An illustration for redeaths amazing yet heartbreaking phanfic A Formal Burial.

Reblogging for schwarzerprinz since it has a direct link to the fic!

Notes on David Coward's Translation for the POTO Book Club

For those of you who are reading David Coward’s translation of The Phantom of the Opera as part of the POTO Book Club, here are some notes on David Coward’s translation of the Foreword. I will post my notes for Chapter 1 in a day or two. These notes mostly consist of slight inaccuracies and mistranslations. There aren’t any major errors or omissions.

I am using the scans that Alex posted as a reference for these notes.

1)  Page 5, 3rd paragraph: “whose body was found on the bank of the lake which lies beneath the Opera on the Rue Scribe side.” Coward’s sentence structure here makes it sound like the lake lies on the Rue Scribe side of the Opera. “…on the Rue Scribe side” refers instead to the location where Philippe de Chagny’s body was found.

2) Page 6, 2nd paragraph: “never understood any facet of the Phantom’s behaviour and took every opportunity to debunk the idea”. The “Phantom’s behaviour” should be the “Phantom’s mysterious behaviour” (“conduite ténébreuse du fantôme”). “…took every opportunity to debunk the idea” should be “took every opportunity to ridicule the idea” (“qui s’en gaussa tant qu’il put”).

3) Page 6, 4th paragraph: “he was still convinced there’d been some terrible quarrel between the two brothers over Christine Daaé.” This should be, “he remained convinced that a terrible tragedy had taken place between the two brothers with regard to Christine Daaé.” (“il restait persuadé qu’un drame terrible s’était passé entre les deux frères à propos de Christine Daaé” — in this case, “drame” translates as tragedy)

4) Page 6, 4th paragraph: “an exceptional being who lived permanently in one of the more mysterious recesses of the Opera House itself” should be translated as “an extraordinary being who had taken up residence in one of the most mysterious corners of the Opera.” (“un être exceptionnel ayant élu domicile dans un des coins les plus mystérieux de l’Opéra” — “ayant élu domicile” refers to taking up residence, but not specifically to a state of permanence)

5) Page 6, 4th paragraph: “the person all Paris called ‘the Persian’.” This should be translated as, “man whom Parisian high society called ‘the Persian’.” (“celui que le Tout-Paris appelait «le Persan»” — “le Tout-Paris” does not literally mean “all Paris”; it means all the important people in Paris. I’m surprised that Coward got this wrong, since this is a fairly well-known term.)

6) Page 7, 1st paragraph: “this valuable, first-hand witness” should be translated as “this valuable and eccentric witness” (“ce précieux et original témoin” — “original” in this case means eccentric, not actually “original” as in first)

7) Page 8, 2nd paragraph: “that grim monument” should be translated as “the wondrous monument” (“le formidable monument” — in English, “formidable” has a negative connotation, but in French, “formidable” has a positive connotation; this is a common mistake in translating this word)

8) Page 8, 3rd paragraph: “I persuaded the Administrator himself to touch it, with his hand” should be translated slightly more metaphorically as “I made the Administrator himself examine this proof firsthand” (“J’ai fait toucher cette preuve, de la main, à l’administrateur lui-même” — this doesn’t mean that they were literally picking up and sorting through Erik’s bones)

9) Page 9, 2nd paragraph (author’s note): “preservation of the fabric” should be translated as “preservation of the building” (“conservation du monument”) — I think that this may be a typo or some such error, because there is no way that I can see to get from “monument” to “fabric.”

10) Page 9, 2nd paragraph (author’s note): “even though it was almost certain that I would never return them” should be translated as “even though he was almost certain that I would not return them to him” (“bien qu’il fût à peu près sûr que je ne les lui rendrais point” — “il” in this case means “he,” not “it”)

Helpful notes to take into consideration while reading. Thanks again, fdelopera! 

Welcome to the next installment of “Lost in Translation,” where I compare and contrast the six English translations of Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera with the original French text, and with each other, and give my own translation and analysis of the passage in question.

In today’s segment, we are going to play a game of “one of these is not like the others.” ;)

Most people who read The Phantom of the Opera in English have read the 1911 translation by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. Because this translation was first published prior to 1923, it is in the public domain, meaning that publishers nowadays can print copies of the text without paying royalties to de Mattos’ estate. This makes it cheap and easy for a publisher to put out an edition of Phantom, which is why there is a proliferation of inexpensive copies of de Mattos’ text floating about.

Making matters worse, because of its public domain status, publishers don’t need to put de Mattos’ name on his translation, so many people who have read his translation don’t even realize it (though knowing this, the quick and easy way to tell if you have a copy of de Mattos is to look for the translator’s name — if you don’t see one, it’s de Mattos).

So if it’s so easy and cheap to buy a copy of de Mattos’ translation of Phantom, why isn’t it a good idea to do so? The shortest answer is that de Mattos didn’t just translate Phantom. He also *heavily* edited it. He deleted about 80 pages worth of text from Leroux’s novel. He didn’t do this all at once, but section by section, so that entire paragraphs — and in one case, an entire chapter — are missing. Instead of spending extra time to render difficult-to-translate passages, he just cut them. This is why I refer to de Mattos as the world’s laziest translator (though the person who did the Song at Midnight subtitles probably has de Mattos beat in that category :P).

After the jump, see the kind of edits that de Mattos made to Leroux’s text. I’m pretty sure that reading this will make you want to take your copy of de Mattos and do the following:

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Brilliant work by fdelopera as always! 

As a supplement to the POTO Book Club that will be reading Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera (tr. David Coward) starting this Saturday, I decided to start up a little segment on my blog that I’m calling “Lost in Translation.” I won’t be doing this every day, but probably a couple times a week.

In this segment, I will type passages from Leroux’s original novel, and will then provide the translations to these passages from the six published English translations (de Mattos, Bair, Wolf, Lofficier, Ribière, and Coward). Finally, I will give my own translation, and will explain why I have chosen to translate the passage in the way that I have.

Read today’s passage, as well as the seven translations of it (including my own), after the jump! :D

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If it’s free it’s almost certainly de Mattos.