Experiences in Translation. By Umberto Eco.

Translated by Alistair
McEwan (Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press,
2001) x + 135 pp. $19.95 / 13.00 pounds cloth

 Anthony Pym 2001

Review written for The European Legacy

Experiences in Translation is based on a series of lectures

Umberto Eco gave at the University of Toronto in 1998. The book is
divided into two halves. In the first, Eco discusses translation as a
matter of personal experience, both as a translator and as a
novelist who has been translated. The second half presents a more
formal theorization of translation, distinguishing between
translation proper, rewriting, and the more metaphorical types of
translation that occur within single languages or move between
different semiotic systems or purports. In both halves of this short
book there is a broad appeal to common sense as the ultimate
proof that translation should remain translation proper. That is,
the translator should ultimately be faithful to something variously
described as the intention of the text, the same effect as the
original, or the guiding spirit of the text. In this, Ecos
experiences run firmly against the trend of contemporary
Translation Studies.
Ecos initial approach works through a series of simple binarisms
such as form vs meaning, source vs target, archaic vs modern, in
each case using literary examples to indicate that the solutions
rarely fall entirely one side or the other. A plenitude of illustrations
is similarly used to address questions such as whether a translator
can change a story (yes, if for the sake of the aesthetic goal),
how various partial losses can be recuperated through
compensation techniques, and the supreme importance of
translating textual rhythm, which in itself constitutes much of the
distinction between translation proper and modes of interpretation
more akin to definition or paraphrase. Since most of these points
are argued with reference to translations of Ecos novels, they
more or less preclude debate as to what the intended meaning
was. Even if Eco places the intention in the text, it is with authorial
authority that he does so. Similarly, several long delightful
discussions of translation problems in Nervals Sylvie come from
close authoritative experience of the text. Nerval is not around to
tell us what he meant, but Ecos own translation of Sylvie is
supported by years of reading and analysis, with an attention to
detail that bespeaks love if not obsession. Or again, in the final
discussions of Finnegans Wake in French and Italian, the effective
translator is identified as Joyce himself, who as author had enough
authority to go beyond translation when it pleased him to do so. In
all these cases, the elusive intention of the text is backed up by
the authority of some kind of authorship. There is thus little
effective liberalism in the Eco who purports to have traded mere
suggestions with his translators, or learned from them, or
discovered details that could become improvements on his texts.
Eco the theorist is still legislating what is or is not (good) (literary)
translation, without ever really elaborating on the terms we have
just put in parentheses.
On the more theoretical level, Ecos main points of reference are
Hjelmslev and Jakobson; his argument could probably function
quite well without citing any text published after 1960. We thus find
no effective consideration of the issues that have concerned
translation scholars over the past forty years or so: specialized