Lost in Translation

"Mother died today."

That's the way I quoted Albert Camus's famous opening line to "The Stranger" in my First Line Quiz. But I knew even as I included it that what had always made it wonderful to me was not the first line alone, but the unforgettable existential combination of the first two lines together:

      "Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure."

Those are the sentences that have resonated with me and for many Americans for decades. But of course, the novel Camus wrote was in French and for forty-some years we have been reading a British translation, that of Stuart Gilbert.

Now after all these years a new translation by Matthew Ward has appeared. In his Translator's Note he describes Gilbert's version as employing a "certain paraphrastic earnestness" in an "effort to make the text intelligible, to help the English-speaking reader understand what Camus meant." He then suggests that in his own translation he has "attempted to venture farther into the letter of Camus's novel, to capture what he said and how he said it, not what he meant."

He gives a few instances before dropping the bomb:

"No sentence in French literature in English translation is better known than the opening sentence of The Stranger. It has become a sacred cow of sorts, and I have changed it. In his notebooks Camus recorded the observation that “the curious feeling the son has for his mother constitutes all his sensibility.” And Sartre, in his “Explication de L’Etranger,” goes out of his way to point out Mersault’s use of the child’s word “Maman” when speaking of his mother. To use the more removed, adult “Mother” is, I believe, to change the nature of Mersault’s curious feeling for her. It is to change his very sensibility."     (Note: the emphasis is mine.)

So how does the new and improved opening to "The Stranger" read in the hands of Matthew Ward? Here it is:

      "Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know."

Wow! How does that sound?

Admittedly, I am not bilingual, although French is the only language I ever studied. And the mere existence of a new translation forces me to consider for once that what I have read and loved in "The Stranger" is both Camus's and Gilbert's creation. The entire subject of translations I can see is a rich one and beyond the scope of one passing entry here.

But what about that first sentence? "Maman died today??" I find it fascinating that Ward dared to challenge a sacred cow, and then altered it by employing a word that is not even English--not only doesn't "Maman" have an entry in my dictionary, I never hear English speaking children use it, ever.

I hear "Mama" certainly, or "Mamma." And of course, go to any playground and you'll hear "Mommy" over and over again. So why didn't Ward elect to change the sentence to "Mama died today," or "Mommy died today," if he is so convinced of the sensibility of Mersault's feeling for his mother?

I looked up the French:

      "Aujourd 'hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas."

That doesn't seem so difficult to translate, does it? In fact I fed it to my computer (Babel Fish) and it gave me this:

      "Today, mom died. Or perhaps yesterday, I do not know."

After all these versions, I may as well contribute my own suggestion, right?

      "Mom died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know."

That's got to be an improvement over Ward's "Maman" don't you think?

Which translation will endure, I wonder. Which will be the version read by thousands of high school and college students? And will they read Ward's translation and upon closing it treasure it and recall it for as long as many of us have recalled the Gilbert version we know so well?


Postscript:   Ward, incidentally, changed other sacred cows as well. The final sentence, one I also admired and found memorable, once read:

For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration.

That's also the version I chose to include in my Last Line Quiz (it took visits to over a dozen bookstores and libraries to locate the once ubiquitous Gilbert translation--my copy currently residing in storage somewhere). But now "howls of execration" is gone--and here let's admit no one actually uses that phrase, as wonderful as it is. So perhaps many will prefer Ward's new closing:

For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.