One of my favourite characters in a novel I read recently is Stanislaus Katczinsky, or “Kat”, in All Quiet on the Western Front. Granted, I am a sucker for smooth operators. Another delicious character that comes to mind is Ostap Bender in The Twelve Chairs.
I decided to read All Quiet in Dutch because Dutch is more structurally similar to German than English, and I am glad I did. I loved that Kat is described as “uitgeslapen”. “Well-rested” is the obvious translation, but it doesn’t quite capture the sense of someone who is always operating with a fresh, alert, and calm mind, as if they would never exert themselves for more than a few hours without saying “enough of this, let’s take a restorative cat-nap”1
In a world where the answer seems to always be “try harder”, Kat’s attitude is refreshing.
Flicking through the English translation, I found:
“Stanislaus Katczinsky, the leader of our group, shrewd, cunning, and hard-bitten, forty years of age, with a face of the soil, blue eyes, bent shoulders, and a remarkable nose for dirty weather, good food, and soft jobs.”
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/75011/pg75011-images.html
By contrast, the Dutch reads:
Stanislaus Katczinsky, het hoofd van onze groep, taai, slim, uitgeslapen, veertig jaar oud, met een grauw gezicht, blauwe ogen, afhangende schouders en een wonderbaarlijke flair om zich ergens tussenuit te draaien, om goed eten op de kop te tikken en om zich corveetjes te laten opdragen, waarbij je de lijn kunt trekken.
Traduttore, traditore. The difference between these two passages makes me weep.
I don’t think they are particularly inaccurate translations (full disclosure, I haven’t read the German nor do I intend to), but there are subtle differences that change the mood. “Bent shoulders” is a particularly awkward rendition of afhangende schouders. Perhaps “sloping shoulders” would be better.
Anyway, enough of this, time for a nap.
- (a Kat-nap?). ↩︎
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