Translations

90 LETTERS IN CANADA 1989 Translations .S H E R R Y S I M 0 N This year's production of translations is noteworthy for the intriguing variations it introduces in a firmly established translating tradition. It has been said that English-Canadian publishers have given up on Quebec and that the reading public is no longer eager to acquire knowledge ofan elusive Quebec through its literature. But, all told, the number and variety of fiction translations this year seems to belie this diagnosis. Indeed, it comes almost as a welcome surprise to the seasoned observer of the Canadian translation scene that there is so little change in a landscape that took form during the 1970s when literary translation was given its essential impulse through Canada Council funding. The more pertinent question might, however, be: is this the landscape that writers, readers, publishers, and translators wish to see perpetuated? A rather pessimistic article in the Globe and Mail (17 January 1990) insisted on the continuing marginalization of translation within Canadian publishing. But is this marginalization not inevitable in a context where Canada's two major literary milieux continue only to take polite cognizance of each other, and where Canadian publishers operate in the shadow of monopolistic international conglomerates? Literary translation in Canada has historically been impelled by institutional and political factors that are, to some extent, independent of market considerations and movements of literary cross-fertilization. But this somewhat artificial situation -with its obvious limitations- has, all the same, permitted the development of a significant corpus oftranslated works, a dedicated group of excellent translators, and a socio-cultural tradition of translation, which are exceptional on the world scene. This review will consider translations towards English only. It should be noted, however, that although translation towards French tends to favour non-fiction, generally speaking, a modest but substantial corpus of English-Canadian literature is being published by Quebec houses. Joy Kogawa's Obasan (Lester and Orpen Dennys 1981; Obasan, trans Dorothy Howard, QuebedAmerique, 370, $24.95), Margaret Laurence's A Bird in the House (McClelland and Stewart 1970; Un oiseau dans la maison, trans Christine Klein-Lataud, Du Roseau, 206, $14.95), Mordecai Richler's Joshua, Then and Now (McClelland and Stewart 1985; Joshua au passe, au present, trans Paule Noyart, Quinze, 537, $29.95), and Constance BeresfordHowe 's Night Studies (Macmillan 1985; Cours du soir, trans Michelle Tisseyre, P. Tisseyre, 254, $17.95)wereall translated this year. Robert and Charlotte Melan<;on's translation of A.M. Klein's The Second Scroll (Knopf 1951; Le Second Rouleau, Boreal, 217, $19.95) is all the more notable since Boreal does not often publish translated fiction. TRANSLATIONS 91 It is interesting to note that publishers from France are showing increasing eagerness to publish English-Canadian literature. This year, for instance, translations ofRobertson Davies and Michael Ondaatje were given major coverage in the French press. English-Canadian literature is quickly escaping the bounds of traditional 'inter-Canadian' translation, and Quebec publishers may have missed an important boat by failing to give the translation of English-Canadian literature higher priority not only in their publishing schedules but also in promotion. English-Canadian publishers in 1989 favoured a mixture of Quebec literary 'classics' (Michel Tremblay, Antonine Maillet, Andre Major), new novelists (Emile Ollivier, Jacques Savoie), major poets (Roland Giguere, Michel Beaulieu), theatre (Tremblay, Pelletier), and feminist writing (Brossard, anthology of women's writing, Suzanne Jacob, Lise Gauvin, Jovette Marchessault, Yolande Cohen). This year's translators almost all display the translator's usual humility and with only a few exceptions refrain from adding either notes or prefaces to their work. While such additions are not to be encouraged at all costs, I would like to express my fondness for the translator's prefacethe formulation by the translator of the reasons which impelled the undertaking and the global orientation adopted in the translation. Such personalization can greatly enhance both our understanding of the translation process and the double context of the work. The newly constituted discipline (or rather trans-discipline) of translation studies continues to produce significantand interestingwork. Robert Larose's Theories contemporaines de la traduction (Presses de l'Universite du Quebec a Montreal, xxiii, 336, $29.00) is one of the first attempts to synthesize the various contributions of translation theorists, the volume of which has increased exponentially since the 196os. Larose's book has the advantage of presenting in concise form the essential message ofeach of the theorists covered (Vinay and Darbelnet, Mounin, Nida, Catford, Steiner, Ladmiral, Delisle, Newmark, and Juliana House) but the disadvantage of looking at this work author by author rather than by covering the concepts analytically. The work will be most useful for those interested in the individual authors, less useful for those wishing to understand the epistemological paradigms of research into translation today. In addition, the book (published in a first edition last year) already needs updating, making little or no reference to the work of Antoine Berman, Henri Meschonnic, or the polysystem theorists Evan-Zohar, Gideon Toury, and Jose Lambert. In my book, L'Inscription sociale de la traduction au Quebec (Office de la langue fran<;aise, 157, free on order), I propose a somewhat different tack for translation theory - a descriptive approach analysing the 'topic' of translation in Quebec, its differential treatment in public, academic, and literary discourse. A section of the study is devoted to translations in the 92 LEITERS IN CANADA 1989 publishing industry. The bibliography is devoted to publications treating the social and cultural aspects of translation in Quebec. The third issue of TTR (vol2:1) contains substantial articles on historical and cultural aspects of literary translation, notably a thorough and stimulating contribution by Barbara Folkart, 'Translation and the Arrow of Time,' which advocates a revalorization of those types of translation which act against expected entropic impoverishment. She proposes that translation not be reduced exclusively to the thermodynamic model of entropy (according to which the universe is running down or unravelling ); alternative models, such as the one proposed by astrophysicist David Layzer, suggest that the universe is moving towards everincreasing complexity. On the basis of this large conceptual ground, as well as numerous examples, Folkart shows that heuristic (rather than entropic) practices of translation - such as those that she calls transfiguration or trans-creation- can thus gain a legitimacy denied them by traditional equivalency theory. Another important collection that appeared this year is the translation issue of Tessera (vol 6, 'La traduction au feminin,' Spring 1989). Translation has always been a central feature of this bilingual journal of feminist writing and theory and so it was particularly appropriate that the journal prepare a special issue on translation practice and conceptualization. The idea of a specifically feminist attitude towards translation has been brought forward in various contexts without sufficient development; this issue allows for a lengthy and varied treatment of the issue - in its creative, polemic, and theoretical dimensions. Barbara Godard situates feminist translation within the contemporary reaction to theories of equivalency based on a search for absolute sameness. 'Difference' becomes an accepted factor in all types of translation, including feminist practice. Most of the contributions to the volume take the form of personal meditations in which translators show how translation - and indeed all our relationships to language - are informed by values. Feminist translation does not mean taking over an alien text in the service of one particular ideology: it implies rather that the affective relationship at the source of the translation project is made explicit and that as much as possible the translation brings into play the gender-specific aspects of the text. Feminism, like other socio-cultural ideologies and movements, is important in orienting the choice of translated works. Many of English Canada's women writers have become popular in Europe (and especially Scandinavia) because of the enthusiasm of women translators. Quebec feminist writers were among the first difficult 'new writers' to be translated in the 1970s and 198os. This year there are new books by the now classic writers Nicole Brossard and Madeleine Gagnon as well as the introduction of new women writers like Suzanne Jacob and the young writers in the anthology Ink and Strawberries (Aya 1988, 89, $9.95). TRANSLATIONS 93 This anthology, edited by Beverley Dauria and Luise Von Flotow (translations by Luise Von Flotow) is remarkable first for its wide and ecumenical choice of writers - including established writers like MarieClaire Blais as well as younger writers like Anne Dandurand and Lori Saint-Martin. Much of the critical writing and subsequently much of the translation of Quebec literary feminism has until now tended to centre on a core group of writer-theoreticians: Nicole Brossard, France Theoret, Madeleine Gagnon. This collection of short fiction widens the scope to 'women's fiction' but does not lose itself in eclecticism: the short fiction pieces all express a remarkable intensity of emotion. Most remarkable are those pieces, like the erotic fictions of Anne Dandurand, which seek to redefine 'feminine sensibility.' The translations are imaginative, sensitive , and lyrical. Howard Scott's translation of Madeleine Gagnon's L'Antre (Herbes Rouges 1978; Lair, Coach House, 6o, $10.95) is one of the products of a revitalized Coach House Quebec Translations series. Scott gives a very close rendering of Gagnon's text. This strategy is inevitable in a work which proceeds phrase by phrase, moving between incantation and analysis. While the tone of such a text is difficult to find and maintain, Scott produces some haunting phrases: 'In that space-place of our bloods, you had me enter ...' Scott's preface is interesting in that he feels obliged to situate himself as a male translating feminist writing. Also appearing this year under the new, flashy cover of the Coach House series (replacing the sober dark blue of yesteryear) is Fiona Strachan's version of Nicole Brossard's Le sens apparent (Flammarion 1980; Surfaces of Sense, 74, $12.95). Life, after All (Press Gang, 134, $9.50) is the superb title Susanna Finnell gives to her translation of La survie by Suzanne Jacob (Le biocreux 1979). This collection of very short pieces develops a gesture, a mood, a moment. The best of these, 'Strawberry time,' is included in the Daurio/von Flotow Anthology mentioned previously. Jovette Marches~ault's work has been closely associated with feminism and feminist writing. Marchessault is one of the three writers featured in Dorothy Henault's feature-length documentary film on Quebec feminist writing, Les terribles vivantes!Firewords (NFB 1986). Yvonne Klein's work on La Mere des herbes (Quinze 1980; Mother of the Grass, Talonbooks, 173, $11.95) has provided a lively translation of a compelling book. The rendering of long, lyrical passages- in a text where there is a lot of run-on syntax- is sometimes awkward. This is the difficulty of a text which is not a classically 'controlled' work, but which proceeds by bursts and enthusiasms. It's hard to understand why the publisher 'Groslt' becomes 'Grosslot' (one presumes the first was meant to mask Groslier). Through its choice of English-language publisher, its translator's preface and translating strategy, Lise Gauvin's Lettres d'une autre (Hexa- 94 LETTERS IN CANADA 1989 gone 1984; Lettersfrom an Other, Women's Press, 143, $10.95) has acquired a clearer feminist identity in translation than it might have had when read by its first public. Susanne de Lotbiniere-Harwood explains in her preface that she has deliberately chosen to foreground the feminist aspects of Gauvin's book and to use feminine forms in some cases where Gauvin has not. The result is not a major but an intriguing displacement in the meaning of the book. What happens here seems to me to be not significantly different from what happens in many other cases of translation. But for once the presuppositions of the shift are made explicit. What began as an essay directed in part to Quebecois, in part to foreign readers, is transformed into a report by a Quebecker on the 'state' of Quebec culture for English Canadians. Preface, footnotes, and translation strategy amplify the scope of the analysis and make it an even more useful instrument for English-Canadian readers. Femmes et Contre-pouvoir (Boreal1987; Women and Counter Power, Black Rose, 230, $19.95), edited by Yolande Cohen, is a collection of articles dealing with the relationships between women and power. Translated now by Arnold Bennett, itis an eclectic but informative and useful vehicle for reflection on feminist politics. Successive translations of the same work are interesting indicators of changing perceptions of readers' tastes and publishers' expectations. There is seldom a question of progress towards ultimate perfection: translations are not necessarily better than others in absolute terms. But 'retranslations' show the shifts in perspective towards a literary work, as well as the underlying stability in a tradition which seeks continual reactualization. The case of Maria Chapdelaine, reissued this year in an illustrated version (Tundra, 93, $39.95), newly translated by Alan Brown, is particularly interestingfrom a historical pointofview. Two translations of the novel appeared almost simultaneously in 1921, one by Andrew Macphail, the other by W.H. Blake. The two men had originally planned to translate the novel in collaboration, but later disagreed on stylistic issues. Each went on to complete his own version, Macphail's quite literal, Blake's more lyrical. Blake's translation, dramatic and often inspired, has become the accepted version. It is to be regretted that the publishers chose to include Roch Carrier's rather sentimental preface and have no word from the translator on the motives or orientation of his translation. It is only logical that Brown's rendering be 'measured' against Blake's, not simply from a technical point of view but also in terms of the relationship of the translator to the reading public. We know from his prefaces that Blake was a great lover of rural Quebec and that his translation chose quite deliberately to heighten the poetic (and even melodramatic) dimensions of a work (and a world) with which he had a strongly emotional relationship. Blake's perspective TRANSLATIONS 95 on a near-contemporary world, for which city dwellers even then were beginning to experience nostalgia, would be quite different from that of a contemporary translator faced with a classic novel, a 'myth,' of modern Quebec. It seems quite clear from his choice of idiom that Alan Brown wished to create a modern, idiomatic version of Maria Chapdelaine. Brown has taken the knots out of the dialogue as written by both Blake and Macphail (who seem to deliberately put a folkloric, somewhat broken, English in the mouths of the characters) and writes a more neutral but modem English. Gone too, however, is the somewhat formal tone of the dialogue (denoting distance and respect among the characters) as well as the many poetic passages in Blake's work. A few short passages from the first chapter can be given as examples here: Blake: 'The smiles were bold enough as they spoke of her, this inaccessible beauty'; Brown: 'As they talked about this almost inaccessible beauty, they stared at her, smiling, real lady-killers.' Blake: 'No, Mr. Chapdelaine, I have not kept the farm. When the good man died I sold everything'; Brown: 'No, I didn't keep the farm. When dad died I sold it all.' Blake: 'the water that seethed and whitened, flinging itself in wild descent down the staircase ofa giant'; Brown: 'thewhite water that boiled and tumbled down the steep rapids as if they were a giant ladder.' Whereas Blake chose (wisely, I think) to translate the problematicword 'race' by 'people,' Brown unfortunately retains the word: 'these men belonged to a race imbued with an invincible love of laughter.' The differences between the two translations make for a fascinating case-study. Accuracy is rarely a question here. More at issue is the relationship of the translator to the world he is evoking as well as the 'historical' nature of the translation itself. Blake's has taken on the aura of a classic translation, a work that has acquired literary value in itself. Despite Brown's innovations (more contemporary idiomatic language, use of unitalicized French terms like 'pelisse,' 'perron,' 'bourgeoise'), it is not at all certain that this new translation will replace Blake's work. To have done so the new translation would have had to propose a new reading of the work, a new sense ofits place within the English-Canadian canon. Perhaps for a book such as Maria Chapdelaine, irrevocably tied to a feeling of the mythical past, this was in fact an impossible task. It is much easier to understand the motivation behind the retranslation by William Findlay and Morton Bowman of Michel Tremblay's Les Belles-Soeurs as The Guid-Sisters (Exile, 121, $12.95). This translation into 'modern Scots' was apparently presented at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1987 to rave reviews, which does not seem surprising, given the double effect of the dramatic impact of the play and its presentation in Scots dialect. The equivalence of the two idioms, Quebecois and Scots (is 96 LETTERS IN CANADA 1989 it Glaswegian?), is remarkably appropriate for this play: in fact the language of Tremblay's play relies much less on culture-specific expressions or swear-words than on accent, intonation, phonetization of spoken language. And so equivalents can be found. 'Arretez done un peu de vous disputer, chus fatiquee, moe' becomes 'stoap this argybargyin. Ah'm worn oat wi it.' And 'Ah! ben, vous, par exemple, la pincee, lachez-moe lousse! Collez vas timbres, pis farmez-la ben juste, parce que sans <_;a, m'en va vous la fermer ben juste, moe!' becomes 'Keep your big nose oat ae this, ya toffee-nosed gett! Jist you keep pastin thae stamps or ah'll paste ye wan in the mooth.' There are surprisingly few references in the play which are culturally impermeable. The translators have made no adaptations, no changes in the names of the characters, for instance. And so Germaine Lauzon asks her friends 'whit've yese aw been bletherin aboot?' Though this translation into Scots hardly has the transgressive power that Tremblay's play had in 1968, it surely affords the same terribly effective combination of pathos and humour as it does for Quebec audiences today. Michel Tremblay would be delighted, I am sure, with this new and lively version of his play. Louise Ringuet translated the only other play published in translation this year, Maryse Pelletier's Duo pour voix obstines (vLB 1985; Duo for Obstinate Voices, Guernica, 147, $10.oo). The quality of the translation of the two major works of poetry by Michel Beaulieu and Roland Giguere was recognized by their being named finalists for the Governor-General's Prize for Translation. Michel Beaulieu's Kaleidoscope ou les aleas du corps grave (Noroit 1984; Kaleidoscope: Perils of a Solemn Body, Exile, 134, $14.95) is remarkably translated by Arlette Franciere. The short lines of the poetry and its often dislocated sentence patterns are difficult. The translation had to reconstruct these patterns and Franciere has succeeded in conveying the urgency and intensity of this largely urban poetry. Rose and Thorn, selected poems of Roland Giguere, translated by Donald Winkler (Exile 1988, 118, $11.95), is a homage to an important Quebec poet. Giguere's poetry has all the difficulty of sometimes deceptively simple language, strong images, and obsessive rhythms. Winkler shows a great deal of attention for the often hypnotic but rigorous and controlled sound patterns. Antonine Maillet's linguistic inventiveness has inspired some of the best literary translators in Canada. Barbara Godard took on the translation of Don L'Orignal (The Tale of Don l'Orignal, Clarke Irwin 1978) and Philip Stratford made Pelagie-la-Charrette (Pelagie, Doubleday 1982) into a superb work of English literature. Wayne Grady's translation of Le Huitieme four (On the Eighth Day, Lester and Orpen Dennys, viii, 276, $14.95) was awarded the Governor-General's Prize for Translation in 1989. TRANSLATIONS 97 Grady refers to Stratford's remarks on the difficulties of translating Maillet in his preface. But if both translators began with the same premises (the need to find English equivalents for a language which is 'Mailletois' as much as it is 'French'), it is interesting to see how different the results are. Stratford's Pelagie gives us a stranger idiom, a more 'invented' language closer to the French. (But Pelagie is in French a far more dense and complex work than is the extended picaresque tale of The Eighth Day). Grady has developed a rollicking eighteenth-century idiom, which rolls delightfully along, rarely creating shock or abrasion. It might seem justsomewhatincongruous for SirReneRenaissance, a Frenchlord, to have his archaic English foregrounded, but this is the strategy Grady has adopted to create a highly readable book, close in style, as he notes, to the mock-heroic tone of Swift's Gulliver's Travels. Grady's rhythmic recasting is faultless and his translation is boundlessly inventive. The Heart Laid Bare (McClelland and Stewart, 249, $26.95) is Sheila Fischman's translation of Le Coeur decouvert (Lemeac 1986), one of Michel Tremblay's least acclaimed works. The novel lacks Tremblay's usually inventive and imaginative style and the difficulty of the translation (which Fischman has handled as successfully as possible) lies in dealing with the lacklustre language of the original. Andre Major, former member of the Parti pris literary group, which also favoured the literary use of 'joual,' uses almost no dialogue in L'Hiver au coeur (xYz Editeur, 1987), thus considerably reducing the potential difficulty of translation. David Lobdell's English version (The Winter ofthe Heart, Oberon, 77, $11.95) reads very well, giving a flat and unemotional tone to this almost timeless story of a 'descent' into down-and-out Montreal. Lobdell runs into a few real difficulties, however, in the translation of Montreal realities: 'tavernes' becomes 'pubs' rather than taverns; the 'Stade des Royaux' remains untranslated whereas Montreal's baseball team was for all intents and purposes the 'Royals'; he speaks of 'the elimination series in hockey' when he means the playoffs.' And shouldn't the dog Vendredi have been Friday, when there is an explicit reference to a 'desert island'? Lobdell's translation of Mere Solitude (Albin Michel 1985; Mother Solitude, Oberon, 176, $15.95) by Emile Ollivier, a Haitian writer who has been living in Quebec for many years, presents difficulties of a quite different order. The novel is epic in scope, combining personal and national narrative in a language of both realism and myth. The problem here is to find an idiom appropriate to the domains ofboththe real and the unreal, of the possible and of the fantastic. Lobdell does remarkably well, creating an idiom which is rich and rhythmical. His recasting of sentence phrasing and rhythm is very successful. While one might easily quarrel over minor sins of omission (and especially Lobdell's occasional but not always understandable decisions to leave things in French) or slight shifts 98 LETTERS IN CANADA 1989 in meaning, in general this ambitious work allows for a real investment on the part of the translator and David Lobdell has accepted the challenge. Like Mother Solitude, The Persian Mirror (Third Eye, 105, $1o.oo) is the translation of an author not previously known in English - or in the case of Thomas Pavel it is more accurate to say not previously known as a writer of fiction. (Pavel is a well-known literary theorist whose work is published in English as well as French.) When it.first appeared, Le Miroir persan (Quinze 1977) went largely unnoticed in Quebec. The translation is a particularly fortunate event then, in that it brings to our attention a series of fascinating philosophical tales which turn on the theme of 'imaginary worlds.' Except for the occasional appearance of strange expressions like 'practicing philology,' 'cousin germane,' 'sound diplomas,' or the occasional flagrant mistranslation as in 'Manual the Inquisitor' for 'Manual of the Inquisitory,' Michael Bullock's translation remains spare and suggestive in the manner of arcane and erudite tales. Particularly intriguing is the tale entitled 'El ruido obscuro,' which presents a character strongly suggestive of Michel Foucault. Michael Bullock also translated Claudette Charbonneau-Tissot's short story collection La Contrainte (Cercle de livre de France 1976; Compulsion, Third Eye, 134, $10.00). The long sentences of the French might have given a poetic effect of strangeness in English, but instead they make for convolution and sometimes confusion. Another first-time translatee was Jacques Savoie, an Acadian writer whose novel Les Partes tournantes (Bon~al 1984; Revolving Doors, trans Sheila Fischman, Lester and Orpen Dennys, 139, $10.95) was adapted as a film under the same title. The book is more of a collage than a continuous narrative and it avoids psychological realism as it moves purposely from 'real' to larger-than-life characters, from music to painting. The narrative shifts as well from the voice ofthe ten-year-old Antoine to the letters of his grandmother from the 1940s. The 'voice' of the novel is never wholly convincing (in French or in English), but at the centre of the novel there is clearly the indetermination of a voice which belongs only incidentally to the body of a child or a woman and which circulates beyond individuals. Negovan Rajic's stories, Service penitentiaire national (Beffroi 1988) are translated by David Lobdell under the suggestive title A Shady Business (Oberon, 86, $11.95). At times it is the suspicion of incongruity, the very slight space between logic and fantasy, which becomes the focus of the stories. At others, it is a nostalgia bathed in sadness which recalls the events of the war in a troubled city. In a translation otherwise entirely compelling, it is hard to understand why David Lobdell chooses not to translate the cultural references given in French in the original, but clearly referring to realities which are - in the case of the last story - Yugoslav. Why leave the street names of Belgrade in French? A real first, I think, in the history of Canadian literary translation is the TRANSLATIONS 99 'self-translation' of The Marriageable Daughter (Coach House, 69, $10.95) by the author Daniel Gagnon. This work first appeared as Unefille amarier (Lemeac 1985) and was given the Prix Molson. Critics have noted that the author makes changes in his work which a translator could not have permitted him/herself, but especially interesting is the transposition he makes from a French text (simulating English) to an English text supposedly written by a francophone girl. While the French text 'pretends' to be English (by throwing in the occasional English expression ), the English text is sometimes incorrect, infused with gallicisms, which make the text perform its hybrid character. What could have been construed as translation mistakes become rather indices of the francaphone narrator's status as outsider in the language, using it to transport her out of an impure world. As well as being a translation carrying a special status (an author's self-translation), The Marriageable Daughterbecomes a fascinating addition to English-Canadian letters. Like Gail Scott's important novel Heroine (Coach House 1987), in which frequent passages in French underline the cultural and historical context of Montreal in the 1970s, The Marriageable Daughter uses a second language to identify a possible space available outside the oppressive strictures of an immediate daily reality. But Gagnon shows this space to be necessarily impure. '0 Phyllis, you are my dear sister in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada, aren't you? do you understand me well, excuse my so bad English, mister Smith mon professeur d'anglais gave me your precious name.' There are inequalities in the level of the transposition, however. While Anne Hebert gives way to Anne Wilkinson, 'le rapport Hite' retains its Gallic title in English. This is a brilliantpiece of writing, in French as well as in English, and an experiment quite new in English-Canadian writing. Itwould be foolish to try to reduce this work to conform to a restrictive paradigm oftranslation; ifit doesn'tfit, this is preciselybecause our vocabulary is too limiting. The work would be more appropriately discussed as 'creative transposition,' and its unique position within the two literary canons has yet to be explored in depth. A number of interesting children's books appeared this year, many done by translators not previously known for their work in this area: Le Tapis de Grand-Pre, by Rejean Aucoin and Jean-Claude Tremblay, translated by Barbara LeBlanc and Sally Ross (The Magic Rug ofGrand-Pre, Nimbus, 46, $10.95); Ma vache Bossie by Gabrielle Roy (Lemeac 1976) translated by Alan Brown (My Cow Bossie, McClelland and Stewart, $9.95); La Balladede Monsieur Bedon by Pierre Houde (Raton Laveur 1985) translated by Alan Brown (The Ballad ofMr. Tubs, McClelland and Stewart, $6.95); Le Dernier des raisins (QuebedAmerique 1986) also translated byAlan Brown (TheBig Loser, McClelland and Stewart, 87, $6.95); L'Espagnole et la pekinoise by Gabrielle Roy (Boreal1986) translated by Pat Claxton (The Tortoiseshell and 100 LEITERS IN CANADA 1989 the Pekinese, Doubleday, 42, $12.95); Les Saisons de la mer by Monique Corriveau (Fides 1975) translated and abridged by David Hamel (Seasons ofthe Sea, Douglas and Mcintyre, 96, $14.95). Summer of the Colt (Montreal Press, 187, $3.95) is Frances Hann's translation of Fierro ... l'ete des secrets (Quebec/Amerique) by Viviane Julien, the novelized form of the script for the latest of Rock Demers's film productions in the series titled 'Contes pour taus.' A final category of books, not yet numerically important but extremely significant, is that of translations from languages other than French or English. Current Canada Council policy excludes these books from translation funding (unless their authors/publishers are Canadian) and so it is all the more interesting to see them appear. Associations like the Literary Translators Association have been questioning Canada Council policy for years, insisting that translation of 'foreign' works be considered a creative activity - regardless of its place in the bi-national context. It is especially noteworthy, then, that these fine collections of translations are being published by small presses. No Easy Exit (Salida dificil, Oolichan, 91, $9.95) is a bilingual (English/ Spanish) collection of poetry by Gary Geddes. The Spanish translation is by Gonzalo MilUm and co-published by Oolichan Books in British Columbia and Casa Canada in Santiago, Chile. Oolichan has also published the selected poems of Gerrit Achterbert, But This Land Has No End (71, $9.95), translated from the Dutch by Pleuke Boyce. Cormorant Books has published poems by Peter Huchel, A Thistle in His Mouth (117, $9.95), translated from the German and introduced by Henry Beissel. (The book jacket comments that Beissel is one of Canada's most active translators - of Mrozek, Ibsen, Bauer, and Neruda. The Canadian translation 'scene' is so constituted that translating milieux are often ignorant about each other. One of the best-known Canadian translators, Leila Vennewitz, honoured with major international prizes as the translator of Heinrich Boll, is barely known in her home country.) And from Cormorant too comes When the Words Burn, An Anthology of Modern Arabic Poetry (1945-1987) (237, $14.95), translated and edited by John Mikhail Asfour. This last volume is in fact presented as a poetic and a scholarly venture, including extensive introductory notes, bibliography, and glossary. Some thirty-five poets are represented. Translations of children's books from third languages are more common, the amount of actual text often being minimal. This is not the case, however, for Cocori ($9.95) byJoaquin Gutierrez, translated from the Spanish by Daniel McBain and published by Cormorant Books. Western Producer Prairie Books has published A Hand Full of Stars by Rafik Schami, translated from the German by Rika Lesser. Ragweed Press published one of the few works of translated nonfiction this year: Georges Arsenault's Les Acadiens de l'Ile 1720-1980 HUMANITIES 101 (Editions de 1'Acadie 1987; The Island Acadians 1720-1980, 296, $19.95), translated by Sally Ross. This is an informative work of social and cultural history. It would seem appropriate to add a note concerning the reviewing of translations in the Canadian press. Translators are often distressed at the tendency for reviewers either to neglect all mention of the translator or on the contrary to have a field day picking holes in the carefully woven text he or she has put together. Nothing is easier, really, than to find fault with a translation. It is more difficult for a critic to understand the orientation that the translator has attempted to give the work (and prefaces are useful here) and to measure the performance, in part, against this project. With some luck, the continued growth of translation studies (and especially the study of its cultural dimensions) will give us the concepts and the vocabulary that will allow us to give a better account of the specific contribution of translations to Canadian literature. Humanities M. Owen Lee. Death and Rebirth in Virgil's Arcadia State University of New York Press. xii, 140. us $10.95 Virgilian pastoral is sometimes presented as a genre of escape and nostalgia. True, the countryside offers a vivid contrast to the bustle and ugliness of the time-kept city. But on entering Eclogue 1 we learn that in this idyllic landscape violent and horrible things are happening. Herdsmen are being evicted by veterans returning from the civil war. Some, indeed, have been spared; but others are now destitute wanderers. So the world of the Eclogues, like those of the Georgics and the Aeneid, is an amalgam of weal and woe. Eclogue 1 was not the first to be written, but the ten poems cannot be accurately dated. All we know is that 2 and 3 preceded 5, that 4 belongs to 40 BC, and that 10 came last. We would expect the more Theocritean pieces (2, 3, 5, 7, 8) to be early (though we should perhaps reserve judgment on lines 6-13 of Eclogue 8), and the more complex and innovative pieces to be late (4, 6, 9, 1, 10). But except for the points noted above, single poems cannot be positioned within their groups. This is regrettable but not serious. We can still enjoy the individual poems. (The rural pictures, the music of the verse, and the corresponding patterns of the shepherds' songs far outweigh the occasional difficulties of thoughtsequence and our ignorance of the figures and events referred to.) Beyond that, we can study how Virgil took overa bucolic convention from Theocritus whereby two herdsmen meet, exchange banter, agree to a song-contest, fix stakes, find an umpire, retire into a locus amoenus, sing in ...