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https://me.yahoo.com/a/pBaXwEEot.yF6GNKVgctiyRdtR8brhU-#7af07 on I Wish I May, I Wish I Might, Find Someone Who'll Translate This Right at 08:15 on 15-03-2010 - link because bilingual people don't have an awareness of correspondences between the languages in the way that someone who has learned a language as a foreign language.
Really? I'm surprised since that doesn't correspond with my own experience or those of people I've known. On the contrary, I've found that classes can give you the skeleton of a language, but everything else you need to learn by reading and speaking it on a frequent basis. On your second point, I'm reminded of the Pevear and Volokhnosky team which has gotten wildly varying reviews, and I've always been a bit suspicious of the fact that Pevear doesn't know Russian.
I've also ruminated a lot on how literal or liberal a translation can or should be, and I've decided that translators should lean more on the liberal side - especially in languages like Japanese that are so vastly different from English.
AFAIK Polish is not as different from English as Japanese, but between being fully inflected and the way the verbs mutate, it's far more so than French or even German. But I don't think that's the problem here - the distinctiveness of the style doesn't rely on the specificity of the language. You can just create a semi-artificial archaic version of English using the existing English equivalents. Even a full rewriting of it into normal modern English would still presumably not generate the many harsh criticisms of the translation's prose. (If you've read Bruno Schulz in English you've read a translation without any real hint of his very distinctive and deliberately complex use of language, but it's still worth reading) That would come from a sentence by sentence straight translation - i.e. a quick first draft written without much thought of what you're trying to do and then proofed for syntactical, grammar and spelling errors.
NYCfan
Melissa G. on I Wish I May, I Wish I Might, Find Someone Who'll Translate This Right at 16:33 on 14-03-2010 - link Speaking as someone who works as a freelance translator, I agree that it's best for the person to be a native speaker in the language they are translating into with a comprehensive knowledge of the language they are translating from. My own situation: I've been studying Japanese for years, but I'd be lost if someone asked me to translate an English book into Japanese. Ask me to translate a Japanese one into English however, and I feel extremely confident.

I've also ruminated a lot on how literal or liberal a translation can or should be, and I've decided that translators should lean more on the liberal side - especially in languages like Japanese that are so vastly different from English. And if a person is not a native speaker of English, it's hard for them to do more liberal translations, and if the translations are too literal, it doesn't sound like natural dialogue or anything else, and it can ruin the whole story.

I know I'm basically agreeing with everyone, but I wanted to throw in my two cents. :-)
Andy G on I Wish I May, I Wish I Might, Find Someone Who'll Translate This Right at 12:59 on 14-03-2010 - link It's actually been shown that true bilingualism (i.e. being a native speaker in two languages) doesn't make you a better translator, because bilingual people don't have an awareness of correspondences between the languages in the way that someone who has learned a language as a foreign language. But certainly it would be exceptional to translate into any language other than your native language. Though especially for literary translation from language A to language B, I think the ideal case is a translator who is a native speaker of B working with a native speaker of language A.
Shimmin on Noir Fantasy: My New Favourite Subgenre at 09:22 on 14-03-2010 - link Really? I'm very fond of them. Never mind.
Arthur B on Noir Fantasy: My New Favourite Subgenre at 23:00 on 13-03-2010 - link I remember being very, very unimpressed with Thraxas. It felt like substandard Chandler being written by substandard Pratchett. :(
Shimmin on Noir Fantasy: My New Favourite Subgenre at 22:56 on 13-03-2010 - link That sounds pretty good. I'll look out for it. It sounds a bit Jasper Fforde as well, in terms of the casual interweaving of total oddness.

While I'm at it, I'll see your noir fantasy and raise you one comic noir fantasy.
Arthur B on Noir Fantasy: My New Favourite Subgenre at 20:32 on 13-03-2010 - link I'm reasonably sure, in fact, that since it originated as part of a carnival procession the steam-powered truck in question is in fact one of these.

Certainly, the fact that it's steam-powered seems to be an oddity - I don't remember that any of the conventional cars are described as steam-powered, which (if this really were steampunk) would surely be the norm.

Additionally, I don't think "interwarpunk" would work because the really striking counterfactual elements to the story aren't SFnal in the slightest. The secret art of dream detection, although the Agency exploits it using pseudotechnological jargon, is pretty clearly meant to be magical. Part of the point of steampunk/Elizabethanpunk/all those other words which misuse "-punk" is that they're a kind of alternate history which, ideally, uses alternative technologies which might conceivably have been developed at the time, whereas dream detection comes completely out of left field.
https://me.yahoo.com/a/pBaXwEEot.yF6GNKVgctiyRdtR8brhU-#7af07 on I Wish I May, I Wish I Might, Find Someone Who'll Translate This Right at 19:42 on 13-03-2010 - link
She also seems to have translated some other stuff, but as a general rule, when choosing a translator one should hire someone who is a native speaker in the target language. I'm wondering whether Ms. Stok is such a person or just a native Polish speaker with an excellent knowledge of English. Full bilingualism generally requires someone who managed to get a pre-college level education in both languages and live as a child in both countries. (E.g. I spent the second half my childhood in a French speaking country and I'm equally comfortable reading French and English, but since I was mostly in an English language school, I could not competently translate a novel into French.) Such people exist, but they're very rare - I know quite a few folks who know both Polish and English well, but only one person who would be equally comfortable translating in both directions. I know a few more who would qualify for full French-English bilingualism, but again, they're far less common than native speakers of one who are fluent in the other language.
Alasdair Czyrnyj on Six Hours of My Life I Won't Get Back at 18:13 on 13-03-2010 - link I just loved it for that classic rock ballard of "Chord-chord-chord-chord-chord-chord-other chord-chord-chord-chord-chord-chord-chord-other chord"
Alasdair Czyrnyj on Noir Fantasy: My New Favourite Subgenre at 18:12 on 13-03-2010 - link No, there are no airships, and the closest the book gets to stereotypical steampunk is with the giant steam-powered truck two of the antagonists drive. I suppose you could claim it as "steampunk" by saying it does for the interwar period what traditional steampunk does for late Victoriana/Edwardiana, but that would just broaden the definition so as to make it meaningless.

Personally, I found the Manual to be one of the few books I would happily describe as "Kafkaesque." It's a term that's thrown around a lot, but Berry actually manages recapture that sense of bureaucracy as an self-contained ecosystem and of that special type of palpable menace exuded by unknowable higher authority that drives Kafka's best work. (He avoids Kafka's tendency to destroy his protagonists at the end, but I guess that's not for everyone). At any rate, it's convinced me to make another attempt at The Trial.
Arthur B on I Wish I May, I Wish I Might, Find Someone Who'll Translate This Right at 13:56 on 13-03-2010 - link Googling around I find Danusia Stok, whose main speciality in translation seems to be... textbooks. Which isn't the best background for someone you want translating fiction.

Oh, and she also seems to be involved with translating crime novels by Marek Krajewski; it sounds like at least some people there think that her translation style works for those, since they seem to have a somewhat austere and terse style anyway.

It does sound more and more like they just plain picked the wrong translator for the job.
https://me.yahoo.com/a/pBaXwEEot.yF6GNKVgctiyRdtR8brhU-#7af07 on I Wish I May, I Wish I Might, Find Someone Who'll Translate This Right at 07:13 on 13-03-2010 - link Probably a long dead thread, but seeing the speculation about what it reads like in the original, I figured I'd comment. I'm American, but grew up speaking Polish, have lived there a couple times. I haven't read the English translations but a couple remarks in this piece, and other reviews I've read, indicate that there is something very wrong with the translation.

But the prose style of The Last Wish seems somewhat flat and monotonous
The original's prose style is a sardonic faux archaic voice. Think of the pre-modern novel epic tale style crossed with a pastiche of Tolkien's style crossed with a pastiche of Walter Scott to get sort of an idea of what this is like. (It's also a bit of a reference to a turn of the century Polish Nobel winner, much beloved in Poland, except by those like me who can't stand him) I'm not too fond of it, but flat and monotonous it is not. It is especially present in the dialogues. Judging by what I've read about the translation, the translator couldn't be bothered to try to render the author's language in English, and just did a literal translation into the most basic English equivalents she could think of. Depending on deadlines and her fee, I may or may not sympathize with that choice.

NYCfan
Sister Magpie on Six Hours of My Life I Won't Get Back at 19:48 on 12-03-2010 - link I love the MST3K Hobgoblins: it's the only way to learn their names:

Meet the Hobgoblins: Frankie, Sniffles, Bounce-Bounce and the Claw!
Sister Magpie on Noir Fantasy: My New Favourite Subgenre at 16:57 on 12-03-2010 - link Wow! Writing this one down...
Arthur B on Noir Fantasy: My New Favourite Subgenre at 10:15 on 12-03-2010 - link I'm pretty sure there aren't any airships in it.

At least, there aren't any that play a sufficiently significant part that I remember them. And even if there were any, I would say that their presence wouldn't make it steampunk or even alternate history - there's nothing counterfactual about having airships bobbing about in the 1930s.
Frank on Noir Fantasy: My New Favourite Subgenre at 07:27 on 12-03-2010 - link I placed a hold on it at my library which shelves it in the mystery section.

Are there any airships in it? Maybe that's how Mr Moorcock (wow, really?) became confused.
Rami C on Noir Fantasy: My New Favourite Subgenre at 01:25 on 12-03-2010 - link This sounds utterly brilliant *adds to Amazon wishlist*
Arthur B on Noir Fantasy: My New Favourite Subgenre at 00:47 on 12-03-2010 - link "Never Sleeping", Al. ;)
Alasdair Czyrnyj on Noir Fantasy: My New Favourite Subgenre at 00:02 on 12-03-2010 - link Um...wow...I just finished this book. Yesterday night.

...
...
...

GET OUT OF MY HEAD, ARTHUR!!!

I have to run now, so I'll say something deeply insightful tomorrow.
Alasdair Czyrnyj on Same Vodka, Different Bottles at 14:23 on 11-03-2010 - link Not in bookstores, no. I managed to get the first two paperbacks in a comic book store back in 2006, and had to order the last two from their website. It's sorta the downside of the "whenever I feel like it" publishing schedule: if you need to consult the auguries to know when the next book is coming out, there isn't much incentive to keep stocking it.

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