halfcactus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
halfcactus) wrote2024-05-26 09:12 pm
halfcactus) wrote2024-05-26 09:12 pm
Entry tags:
Weekend reads
Recently read
Joe Sparrow, "Fishing"A comic that compares the concept of creativity, inspiration, and struggles to execute artistic ideas to fishing. Concise, well-communicated, and good choice of colors that differentiates what's above and below the water.
Snowlattes, "Grief Log" & Fatima Wajid, "Prism"
Both of these artists are ESL and could use a friend to help them copyedit (though I firmly believe that most amateur artists who get into comics need to run their stories with writing/editing and reading friends anyway); it still feels like a privilege to be entrusted with such personal and beautifully illustrated journals—one about grief and loss, the other about getting high with old friends. Fatima Wajid’s art and worldview are so marvelously depicted I got all emotional lol.
Megan Abbott, "The End of Everything"
The mystery cdramas I've been watching have me raring to read mystery, but unfortunately this... was not the type of crime/mystery I wanted to read. /o\ It's grooming and sexual harassment/assault framed in a missing persons case and told in the PoV of teenage girls who have daddy issues and are navigating school and sexual experiences. It's more interested in the psychology and the emotions than the crime and mystery, but the psychology and feelings aren't very interesting and the final twist is very standard.
The prose is attractive and the scenes of girlhood would fit really well in a coming-of-age novel. It has a writing style that I associate with fanfiction and amateur writers, ie. a lot of made-up verbs and "smelled like x and y and z"s but the word choices, at least, are quite logical and not just running on vibes. They still get a bit much sometimes though. XD
(I have a Kanae Minato novel lined up as my next mystery/thriller read, we'll see how that one goes since I've never read any of her work before.)
Recently sampled (then dropped)
Elizabeth Hand, "Wyldling Hall"I... simply don’t have the brain to read a story written as a documentary/series of interviews. Also not sure how much horror is in this?
priest, "Stars of Chaos" (Sha Po Lang)
Sampled the first chapter of the first volume because I saw people in
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cnovels talking about how smooth the translation is and... well, the first chapter does read very smoothly. It's a lot less distracting than MDZS and Little Mushroom. But I still bounced off it because of a couple of oddities, and because I'm likely familiar enough with priest's writing style to feel the disconnect. And then I got distracted about my personal thoughts about what I like to see in a translation VS what other people like to see in a translation and the kinds of conversations I wish we could have about translation. I don't know how to talk about this without sounding ungrateful and nitpicky!!!Anyway for this novel I might have to either cross-reference with the raws or supplement with the audio drama which is too much work and defeats the purpose of reading a translation. Stepping back for now and coming back in my own time, unprompted by any concurrent discussions.
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Drama-wise I'm now at the final episode of Tender Light and trying hard not to laugh at the recent plot developments. Setting aside the issue of the plot not plotting, it's just really funny that there's this entire Devotion of Suspect X plot development when the author of the original novel has been accused of plagiarizing Suspect X in a completely different canon a couple years ago. I never watched Better Days but I would argue that Tender Light's setup is closer to Suspect X. I did hear that Tender Light deviates a lot from the original novel, which is allegedly plagiarized from a couple of other things, but I'm not interested in reading the original novel and checking. ^^;
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I also would like to see more actual thoughtful conversations about translation. It was fun when we had that discussion about blocking and magically appearing cows/chairs under that post on The Creator's Grace on the baihe comm. I was pleasantly surprised that it seemed to chime with quite a few people's reading experiences!
(slight rant: as a preliminary conversation starting point, I need so many people in c-novel fandom to face up to the fact that they either have no standards for prose or lose all of those standards when they start reading a c-novel in translation. The number of times I've seen otherwise intelligent people praise a translation as near-professional and smooth only to look it up and find that it's hideously clunky is... well, suffice to say that I feel regularly gaslit by this fandom. Someone will go 'oh I'm a professional working-with-words person so I'm really picky about prose' and in the very next comment go on to praise the 'style' of a translator whose approach can best be described as 'shove English-language near-synonyms into an unmodified Chinese sentence structure and call that a day'. It's astounding, and not in a good way. Sorry rant over!)
Also, I really don't think being critical of a professionally published translation that is sold as a commercial product for multiple times the hourly wage of the average Southeast Asian worker counts as ungrateful and nitpicky at all! Why should I be grateful for... the opportunity to overpay for a subpar product? (not that I buy danmei in English or indeed at all, but you get my drift)
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PS: we don't know each other but I'm just so relieved to hear someone else say this XD
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Yeah this is the thing for me - I consume a lot of translated media that involves a translation and localization team (mainly Japanese videogames, but also movies and anime/manga) where the translated work is meant to stand well enough on its own, and I want the same for cnovels! But I'm also very unfamiliar with novel translation conventions, so I don't have a standard to compare to. ^^; Would love to see them more talked about though!
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Yeah I have... a lot of feelings about this. I think both are true, unfortunately. The first because the standards are likely based on fantranslations--I was like this for a while; it's easy to forget what polished writing looks like when all you read is fantranslations lol. The second because people seem to want to read clunky and awkward phrasing and equate that with "cultural nuance". Which to be honest I find kinda exotifying/Orientalist... And sad when the problem is inside the house (cdiaspora translators who are doing their best to retain everything in their translation, at the cost of meaning).
And then there's this whole other problem that I'm afraid to bring up in public spaces because people can be touchy about it - that most people are not, in fact, qualified to make quick judgements/recommendations about the translation quality. A readable translation is not always a good one, and unless you have read the novel in its original language, it's hard to gauge. Like I don't this makes anyone's opinion is less valid (because I really like reading different opinions lol), but sometimes I need the perspective of someone who translates or is familiar with the original text and doesn't have a personal agenda in favor of or against the translator/publisher when they comment about translations. The danmei translation circle is a small one, and steeped in fandom and social media cliques, which I think makes it harder to talk about these things neutrally.
I really don't think being critical of a professionally published translation that is sold as a commercial product for multiple times the hourly wage of the average Southeast Asian worker counts as ungrateful and nitpicky at all
Lol true, I myself am a SEAsian who struggles with the licensed translation prices because libraries aren't a thing where I am and my currency is worth peanuts. XD I really wish the publishers would slow down a bit instead of racing to buy licenses and get the translated books out ASAP. Frankly I wish people would read slower too HAHA.
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I agree with the other person commenting here. A proper conversation about prose and a good professional translation would be welcome. Alas, most people in danmei fandoms don't want to hear it. *sighs*
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I really wish the publishers would actually care about the books whose licenses they're buying though. ;__;
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I'd be interested to hear your thoughts (no worries about sounding nitpicky!). I have not touched the officially tl-ed version... but I am generally more nitpicky about official tl than I am for fan tl, and I think, as official tl, critique is important.
also your thoughts on Little Mushroom, because I do want to read it, but I have not heard much complaints about the official tl.
(was browsing reading list, saw this! sorry for random comment, also, it's okay if you don't feel comfy/up to it! I totally understand)
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I think it's premature to make a judgement after reading only one chapter, but to me, it's just the lack of intent in the translated writing which makes it feel post-edited (even though I know it's human-translated), as well as little details that mystify me. For example, the name of the star is transliterated as "Changgeng" in the dialogue, while the main character (who shares the same name as the star) is transliterated as "Chang Geng". The given names Fatty and Lady are transliterated as Pangxiao and Niangzi, respectively, so I’m not sure why his name is Chang Geng and not Changgeng?
I think all of this normally would not faze me as much, except that I have some familiarity with this author and found some of the phrases uncharacteristically convoluted and formal when I imagine them being intended to be wry and witty.
LITTLE MUSHROOM:
The translation is serviceable, though the writing is kind of clunky in places. I remember there were also a couple of minor but noticeable mistranslations, My main complaint is that the dialogue feels very mechanical, which drove me nuts because in Chinese it is so much easier to read? But I'm beginning to see this as a common pattern in novel translations. Personally I feel like people need to pay more attention to cdrama subtitles and see how they translate dialogue haha.
There was also an instance of racial dynamics + in-universe racism (a slur was used) that went completely untranslated. It was pretty brief, but I remember talking about this with people (we were doing a groupread in both languages) and seeing how different our reading experiences were during that chapter.
PS. I was considering suggesting Translation as a discussion post topic for
(No worries, I was mostly surprised and getting paranoid that people are seeing this post at all so ty for letting me wher how you saw it lol)
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I have been thinking about translation as a discussion topic too, but I'm still wondering how to frame it in a way that will be productive (I too, spent years on Twitter and have seen the height of all the danmei fandom nonsense on there... though Twitter is truly an awful place for longer discussions about anything, and people there are all geared towards bad faith reading of replies/posts because it happened too often [and then it becomes a positive feedback loop of bad faith interpretations]). My personal thoughts is, getting actually good, professionally edited official translations that respect the authors and translators with quality control and all that, from one of the big publishers, is probably almost impossible now. The moment Seven Seas did it for MDZS, that pathway is dead. Because now it's seen as "light novel"/"lesser", and it's an easy cash grab for a locked in audience. I am hoping to be wrong. (Seven Seas has other controversies with their JP light novel translations... it's something I found out recently).
The fan translation conventions is also something that has seeped in too deeply. Some actually do like the "you can almost see the Chinese words behind the English" type translation (it is slightly weird that I can back translate the English into Chinese sometimes [my mother tongue is Cantonese and I have very basic Mandarin]).
Hm, actually talking through this here, I think it might be a good idea to have a read-along for non-webnovel translations. Something like a short story collection: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250297686
Kinda like a compare and contrast I guess?
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+1 ON NON-WEBNOVEL TRANSLATIONS for read-alongs!!!!!!!!! It'd be good for me to try to read more SFF too. And short stories are easier to pace and discuss. Not to mention there's no author or translator loyalty haha. I had another short story collection bookmarked (Taiwanese, with English translation) but I haven't skimmed the sample and I was still trying to see if the Chinese-language ebook is accessible anywhere.
I'd be curious to see what you think of the official SPL translation! I need to know if I'm just being a hater because it otherwise reads fine hahahaha. Like I don't hate it!!! I just have thoughts about where it can improve!!!
Some actually do like the "you can almost see the Chinese words behind the English" type translation (it is slightly weird that I can back translate the English into Chinese sometimes [my mother tongue is Cantonese and I have very basic Mandarin]).
Yes, I hate this and I find it exotifying lol. I also disagree with the reader preference for all titles/honorifics transliterated instead of translated, but that's a broader conversation to be had.
Also the Mando-Canto connection fascinates me! I experience the opposite thing--I can now sort of reverse-engineer some of the Cantonese from Mandarin when I watch a Cantonese movie (but only if I have English subs to guide me). XD
Because now it's seen as "light novel"/"lesser", and it's an easy cash grab for a locked in audience.
Yes, this makes me so frustrated!!! And publishers are always racing to get licenses of the popular books too! The lack of demand for quality work also bums me out, as well as reader attitudes that I consider, idk if this is the right word, consumerist?
But really, I just feel so bad for MDZS fandom for being the guinea pig, as exciting as it was to have it open the doors to more licenses.
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I did buy SPL ebook version back during preorders... Will skim through it and let you know. I didn't read SPL in Chinese though so the only impression I can give is about how well it reads (or not), and style.
Re: honorifics: I'm kinda of two minds on this. When there's no equivalent, I think it's fine to keep (also need to consider how important having said title/honorific is to the story), but if everything is kept, it kinda impedes the reading experience a little.
Idk why is so controversial to complain when the quality is not up to scratch. They are there to do business, not charity. But I think part of this is because these publishers use fan translators, and critiquing official tl is like critiquing fan translators? While I appreciate all the work they did in their own time, for free, to provide other people access to novels in Chinese, when this becomes a job or a commission, officially translated, published for money, then it's different. Even free fan tl, once it's out there, people can have opinions on it.
... Most of my spicier opinions I just keep in a small friend group chat because danmei fandom is trigger happy and explosive (I have many theories about why).
Re: Canto<>Mando: I always thought that it's easier going canto to Mando, haha. It's awesome that you can go the other way round! (Funny story: I watch so much wuxia in Cantonese that I can understand wuxia dramas in Mandarin better than I can modern dramas sometimes)
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https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/268445.The_Butcher_s_Wife_and_Other_Stories
It’s historical + literary fiction though and I expect the main attraction is Butcher’s Wife, which is a novella. I think the novella raws are online.
Ah, I also haven’t read SPL in Chinese and I don’t think I can, which is why I want a translation that holds up on its own. 😅
but if everything is kept, it kinda impedes the reading experience a little.
This is definitely how I feel a lot of the time haha
I think part of this is because these publishers use fan translators, and critiquing official tl is like critiquing fan translators?
Yeah a bunch of them basically BNFs and very online and are friends or enemies with each other. I remember that even before they got hired by 7S, some of them got really nasty about other fantranslators, questioning their cdiaspora identity, and defensive of the official MDZS one. Everything is just really personal, on top of the usual ship wars and megafandom nonsense.
I definitely feel that it should be fine to critique official translations and want better. :’) It’s not even that I don’t recognize how hard it is to translate, it’s that the publishers don’t caaaaaare.
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Ah, I definitely remember the multiple rounds of fandom wankery back then. The whole identity gatekeeping was weird and awful. Just watching it from the periphery has given me eye strain from all the side-eyeing I did.
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I don't know the context of the slur, but yeah, I don't think words should be removed, unless the words have different meaning (then the intent/meaning should be translated, instead of a literal translation).
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I was really glad to have groupread this because I wasn't sure I correctly understood what was happening until someone else talked about it.
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Also thank you for mentioning the slur,
sometimes I feel so insane for viscerally remembering something about Little Mushroom that no one else does.
I did find out that the translator never got to see the manuscript after they turned in their draft. If there was any editing, it was by people who didn’t speak the language, which is also the vibe I get from 7S’s process, though 7S has at least improved in writing quality.