Customer Reviews

Translation is a Love Affair

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Marine, a young Irish-Quebequoise and newly qualified translator, has returned from her studies in Europe to reconnect with her Quebec and Irish past. While she has already decided on her first big translation project, a novel by a well-known local author with the pseudonym Jack Waterman, she still has to find him and convince him of her abilities. Luck is on her side and not only does she meet him by chance, he, a seasoned writer in the autumn of his life, is enchanted by her seriousness mixed in with youthful enthusiasm and confidence. He agrees to give her a try...

Award-winning Canadian (Quebec) novelist Jacques Poulin, himself also an experienced translator, has a deep affinity to the meaning of words and phrases and how they are or can be transposed into another language: "Can one really communicate through the music of words? I don't know, but the translation is one of those means by which to create a bridge between two things..." *) he reflects in an interview about this unassuming, yet very charming short novel.

The story centres on Marine, the vivacious voice of the story. Settled in a summer cottage on the īle d'Orléans (a small island just outside of Quebec City), she can pursue her translation while completely free to roam and to immerse herself in the natural beauty of her surroundings. The author spends his weekends at the cottage to escape from his tower block apartment in the City and the stresses of professional life. Interestingly, he soon addresses her in the familiar form of "tu", whereas for her he remains "Monsieur Waterman", thus not only reflecting the age difference but also the different perspectives within their growing relationship. All we learn of the author, however, is filtered through Marine's thoughts and descriptions. Their dialog is always brief and to the point. Only in her mind does Marine explore who Waterman is and how she can immerse herself into his way of thinking, which is necessary for her translation work. When he is away, she walks around in some of his clothes, she studies his notes: "Don't think that it is sufficient for us to find the words and phrases that correspond best to the original text. One has to go further, namely to sink oneself into the handwriting of the other like a cat nestles into a basket. One has to marry the author's style."

In her daily life, Marine is a born communicator - she not only befriends a young girl at the end of the path, she talks to horses, the fox and deer, and eventually adopts a black kitten to add to her old cat, Chaloupe. The black kitten, however, carries a secret message that leads the translator and the writer into a joint private detective venture. That pursuit not only disturbs their calm existence at the cottage and interrupts their work, in the end it reveals more about their individual needs and connections to each other than anything that could ever have been expressed directly between them.

Poulin gives Marine a very distinct voice: she writes in a precise and descriptive language, often addressing the reader with "if you are interested" or "you should know". While language and translation is clearly a theme in the novel, it is subtly woven into the narrative. Through her at times poetic descriptions, one is easily pulled into the landscape, whether on the island or the city. At times, however, the heroine comes across as younger than one would assume her to be, given her times abroad and professional training. Her character appears to have something unfinished about her, still in need to come to terms with her personal history and past. While this is makes for a fresh and lively character, one wonders how good her translations of an eminent older novelist can be in the final analysis. [Friederike Knabe]

*) Having read the novel in its original French, all quoted translations are mine.

The beautiful book almost flies into your hand: a lovely watercolor by Rufino Tamayo on the cover, printed on richly textured paper, gives this slim volume an unusual squarish shape that already seems a departure from the normal. The pages inside are equally beautifully printed and designed. It is a book you want to enjoy before you have even read a word.

And the words when you do read them? The jacket flap calls this a "quietly affecting modern fairy tale," which puts it about right. The story takes place in the real world, more or less. A young Canadian translator called Marine meets an older Québequois novelist known as M. Waterman. He enables her to rent an idyllic rural property on the Ile d'Orléans, not far from the city, where she can work on translating him into English and he can visit her on weekends. Although this is a May-November love affair in its way, it is one of words and affinities only, and not sexual. There is a degree of improbability to the idyll which gives the book its fairytale quality, but this is seldom strained.

Marine adopts a black cat abandoned near the property and finds a cryptic note taped under it collar which she and her mentor interpret as an SOS. They become involved at a distance in the lives of an old woman and a young girl living close to M. Waterman's apartment. As it happens, the stories they imagine about these two are only partially correct; the situation turns out to be more commonplace but no less devastating. The cry for help was genuine, and they must find a way to answer it.

The book is beautifully written, but I do have a slight problem with its central concept: translation. It is what brings Marine and M. Waterman together, for sure; it is the heart of their relationship, both as fact and metaphor; it is something that Marine talks about a great deal, making the book at times almost into a meditation on language. But sometimes these disquisitions are obtrusive, and they seem to have very little to do with the story -- unless you see their attempt to make sense of the actions of two perfect strangers as a form of translation in itself.

And the problem is compounded by the fact that what we are reading is itself a translation from French into English. Sheila Fischman does a wonderful job of the narrative and descriptive sections, but when the subject is translation itself, her task is virtually impossible. So much in the text concerns the subtle differences between French and English that it assumes that the reader understands both languages. For example, Waterman shows Marine a poem by the Québec poet Anne Hébert, quoting this in French, before discussing different English versions of one of the lines. So Fischman has no alternative but to use both languages in the text. I myself am fascinated by this hovering between two tongues, because I too work occasionally as a translator. But it is not for everyone, and it has the paradoxical effect of robbing Marine of her own identity as an Irish-Canadian anglophone, without which the coming-together of two such different people has less power. [3.5 stars]

This beautiful novella centers around two main characters, Marine, a young woman starting her career as a translator, and Monsieur Waterman, a well regarded writer nearing the end of his career. The two initially meet at a cemetery where Marine's mother and grandmother are buried, in a neighborhood in Quebec City. She is fully alone, as she does not know her father and her younger sister died tragically. Waterman is also alone, but after he reads the portion of one of his books that she is translating, he employs her as his official translator, and sets her up in a lovely chalet. The two become close and intimate friends, sharing weekends and frequent phone calls with each other.

The tranquility of this arrangement is interrupted when Marine discovers a young cat in her backyard. Attached to her collar is a note, which the two later discover is from a young girl who appears to be in danger. Marine desperately wants to help this girl, as she was unable to do for her younger sister. She and Waterman find the girl, and photographs taken by him seem to confirm that she is in trouble, and they seek to rescue her from the pistol carrying old "witch" that she is living with.

This book was a pleasure to read, with a straightforward, musical style. The art of translation and the ability of words to express emotions and heal wounds is celebrated throughout the book. The tender love that Marine and Waterman share for each other was sincere and heartwarming. The ending of the book was a bit contrived to me, but it was otherwise an excellent read, and is highly recommended.

I am in love! The object of my affection is small, short, and translated, but my, is it wonderful. This book should really be shelved in the poetry section, for some of the lines are exquisite. The descriptions can be so captivating you have to read them twice, and the characters are good, kind, and lovable, just what is needed this time of year.

There is a plot. A young, talented, but rudderless translator meets the author whose book she is hoping to translate. The two are brought together through their love of words and by their need for love in their lives. Together they uncover a mystery: a note on a cat that leads to a young girl and a rather witch-like woman. But that is so beside the point. What the book is really about is words and language and the beauty that can be found in the perfect turn of phrase or in capturing the essence of a thing with words. Not only does an author need to find these things, but then a translator has to be able to capture the essence and style of the essence and render it into a completely different language. And to really blow your mind, this beautiful book about translation, is in translation!

But I'm gushing. In order not to ruin the book with too many of my own words, I was going to end with a few of my favorite quotes (hard chosen because the 144 pages of this book are covered in sticky notes until it resembles a hedgehog). But I was afraid that would ruin it: one person's manna and all that. So I'll just say that I hope you'll be enticed to run out and buy this Archipelago treasure. And fall a little bit in love.