On Translating Borges

For what amounts to years, now, I have been attempting to translate a lecture given by Jorge Luis Borges on the Book of Job. (He's got some interesting ideas about it, as it so happens.) Every time I near completion, however, I find myself dissatisfied with the result. It is invariably either unfaithful to the original or awkward-sounding in English. (One will note that often Borges used Spanish words to unusual effect. But the English-speaking reader is not aware of this and will likely attribute it to poor translation.) Consider, if you will, the opening paragraph — insofar as an oral lecture can be divided into paragraphs:

A pesar de la hospitalidad que siento en ustedes me considero un poco intruso. Pero hay dos razones que me hacen mitigar esa impresión. Una de las razones es que yo he sido criado dentro de la fe cristiana y la cultura occidental; la cristiandad, más allá de nuestras convicciones o de nuestras dudas personales, es una malgama de dos naciones que me parecen esenciales para el mundo occidental. Esas son: Israel (el cristianismo procede de Israel) y Grecia. Más allá de las vicisitudes de nuestra sangre, de nuestra múltiple sangre, ya que tenemos dos padres, cuatro abuelos, etc. — en progresión geométrica — y ya que Roma fue una suerte de extensión del helenismo, creo que todos, por el mero hecho de pertener a la cultura occidental, somos hebreos y griegos. De modo que algún derecho me asiste hoy al hablar sobre el Libro de Job, aunque ignore la lengua hebrea y aunque no he podido leer el texto original y los comentarios Rabínicos.

And here is my attempt at a translation:

Despite the hospitality I sense in all of you, I consider myself rather intrusive. But there are two reasons that mitigate this impression of mine. One of them is that I have been raised in the Christian faith and in western culture; Christianity, notwithstanding our personal beliefs or doubts, is an amalgam of two nations that seem to me essential to the western world. They are: Israel (Christianity arose out of Israel) and Greece. Regardless of the vicissitudes of our blood, out of our multiple heritages, since we have two parents, four grandparents, etc. — in a geometrical progression — and since Rome was a sort of extension of Hellenism, I believe that all of us, by the mere fact of belonging to western culture, are Hebrews and Greeks. As a result, I have a certain right to speak today about the Book of Job, though I know no Hebrew and though I have not been able to read the original text nor its Rabbinical commentaries.

What is one to do? Part of the problem is that spoken sentences can be far longer than their written counterparts before becoming excessive; one can nest parentheticals (as I am wont to do) without too badly breaking up the flow of a spoken idea, but when written this becomes tiresome after a while, unless you read lots of James and must therefore enjoy endless sentences.

The chief problem, I suppose, is that Borges's style is deliberately obscure. In a review of five new Borges anthologies, Martin Schifino (interesting surname, that) explains this well:

[Alfred] MacAdam describes Borges's early style as "tortuous" and his vocabulary as "rarefied". [Suzanne] Levine calls the writing of his essays "radical" and even "bizarre to those who read him in Spanish today". Both are right in general. But it is a matter of detail in which way Borges "replays the Latinate prose of the Baroque era", and perhaps the best way to convey this might not be to "improvise a rococo English" – an intention declared, but fortunately never carried out, by Levine. The baroque influence can be felt, sure enough, in Borges's inkhorn terms, but his rhetorical habits are much closer to home: plain Edwardian. He sounds a little like Kipling, and a lot like Chesterton. His essays are full of Chestertonian throat-clearing and oratorical flourishes. Part of the challenge for translators may be to make new an existing manner that has fallen out of favour. In any case, more resources from the English tradition will need mining if Borges's big voice is to be fully energized.

The best way to translate Borges, then? Read more Chesterton. Borges was famously fond of him, anyway.