Comparative Translations of a Ferrante Ratio

*This has been recognized more and more in recent times, especially with the works of Ferrante vis-à-vis Ann Goldstein and her work translating Ferrante’s works to English. The same fervor has not occurred in the same way around the translations of Elsa Damien (at least to the knowledge of this author).

** This is partially done for brevities sake, as well as due to my own lack of Italian proficiency. However as the book itself (Ferrante’s Italian version) writes whole sections “in dialect” but in standard Italian it could also be said that there is a translation already at work in the original.

To look at a Ferrante Translation, it can be beneficial to take some of Ferrante’s analysis of her own literary theory into account. It is difficult with Ferrante (due in part to her anonymity) to bring intent into the picture of her writing – she ensures her reader has only a fragmentary view of her intentions. However, in first book on writing, Frantumaglia, she provides an outline of her own theory of adaptation, which may be of use. In essay V, the "Book of No One," Ferrante sets the stage for her theory of the "third text." She declaims that there is no approach that yields a definitely “right reading” per se. Instead there is an inherent polysemenism to a literature text, which engenders a variety of individual readings of the author's language. Thus there are three books:

The Original – the original codex itself

The Adaptation (which may include Translation)

And The 3^rd Book – the reading which exists only in the readers head, a text which is never written but it based upon the original, and which often serves as the psychic fond of a director's adaptation, in Ferrante's view.

The 3^rd Text is a book never written, living on as mneumonic marginalia “where beside the written sentences are those which we imagined writing” (Frantumaglia, 193). In this sense, when most readers consult their literary memory they discover a “book by no one," in the sense that, once the text is assimilated by the reader, it ceases to possess a singular, definitive author. This hybrid-text that blends memories and commentaries is never set in stone, either: it is formed by the relationship “between life, writing, and reading” (Frantumaglia, 193) and is by consequence liable to change according to the reader's organization and critical view of their personal library of books by one.

Note:

Europa also provides an interesting comment on Ferrante's double-sided presentation of marriage, revealing their own reading Ferrante's two portraits of feminine self-actualization/striving:

“Marriage appears to have imprisoned Lila, and the pressure to excel is at times too much for Elena.” (Europa, 2015)

Another point of interest is the treatment of dialect (and its oft masculine connotations when spoken by wives and mothers) in each translation. While both the English and French use a variation from the root: διαλεκτος, for French “dialecte” and for English “dialect”. But when specific phrases in dialect are referenced, each translator deals with it differently. Goldstein chooses to place an English translation “shit men” and written dialect “uommen’e mmerd”. Whereas Damien translates the phrase entirely, and places it in quotations. It is also worth mentioning that “shit men” and “ces deux autres merdeux”—- those two other bastards, are not identical phrases. Lila’s comment is hurled in response to the realization that her father and brother had been instrumental in the selling of the family business to the Solara’s and had willing let Marcello take the shoes she designed. Thus the French references the two men as the bastards specifically. The English however provides the ability of “shit men”, leaving it open to broad feminist interpretation, for example as of an allusion to the “all men are shit” spirit of scum manifesto. The plain language allowing for a broader range of meaning. At least enough that I read this page 3 times before realizing the referent of “shit men” might be her relatives rather than a general statement about men after Stefano’s harsh words and Solara’s long reputation of cruelty.

A final example of the slight discrepancies in tone, occurs in the book during Rino & Pinuccia’s engagement lunch, during which Lila lies about the cause of her black eye and scars. None of the women present make any protestations and accept the excuse. A process Goldstein refers to this as a “sarcastic” telling and “sarcastically believ[ing]”, and which Damien names a “ton ironique” — ironic/ sarcastic tone, and later a believing “tout aussi ironique” — equally ironic/sarcastic. The reasoning given by our narrator presumably Elena is that all in the neighborhood had in someway believed that Lila deserved such treatment. But the way in which that is telegraphed to the reader differs again in translation. The Goldstein provides that there was no one in the neighborhood “who did not think that she had needed a good thrashing for a long time”. The word thrashing toeing the line between graphic and euphemistic. And carrying with it a slightly antiquarian tone, thrashing being a word no longer used frequently to describe physical abuse in English parlance. The French leans instead towards euphemism, keeping in the tone of the paragraph above it almost seems to condone the action naming it a “bonne correction” — good correction/beating. While the word “correction” has for a long time been a euphemism for a beating, it comes out of the idea that such a beating corrects something in a person. That physical punishment can “straighten” someone out — that someone often is a wife. But the choice of “correction” over “frapper” or “raclée” highlights the paternalistic nature of the act (domestic/marital abuse) over its specific violence.

There are many other, even more fine-grained discrepancies betwixt Goldstein's and Damien's translations: many of them center around the names of characters, or honorifics. For example, often Lila is referred to in the French (after her marriage to Stefano) as “madam," where in the same passages in English the mere pronoun “she” is used (Goldstein, 178 || Damien, 234). Or in other places “le fils Sarratore” — Sarratore’s son, where the English uses “Nino” (Goldstein, 51 || Damien, 65). Other moments are even more subtly, ineffably distinct, such as the untranslatable difference between the use of the words “prostitute” and “pute” — prostitute (but also whore and a general swear word). The latter sounds much less polite in my own ears.

But to make an exhaustive list would take a lifetime, and would quickly produce only diminishing returns. It suffices to say, then, that the two translations differ, not inconsequentially, but in fact systematically. Each translator has made clear choices, clearly deviating at times from a strict literalism to their shared original. Neither is merely the puppet of Ferrante,– an agentless imitator a human word processor,– translators necessarily are capable authors in their own right. What's more, each text has found a voice for Ferrante in their own heads, and while we the reader may never hear it, its descriptive formula and general stylisyic impression clearly echoes like the third book in their own translations. At times the French is more conversational, marked by exclamation points and short punchy dialogue. But even that statement marks a grand over-generalization. The English is often crisp, marked by short words and deceptively clear syntax. But that too is not a rule. Each is distinct, and the voice ringing through it, while it may have Ferrante’s voice as a starting point, develops throughout the course of the translation into two utterly different adaptations of her theme. It comes as less of a surprise thus that their publications have aroused different marketing, and press.

It is also clear that, while there may be something in Ferrante for some (maybe even every) woman to identify with, Ferrante's language is not itself (necessarily) a universal discourse on Femininity. To claim that her writing speaks to a universal feminine ideal is to reify the ideas produced in the margins of one's third book while reading Ferrante – her particular stories are Neapolitan, and her style seems to elude totalitizing and presumptiousness in general. To praise Ferrante's "universal feminism" through translations of her work cannot really speak to any characterization of the immediate language of the primary texts themselves. Goldstein's feminist voice rings out distinctly from Damiens, and likely both do from Ferrante’s herself. Each is valuable, but no two read the story (or retell it) in the same way – set aside the supposed importance that one of the three wrote the story first. All three – Damien, Goldstein, Ferrante herself – have written this novel (at least once now), and each one wrote it with a different view in mind. The question then becomes, is there a true meaning behind/beyond the text worth speaking of as a universal anymore – even if there were written truths to be extracted from literature, could an identity as manifold as Woman (understood truly globally) ever be spoken of "universally" in just one language? Either way, both Goldstein and Damien’s translations are wonderful, but they are that: translations. And by virtue of that, they are distinct, creative acts in themselves.

Bibliography:

Benjamin, Walter., Eiland, Howard., Smith, Gary. Selected Writings. United Kingdom: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004.

Ferrante, Elena. The Story of a New Name. Translated by Ann Goldstein. New York: Europa Editions, 2020.

Ferrante, Elena. Un Nouveau Nom. Translated by Elsa Damien. Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 2016.

Milkova, Stiliana. Elena Ferrante as World Literature. United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021.