Customer Reviews

Don Quijote: A New Translation

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've spent a bit of time comparing the early pages of Burton Raffel's decade-old rendition with Edith Grossman's brand new one. Both are excellent, so you can't go wrong---and I think either would be a better choice for most people than past translations. I've chosen Raffel's, though, based not only on word choices (and I think some people need to lower their antennae when it comes to things such as Sancho referring to his "kids", which seems quite natural), but on Raffel's better balanced, more focused style, and his clarity of phrasing (which also involves word choices). Raffel's style overall is traditional. Grossman seems to jump between the literal, which is sometimes confusing, and the breezy and modern, which is enjoyable but not as wry and witty as Raffel's balanced approach.

For example, Grossman's description after our hero has tried to grapple with the philosophical convolutions of de Silva: "With these words and phrases the poor gentleman lost his mind, and he spent sleepless nights trying to understand them, and extract their meaning. . . ." Raffel writes: "Arguments like these cost the poor gentleman his sanity; he'd lie awake at night, trying to understand them, to puzzle out their meaning. . . ." A minor example, but with Raffel's rhythm and word choice you can almost visualize the old fellow lying awake trying to "puzzle out" the "arguments"---not just "words and phrases," per se. Raffel is often more subtly attuned. Notice also that "cost the poor gentleman his sanity" is not as modern-sounding as "lost his mind." So don't think that because Raffel uses a few modern word choices for the sake of vigor that he's less distinguished.

Grossman again:

"His fantasy filled with everything he had read in his books, enchantments as well as combats, battles, challenges, wounds, courtings, loves, torments, and other impossible foolishness, and he became so convinced in his imagination of the truth of all the countless grandiloquent and false inventions he read that for him no history in the world was truer."

Raffel:

"He filled his imagination full to bursting with everything he read in his books, from witchcraft to duels, battles, challenges, wounds, flirtations, love affairs, anguish, and impossible foolishness, packing it all so firmly into his head that these sensational schemes and dreams became the literal truth and, as far as he was concerned, there were no more certain histories anywhere on earth."

Grossman's sentence is more difficult to scan, and less concrete. Raffel's clear, no less fine prose in paragraphs like this brings the character of Don Quixote to life.

As he has with previous translations, Raffel has again proved himself a master at providing an old classic in a fresh and readable way. This edition is even more vitally rendered than the Putnam translation or the Cohen one. While it's true that this work reads more like a loose collection of short stories than like the sort of tightly organized novels we expect today, it still remains an old friend to many of us, and for first readers this translation is direct and passionate.

I once thought very highly of this translation, and even recommended it to someone. I was thinking of buying it, and now after browsing it heavily in a bookstore, I'm glad I did not. I have opted for the Edith Grossman translation instead.

This translation could almost be called "'Don Quixote' for the Under-Thirty Crowd". I am all for modern translations of this great work, and I fully support the idea of modernizing antiquated language in a translation and avoiding sounding heavy or old-fashioned. This is NOT the same as a translator being so eager to make a version of a great work accessible to normally uninterested readers, that the translation is purposely made in a TOO informal style.

The language of this translation is almost ostentatiously colloquial, and I'm not trying to be a snob about this. Even the narration is deliberately phrased in as colloquial a manner as possible. Contractions abound all over the place, not only in the dialogue, but in the narration--something I frankly don't remember any other author doing when he or she is writing in the third person. I am not criticizing the translation for not being accurate--it is highly accurate, with some very ingenious English equivalents for obscure phrases. But there is not a single sentence that does not use an informal style of writing, and if one wants to get picky about it, it is very difficult to imagine a very well-educated sixteenth-century gentleman like Don Quixote speaking like this.

And Raffel makes a catastrophic translation error at the beginning of the novel which apparently neither he, nor his editor, nor any critic has yet caught. In describing Alonso Quijana, the old gentleman who eventually becomes Don Quixote after going mad, Cervantes states something like "In short, the old gentleman so immersed himself in his books..", etc. Raffel actually writes, "In short, Don Quixote so immersed himself in his books", thus introducing the name "Don Quixote" in the narrative before Cervantes himself mentions it.

The fact that this error has not been pointed out by ANYONE is proof of how blindly overpraised this translation has been. It is accurate, but it is too eager to be "readable" rather than great.

In preparation for a class on the Quijote in English that I will be teaching next semester I ordered this book with high hopes but was annoyed and disappointed at several things.
The first is the inexplicable (and unexplained) elimination of the series of laudatory poems that should appear at the beginning of the work, especially the brilliant conversation between Babieca and Rocinante.
I agree about the translator's tics that another reviewer has mentioned. (More cow than sheep). If you would care to join me in being curmudgeonly and know the original look at the mess that is made of the Bodas de Camacho.
I ran across the translator's use of the dollar as unit of currency (¡Virgen Santa! ¿A quién se le ocurre?) before reading Raffel's explanation in the translator's notes, and even after his reasonable explanation of the etimology of "dollar" I want my maravedíes back.
On the other hand, the supporting materials (articles more than footnotes, although these more gratifying than the endnotes that other Quijote translations use) are a strong selling point for this volume rather than the new Penguin translation done by John Rutherford. On the other hand, I think that Rutherford's translation is better.
In summary, I would rate this translation of the masterpiece Don Quijote de la Mancha a 3+. (The plus for not following the irritating English-language tradition of calling the work and the protagonist "Don Quixote".

My desert island choice? I think so. Funny as hell and beautifully written. How on earth did Cervantes create this sprawling masterpiece which sounds like it was written yesterday ALMOST 400 YEARS AGO? Before you ride into the sunset with "Don Quijote" take a look at Fadiman's brief synopsis in "The New Lifetime Reading Plan." But ignore his suggestions on translations, written BEFORE Raffel's peerless translation was published.

I agree with the other reviewer that Edith Grossman's new (2003) translation is much better than Raffel's. On the whole, Don Quixote has been well served in English translations over the last three centuries. Raffel's is a very competent and at times brilliant translation, but at times it is much too colloquial and, specifically, too American. True, Cervantes wrote in a living, breathing Spanish, but it is always stately, never slangy. Raffel's effort is an American counterpart to the recent (Penguin, 2001) translation by John Rutherford. Rutherford's work abounds in Britishisms (e.g., "Just wait a jiff" . . . "small beer" . . . "codswallop" . . . "I'll be blowed, gents" . . . "a dab hand" . . . "bloke"). Raffel's Americanisms are not nearly as numerous, but he frequently omits deliberate archaisms and settles on too colloquial and/or contemporary an expression. He also, oddly, consistently subsitutes "dollar" for "real" and for some reason omits all the prelimary poetic material in Part I. Overall, Raffel's translation is very readable, which will be a boon for students and other first-time readers, but to attain its readability it often has to sacrifice authenticity. The John Ormsby translation, especially the revision made for the previous edition in the Norton series, was a major achievement and a real advance over all previous English translations. It still has a lot to commend it. In the last fifty years or so, though, Samuel Putnam's rendering (still available, in the Modern Library, in a very affordable edition with extensive notes) has been the best into American English. Putnam's is now superseded, I think, by Grossman's, which is fresh, lively, but never self-indulgent. The Raffel translation itself deserves three stars, but the excellent collateral material in the Norton edition in which it appears makes the volume worthy of a four-star rating. The five-star cudos, though, belong to Edith Grossman!

I often return to this granddaddy of novels, and consider this particular translation the best. Grossman's translation is stellar, but it lacks the brio, the spirited tone and zeal of BR's rendering. Certainly this translation is sometimes free-and-easy and best serves an American reader, but its rhythm and gusto more than compensate for the flaws an academic might stub her toe on, and that rush of vivid life, in my opinion, is the heart of Cervantes' work. Authentic phrase or authentic feel? I'll vote for the feel. De gustibus.

This translation is quite good and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a faithful English version of DQ. As for the novel itself, what is there left to say? In ten thousand years, people will still turn to the silly tales of this obscure Spaniard as one of the great sources of wisdom humanity has ever witnessed. As Blake writes so masterfully: They must soever believe a lie who see with not through the eye

Ride on oh knight, ride on !

I think this modern translation is a lot easier and more pleasant to read than Walter Starkie's version (and due to the simple language it reads a lot faster...) A child could read it. Indeed, the original novel mentions that it was thumbed by children. Though I'm still bothered by all the commas this guy uses and stuff like "more cow than sheep" in place of "more beef than mutton", but I'm probably being biased. I'd be interested to see what some of you think of the earlier translations if you've only read this one.

Don Quixote is a hairy mess of traveller's tales and adventures. It is also a truly wonderful book.

One moment you're rolling with laugher at the slapstick situations Don Quixote and Sancho find themselves in, and the next you're in awe of Sancho's simple and earthy wisdom or Don Quixote's erudition on why a career in arms is better than a career in letters. A stop at an inn becomes a diversion into a number of stories, such as "The Tale of Innapropriate Curiousity", which have little to do with the main characters but fit nonetheless with the overall flow of the book. In fact, these digressions work to its advantage as it means the chapters are short and fairly self-contained - perfect for dipping into before bed or on the train.

While it is a long book, it is also a thoroughly rewarding one. Travelling with the Man from La Mancha and his sidekick for so many pages meant I got to know these characters better than any other I have read. Their behaviour in the innumerable mishaps and triumphs they encounter is at once familiar and surprising. Familiar because while Don Quixote and Sancho are, respectively, mad and foolish this does not exclude them from being wise, honest and upstanding. The interplay of these qualities make for many touching and memorable moments.