Ninety Minutes with Howard Goldblatt:

Those of us who saw Mo Yan at the Bookworm were given a double treat, as the Chinese author was joined by his translator (翻译家), Howard Goldblatt. Goldblatt is currently research professor of Chinese language and literature at Notre Dame. In addition to Yan's writing, he has translated the work of many other contemporary Chinese novelists.

Thanks to Goldblatt's efforts in this area, many previously unknown young Chinese writers have been introduced to English speaking readers. One such writer is the author of the novel, BEIJING DOLL (北京娃娃), Chun Sue (春树). Chun wrote this book, which is largely based on her own life as a rebellious (叛逆的) fourteen year-old adolescent girl (女孩儿) living in Beijing’s Haidian (海淀) district (区), when she was just eighteen years old

Goldblatt has also translated two novels by one of my favorite living Chinese writers, Su Tong (苏童). These include Tong's early, very macrabre and utterly bleak story, RICE (米), and his latest novel to be translated into English, MY LIFE AS EMPEROR (我的帝王生涯).

The latter book is not a cheery tale, but it's by far and away the most optimistic of Tong's works. After losing his kingdom and doing a brief stint as tight-rope walker in a circus troupe, the previously cruel and dissolute Emperor Duanbai becomes a monk at the Bitter Bamboo Mountain Monastery. The former Emperor, who is now a better human being, passes his days at the monastery reading Confucius’s (孔子) ANALECTS (论语) and practicing his tight-rope walking.

The novel is narrated in retrospect by the ex-sovereign. In the last sentence, the ex-ruler makes the following memorable verdict on the ANALECTS: “Sometimes I feel that this sagely book holds all the wisdom of the world; sometimes I don't get anything at all out of it”.

Finally, Goldblatt has translated the latest Chinese novel that has created a big stir outside of the Middle Kingdom, THE WOLF TOTEM (狼图腾). This book was published here in 2004, and its author is an ex-Red Guardsman (红卫兵) who was sent to Inner Mongolia (内蒙古) in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The author originally wrote the book under the pseudonym of Jiang Rong (姜戎); however, last year he disclosed his real name, Lu Jiamin (路加敏). Lu is in his early 60's and used to teach political economy.

Goldblatt briefly mentioned this last novel during his Bookworm talk. Although THE WOLF TOTEM was published here—a sign that things here with respect to freedom of expression are improving—it has been a very controversial book that people have either loved or hated. Goldblatt noted that while many Chinese critics called Lu a “crypto-fascist” (法西斯), Jonathan Mirsky hailed THE WOLF TOTEM as the “book of the year”.

In any case, I suspect that despite his problems, Lu is now laughing all the way to the bank. THE WOLF TOTEM sold 4 million copies in its first year of publication in China. The novel then created a literary sensation (轰动文坛的作品) in the West, with Penguin offering Lu $100,000 for worldwide English translation rights. And Bertelsmann paid him 20,000 Euros for the German translation rights.

Goldblatt noted that he is currently in the middle of translating THE SANDALWOOD TORTURE into English and said that he anticipates that, as in China, readers in the West will either love or hate this book. And alluding to the title of LIFE AND DEATH ARE WEARING ME OUT, Goldblatt quipped that after having translated four of Yan's novels and many of his short stories, “Mo Yan is wearing me out” (doing these Mo Yan posts has worn me out too!!).

While translating literature from a language that is related to English, like German, is certainly not easy, it's a walk on the beach compared with translating from Mandarin to English. In an interview with the local expat magazine, THE BEIJINGER, given some time before the Bookworm event, Goldblatt stated, “The two languages are so dissimilar that one frequently has to consider ways to turn what the author wrote into what the author meant” He added, “Translating Chinese requires a keener sense of creativity than most languages.”

As if that wasn't enough, Goldblatt noted that Yan's novels present some very unique translation problems. One is the writing style. At one point in the talk, Goldblatt noted that people have said that “Yan has never met an adjective (形容词) that he didn't like”. Goldblatt thus said that he constantly fights with his editors over paring down the number of adjectives in his translations of Yan's writing.

Goldblatt also said that the vocabularly in two of Yan's novels, RED SORGHUM and THE REPUBLIC OF WINE (国酒) created a lot of translation difficulties. Much of the former novel's plot (情节) revolves around the fight waged by different guerilla (游击队员) groups against the Japanese during the War of Resistance against Japanese Agression (抗日战争).

Goldblatt informed us that he had to ask Yan lots of questions about the weapons described in this part of the novel, as many of them were traditional Chinese muskets (火枪) and other very archaic guns. The Chinese words for these and many of the other weapons in Yan's novel had no English-language equivalents. Goldblatt added that in some cases, Yan had to ask soldiers about these arms before he could answer his translator's querries.

Visitors to Beijing and expats living here who are interested in this matter should head over to the capital's military museum (军事博物馆). There you can see first hand the kind of motely arsenal the guerilla fighters, including those in the fabled 8th Route Army (八路军), had to use against their much better equipped Japanese foes. These weapons included not only ancient muskets, but spears (矛; 长枪) and scythes (大镰刀) as well.

As Max Hastings notes in his riveting new book about the last year of World War II in the Pacific, NEMESIS, that the Communist guerillas received no material backing from Stalin (斯大林), who bet on the Nationalists (国民党) right up to the end of the war. The guerillas thus had to make do with what weapons they could make on their or capture from the Japanese.

I could add here that RED SORGHUM provides a revisionist account of this struggle, much like Yan's later novel, THE SANDALWOOD TORTURE, did for the story of resistance to German imperialism in early 20th century Shandong Province. The guerilla fighters are split into different groups who spend as much time fighting each other as they do the Japanese. And some people do collaborate with the invaders. The Chinese have a special term for such folks, namely “hanjian” 汉奸, which also means all-around bad person and “traitor” (they were also called “running dogs” [走狗] and, more politely, Japanese collaborators [和日本人合作的中国人]).

Goldblatt noted that the vocabulary in THE RPEUBLIC OF WINE presented similar translation problems. This novel parodies key aspects of Chinese society (中国的社会), particularly its obsession with gourmandry (美食) and commodification of alcohol (酒), with a bit of cannibalism (食人者) thrown into the mix. Goldblatt said that he had to constantly ask Yan about all the obscure liquors referred in this novel. And to make things even harder, some of the drinks mentioned in it were completely fictional, invented by Yan himself.

Like the author he has translated, Goldblatt comes across as a very modest and completely unprentious individual. For example, he said that he never reads his own translations after they're done. Goldblatt stated that if he reads the first page of such work, he'll be “crest-fallen (垂头丧气) over all of the errors”. And since Goldblatt avoided a lot of training in current academic literary theory and criticism in coming to translate Chinese fiction, his writing is free of post-modernist mumbo-jumbo.

Goldblatt told an interesting story about his first meeting with Yan. The two were at some conference, and Yan studiously ignored him for nearly an hour (Yan said that he was too shy and felt too intimidated to approach Goldblatt). The two finally broke the ice by sharing a cigarette (抽烟)—like many males in China, Yan is a smoker. Goldblatt said at that time he had been trying to quit smoking for three years and that this incident further prolonged that struggle. However, as Yan put it, “So many years of friendship (友谊; you3yi4) started by a humble cigarette”. And they say smoking is bad for you!!

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

翻译家 (fan1yi4jia1). “翻译” is the verb “translate”, while “家” is the suffix denoting that someone is a qualified expert to do such work.
北京娃娃 (Bei3jing1wa2wa5). “北京” is the Chinese word for “Beijing” and literally means “Northern (北) Capital (京)” (the City of Nanjing is the Southern [南; nan2] Capital [京]). “娃娃” means “doll”.
春树. The pinyin of this name is really “Chun1Shu4”, with the first character meaning “spring” and the second one “tree”.
叛逆的 (pan3ni4de5).
女孩儿 (nü3hai2er2).
海淀 (hai3dian4). “海” on its own means “sea”, while “淀” is the Chinese word for “shallow lake”. This part of Beijing, which covers the northwest part of the capital, has a number of small and shallow lakes. It is also home to three of China’s best Universities—People’s University (人民大学; ren2min2da4xue2), Peking University (北大; bei3da4) and Tsinghua University (清华大学; qing1hua4da4xue2).
区 (qu1).
苏童. Like 莫言, this is a pen name; the author's real name is 童忠贵 (tong2zhong1gui4).
米 (mi3). Due to its distinctive asterisk shape, this is one of the easiest Chinese characters to remember.
我的帝王生涯 (wo3de4di4wang2sheng1ya2). “帝王” means “emperor” (皇帝 [huang2di4] is another word for “monarch” or “king”). “生涯” means “career”, so the novel's title can be literally translated as “My Career as Emperor”.
孔子 (kong3zi3).
论语 (lun2yu3).
狼图腾 (lang2tu2teng2). The left-hand side of the “wolf” character (狼) has the “dog” radical, providing a clue about its meaning. “图腾” is the word for “totem”, and the first character, “图”, forms part of the Chinese word for map, “地图” (di4tu2).
红卫兵 (hong2wei4bing1). “红” on its own means “red” and here of course symbolizes the revolution (革命; ge2ming4). “卫” on its own means sanitary/sanitation, and 兵 is a word for “soldier”.
内蒙古 (nei4meng3gu3). “内” is the Chinese word for “inner”; hence “underwear” is called “内裤” (nei4ku4), or “inner (内) pants (裤)”.
法西斯 (fa3xi1si1). Since “fascism” is a foreign word, this character triplet is a transliteration and it actually kind of sounds like the way “fascism” is said in English.
轰动文坛的作品 (hong1dong4wen2 tan2de5zuo4pin3). “轰动” on its own is a verb meaning to “cause a sensation”.
形容词 (xing2rong2ci2).
国酒 (guo2jiu3). “国” on its own means “nation” or “kingdom”, while “酒” is the word for “liquor/alcohol”.
情节 (qing2jie2).
游击队员 (you2ji1dui4yuan2). This character combination is a good illustration of why Mandarin is typically a very logical language. “游” on its own means “swim”, while “击” means “strike” or “attack”. As Mao famously said, guerillas are like fish in the population sea and attack enemy forces at times and places of their own choosing. “队员” means “team member”. All of this stands in sharp contrast to the English language: the word “guerilla” is a French import, so by itself provides little clue about its meaning.
抗日战争 (kang4ri4zhan4zheng1). “抗” by itself means “anti-” or “resist”, “日” is the shortened form word for “Japan” (日本; ri4ben3), and “战争” is the word for “war”.
火枪 (huo3qiang1). “火” is the Chinese word for “fire” (as in “smoke and fire”), while “枪” has several meanings, one of which is “gun”.
军事博物馆 (jun1shi4bo2wu4guan3). “军事” is the Chinese word for “military” and “博物馆” is the word for “museum”.
八路军 (ba1lu4jun1). “八” is the Chinese word for “8”, “路” means “route/road”, and “军” on its own means “army”.
矛; 长枪 (mao2; chang2qiang1).
大镰刀 (da4lian2dao1). “大” means “big”, while “刀” by itself means “knife”.
斯大林 (si1da4lin2).
国民党 (guo2min2dang3). The last character, “党”, is the Chinese word for political party.
走狗 (zou3gou3). “走” is “running” here, while “狗” means “dog”.
和日本人合作的中国人 (he2ri4ben3ren2he2zuo4de5zhong1guo2ren2). This is translated from Mandarin as “Chinese (中国人) collaborators (合作) with the Japanese (日本人)”.
中国的社会 (zhong1guo2de5she4hui4). “中国的” is “Chinese”, while “社会” is “society”.
美食 (mei3shi2). This literally means “beautiful/delicious (美) eating (食)”.
酒 (jiu3).
食人者 (shi2ren2zhe3). Or, more literally, “eating (人) person (食) kind of individual (者)”. Once again, Mandarin is such a logical language!!
垂头丧气 (chui2tou2sang4qi4). “垂头” means to “hang one's head down”.
抽烟 (chou1yan1). “烟” on its own means “smoke”.
友谊 (you3yi4). The first character “友” forms half of the Chinese word for “friend”, which is “朋友” (peng2you3).