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Translating the Monster
Volter Kilpi in Orbit Beyond (Un)translatability
Series: - Approaches to Translation Studies, Volume: 51
Author:
One of the hottest battles emerging out of the theoretical and methodological collisions between Comparative Literature and Translation Studiesâespecially on the battleground of World Literatureâhas to do with translatability and untranslatability. Is any translation of a great work of literature not only a lamentable betrayal but an impossibility? Or is translation an imperfect but invaluable tool for the transmission of works and ideas beyond language barriers?
Both views are defensible; indeed both are arguably commonsensical. What Douglas Robinson argues in Translating the Monster, however, is that both are gross oversimplifications of a complex situation that he calls on Jacques Derrida to characterize as âthe monster.â
The Finnish novelist Robinson takes as his case study for that monstrous rethinking is Volter Kilpi (1874-1939), regarded by scholars of Finnish literature as Finlandâs second world-class writerâthe first being Aleksis Kivi (1834-1872). Kilpiâs modernist experiments of the 1930s, especially his so-called Archipelago series, beginning with his masterpiece, In the Alastalo Parlor (1933), were forgotten and neglected for a half century, due to the extreme difficulty of his narrative style: he reinvents the Finnish language, to the extent that many Finns say it is like reading a foreign language (and one contemporary critic called it the âMesopotamian language ⦠of a half-witâ). That novel has been translated exactly twice, into Swedish and German. Translating the Monster also gives the English-speaking reader an extended taste of the novel in Englishâen route to a series of reframings of the novel as allegories of translation and world literature.
Both views are defensible; indeed both are arguably commonsensical. What Douglas Robinson argues in Translating the Monster, however, is that both are gross oversimplifications of a complex situation that he calls on Jacques Derrida to characterize as âthe monster.â
The Finnish novelist Robinson takes as his case study for that monstrous rethinking is Volter Kilpi (1874-1939), regarded by scholars of Finnish literature as Finlandâs second world-class writerâthe first being Aleksis Kivi (1834-1872). Kilpiâs modernist experiments of the 1930s, especially his so-called Archipelago series, beginning with his masterpiece, In the Alastalo Parlor (1933), were forgotten and neglected for a half century, due to the extreme difficulty of his narrative style: he reinvents the Finnish language, to the extent that many Finns say it is like reading a foreign language (and one contemporary critic called it the âMesopotamian language ⦠of a half-witâ). That novel has been translated exactly twice, into Swedish and German. Translating the Monster also gives the English-speaking reader an extended taste of the novel in Englishâen route to a series of reframings of the novel as allegories of translation and world literature.
Douglas Robinson, Professor of Translation Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, took his 1983 Ph.D. in English at the University of Washington (Seattle). Among his dozen book-length literary translations from Finnish, two dozen monographs, and five dozen articles are Aleksis Kivi and/as World Literature (Brill 2017) and translations of Kiviâs The Brothers Seven (2017) and Volter Kilpiâs Gulliverâs Voyage to Phantomimia (2020).
Contents
1 Overture
âBeyond (Un)translatability: Intuiting the Monster
â1âThe Case for (Un)translatability: Benjamin and Apter
â2âTesting Untranslatability: The Case of Volter Kilpi
â3ââLocalistâ Bourgeois Respectability and the Monster
â4âThe Structure of the Book
âA Note
2 First Movement (tempestoso)
âThe Storm Blowing from Paradise: Translating the Monster as the Future
â1âAlastalo and Time
â2âWalter Benjamin on the Future
â3âArchaizing vs. Modernizing Translations
â4âThe Monster of Literary-Historical Periodization
3 Second Movement (clandestino)
âObjects as Women, Women as Objects: Translating the Monster as a Gender Fetish
â1âHärkäniemiâs Tobacco Pipes and Coffee Cups as Gendered Monster-Fetishes
â2âNaming/Objectifying the Monster
â3âFetishes as Stuff, Stuff as Fetishes
â4âThe Exosomatization of Objects as Quasi-Alive
â5âRethinging Translation
4 Third Movement (spettatoriale)
âThe Lectorial Monster: Translating for the Monsterâs Deaf Ear
â1âBenjamin on the Reader-Monster
â2âTranslating the Monster
â3âThe Translation Scholarâs Reader-Monster
5 Finale
âVolter Kilpi in Orbit: The Monster as Kosmotheoros
â1âOrbit as the Monster
â2âDerridaâs Exorbitant
â3âThe Kosmotheoros
â4âTo Conclude
Appendix A: Background to In the Alastalo Parlor
Appendix B: Finnish Room Nomenclature
Appendix C: Kilpi Translations
Appendix D: Engagements with Kilpiâs Critics
Works Cited
Index
1 Overture
âBeyond (Un)translatability: Intuiting the Monster
â1âThe Case for (Un)translatability: Benjamin and Apter
â2âTesting Untranslatability: The Case of Volter Kilpi
â3ââLocalistâ Bourgeois Respectability and the Monster
â4âThe Structure of the Book
âA Note
2 First Movement (tempestoso)
âThe Storm Blowing from Paradise: Translating the Monster as the Future
â1âAlastalo and Time
â2âWalter Benjamin on the Future
â3âArchaizing vs. Modernizing Translations
â4âThe Monster of Literary-Historical Periodization
3 Second Movement (clandestino)
âObjects as Women, Women as Objects: Translating the Monster as a Gender Fetish
â1âHärkäniemiâs Tobacco Pipes and Coffee Cups as Gendered Monster-Fetishes
â2âNaming/Objectifying the Monster
â3âFetishes as Stuff, Stuff as Fetishes
â4âThe Exosomatization of Objects as Quasi-Alive
â5âRethinging Translation
4 Third Movement (spettatoriale)
âThe Lectorial Monster: Translating for the Monsterâs Deaf Ear
â1âBenjamin on the Reader-Monster
â2âTranslating the Monster
â3âThe Translation Scholarâs Reader-Monster
5 Finale
âVolter Kilpi in Orbit: The Monster as Kosmotheoros
â1âOrbit as the Monster
â2âDerridaâs Exorbitant
â3âThe Kosmotheoros
â4âTo Conclude
Appendix A: Background to In the Alastalo Parlor
Appendix B: Finnish Room Nomenclature
Appendix C: Kilpi Translations
Appendix D: Engagements with Kilpiâs Critics
Works Cited
Index
Scholars of translation and world/comparative literature, scholars of Finnish literature, professors and graduate students interested in Jacques Derrida and Walter Benjamin.