of language. Hence in the stories Hurley translates, Borges words are stripped of their hidden meanings. What the reader gets from this book is a computer translation of Borges' words; rendered mechanically flat and with all of their essence removed. Buy a used copy of a Norman Thomas di Giovanni translation. Norman Thomas di Giovanni worked side by side with Jorge Luis Borges; together they went the required extra distance in making sure that the subtlety of the writing was not flattened when converted to English. Just as being French does not make one a French chef, being a Ph.D. who reads, writes and speaks flawless Spanish does not mean that one understands Borges.

These stories read like they are translated verbatim without any consideration of how enjoyable the end product will be. Hurley's sentences are frigid and mechanical, lacking much of the simplicity and brevity that makes Borges great. Only some of Borges's stories are supposed to read like encyclopedia entries.

Di Giovanni's translations are far more readable. After all, Di Giovanni worked closely with Borges during translation, and Borges himself had a pretty good understanding of the English language.

Having said that, I'm grateful that these stories are finally available in a single volume. But I feel the book would have been much better had Hurley only translated the stories for which a good translation does not already exist.

I will admit that my Spanish is not amazing, but I understand enough to get a sense of Borges' work, and I have read enough translations to be able to speak with a certain degree of confidence. And I have to ask, who let Andrew Hurley near this book, and were they appropriately disciplined?

His English is flat and completely without style, very much the work of an academic. As Eric Ormby wrote in The New Criterion, "he appears not to have a good sense of English prose style, or to command such a style himself." Alberto Manguel hammered the nail in Hurley's coffin when, for the Observer, he wrote: "English-language readers have either to resign themselves to the old, barely serviceable translations, or submit to the new, barely serviceable translations by Andrew Hurley, Professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico. Hurley has no ear for the rhythms of Borges's language." I could not agree more. Hurley's translation was minimalist where Borges was baroque, stiff where Borges was supple, and obvious where Borges was sly.

Hurley's endnotes were also obsessive to the point where I began to wonder if he was going to annotate every concept that might be above the reading level of a five year old. This felt more like a kind of intellectual arrogance rather than scrupulousness. And the change of the title "Funes the Memorious", quite possibly the most compelling and apt translation of a title in all of short fiction, to the clunky and obscene "Funes, His Memory" is frankly nothing less than a sin against literature.

I have given this book three stars because it is Borges (who deserves all five) and because it is a useful thing to have all his stories in one place in English. I would have given it five if Hurley had not made such a colossal mess of it.

The critical applause the marketing department of this book's publisher dreamed up is one recent example of how money corrupts art. Penguin, often a reliable imprint, needs to be told that THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR PUBLISHING INFERIOR MATERIAL. This was the first Borges I read, and I loved it, until I encountered alternative translations in an anthology called 'Borges: A Reader'. I noticed that the most elegant and intense translations were by someone called Norman Thomas di Giovanni. I asked a number of my Spanish-speaking friends to compare the stories to the originals, and they unanimously agreed that the di Giovannis were more accurate as well. Later I heard that di Giovanni published a number of Borges' works in several books that are now out of print. I wondered why a superior translation would be superseded by a new, clunky one, and why this new clunky one would be hailed as the "definitive English version". I found out that it's because di Giovanni made his translations in collaboration with Borges himself, that they spent years getting it right, and that Borges wept with joy over the translations which he deemed in some cases better than the original. So they agreed to split the profits 50/50, an unprecedented thing for translator to make that percentage. When Borges died his Estate decided they'd make more cash if they got a new translation... and they hold the copyrights. Thus the true definitive versions are condemned to dust.

The best that can be said about Hurley's translation is that they're "capable" (see Harold Bloom's obviously paid-for quote on the back); well, you'd have to REALLY screw up to make Borges not amazing. In other words, read whatever you can because Borges is the absolute greatest: the most intellectual fantacist, the most romantic scifi artist, the most classical modernist and modern classicist... and let's not forget the inventor of postmodernism.

I should say that after reading all of Hurley's Borges and most of di Giovanni's (as well as versions by various other people here and there) there's nothing really *wrong* with Hurley; often he succeeds in being more "cool" (in a curt, bad*ss kind of way) than di Giovanni, though at the cost of Borges' Victorian intellectual tone (present in all the writings, lectures, and interviews he did in English, as well as the Di Giovanni versions); and instead of re-translating into English from Spanish the bits here and there that Borges translated from English (most often and lengthily occurring in 'A Universal History of Infamy') Hurley just prints the text of the original verbatim, which breaks down some of Borges' carefully crafted illusions but offers much more insight. Also, he is on occasion a little more literal than the Di Giovanni/Borges translations, and therefore perhaps more 'authentic' in some sense... but is it possible to be more true to Borges than Borges was? Changes from the original stories in the Di Giovanni versions must be viewed as the author's revised intentions rather than as inaccurate translation, because of how closely Borges worked with him.

Bottom line: In a perfect world, both (and even more) versions would be readily available. But in the present circumstances, where due to greedy money battles we must have one and only one, and all others must be locked in the vault and kept from the eyes of the people forever, why would we want the results of some guy's day job instead of the one Borges himself worked on?

WHY WOULD THEY KEEP THAT FROM US?

Don't support this blacklisting; seek out the di Giovanni versions and demand Penguin stop publishing inferior material.

In a final note, I would recommend 'Borges: A Reader' edited by Emir Rodriguez Monegal and Alastair Reid over any other Borges book in print as both the best place to start and an essential volume. It contains poems, lectures and essays, movie reviews, satires, and of course a great many of the stories printed here, from a variety of translators (including a few Hurleys and a whole lot of Di Giovannis). There is material here you can't find anywhere else, and as two Spanish speakers and Borges experts you can trust them to pick "the best translations" as they say. It is out of print but not hard to come by. Explore!

To be finally faced with this monumental work cannot be anything but a joy and privledge to anyone who reveres the work of Jorge Luis Borges. To one whose English contact with his work has been represented by others than Andrew Hurley however, his work can be abruptly disconcerting. Consider and compare one spare example: Read side by side from "The Book Of Sand", the two versions of "The Other", both by Andrew Hurley and that of Norman Thomas Di Giovanni, and you may recall the fable of the blind men describing an elephant; each by feeling a different part of the anatomy. They tell the identical tale, but the resultant effect is completely dipolar. Di Giovanni recreates for us in English, the essential magical realism with which Borges spoke, while retaining the essence and cadence that fill this short tale with it's dreamlike structure. It is carefully and lovingly crafted, with respect and methodic attention to the original Spanish cadre. The hypnotic illusion it creates puts the reader in it's spell fully, from the first sentence. Hurley's version, relies soley upon his perception of how best to explain to the reader, what it is he thinks the author had in mind.. It is as if though he sought to put the lines onto paper as quickly as possible, while recreating a contemporary English version of Borges plan. For the reader new to Borges' majestic presence, there is an unwarranted intrusion into the translation concept, as if the project was rushed to completion. How long and hard Hurley has worked on this enormous procect deserves utmost admiration. How new readers of Borges will interpret what they read is troubling, in comparison to those who have come before him.

At the end of Shakespeare's Memory the character Hermann Sorgel unbinds the spell that has enslaved him within a labyrinth of memories, saying:

"Simply the thing I am shall make me live."

This enigmatic statement, haiku like in its density, suddenly awakens us to that mystery which is time - or, should we say presence?

In one of his seminal essays The Wall and the Books Borges tells us: "Music, states of happiness, mythology, faces worn by time, certain twilights and certain places, all want to tell us something, or have told us something we shouldn't have lost, or are about to tell us something; that imminence of a revelation as yet unproduced is perhaps, the aesthetic fact."

Reading and rereading Borges over the past several years has sparked my awareness of this truth over and over. And with this new translation we are once again taken into the magic stream of a master...