Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away (or so it seems), I was a Classicist, studying and teaching ancient Greek, with a bit of Latin thrown in for good measure.   Even then many asked why I would be pursuing such a line of study, what it could ever possibly do for me.  Although I did not go on to make a career out of my classical studies, the difference those years of study have made to my life have been enormous.
* I learned to distrust “facts,” and I learned that history is as much about who relates it as about what “really” happened
* I learned that a close scrutiny of individual words and their usages matters tremendously, not to mention gives great pleasure
* I developed my life-long passion for theatre
* I discovered that our basic interests and obsessions have not changed much over the centuries.
…and much more.  But there is one other idea that grew out of my classical studies that I’m thinking about especially today:
* the extreme difficulty of translation
      Having tried to translate the Greeks from Homer to Sappho, with an especially intense attempt at Euripides, I learned what it takes to translate a piece of writing from one language to another.  It is not just about opening up a dictionary and finding a word that “means” the same.  Words in different languages do not “mean” the same.  Language has more to do with cultural baggage than we tend to remember.  Every word choice brings with it horse-carts full of nuance and history, shadowing and detours of thought.  And so, for years, I have been very reluctant to read literature in translation.  I have thought that even if the translator knew the original language so well that it was actually their first language, how well, then, could they know the language they were translating the text into?  And what does it mean to “know” a language, anyway?   I think the whole question got me up my own ass, to be honest, and rather than have to deal with it, I just turned my attention to books written in English.  At least English is a language I can claim to have familiarity with.
     But for various reasons, over the last few months, I have read several books in translation, and have been overwhelmed by their artistry.  I have already blogged about Cocoon, by the Marathi author Bhalchandra Nemade, translated by Sudhakar Marathe here.  A few months later, I read and loved Sandor Marai’s The Rebels, translated by the UK poet George Szirtes.  Now, last night, I finished reading an absolutely marvelous French novel called The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery and translated by Alison Anderson.  Although it may not be fashionable to say it these days, I am a bit of a francophile.  French is a language I am somewhat comfortable in, and it is a culture with a “mentalite” (sorry about the lack of accent) that I love.  This book, two interweaving narratives about the people who live in an exclusive modern-day Parisian apartment house, is full of over-the-top philosophical musings and obscure intellectual references that the French do so well. It is also full of class struggle, passion and heart. And yet, that is not what I’ve been thinking about this morning.  This morning I am thinking about the difficult, and often overlooked, task of the translator.  When you read any book, it is the author who you think of as the sole creator of the text.  If it has been translated, then the translator’s name is written in a smaller italicized font at the bottom of the page.  The translator’s name is rarely on the cover and never on the spine.  At yet, for all those readers whose first language has not been French or Hungarian or Marathi or whatever, it is the translator who has brought the story, the characters, the sentiments, longings, passions, ideas to life for the reader.  I’ve begin to think that translating may be the most altruistic of all the arts.  And it is an art in itself, clearly.  Just think about how difficult it is, how much time it must take to do it right.  Yet, the translator puts all that energy into someone else’s creation.  Yes, in his/her hands it becomes their creation too, but not really….  It makes me wonder.  And I’m sitting here remembering my own Masters thesis on Euripides’ “Iphigenia at Aulis” with its consciously evolving uses of the many Greek words for the verb “to see.”  How I struggled with that.  But how rewarding.