Monday, August 19, 2013
An Invisible Man
Simon Leys, The Hall of Uselessness: Collected Essays (© 2011; rpt. New York: New York Review Books, 2013), p. 248:
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The translator is spotted only when he has failed; his success lies in ensuring he be forgotten. The search for the natural and proper expression is the search for that which no longer feels like a translation. What is required is to give to the reader the illusion that he has direct access to the original. The ideal translator is an invisible man. His aesthetic is that of the pane of glass. If the glass is perfect, you cease to see it, viewing only the landscape beyond it; it is only in so far as the glass contains flaws that you become conscious of the thickness of the glass which hangs between you and the landscape.
