Oriana Fallaci: The Woman and the Myth

11. Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Fallaci

• FALLACI REACHED THE HEIGHT OF HER writing career in 1990 with the publication of Insciallah, her most mature book.1 Her use of the Arabic word insciallah, which means "as God wills," emphasizes her concern with human destiny and search for answers to the eternal questions. The book is the expression of a new image. Fallaci wanted the world to see her as a hermetic, literary writer, entirely devoted to the creation of art. She talks about this aspect of her performing self as if she felt the need to make certain her readers caught sight of the new Fallaci. At the same time, she claims the title of French and English translator of her own book. This performance brought her tension with translators to a head and framed her book's appearance in America with controversy. Fallaci insists that a book is not only what it communicates but also how it communicates. She objects to unacceptable license in translations through lacunae or additions that betray the original. She believes that serious writers -not word merchants-spill their blood into each word. Translators who change, alter, or betray the text would do better to refuse the job in the first place. Fallaci acknowledges this concern as a fixation and makes no bones 194 TOLSTOY, DOSTOYEVSKY, AND FALLACI 195 about the war hctwcen her and t1'anslators. God's punishment of Adam and Eve as they leave the Garden of Eden, she states, affects Wliters. "Ugly turds, idiots, carcasses, and rascals! You ate my apple? And now I am punishing you. From now on, you will speak different languages, and when YOlL write a book, you will have to be t1'anslated. Get out!,,2 The bane of Wl'iters is a Babel of diverse tongues. She envies artists and musicians, who do not need ~translators. Having a degrce of fluency in English and French, as well as some knowledge of Spanish, Fallaci claims that she possesses the expertise to detect unacecptable liberties in any of these languages. She speaks of a triple heart attack after receiving what she claims were three unsatisfactory translations of Insciallah. To ITlake corrections, she abandoned the editing of Bruno Fallaci's diary, as well as the preparation of her next book. She fi1'st rejected a Spanish translation and then accepted the services of a Chilean professor who redid the work to her satisfaction. The French ve1'sion also clispleased her, and she retranslated it into French 1ll1der the pen name of Victor France.3 There are at least two possiJ)le explanations of Fallaci's use of the pen name Victor France. First of all, she has always possessed a penchant for flair andlnystery. At the same time, a fear of expOSLU'e is not outside the realm of possibility. She might have lacked confidenee in her French language skills. As it turned out, French critics p1'aised the novel and perhaps facilitated Fallaei's wlllingness to say publicly that she was Victor France.4 Then again, the media in France may have failed in their responsibility, since no one seems to have questioned whether she had the right to call herself the French translator. Fallaci's French translation is, in fact, completely new in comparison to dIe first and builds on the first translation, which she 1'ejected twice.5 However , the Wliter never mentions the first translator. Educated as a native speaker of Italian, Fallaci's artistry expresses itself primarily in Italian. Consequently , she spent several rnondls in Paris with the Freneh representative of Rizzoli Eclitore redoing the Ol'iginal French translation.6 In addition, the version fmany submitted to the French publishing house, Gallimard, underwent more editOl'iall'cvisions. Fallaci then redid what she considered an unacceptable English translation . According to the writer later, its verbatim literalness aecollllted for its lack of polish and readability. She insists that it was horrible because it was word for word, dlat she reWl'ote it, and that no one could have reWl'itten 196 TOLSTOY, DOSTOYEVSKY, AND FALLACI it as she could. In her opinion, it reflected the translator's unfamiliarity with Italian- a condition that compounded the problem of restructuring sentences , adding words, and omitting entire expressions. In addition, as Fallaci claims, the impossibility of correctly communicating Italian dialects interspersed throughout the Italian version forced her to leave them out in the English translation.7 James Marcus, the original English translator...