Page:Performing Without a Stage - The Art of Literary Translation - by Robert Wechsler.pdf/19

 lectureships. I don’t know of a single translator who has been given a short route to tenure due to fame, or even ability, as many other sorts of artists have. Their names simply don’t do anything for a university’s reputation.

So not only does becoming a translator usually start as a labor of love, it remains that. Translators bitch and bitch about not being appreciated, or understood, or respected, or any of the things adolescents complain about every day (yes, not a big enough allowance, as well), but they love their work so much they keep on doing it anyway. And publishers keep on keeping the pay low (and, I should add, losing money themselves on the great majority of translations). But translators are organized, and one of their organizations, the American Translators Association (which includes both literary and technical translators), was sued by the Federal Trade Commission for printing a list of recommended fees for literary translators to request. As if it would really have mattered in a buyer’s market.

Money, fame, service. Three things that make the world go round. Money is often a central incentive when choosing a professional career, but this certainly isn’t true of translation. Fame is often a central incentive when choosing an artistic career, but this too does not apply to translation. So we’re left with service, which is what usually draws educated people to low-paying professions. But it is not the usual kind of service; it’s not about caring for the ill, handicapped, young, or deprived. It’s about caring for one’s literary culture and for writers from other cultures, and bringing them together in the form of a performance. Madame de Staël wrote back in 1820, “The most eminent service one can render to literature is to transport the masterpieces of the human spirit from one language to another.”*

But it’s not enough to want to serve by sharing works of art. It’s not like being a publisher, where the act of sharing is not at the same time an act of art and an act of criticism. In gift-giving, it is the thought that counts, but in translation an incompetent result can sometimes be worse than none. It’s true that a great work can “shine through” even a mediocre translation, but, especially with poetry, it may not shine brightly enough to seem like a great work.