German Literature Quiz

Dispatches from Zembla asks if you can identify 10 passages from great works of German literature in English translation (actually Germanic literature, since it includes Austrian authors and one Czech).  It is, of course more challenging to recognize the excerpts in translation, but I am pleased to announce that I was able to get 5 out of 10 right off the bat: two from Thomas Mann, one from Goethe (Die Leiden des jungen Werther), the anti-Märchen from Büchner's Woyzeck, and - most proud of this one - the opening paragraph of Rilke's exquisite but obscure novel Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge.  I'm pretty certain I would have recognized the Kafka passage if had been in the original German, since Kafka's style is unmistakeable.  How did you do on the quiz?

I was linked to the quiz from the blog Three Percent at the University of Rochester, a blog devoted to international literature in translation.  Why Three Percent?  The blog editors explain:

Unfortunately, only about 3% of all books published in the United States are works in translation. That is why we have chosen the name Three Percent for this site. And that 3% figure includes all books in translation—in terms of literary fiction and poetry, the number is actually closer to 0.7%. While that figure obviously represents more books than any one person could read in a year, it’s hardly an impressive number.

An even greater shame is that only a fraction of the titles that do make their way into English are covered by the mainstream media. So despite the quality of these books, most translations go virtually unnoticed and never find their audience.

We have been blessed with some wonderful translators and translations of German literature: Michael Hamburger's translations of Paul Celan, John Wood's extraordinary translations of Thomas Mann, Michael Hoffmann's brilliant work on Wolfgang Koeppen - rescuing the the great novelist from obscurity in America, and Eric Bentley's groundbreaking introduction of Bertolt Brecht to American audiences.  And so many of out greatest poets - Robert Lowell, Robert Haas, Galway Kinnell - just to name a few - have provided rich translations of Rainer Maria Rilke. But the editors of Three Percent are correct: how much contemporary German writing gets translated, and of that, how much is ever reviewed?  One gratifying exception was the New York Times Book Review Section, which last week reviewed two German novels in translation: Homecoming by Bernhard Schlink and Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier (who is Swiss).

I myself am reading a novel in translation currently: The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño. You can read an interview with Bolaño's translator - Natasha Wimmer - here.

Comments

[Scott Kern]

The problem is translating a literary novel is a formidable task. And publishers don't want to try anything untested--notice you have Schlink (whose der Vorleser was once an Oprah book if I'm not mistaken) and Mercier (whose book was already famous before being translated).