English translator Ruth Brown describes the experience and challenges of translating a German novel set in 18th century Prussia:For this year’s New Books in German Emerging Translators Programme, I was asked to translate a sample from Swiss author Thomas Meyer’s novel Rechnung über meine Dukaten. This is a darkly comical tale about King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia and his fetish for giant men, who he would obsessively collect and coerce into service in his army of 'Langen Kerls'. Although based on a true chapter of eighteenth-century European history, the novel reads as a gruesome fairytale that wavers between the farcical and the sinister, with an eccentric and childish ruler at its centre. And it is all brought across in a wonderful blend of deadpan style and archaic language.
I knew I would need to look closely into 18th century politics, palace life, clothing, military attire and weaponry – images on the internet of such things as Prussian uniforms and muskets were of course invaluable for this (as was my academic friend who happens to specialise in early modern European history!). I asked myself all kinds of questions: What was soap like (and made of) in those days? What kinds of bags did they carry? Did they have what we can call towels? What was Potsdam like then? But the main challenge was this: how was I to render the antiquated language and speech in the novel in an English that was accurate for the period and yet wouldn’t put modern readers off? It wasn’t going to be enough to just slip in the odd ‘hath’ or ‘ye’…
So I decided to choose two English novels written around the time Meyer’s story is set (1716) and cherrypick useful words and phrases. I read Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe from 1719 and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels from 1726. Quite apart from being fantastic reads, they were a goldmine of exquisite expressions that were going to be perfect for my translation. As I read I would underline snippets and gradually build up my own little glossary of 18th century English for things like conflict, emotions, illness, food, armies, clothing and so on. I paid particular attention to the clothing and everyday objects, as we often see Friedrich Wilhelm washing himself, getting dressed, having coffee or carrying out other trivial everyday tasks in Meyer’s novel. My glossary was filled with entries such as ‘befall’, ‘bid’, ‘verily’, ‘’tis’ and ‘’twas’, ‘flaxen-haired’, ‘pray tell’, ‘hither/whither’, ‘breeches’, ‘smock’, ‘espy’, ‘vex’, ‘countenance’ and many more bygone delights. It was never going to be feasible to translate the antiquated words and phrases in Meyer’s text into direct equivalents in antiquated English. So instead, I decided I would sprinkle my own text with a similar amount of archaic language, but not necessarily in the same places.
I also spent a lot of time thinking about how I would render the dark humour that was offered in such matter-of-fact style. But as I translated I found that, in English too, the humour was created by the deadpan character of the storytelling. And of course by the touch of old English style, which placed a strange barrier between the reader and what was actually going on in the text. The fairytale feel of the story also helps to maintain this barrier, and I chose to reflect this in the English title The king was in his counting house (which also refers to the fact that Friedrich Wilhelm is obsessively frugal). As I worked on the translation, it was like immersing myself in a new world with a very particular language and style. In my head I had entered this old-fashioned world and I spent weeks inhabiting it. I really quite missed this little world when I was finished!
Click here to read a sample of Ruth's translation of Rechnung über meine Dukaten by Thomas Meyer.
