Lydia Davis Interviewed

Sarah Manguso’s Believer interview with Lydia Davis is . . . not the best interview I’ve ever read. Lovers of translation will have a field day with these questions:

BLVR: Is it better to use the word prosaic because it’s the literal translation of prosaique, or to use the word dull because it occupies the same context in contemporary English as prosaique did in Proust’s French? You chose the former, [C. K.] Scott-Moncrieff chose the latter.

LD: I can’t re-create now what led to my choice of prosaic—but as I was translating Swann’s Way I did of course check and double-check every tricky choice to make sure the translation came as close as I could make it to conveying in English in these times what Proust conveyed in French in those times. In your example, I think I liked the closeness in sound of prosaic to the French: it has the same three syllables and the pr opening. It is historically, and rhythmically, entirely different from dull—which is a wonderful word in itself, of course, and one I would be much more likely to use in my own writing than prosaic.

BLVR: In similar situations, would you always choose the cognate?

LD: Whenever I could, I would use the cognate, but often enough that was for reasons of sound, rhythm.

BLVR: In his biography of Beckett, James Knowlson says that Beckett chose to write in French because in French it was easier for him to write “without style.” You’ve said similar things about translating—that it’s an exercise in not imposing one’s own style on the writing. It sounds like the least postmodern position one can possibly take—that there’s some essential truth that style only cloaks.

LD: No, I wouldn’t say there’s some essential truth that is cloaked by style—if I’ve understood your question. I’d say that if I were to translate into my own style rather than preserving, insofar as I could, the style of the original, I would change the nature of the work in an essential way.

Regarding the first question: aside from the absurdity of expecting Davis to remember a translation decision she made over six years ago in a 600-page book, the question just doesn’t make sense. It’s never better or worse to go with one word over another–always this will be a matter of context. That is, Davis and Moncrieff might have chosen the same word for completely different reasons, or each a different word for the same reason. Not to mention, Moncrieff was translating for a U.K.-English-speaking audience living about 80 years before Davis made her translation for a U.S.-English-speaking audience.

As to the third question, it’s simply incoherent. That is, Beckett’s attempt to use a non-native language to effece his innate style has nothing to do with Davis’s attempt to recreate Proust’s style in her native language. The first is an attempt at creative writing in a non-native language, the second is an act of translation into a native language, the only overlap being that both happen to use the word style to describe what they’re doing. It’s roughly like asking a lawyer to explain in what ways the content of his writing resembles that of a short order cook because both happen to write on the job using a ball point pen.

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