"Digging the Pit of Babel": Retranslating Franz Kafka's "Castle"
Author(s): Mark Harman
Source: New Literary History, Vol. 27, No. 2, Problems of Otherness: Historical and
Contemporary (Spring, 1996), pp. 291-311
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20057354 .
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"Digging the Pit of Babel":
Franz
Retranslating
Mark
Kafka's
Castle*
Harman
a new translation
I completed
of Kafka's splendidly
The
Castle.
other
The
novel
translation,
only
English
enigmatic
in
and
first
Willa
Edwin
Muir,
1930,
only six years
appeared
by
death in a sanitarium outside Vienna.
after Kafka's premature
is a complex
Translation
issue, and retranslation
doubly so. That is no
Recently
of modern
works often
why the reviewers of new translations
in the New
accorded
sound confused. Take, for instance, the reception
of
York Times Book Review a couple of years ago to two new translations
was
Punishment.
and
The
Richard
Crime
reviewer
Lourie,
Dostoevsky's
seem
therefore
who has translated many works from Russian and might
to
in
the
first
Lourie
However,
pass judgment.
paragraph
qualified
a startling statement
makes
that ought to have made him think twice
to write the review. After revealing
before agreeing
that he devoured
at the age of
of
Crime
and
Punishment
Constance
Garnett's
rendering
doubt
twenty but had only recently read the novel in Russian, he adds: "Of
course, the original read at the age of fifty could never shake you like a
translation
read
at
twenty."1
Lourie's
admission
that
he
prefers
Garnett's
to Dostoevsky's
Russian perhaps
English
explains why he then speaks
of
criticizes
authors
of the new translations,
the
Garnett,
severely
kindly
of an Olympic
the language
and concludes?in
adjudicator?that
nobody has yet won the gold.
Lourie's praise for Constance
Garnett
is rather odd. After all, she has
come to symbolize Victorian
at itsmost crass. She can even
bowdlerizing
be seen on stage in Christopher
farce The Idiots Karamazov,
Durang's
which pokes fun at her maltreatment
of Russian novelists. The gray
on the
haired
in the wings,
lady seated all evening
eavesdropping
is none
other
than Garnett. Visibly
riled by the antics
characters,
* This
written
essay was originally
scholar Walter Arndt and will appear
in honor
of
in expanded
the distinguished
translator
and Slavic
form in a forthcoming
Festschrift, edited
et al.
by John M. Kopper,
I should
to thank Lina Bernstein
like to take this opportunity
and David Kramer
for
a lively salon, where
I gave
from my
I am
hosting
readings
translation-in-progress.
to David's
acumen.
indebted
keen ear and linguistic
especially
New Literary History,
1996, 27: 291-311
292
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
she repeatedly
in an effort to impose
intervenes
center-stage,
unfolding
her strict British standards on the coarse-mouthed
Russians.
The new Kafka
translations
under
the
currently
being prepared
of Arthur H. Samuelson
at Schocken
direction
a
division
of
Books,
are not an isolated
Random House,
ours
could
Indeed,
phenomenon.
be called a great era for retranslation?witness
the new renderings
of
and
Proust
either
or
that
have
are
Mann, Musil,
appeared
recently
Publishers
underway.
of
have,
their
course,
own
reasons
for
commission
it is simply a question
Sometimes
of acting
ing these new translations.
on the old translation
runs out. Another
before
the copyright
more
reason
is
the
in
dissatisfaction
intriguing
widespread
literary circles with
the first translators of the great modernists,
sense of
whose
style had
been formed by nineteenth-century
literature and who therefore often
failed to capture the modernist
idiom.
of literary translation have a
Nowadays, most reputable practitioners
of the art than that which held sway in the early
different
conception
decades of this century.2 It is high time for all of us?translators,
critics,
and readers?to
in the paradigm
this change
acknowledge
governing
the practice
of the craft. Those of us who set about retranslating
the
to render
modernists
endeavor
the tone of the original with greater
whose
accuracy than that sought or even desired by our predecessors,
priorities
lay elsewhere.
The efforts of the first English
translators of the modernists
were, of
to their elegant
countless
course, highly effective. Thanks
renditions,
readers gained access to important modernists.
Given
English-speaking
the barriers facing all foreign-language
in a culture as notori
authors
as is the Anglo-American
one, that is in itself a
ously self-sufficient
remarkable
which
achievement.
these
translations
their translations
elegance,
first
vividness,
points
were
translators
conform
now
is clear
naturalized
The
themselves.
in making
example,
authors
it
However,
were
often
to traditional
smoothness
of
that
ease
the
to a weakness
texture,
more
aesthetic
than
with
in the
interested
criteria,
in
the
for
pains
taking effort to echo the prose style of the original. They had no qualms
to compensate
about introducing
for aesthetic
"deficien
grace notes
cies" in the original. As a result, their versions often smuggle in through
the back door of translation
the very prose style that the modernists
to
sought
Translators
subvert.
such
as Constance
Garnett,
the Muirs,
Helen
Lowe-Porter
were more willing to
translator), and Scott Montcrieff
(Mann's principal
embellish
the prose style of their authors than most of us are now. Two
must
suffice:
In his Proust
Scott Montcrieff
translation,
examples
characteristically
resorts
to a
lofty
quotation
from
Shakespeare,
Remem
FRANZ
RETRANSLATING
293
CASTLE
KAFKA'S
the straightforward
French
title ? la
brance of Things Past, to render
recherche du temps perdu. Today, we frown upon such stylistic enhance
in
the pinnacle
of achievement
which were once considered
ments,
In
translation.
the
case
of
Thomas
Lowe-Porter
Mann,
admits
frankly
that she is quite willing to "break up" his sentences and "even transpose
them."3 In a pinch, she simply discards chunks of Mann's finely wrought
am
of literary translation?I
prose.4 Today the reputable practitioners
not speaking of those who "translate" even though they are incapable of
than
usually less willing
ordering breakfast in the source language?are
their
to embroider
predecessors
upon
the
prose
of
their
authors.
to translation actually go back quite
two conflicting
approaches
was
the
transla
century
great era of embellishing
eighteenth
on
to
tone
of the
the
the
the
need
whereas
tion,
capture
emphasis
as
as
Roman
the
became
during
faithfully
possible
pronounced
original
These
far. The
tic period. As the Russian translator Kornei Chukovskii
points out in his
onset
A
of
the
of
Romanticism
transla
with
translation,
High Art,
study
tors began to discard the eighteenth-century
notion of a disembodied
to strive after. Instead,
ideal that translators were supposed
aesthetic
on
art
to
the
of
their
the
that there
base
practice
assumption
they began
is "a concrete work and a concrete
author whose
individuality must be
even by reproducing
errors and
in
translation
his
preserved
lapses."5
the unique
How best to describe
style of Franz Kafka in The Castle}
Thomas
Mann
of
speaks
its
"precise,
almost
that is only part of the story. It would
However,
that Kafka is a conservative
modernist.
The
pantheon
reflect
his
oscillation
between
official
conservatism."6
be more
writers
accurate to say
in his personal
and
conservative-classical
mod
ern styles: Goethe,
novelist Adalbert
Stifter (1805
Kleist, the Austrian
rustic
moralist
Peter
Dickens
Hebel
1868), the
(1760-1826),
Johann
his
Kafka
disliked
and
that
Flaubert, Dostoevsky,
verbosity),
(though
modernist
Robert
Swiss
Walser.7
quirky
features of The Castle is its omission
One of the most modern
of
transitions. As Roger Shattuck suggests in his illuminating
of
the
study
French
from
avant-garde,
The
Banquet
Years,
the
"classic"
idea
of
style
"the undisputed
supremacy of transition," whereas modern
themselves with the "art of juxtaposition."8
have largely concerned
a
The
is
Castle
conservative-classical
thus,
hybrid work, combining
modern
traits.
distinctly
arose
artists
Seen
and
Another
modern
feature of the novel is the absence
characteristically
a
tone
of
of the prose varies considerably. At times, it
unitary style. The
is downright
between
abrupt. Kafka often omits transitions
phrases,
to
to
it
the
reader
detect
the
subterranean
connections
up
leaving
between
them. In The Castle and other late stories such as "The Burrow"
294
NEW
is, as he once
he
he
Moreover,
intimated
his
requires
in a notebook,
digging
to
of
readers?not
speak
LITERARY
HISTORY
the pit of Babel.9
his
translators!?to
too.
do quite a bit of digging,
The tempo of the prose reflects K.'s inner state. When K. is agitated,
it is choppy. When K. loses himself in the labyrinth of his paranoid
logic,
it is tortuous
and wordy. At times, Kafka's
the
language
parodies
of the Austro-Hungarian
convoluted
he
which
jargon
bureaucracy,
encountered
daily through his job as an insurance official. A key chapter
a fateful encounter
between K. and the official B?rgel: just as K.
depicts
a momentous
is offered
he dozes off, understandably
opportunity,
on in almost
is droning
since B?rgel
enough,
impenetrable
pseudo
German.
I have
which
officialese,
Elsewhere,
tried
to make
the
however,
as murky
narrative
presses
as it is in
in English
forward
relentlessly.
a miracle
Kafka's stark prose becomes
of precision. As
At such moments,
the lightly punctuated
the novel progresses,
becomes
increas
writing
a barmaid's breathless
in
fluid,
culminating
ingly
speech.
W. H. Auden once said that anybody who presents a new translation of
a literary classic ought to justify the endeavor?a
task, he adds, "which
to the malicious."10
can only be congenial
I am loath to criticize
the
I read with relief, alongside
smooth translation
the more
Muirs, whose
puzzling
do
not
original,
to
have
still an undergraduate
while
cast
the
in Dublin.
I
Fortunately,
stone.
first
the
several decades now critics and scholars have been faulting
to
for taking excessive
liberties with Kafka's
texts, for failing
readers about its
capture the stylistic tone of the original, for misleading
its intellectual
substance. Thirteen
texture, and even for distorting
years
ago, during the centenary of Kafka's birth, S. S. Prawer summed up the
case against the Muirs
in the Times Literary Supplement: "Scholar after
to tone down Kafka's
scholar has told us of the Muirs'
tendency
ominousness
and make his central figures more kindly than they are in
. . .
some of Kafka's phrases
and
the original.
They misunderstood
For
Muirs
.
sentences
.
variation.
elegant
.
[and]
...
tended
At
other
to
obscure
times,
Kafka's
the
Muirs
cross-references
by
connections
import
there are none
in the original."11
on Max Brod's deeply flawed
the Muirs had to depend
more,
the
As Kafka's editor, Brod's chief ambition was to transform
friend
into
classics
of
his
his
of
world
literature?in
manuscripts
of that term. With
this aim in mind,
he not
normative
understanding
where
What's
editions.
only
made
a number
of
substantive
editorial
interventions?about
two
Kafka's punctuation,
and occasionally
also regularized
per page?but
to
was
Brod's
his syntax, too.12 Another
piecemeal
problem
approach
was
new
He
Kafka
material.
Kafka.
continually
"discovering"
publishing
Even
in the late sixties, he could proudly
announce?to
the writer H. G.
FRANZ
RETRANSLATING
KAFKA'S
295
CASTLE
a Kafka story. When
the visitor asked him
he had discovered
Adler?that
where he had unearthed
it, he simply said: "Why, here in my desk, of
course!"13
of a so-called definitive
edition of The Castle in 1954
introduction
as it solved. To this
as
created almost
many problems
day, readers of the
18 by an abrupt an
novel are confronted
mid-way
chapter
through
but from
nouncement,
coming this time not from the Castle authorities,
the Castle editors: "Here the text of the first German edition of The Castle
The
is the continuation
of the text, together with
ends. What
follows
additional material
(different versions, fragments,
passages deleted
by
of
the author, etc.) as found among Kafka's papers after the publication
the first edition and included by the editor, Max Brod, in the definitive,
edition"
the tone here is
fourth German
(331). It's hard to say whether
or
mock-bureaucratic
intentionally
not.
In any
case,
this
after
Brechtian
effect the Muirs's
alienation
translation yields to that of Eithne Wilkins
an
two remaining
translated
and Ernst Kaiser, who
chapters,
plus
assortment
of appendices,
which Brod dug out of his famous bottom
drawer.
those hodgepodge
editions have been superseded
Fortunately,
by new
edited
German
In the
editions
Kafka
scholars.
by leading
scrupulously
case of The Castle and The Trial, the critical editions
(1982 and 1990,
were prepared
adheres
by Sir Malcolm
Pasley, who
respectively)14
to
It
to
thanks
Kafka's
is,
incidentally,
scrupulously
manuscripts.
Pasley
are in the Bodleian Library at
that many of Kafka's original manuscripts
Oxford.
In 1961 he transported
from a Zurich vault,
them to England
fearful
lest war erupt
in the Middle
where Max Brod,
East, had
them.
deposited
In 1982 Pasley's German
edition of The Castle was hailed in the Times
Ritchie
author of a ground-breaking
Robertson,
Literary Supplement by
1985 study of Kafka's
sively
our
alter
to Judaism15:
relationship
of
understanding
Kafka,
and
"this edition
renders
will deci
ones
previous
. . . .The blame lies with the transcribers and/or
printers who
or
omitted
and
entire
and
words
who turned
many
transposed
phrases,
into 'great mockery,'
'coarse mockery'
'ajumble of houses'
into a 'lot of
obsolete
houses,'
'not
a sound'
into
'not
a
guest,'
etc."16
In
the
same
issue
of
the
Times Literary Supplement, S. S. Prawer concluded
that it was "irrespon
sible" of Kafka's English-language
8cWarburg
and
publishers?Seeker
U.K.
in
in
the
and
Schocken
Books
the
U.S.?to
continue
Penguin
the expanded
1954 version of The Castle the "definitive" edition.
in this critical chorus
latest voice
is George
In an
Steiner.
to the newly designed
introduction
of
the
Muirs's
translation
reprinting
of The Trial (1995), he openly criticizes Brod's edition and the Muirs's
translation. He points out that Brod's version of the German
text is
calling
The
296
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
"amateurish
Edwin Muir
and, at certain points,
arbitrary"; besides,
out
of Kierkegaardian
that is, out of a synthesis of his
"reads
Calvinism,"
more
Scottish faith and Kierkegaard's
skeptical
theology. He
original
of The Trial in motifs
the immersion
"misses almost altogether
and
concerns
of a radically Judaic-Talmudic
kind."17
these comments
When
a
in
ago,
of
reprint
the
by Steiner
Muirs's
of
a few years
in Britain
first appeared
translation
same
the
novel,
some
in The Irish
John Banville writing
reviewers?including
as Steiner
if the Brod/Muir
is as inadequate
version
Times?asked,
to
it?
this day
suggests, why is the publisher
reprinting
Unfortunately,
to
Kafka's principal
in
U.S.
the
and
Britain
continue
claim
publishers
that the texts on which the Muirs's translations of The Castle and The Trial
are based are definitive.
But that is no longer true.
to suggest that there is unanimity
it would be wrong
Nonetheless
the novelist
or on any other
Kafka critics on the topic of Kafka translations,
on
own
matter.
for
before
I
that
So,
translation,
my
commenting
topic
the symptomatic
confusion
about the goals of
should like to examine
literary translation displayed by the British scholar Ronald Gray, whose
on a Kafka novel.18
1956 study of The Castle was the first monograph
an
astute
of
is
reader
like
Kafka,
many critics he has not
Gray
Although
decided what it is that he expects of translation. On one hand, in a 1977
entitled
"But Kafka Wrote
in German,"19 he some
article provocatively
in
times appears to argue in favor of what Iwould call the new paradigm
an apt formulation?which
I
often
translation.
Using
thought
literary
about while I was working on The Castle?he
says that "translating Kafka
among
is not a matter
of a sentence
anew,
with
such
of making
into one's
faithfulness
a daring fling, or of taking the whole meaning
to refashion
it entirely
'English' consciousness
as one
language
can
accord
to one
another,
to the resonance
of each word,
the
of a patient attention
of
with
the
of
each
sentence,
only occasionally
challenge
rhythm
a totally
out
the
On
of
medium"
other
hand,
(251).
retreating
foreign
not present
in the
he praises the Muirs for adding Dickensian
flourishes
I
"a
of
he
shows
touch
would
(242-43).
says,
genius"
original?this,
bursts of creativity
that the Muirs's
argue, however,
inappropriate
the absolutely essential neutrality of Kafka's tone. Moreover,
undermine
in his view,
the Muirs for tidying up Kafka's prose, which,
Gray applauds
or
constant
is marred
the
of
words
doubt
expressing
by
repetition
no
is
there
usually
uncertainty:
"'Perhaps,'
'probably,' 'certainly' (when
but
rather
'indeed,'
certainty),
and
the
vague
'somehow,'
'somewhere,'
'some
to the impression
is being
that a barely asserted portrayal
body,'
is
his
self!
Here
Kafka
for
diffident
offered"
(246).
Gray
being
criticizing
those
He also believes
that the Muirs do Kafka a favor by excising
add
FRANZ
RETRANSLATING
features:
objectionable
such
of
"Weariness may
so
. . . the
often
have played
Muirs
are,
a part
thank
in allowing
not
goodness
them" (my italics). One may ask whether
faithful in rendering
our vote of thanks for thus
deserve
truly
"improving" upon the
doggedly
the Muirs
prose
occur
to
words
297
CASTLE
KAFKA'S
a
genius.
a "lack of
Gray claims that from 1914 onwards Kafka's style displays
then the
full control"
(246). If that were already true of Brod's editions,
I find that
Kafka of the critical editions must be out of control. However,
to expect
It is hardly reasonable
normative.
judgment
inappropriately
a writer, who,
full control from a writer of Kafka's uncanny clairvoyance,
having only the vaguest idea of what he was about to write, could dash
in one sitting. That story
"The Judgment,"
off his literary breakthrough,
it
is certainly not in full control either, and yet Kafka himself considered
the most powerful piece that he had ever written. A mere glance at the
of The Castle shows that it, too, was written with the intuitive
manuscript
a
of
somnambulist.
Critics like Gray are clearly seeking in Kafka
certainty
that we associate with "the classics." However,
the polish
Kafka is not
sense indicated at the outset of this
a
not
in
least
the
classic?at
quite
we translators surely have a duty to render the voice
piece. In any case,
that
we
hear,
however
odd
it may
sound.
I, for
one,
see
myself,
not
as
Kafka's editor, but as his medium.
As in the case of The Trial, one of the major problems with the Muirs's
Castle is that it furthers
their theological
agenda, which was heavily
as the seat of divine
Brod's.
Brod
influenced
the
Castle
by
regarded
Muir
stated
that
"the
theme
of
the
novel is salvation."
grace;
bluntly
to the first English
in his introduction
edition
Moreover,
(1930)20 he
depicts
the
novel
as
the
modern
equivalent
of
Bunyan's
seventeenth
century prose allegory The Pilgrims Progress. That notion, which was to
to come,
the critical debate
for decades
dominate
is now widely
Muir himself had forceful views on such matters. He was
discredited.
that literature
could not survive the demise
of religious
convinced
belief: "If that belief were to fail completely
and for good, there would
art with a significance
be no imaginative
its own time. But it is
beyond
fail, for it is native to man."21
convictions
leave
their mark on the Muirs's
translation.
strong
or
an
create
version
fits the
Whether
that
not,
consciously
they
English
more neatly than does the
mold
far
Of
course,
religious
original.
they
were not the only ones to fall under Brod's spell. Even Thomas Mann,
to
interest in the novel, adheres
influential
foreword
whose
spurred
Brod's simplistic theological
interpretation.
in part
The Muirs's translations fail to do justice to Kafka's modernity
inconceivable
that it should
Those
because
the literary
sensibility
of Edwin,
the primary
stylist, had been
298
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
and Dickens
such as Thackeray
figures
as
and
such
Years
rather
Joyce22
Virginia Woolf.
a
launched
frontal
attack on
before first encountering
Kafka, Edwin had
arts
a
in
currents
in
book with the rather
literature and the
modernist
concludes
with a call for "a new
title We Moderns, which
incongruous
a
in
around
form of prayer."23 Moreover,
study of the novel published
the time when he and Willa were settling down to translate Kafka, he
molded
by nineteenth-century
than by modernists
is arbitrary,
its
of Joyce's Ulysses: "its design
a sine qua
Muir
is
For
its
feeble,
unity
unity
questionable."24
development
non of great literature.
then that he should seek to
Is it any wonder
on
it
Castle}
Kafka's
impose
As for the actual process of translation, Edwin, the poet and man of
the English, while Willa, with her
letters, was most adept at polishing
a degree of accuracy
in the
as
a
ensured
classical
philologist,
training
a
for
weakness
she
had
of
the
German.
However,
pronounced
rendering
to
the
older
and
subscribed
colorful
words25
clearly
inappropriately
of literary translation. She lets the cat out of the bag when she
paradigm
historical
rendition of Lion Feuchtwanger's
their collaborative
describes
novel fud S??: "I cannot
say that we translated fud S??; what we
of it."26
was a polished
rendering
produced
Edwin Muir was Franz Kafka's junior by only two years. Indeed, while
Kafka was out in the countryside writing The Castle, the Scottish pair were
in Prague studying Czech. They never met Kafka; if they had, they would
to converse
in the Muirs's rudimentary
have been obliged
Czech, since
the
Edwin and Willa knew "only a few words of German."27 Subsequently
the deficiencies
listed
to Dresden, where
Muirs moved
Ronald Gray is one of several
. . . number
surprising
"really
of
they learned German.
critics who have called
attention
to the
in
misunderstandings"
straightforward
from unimportant
the Muirs's
translations, which
"vary in importance
He attributes
of
to
versions
quite important passages."28
misleading
slips
to the economic
the
Muirs?the
of
those misunderstandings
exigency
bane
of
lateness
translators,
then
as
now.
More
to
the
point,
however,
is
the
set about
encounter
with German?Edwin
the Muirs's
at the age of thirty-five, long past the optimal age for
German
of
learning
language acquisition.
the Muirs fail to render the neutral, dispassionate
Moreover,
quality of
Lon
Kafka's language. One scholar, Joyce Crick of University
College,
more
than
"is
vivid
that
them
for
has
criticized
don,
choosing vocabulary
neutral
Kafka's
than
One
for
speech.
unnatural
the
cannot
that is what
discuss
. . .
They
opted
for
the
natural
surface
rather
undercurrent."29
and
translation without giving concrete examples,
three versions?
to do. First, I shall compare
I now propose
FRANZ
RETRANSLATING
299
CASTLE
KAFKA'S
and
the Muirs's
the German
translation,
(critical edition),
original
a central, if rather dense, passage early in the novel, in which
mine?of
in his hometown
with the tower of the
K. compares
the church-tower
Castle:
er
Und
oben.
in Gedanken
verglich
H?usergemenge
hier
oben?es
Turm
und
mit
klarerem
war
der
wie
sich jetzt zeigte,
vielleicht
von
zum Teil
Epheu
gn?dig
aufstrahlten?etwas
oder
?ngstlicher
Es war
zackten.
Weise
das
Z?gern,
roten
mit
hatte
unsicher,
Kinderhand
nachl?ssiger
wie wenn
h?herem
als
sich
und
dort
oben
sich
Geb?ude?
Ziel
als das
niedrige
hat. Der
tr?be Werktag
Turm
eines Wohnhauses,
ein
Rundbau,
einf?rmiger
die
Fenstern,
in der
jetzt
einem
s?llerartigen
von
wie
br?chig
in den blauen
unregelm??ig,
sich
gezeichnet
erhoben
Turm
irdisches
das?und
Himmel
der
Hausbewohner,
tr?bseliger
irgendein
des Hauses
sich
Zimmer
im entlegensten
durchbrochen
Dach
dem
nach
ihn der
sichtbare?der
einzige
war
des Hauptschlosses,
kleinen
mit
verdeckt,
Irrsinniges
mit
geradenwegs
ein
Ziegeln,
mit
Ausdruck
Mauerzinnen
dessen
Abschlu?,
der Heimat
Kirchturm
ohne
abschlie?end
breitdachig
bauen??aber
wir
anderes
verj?ngend,
was
k?nnen
Sonne
den
bestimmt,
Turm,
Jener
gerechter
halten
sollen,
eingesperrt
um
zu
sich der Welt
zeigen.
h?tte
h?tte,
(518)
in his mind
And
him.
The
church
with
red
topped
men
build??but
clearer
here?the
only
than
one
loftier
the humble
visible?the
round,
building,
uniformly
small windows
that glittered
looked
topped
by what
by
glitter?and
as
at home
with
tower
the
to its
tapering
unfalteringly
an
earthly
the humble
like
part
in the
an
if designed
the blue.
of
it graciously
mantled
a somewhat
sun?with
attic,
with
a
and
him
above
of
perhaps
with
ivy,
maniacal
were
that
battlements
or
above
point,
else can
building?what
than
dwelling-houses,
goal
tower
muddle
of everyday
life. The
as was now evident,
tower of a house,
was
the main
pierced
a
with
meaning
tower
the church
compared
in line, soaring
tower, firm
in the roof,
tiles and broad
he
of
fumbling,
trembling
by
was as if a
tenant
It
outlined
against
melancholy-mad
clearly
to have been
in the topmost
of his house
locked
chamber
had
who
kept
ought
the roof and
lifted himself
burst
(C 12).
up to the gaze of the world.
through
broken,
irregular,
a child,
in thought he compared
And
tower
up
there.
The
churchtower,
in a wide
rose,
culminating
can we build??but
had
than
expression
one
in sight?the
that
of
tower
was
the churchtower
careless
hand
in his homeland
with
off
the
as
it
tapering
clearly
unequivocally
else
red tiles, was an earthly
building?what
than the low pile of houses
and a clearer
goal
and
roof with
a
higher
the dull
tower
The
workday.
as now became
of a residence,
a monotonous
main
castle,
with
little
windows
which
quite
mad
about
tain,
irregular,
this?ending
as
brittle,
the
round
building,
glinted
suddenly
in a kind
of
though
drawn
by
in
whose
anxious
was
here?it
apparent,
hidden
mercifully
the sun?there
terrace,
the
up
or
the
possibly
in part
of
only
the
ivy,
by
was
something
uncer
battlements,
careless
hand
of
a
300
NEW
child,
have
had
into
zigzagged
remained
rightly
broken
the blue
locked
the
through
roof
It was as if some gloomy
sky.
up in the most
out-of-the-way
to reveal
himself
and risen
LITERARY
resident,
room
HISTORY
who
should
in the house,
to the world.
as
to render
the tone of the original
It is particularly
important
as
as possible
such
fore
in pregnant
this, which
passages
faithfully
a term developed
Circle
the
borrow
Prague
Linguistic
by
ground?to
in 1924?language
only a few years after Kafka's death of tuberculosis
more
in
encountered
the help of techniques
itself, with
commonly
no
Muirs's
version
of
is
that
There
the
in
than
denying
poetry
prose.30
this passage still reads well. Indeed, critics who regard smooth readabil
their version of this
ity as the prime criterion in translation might prefer
not
at the original.
that
look
to
do
that
mine.
is,
Provided,
passage
they
My English
than
theirs.
is stranger
But
then
and denser
so,
too,
than the Muirs's.
is Kafka's
It is also
less vivid
German.
that the Muirs generally
try to make Kafka sound as natural as
use the odd term "melancholy
to
hear
them
it
is
surprising
possible,
ears
on
of English speakers, seemingly
the
mad." That compound
grates
for no good reason. Why use such a strange locution for the unremark
of mean
subtle gradations
able German word tr?bselig, which contains
or
to
I
chose
the
but
"melancholy"
"gloomy"?
essentially corresponds
ing
in
to capture, at least partially, the association
I wanted
latter because
Hausbe
text between
this gloomy occupant
the German
("tr?bseliger
I say partially
and the dull workday
("tr?ber Werktag").
wohner")
of the tr?b
the repetition
I could not find a way to replicate
because
Given
arch.
inappropriately
sounding
insert the
that the Muirs
obvious
it becomes
closer inspection,
because
word mad in the passage
by such
they are disconcerted
the
without
often
Kafka
associative
transition;
juxtaposes
phrases
leaps.
Muirs tend to put in the "missing" links. Here they use the adjective mad
without
On
between
they want to bridge the narrative gap that they perceive
to the insane effect of
K.'s allusion
of the Castle?and
the description
the startling final image of the
the sun lighting up the windows?and
man who suddenly breaks through the roof. If Kafka
possibly deranged
leaves it up to the reader to construct such bridges, his translators surely
ought to follow suit.
choices open to the
The Muirs often whittle away at the interpretive
because
in German
tentative and oblique
reader. Generally, Kafka sounds more
in the passage
in their English.
than he does
above,
Indeed,
they
into an unambiguous
the cryptic language of the original
transform
the human and the divine.31 In German
sermon about the gulf between
als ihn der tr?be Werktag
Ausdruck
klarerem
a pregnant
phrase?"mit
I
of the church-tower.
at
hints
the
implication
symbolic
hat"?merely
FRANZ
RETRANSLATING
KAFKA'S
301
CASTLE
the phrase as "a clearer expression
echo Kafka's terseness by rendering
than that of the dull workday." That phrase may sound baffling,
though
no more
so than it is in German.
The Muirs spell out what is merely
"a clearer meaning
implicit in Kafka: they attribute to the church-tower
of daily life." Characteristically,
than the muddle
they thereby transform
Kafka's ostensibly neutral?if
into clear-cut
covertly figurative?phrasing
In their translation the church-tower
value judgments.
symbolizes all too
over
of
the
the
truth
confusion
of everyday
clearly
superiority
religious
life. The voice we are hearing here is not Kafka's, but Brod's.
the Muirs
Since
view K. as a pilgrim
in search of salvation?a
incarnation of Bunyan's Christian?it
is not surprising
twentieth-century
that they should fail to render
the criticism
that Kafka continually
directs at K.32 I myself have no quarrel with the view that Kafka is a
like most critics nowadays
I do not subscribe
skeptical mystic. However,
to the simpleminded
advocated
exegesis
theological
by Brod and the
Muirs. And that is one reason why K. is about as calculating
and self
in my translation as he is in the original. For instance,
centered
in the
uses
the
first
Kafka
"nach
very
chapter
potentially
ambiguous
phrase
seinen Berechnungen"
K.'s thinking. The Muirs
(S 30) to describe
on account of the
translate this phrase?which
differing
chapter breaks
in Brod's edition occurs at the beginning
of their second chapter?as
as
to his
the phrase
(23); I render
"by his reckoning"
"according
I hear in it a covert allusion
to one of K.'s most
calculations"
because
salient characteristics.
that phrase is doing double duty here; it
Besides,
as a "calculating"
also alludes to K.'s ostensible
(berechnender)
profession
land-surveyor.
Kafka and his audience
often burst out laughing when he read aloud
from his works. Some attribute this explosion
of mirth to gallows humor.
However,
It
no
is unfortunate
pointed
Kafka's
such
label
that,
can
as
do
several
justice
critics
to Kafka's
and
at
oblique
one
least
sense
of humor.
translator
have
the Muirs often fail to catch deliberate
uses of humor on
while
in other
humor
part
gratuitously
injecting inappropriate
out,
instances.33
In The Castle, K. is the main
butt of Kafka's
of the
irony. One
I
faced
in
was
that
to
the
novel
catch
that
delicate
challenges
translating
innuendo
without making
it more
in English
audible
than it is in
German. Here is a characteristic
from
the
first
example
chapter: K., who
has just taken a nap in one of the village houses,
as "ein
is described
als
fr?her"
The
Muirs
that
K.'s
(24).
say
wenig hellh?riger
"perceptions
Iwrite
[were] somewhat quickened"
(17); sticking closer to the German,
that K. was "slightly keener of hearing
than before."
I render Kafka's
innocent
I am a
seemingly
phrase as literally as I can, not because
doctrinaire
but
I
a
because
overhear
in
it
Nabokovian,
sly dig at K.'s
302
NEW
obtuseness.
these
Kafka
By translating
subterranean
all too freely,
LITERARY
the Muirs
HISTORY
miss many
of
allusions.
The
of The Castle emerges
humor
in the following
underground
two
K.
and
his
between
have walked
who
in
assistants,
may
exchange
from the silent films that so captivated Kafka:
said K., comparing
their faces as
to
between
you.
supposed
distinguish
as alike
otherwise
as"?he
then
hesitated,
you're
as snakes."
as alike
"otherwise
smiled.
you're
They
us," they said in self-defense.
guish
quite
easily between
see with
Iwitnessed
it
but I can only
"since
K,
myself,
me
to
I
treat
between
So
shall
you.
permit
distinguish
one
what
of
both
is
that's
Arthur,
called,
you
you
you,
"This
you
The
said,
both
name
"My
Arthur."34
almost
breaks
the novel
treatment
harsh
being
about
sent
that
village
often
continued
believe
and
eyes
as one
you
before,
but
differ,
involuntarily?
can
distin
usually
"People
"I can
these
done
names
do
and
person
said K,
not
call
one.
asked
perhaps?"?K
matter"
said
that,"
they
"I shall
humor
that
complaint,
take a joke.
this, since
there
as
the
kind
of
work.'
Arthur
then?"
surveyor's
He:
what
K
asked
. . When
.
it is of
a
files
"Our
sent
Galater
course
the
assistants.'
'That
isn't
teach
K.
against
complaint
the complaint
complaint,"
us to you
our
basis
of
We
said:
...
said Jeremiah,
he said?I
complaint?'you
'But we know
so
should
important;
that
though,
I hear,
at
the
is about:
It is important,
you.
you
He
he takes everything
very seriously.
considers
this a great
whereas
and
event,
immediately
should
this.'"35
You
let him know
he will
necessary,
what
little. From
nothing.
it doesn't
"Well,
K. asks Jeremiah
Castle; whereupon
is your
"What
that you cannot
note
of
careful
is Jeremiah."
had
Your
in such scenes is far from incidental. This
are said to be K.'s assistants. Yet
Jeremiah,
they
to K. We do not
Castle and have been assigned
their mysterious
until close to where
assignment
so disenchanted
off. By then the two have become
with
slapstick
pair, Arthur and
actually work for the
of
learn the purpose
odd
K.'s
he
I
he
"No,"
call
is difficult,"
am
"how
cheer
are
nothing
it become
him
come
has
in
"is
took
reality
up a
to the
it
is
as obstacles
K. has always regarded Arthur and Jeremiah
now turns out that they were his closest links
Yet
it
his
obstructing
path.
a new twist on that ancient
stock figure,
to the Castle. They constitute
once observed,
in Kafka's world
the wise fool, for, as Walter Benjamin
"those seeing to help fallen man are fools; but only fools can help." The
if any, of the Castle authorities may always elude
ultimate
significance,
us, but one thing we can say with certainty:
they do have a sense of
two
assistants to
would
humor. Otherwise
they assign
Chaplinesque
why
Hitherto,
K. with
Moreover,
instructions
the
to cheer him up?
overtones
in Kafka's
spare?and
at
times
even
dull
FRANZ
RETRANSLATING
303
CASTLE
KAFKA'S
emerge most clearly when it is read aloud. This became
looking?prose
at the
that I gave from my translation
clear to me during a reading
in June 1995. At first, the audience was grim
in Vienna
Czech Center
woman
told me that in preparation
for the reading
faced. One Viennese
she had read eighty pages of the novel in German, without finding
the
reason
to
the
I
smile.
could
hear
her
During
reading, however,
slightest
chuckling.
countries Kafka is not read aloud as often as he
In German-speaking
to
be. Perhaps that iswhy some readers there have lost touch with
used
that immediately
struck the first reviewers of
the irony and humor
even more
first audiences.
it has
Kafka?and
Indeed,
strikingly?his
that Kafka achieved his greatest impact on his contem
been suggested
through public readings from his work by the reciter Ludwig
poraries
in his program
included
Hardt, who, at Kafka's request, occasionally
a humorous
anecdote
of
pieces by Kafka's literary favorites, for example,
Kleist's about a deceptively
sluggish Prussian.36
Kafka often leaves it up to readers to discern his transitions, which are
often hidden. Sudden alterations of tone, even within a single sentence,
this rather perplexing
catch the reader off guard. Take, for instance,
instance from the first chapter:
Er bewegte
sich der
Frau
Zimmer.
(S24).
He
less
felt
woman
man
He
sich
To
arm-chair,
room.
about
moved
woman
in the
readers
st?tzte
Lehnstuhl,
constrained,
in the
in the
freier,
im
seinen
war
einmal
Stock
?brigens
hier
einmal
dort
auch
der
k?rperlich
and
there,
with
poked
and noted
his
stick
here
that
he
himself
rested
his
auf,
n?herte
gr??te
im
the
approached
the
biggest
physically
was
(C 17).
more
armchair;
freely,
besides
unaccustomed
out
to modern
stick
here
the biggest
narrative,
and
there,
in the
the
the
approached
room.
last
phrase
of
this
a
of place. The first three phrases describe
may
a
to
of
actions
and
fourth
the
sequence
clearly belong
together;
belongs
an
since
it
of
different
describes
attribute
K.'s. The Muirs
category
and in an effort to close this
evidently
thought something was missing,
an
apparent gap in narrative
logic, they insert
explicit link such as one
a
novel?a
would find in
nineteenth-century
linking phrase for which
. . ."
in German:
"he noted
there is no counterpart
that he himself.
sense to them.
Baffled by the original,
they edit Kafka until he makes
the resulting English
ismore conventional
than Kafka's
Unfortunately,
startling German.
occasionally
That particular
shift in mid-sentence
reflects the original narrative
sentence
seem
he was
304
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
employed
by Kafka in The Castle. It is evident from the manuscript
that Kafka began writing the novel in the first person, but then, as Dorrit
Cohn has pointed
of the astonishing
out, in the middle
love-making
scene with Frieda at the end of the third chapter, he
changed his mind,
and cast the novel in the third person.37 Yet, even though he immedi
voice
ately went back and replaced all of the first person pronouns with "K.,"
one can still sense the ghostly presence
of that "I."38
In The Castle indirect
interior monologue
alternates with narrative
but it is not always easy to tell the two apart. Here
it is clearly
exposition,
to locate Barnabas,
the narrator who
is describing
K's
effort
his
messenger:
Trotzdem
schrie
die Nacht.
aus
K. noch
aller
Kraft
den
Namen,
der Name
donnerte
durch
(5 47)
the less K yelled the name with the full force of his lungs. It thundered
through the night. (C36)
None
with
Nevertheless,
through
the
full
force
K.
shouted
out
the
name,
the
name
thundered
night.
I echo the effect of Kafka's syntax by
In rendering
that sentence
the first phrase end with the word "name" and the next begin
making
creates an acoustic clash that
with the same word. The instant repetition
no
to catch this effect, even
mimics K.'s yell. The Muirs make
attempt
certain problems
of
though, in the words of one critic, they "overlooked
such instance of
in their care for the syntax."39 One
idiom, mainly
excessive fidelity to the German word order can be found in the Muirs's
I
the example
version of a phrase in the sentence
immediately
following
have
Kafka's
given.
They
phrase?"so
invert
weit
the usual
war
also
English
Barnabas
word
order
by rendering
is
schon"?which
colloquial German as "so far away was Barnabas already." What
is that K. is talking to himself.
I
fail to discern here, I believe,
as
was
that
Barnabas
which
sounds
"so
far,"
already
phrase
were brought
thing K. could say to himself. The Muirs, who
were
as
not
familiar as we
novel,
English
nineteenth-century
with devices such as indirect interior monologue.
Of
course,
no
translator's
solutions
can
ever
be
perfect.
To
perfectly
the Muirs
render the
like some
up on the
are today
some
ears,
"with full force" may sound slightly jarring.
my placing of the phrase
I could find. Modern English shies
that is the best compromise
However,
to the
this
restricts
and
the options
available
from
inversions,
away
translator. One simply has to strike the best balance one can. The ideal
elastic
of course, would be to replicate Kafka's wonderfully
solution,
FRANZ
RETRANSLATING
KAFKA'S
305
CASTLE
he
syntax without making him sound less natural or more jarring?and
can be both?than
he is in German. However,
that is not always possible.
Over the years The Castle has defied the efforts of armies of interpret
ers from every conceivable
camp. It is easier for us today
ideological
than itwas for the Muirs to realize that the very act of interpretation
is a
central concern of Kafka's. That obsession with interpretation
is perhaps
most evident in the second chapter, in which K. subjects a six-sentence
letter from a mysterious
official called Klamm to a brilliant analysis that
would satisfy the most exacting of New Critics. Fittingly, the chapter ends
to interpretation:
with an allusion
Was
wolltest
sagte
K
Du
"Du
von
wirst
dem
doch
Wirt?,"
bei
gewi?," sagte K und ?berlie?
"What
did
you
said K
night,"
with
you're
the
"Ich wollte
Olga.
?bernachten,"
sagte
ihr die Deutung
landlord?"
staying
with
Olga
der Worte.
she
us!"
hier
asked.
?bernachten,"
verwundert.
a bed
"I wanted
said Olga
"Ja,
(5 58)
in
surprise.
for
"Of
the
course,"
leaving her to make what she liked of it. (C45)
said K,
"What
want
"But
fragte
uns
was
here,"
night
astonishment.
it you wanted
from
the landlord,"
asked Olga.
are
said K
"But you
the night
spending
said K,
it to her
'Yes, of course,"
leaving
"I wanted
with
to
us"
interpret
to
said
spend
the
Olga
in
the phrase.
I felt that it was necessary
the Muirs,
to keep this explicit
to interpretation
in a novel
that consists of K.'s endlessly
proliferating
interpretations.
to light by the critical editions
The Kafka brought
has proved
some critics objected
controversial.
In Germany
to Malcolm
Pasley's
to adhere to Kafka's idiosyncratic punctuation,
decision
in the
especially
version
of
the
critical
edition
of
The
one
Castle.
Of
course,
paperback
could argue
that Kafka would
have tidied up the manuscript
and
to
inserted conventional
his
However,
punctuation
prior
publication.
of
all
save
a
for
semico
few
commas,
gradual abandoning
punctuation
lons, and an occasional
full-stop suggests that he is deliberately
throwing
his usual punctiliousness
to the wind. He fails to abide
by the conven
texts because he is
tional rules for printed
writing primarily for the ear.
of the novels
Indeed, as one critic has pointed
out, the manuscripts
to be read aloud. In a
resemble score-sheets40 and are meant
diary entry
of March 26, 1911 Kafka described
the visceral impact of punctuation:
"Omission of the period.
In general
the spoken sentence
starts off in a
letter
with
the
out
course
as far as it
bends
in
its
large capital
speaker,
can towards the listener and with the
returns
to
the
period
speaker. But
if the period is omitted,
then the sentence
is no longer constrained
and
blows its entire breath at the listener."
Unlike
reference
306
LITERARY
NEW
HISTORY
The starkness of Kafka's style could scarcely have escaped Beckett.
Beckett had spent years trying to emerge from Joyce's shadow, however,
and was not keen to have his work labeled as "Kafkaesque."
In a rare
a
from
New
York
with
the
interview,
Times, he
newspaper
journalist
stressed the distance between Kafka and himself: "I've only read Kafka in
for a few things
German?serious
in French
and
reading?except
a
in
The
German....
The
has
Castle
Kafka
hero
coherence
English?only
of purpose. He's lost but he's not spiritually precarious,
he's not falling
seem to be falling to bits. Another
to bits. My people
difference.
You
notice how Kafka's form is classic, it goes on like a steam-roller?almost
serene. It seems to be threatened
the whole time?but
the consternation
is in the form. In my work there is consternation
behind
the form, not in
of the literature of silence
the great practitioner
the form."41 Beckett,
Kafka
is not necessarily
when he call his style
and failure,
praising
a whiff of what Harold
can detect
in those comments
"classic." One
Bloom calls the anxiety of influence. Beckett's anxiety would surely have
increased had he read The Castle, not in Brod's normalized
edition, but
to
out
iron
refuses
Kafka's
in that of Malcolm
who
idiosyncrasies.
Pasley,
In any case, as Ruby Cohn and Edith Kern have shown, Beckett's Watt
owes a great deal to Kafka's Castle.42When
the new editions/translations
these
of Kafka's novels are finally released, the stylistic affinities between
two
often
Imust
admit,
Kafka's
prose,
sure
not
should
become
he meant
what
the
by
apparent.
comments
I first read Beckett's
that when
though,
I was
masters
modern
dissimilar
quite
about
effect.
"steamroller"
on the translation did I begin to see his point. There
Only while working
such
of passages
is something
relentless about the forward momentum
as the following,
in which Kafka blends external narrative and indirect
internal monologue:
kam
Zuf?llig
beim
hinab,
nachhause,
ihm
schien
t?richt
der
dann
Lehrer
sich
Absprung
aber auf der Mauer
f?r
damals
war,
gewesen
ein
denn
war
By
the
chance
in getting
difficulty
of
that
altogether
snowy
triumph
foolish,
night
but
for
the memory
seemed
now
of
gewesen,
einen
Halt
das
Jahren
zu
in der
mit
Blick
?rgerlichen
M?he
Gef?hl
dieses
was
geben,
Schneenacht
er
kam
Sieges
nicht
ganz
am Arm
(S 50)
past
still he
had
to him
so many
it came
einem
nur
and
with
down he had hurt his knee
home,
had
mit
Knie,
er doch
come
had
teacher
In jumping
descend.
am
K
Leben
langes
nach
vielen
jetzt
des Barnabas kam es ihm zuhilfe.
K
trieb
vor?ber,
verletzte
stern
face
had
made
and he had found
on
K
some
sense
the top of the wall. The
was
not
for
life, which
victory
in the
later on the arm of Barnabas
been
then
a
years
to succor
a
him.
(C 36)
FRANZ
RETRANSLATING
the
chance
By
teacher
and
along
307
CASTLE
KAFKA'S
with
an
look
angry
he
drove
K
in
down,
jumping off K hurt his knee and only with difficulty reached home, but still he
had
on
been
up
sustain
would
for
after
now,
came
feeling
at the
the wall,
him
time
a
throughout
years,
many
to his aid.
on
he had
that this feeling
of victory
thought
been
life, and this hadn't
foolish,
long
entirely
in this snowy
the arm of Barnabas
that
night
even more
Kafka's punctuation
The Muirs
consistently
regularize
the relentless
than Max Brod did.43 As a result, they fail to capture
In contrast, I have tried, insofar as possible,
by Beckett.
quality described
to Kafka's frugal punctuation,
to adhere
of
which, with its rejection
of
in favor
semicolons
commas,
the
anticipates
practice
of Beckett,
who
in Watt (1953) and abandoned
them
avowed his dislike of semicolons
describes
Kafka's
thereafter. Malcolm
prose
Pasley aptly
predominant
term that also applies
to
style in The Castle as "flowing parataxis"44?a
Beckett's Molloy.
to retain Kafka's idiosyncratic
I realize that my decision
Nonetheless,
run-on
The resulting
controversial.
will
prove
probably
punctuation
sentences
told me
reminds
well
may
some
unsettle
readers.
encounters
in
American
student
literature,
papers.
readers
too
long.
Since
the
early
in
However,
have
of Emily Dickinson.
punctuation
Brod's alterations
have obscured
far
one
Indeed,
English
professor
in my translation,
that the prose of the new Kafka, as reflected
sentences
him of the barely punctuated
that he all too often
eighties,
come
to
an
analogous
the
accept
the modernity
instance
idiosyncratic
of Kafka's
prose
readers
German-speaking
in
for
have
been able to savor the new Kafka. Unfortunately,
English-speaking
reason for
there is another
readers still lag behind. Besides,
looking
forward to the new Kafka translations: The critical debate about Kafka is
and fresh translations could help to rekindle
currently in the doldrums,
it.45
the Brod/Muir
edition of The Castle, which relegates
the most
an
to
in
the
novel
the
critical
edition?
tantalizing passage
appendix,
and my translation?ends
when Kafka lifts his pen in mid-sentence,
letting the words fade into the page:
Unlike
She held out her trembling hand toK and made him sit down beside her, she
spoke
with
difficulty,
it was
difficult
to understand
her,
Lancaster,
but
what
she
Pennsylvania
said
308
new
literary
history
The New
York Times
NOTES
1
Richard
"Raskolnikov
Lourie,
Says
the Darnedest
Things,"
Book
(April 26, 1992), 24.
The Structure
See Thomas
2
Kuhn,
1962). Kuhn's
(Chicago,
of Scientific Revolutions
can help shed light on the change
that
nature
of
scientific
the
of
brilliant
change
analysis
of this
since
the early decades
of literary translation
in the practice
has taken place
is often extremely
in the sciences
of change
out, the awareness
century. As Kuhn points
of the scientific
can happen
"in a special
A paradigm
localized.
segment
change
even within
the same physical
remain unaware
other
while
science,
sections,
community,"
that there has been any such change
(p. 61).
realize
that a fundamental
In the case of translation,
many
paradigm
practitioners
97
Review,
has not caught on in some sections of the literary
but this awareness
has occurred,
change
to
continue
for newspapers,
those writing
For instance, many
world.
reviewers,
especially
is "smooth"
and
on the basis of whether
the English
assess a translation
exclusively
on conventional
often precludes
aesthetic
"natural." This insistence
any consider
qualities
or not,
such critics
texture
of the original. Whether
ation of the specific
consciously
of
outdated
The
that
of literary
translation.
to the old paradigm
subscribe
tenacity
that "a new
to mind
Max
Planck's
of translation
wry observation
brings
conception
its
its opponents
but rather because
not triumph
truth does
scientific
by convincing
die, and a new generation
grows up that is familiar with it" (p. 150).
eventually
opponents
here on the grounds
that there
I am drawing
to the analogy
Of course, one could object
as Kuhn
are few such generally
"truths" in the humanities.
However,
points out,
accepted
to perception
Thomas Mann
is prerequisite
like a paradigm
"something
In Another Language:
3 John C. Thirlwall,
1966), p. 31.
itself
(p. 112).
Lowe-Porter
and Helen
(New York,
in Translation
of Buddenbrooks
translations
Review,
See my reviews of John E. Woods's
of
The Magic Mountain
and
Times
Los
from
the
27,
1993),
44/45
(1994),
(June
Angeles
rpt.
in The Washington
26, 1995), 5.
Post, "Book World"
(November
"AHigh Art," tr. and ed.
Kornei Chukovsky's
The Art of Translation:
5 Kornei
Chukovskii,
Lauren G. Leigh ton (Knoxville,
Tenn.,
1984), p. 248.
4
and
in Franz Kafka, The Castle, tr. from the German
Mann,
by Willa
"Homage,"
and Ernst Kaiser
translated
materials
with additional
(New
by Eithne Wilkins
"Thomas Mann's
cited in text as G See also J?rgen
Born,
York,
1988), p. x; hereafter
109-18.
to Franz Kafka," Oxford German Studies, 7, no. 3 (1972),
Homage
in Robert Walser Rediscovered: Stories, Fairy-Tak Plays, and
letter about Walser
7 See Kafka's
et al. (Hanover, N.H.,
tr.Walter Arndt, Mark Harman
Critical Responses, ed. Mark Harman,
139-40.
1985), pp.
in France, 1885 to
The Banquet Years: The Origins of theAvant-Garde
8
See Roger
Shattuck,
World War I, rev. ed. (New York, 1968), p. 333.
6
Thomas
Muir
Edwin
Steiner's
See George
and Translation
Language
9
10 W.
H.
comments
Auden,
1973),
(New York,
"Difficulties
S. S. Prawer,
1990),
imagery
in After Babel:
Aspects
of
p. 404.
of the Kafkaesque,"
"The Workings
Revealed,"
and Afterwords,
Times Literary
Times Literary
selected
Supplement
Supplement
by Edward
(October
14,
(September
1040.
Jeremy Adler,
11-12.
1995),
Babel
1975), pp.
(Oxford,
in Forewords
"Lame Shadows,"
1127-28.
1983),
12 Ritchie
Robertson,
28,
13
Kafka's
65-68.
Mendelson
11
on
"Stepping
into Kafka's
Head,"
Times Literary
Supplement
(October
13,
RETRANSLATING
14
Franz
hereafter
FRANZ
CASTLE
Kafka, Das Schlo?: Kritische Ausgabe,
cited in text as S; Der Proce?: Kritische
1990).
15 Ritchie
Robertson,
16
Ritchie
Robertson,
17
Steiner,
George
material
additional
with
KAFKA'S
comments
about
309
ed. Malcolm
(Frankfurt,
Pasley
ed. Malcolm
Ausgabe,
1982),
(Frankfurt,
Pasley
Politics, and Literature
(Oxford,
1985).
Kafka: fudaism,
Times Literary Supplement
"Not by Brod Alone,"
14, 1983).
(October
in Franz Kafka, The Trial, ed. Edwin and Willa Muir
"Introduction,"
the Muirs
(New York,
1995). George
by E. M. Butler
are worth quoting
in full: "Its translation
Steiner's
incisive
into
[of The Trial]
itself took on a classic aura. This
in 1935,
English,
by Edwin and Willa Muir, which followed
Max Brod's
is in one sense regrettable.
recension
of Kafka's text had been amateurish
and,
at certain points,
its famous
The Trial remains
unfinished
conclusion,
arbitrary. Despite
...
about
the order of various chapters
.It is, however,
the Muir
and there is argument
so far as the
its stylistic distinction
and freshness
of encounter,
with
which,
version,
But Muir's
remains
canonic.
and the translation
world
goes,
reading
English-language
are distinctly
moves
his: 'His imagination
which
that
it underwrites
within
continuously
no matter
not acknowledge
that there
is anything,
and does
how
trivial and
it does not embrace.
it is in its unique way a complete
which
Accordingly,
undignified,
a true
reflection
of the world we know. And when Kafka
world,
though not unexpected
in it with
of religion,
he is throwing
deals
the antinomies
light at the same time on the
world
of human
life.' The
riddles
core,
religious
deepest
and human
divine
incommensurabilities
between
claims
Edwin
law which
there
is hardly
For such adoption
any
Kierkegaard.'
He misses
almost
Calvinism.
altogether
Kierkegaardian
and concerns
motifs
of a radically Judaic-Talmudic
kind"
Translation:
Writing,
Blasphemous
Breaking
"Blasphemous
evidence.
the
Muir,
'Kafka
Muir
immersion
is that of
adopted
reads
the
from
out
of
of The Trial
in
(p. xii). See also Leigh Hafrey,
in Kafka's Trial:
the Language
on the
Translation,"
13,
Journal of the Ka?a
Society of America,
Forthcoming
Thoughts
no. 1/2 (1989), 44-48. A note states that
of The Trial, commissioned
translation
Hafrey's
Books and based on Pasley's critical edition,
in the Spring of 1991.
by Schocken
appeared
it never did. United
States readers must
still rely on the Muir
which
However,
translation,
is of course
based
Scott
by Douglas
the Scott/Waller
on Brod's
obsolete
edition.
and Chris Waller
translation
(London,
is also based on
in the Times Literary Supplement and
Ronald Gray, Kafka's Castle (Cambridge,
reviews
18
The Castle,
see Stephen
S.C., 1995).
19 Ronald
D. Dowden,
Kafka's
a British
For copyright
reasons,
translation,
in the U.S. In any case,
1977), is unavailable
the old Brod edition
and received
lukewarm
elsewhere.
to
1956). For a survey of critical approaches
Castle, and the Critical Imagination
(Columbia,
in German,"
"But Kafka Wrote
in The Kafka Debate, ed. Angel
Flores
pp. 242-52.
inMunich
in 1926 by Kurt Wolff. The Muirs's
first published
translation
out four years later by Seeker 8c
(U.K) and Alfred A. Knopf
(U.S.).
Warburg
with additional
material
definitive
translated
and
edition,
by Eithne Wilkins
Gray,
(New York,
1977),
20 Das Schfo?was
was brought
so-called
A
Ernst
Kaiser,
was
first
published
in 1954
by Schocken
and
is still being
reissued,
most
in 1995.
recently
21
Edwin Muir,
on Literature and
1949), p. 150.
Essays
Society (London,
For a discussion
see Mark Harman,
of affinities
between
and
Kafka,
Joyce
"Joyce and
Kafka," Sewanee Review, 101, no. 1 (1993), 66-84;
"Joyce, Kafka, and Their Cities," The Irish
Times
German
Translations
of Ulysses,"
in
12, 1993),
8, and
(June
"Joyce Revoiced:
22
to thePresent: Essays inHonor
of Experiment from theEnlightenment
and
Kaiser
David
Arbor,
(Ann
1992), pp. 239-47.
Nancy
Wellbery
Edwin Muir, We Moderns
23
(New York, 1920), p. 244.
Traditions
of Peter Demetz,
ed.
NEW
310
24
Edwin
25
Joyce
York,
26
27
The Structure
Muir,
"Kafka and
Crick,
(London,
1928), p. 127.
of theNovel
the Muirs,"
in The World of Franz Kafka,
1980).
Willa Muir,
Edwin
28
LITERARY
(London,
1968),
Belonging: A Memoir
Muir, An Autobiography
(New York,
1954),
in German,"
"But Kafka Wrote
p. 246.
"Kafka and the Muirs,"
pp. 166-67.
p.
125.
p.
182.
HISTORY
ed. J. P. Stern
(New
Gray,
Crick,
30
"Standard Language
See Jan Mukafovsky,
and Poetic Language,"
in Spisovn? cestina a
of Good Language]
1932),
jazykov? kultura [Standard Czech and the Cultivation
(Prague,
rpt. in A Prague School Reader on Esthetics, Literary Structure, and Style, ed. Paul L. Garvin
as "the
defines
intentional
1964). Mukafovsky
(Georgetown,
foregrounding
esthetically
29
of the linguistic
standard
and
components"
(p. viii). In an essay contrasting
an author
can use to
he describes
two techniques
poetic
language
foreground
language:
in a certain work is consistently
"the deautomatization
of meanings
carried out by lexical
areas of the lexicon),
of contrasting
in another
selection
(the mutual
interlarding
equally
distortion
uncommon
of words
semantic
in the
close
consistently
by the
relationship
together
use of both devices.
am
In
The
Castle
the
eclectic
Kafka
makes
I
context"
20).
(p.
grateful
to the linguist Dr. Senta Tr?ml-Pl?tz
for drawing my attention
to Mukafovsky's
essay.
to illustrate
31 One critic, Meno
the implications
of the Muirs's
Spann, uses this passage
for an
"It should be noted
of the novel:
that the
here
interpretation
von
as
bedeckt'
hidden
English
'gn?dig
Epheu
(mercifully
by ivy)
'graciously
mantled
with ivy,' thus weakening
the strikingly derogatory
remarks about the Castle and
it more
for the divine
inhabitable
and abstractions
who dwell
there,
powers
making
to some critics." One might
remarks stand out precisely
add that these negative
according
on the surface,
at least. See Meno
sounds
Kafka's
narrative
because
neutral,
generally
choice
of diction
renders
(London,
1976), p. 144.
Spann, Franz Kafka
32 As Gray points out, in the case of The Trial, the Muirs were "strongly influenced
most
dominated
view of Kafka as a modern
Bunyan which
early interpretations.
more
by the
. . .The
... K. is
is reflected
almost
from the outset.
view taken by the Muirs
optimistic
as he emerges
a
from the translation,
than he is in
character,
better-disposed
same
true for The
in
"But
Kafka
Wrote
The
holds
German,"
248).
p.
(Gray,
altogether
the original"
Castle.
33
York,
See Arthur
1989),
Wensinger,
introduction
"Note
on
by Mark
the Translations,"
Anderson,
German,"
pp. 242-43.
34
"Es ist schwer mit
soll
ich Euch
seid
Ihr Euch
Euch,"
sagte K. und verglich
Ihr unterscheidet
unterscheiden.
denn
?hnlich
Euch
ja ?hnlich wie
sie zur Rechtfertigung.
sehe nur mit meinen
Euch
einer
deshalb
von
Jerem?as."
wie
Euch,
"Gut,
wie"?er
es
wie
Gray,
schon
Euch
Kafka, The Sons (New
"But Kafka Wrote
in
?fters
nur durch
ihre Gesichter,
die Namen,
"wie
sonst
fuhr er dann fort?"sonst
seid Ihr
stockte, unwillk?rlich
uns sonst
"Man unterscheidet
Sie l?chelten.
gut," sagten
Schlangen."
"Ich glaube
und mit
Augen
einen einzigen
Du
etwa??"
in Frank
also,
p. xxi;
es," sagte K.,
denen
kann
Mann
behandeln
fragte
K.
ist ja gleichg?ltig,"
den
sagte K.,
"ich war ja selbst Zeuge dessen,
aber ich
Ich werde
ich Euch nicht unterscheiden.
und beide
Artur
nennen,
so hei?t
doch
einen.
"ich hei?e
"Nein,"
sagte dieser,
"ich werde
Euch beide Artur
nennen"
(p. 33)
35
"Wor?ber klagt Ihr denn?" fragte K. "Dar?ber,"
sagte Jeremias,
. . .
. . .Als uns Galater
zu Dir schickte
habe
sagte er?ich
verstehst.
"da? Du
keinen
Spa?
es mir
genau gemerkt,
des Landvermessers.
Wir
Ihr geht hin als die Gehilfen
wir uns ja?:
darauf berufen
Er darauf: Das ist nicht das Wichtigste;
aber nichts von dieser Arbeit.
sagten: Wir verstehn
es n?tig
Das Wichtigste
wenn
sein wird, wird er es Euch beibringen.
aber ist, da? Ihr ihn
nimmt er alles sehr schwer. Er ist jetzt ins Dorf
erheitert. Wie man mir berichtet,
ein wenig
denn
RETRANSLATING
und
gekommen
gar nichts
ist. Das
FRANZ
gleich
sollt
KAFKA'S
CASTLE
311
w?hrend
ist ihm das ein gro?es Ereignis,
Ihr ihm beibringen."
(p. 368).
clearly inspired Kafka. See Mark Harman,
es doch
inWirklichkeit
"An Echo of Kafka in
terse prose
von Kleist Studies, ed. Alexej Ugrinsky
and
(New York, 1981), pp. 169-75,
in Kleist and Kafka," fournal
and Belief
of theKafka Society, 1/2 (1983),
"Irony, Ambivalence
see Hartmut
of public
from Kafka's works,
for an account
Binder,
3-13;
readings
36
Kleist's
inHeinrich
Kleist,"
der Kritik," in Kafka-Handbuch,
ed. Hartmut
Fr?hphasen
1979), pp. 66-67.
of Person
in Kafka's Manuscript,"
"K enters The Castle: On the Change
37
62
28-45.
(1968),
Euphorion,
see Mark Harman,
in Robert Walser,
"A Secretive
For a similar
38
phenomenon
Review of Contemporary Fiction,
and his Microscripts,"
Modernist:
Robert Walser
12, no. 1
der Kafka-Rezeption:
"Geschichte
Binder
(Stuttgart,
Dornt
Cohn,
114-17.
(1992),
"Kafka and the Muirs," pp. 166-67.
39
Crick,
"The Workings
40
Robertson,
Revealed,"
p. 1040.
The New York Times (May 6, 1956), 25, as quoted
in
41
Interview with Samuel
Beckett,
13 (1961),
uWatt in the Light of The Castle," Comparative Literature,
154-66.
Ruby Cohn,
on The Castle and Mr. Knott's House:
"Reflections
See Cohn,
42
uWatt," and Edith Kern,
in Proceedings of the Comparative Literature Symposium: Franz Kafka, vol. 4
Kafka and Beckett,"
Tex.,
1971), pp. 97-111.
(Lubbock,
resort to a lofty vocabulary
43 At times, the Muirs
of the novel. At the end
the theological
meaning
word
succor, which
elevated
that reflects
their assumptions
about
the passage just cited, they use the
smacks of The Pilgrim's Progress or even of the King James Bible. Such
is uncalled
verb
the corresponding
German
for, since
("zuhilfe
of
language
common.
is relatively
kommen")
44
75 (1981), 474-90,
See Malcolm
rpt. in
Pasley, "Zu Kafkas Interpunktion,"
Euphorion,
...
:Essays zu
Die Schrift ist Unver?nderlich
1995).
Kafka (Frankfurt,
to this paper
I came across Milan
the finishing
touches
45 After
Kundera's
putting
recent
powerful
translators
and
severe,
I was
coincide
Testaments
of four different
those Imake about the Muirs. His chapter-length
discussion
astute. See Milan Kundera,
of a single sentence
from The Castle is particularly
(New York,
1995), pp. 101-20.
Betrayed: An Essay inNine Parts, tr. Linda Asher
with
translations
essay about Kafka and other artists whose
legacy has been
"betrayed" by
I find Kundera's
others. Although
strictures
about
translation
unduly
to see that his observations
about French
translations
of Kafka often
pleased