Censorship, Retranslation and Invisibility in the Spanish Edition of Nabokov’s Lolita (original) (raw)
Related papers
Censoring Lolita's sense of humor: when translation affects the audience's perception
Perspectives, 2016
There are many reasons for taking an academic interest in both Nabokov's 1955 novel, Lolita, and its 1962 film adaptation by Kubrick. Not least of these is the interest per se of their work, in their quality (in both senses of the word) despite any controversy due to the theme chosen. Both works are growing in prestige. Their artists have a gift for provocation, but that alone is not enough for them to emerge as giants of literature and film-making. The point of interest here is the humorous nature of their work, and how that relates back to the nature of humour, and how all of this is relevant to translation studies, as illustrated in the examples presented. A useful measure for this venture is Adrian Lyne's own 1997 film version of Lolita, claiming as it does to be a more faithful rendering of the book than the 1962 one. Kubrick and Lyne both reflect much of Nabokov's novel, but only Kubrick's is (classified as) comedy. All other things being equal, mostly, this provides unique insight into the nature of humour (at least in comedy) and the benefits of translating it to be funny and, to fit the genre of comedy. We find that sex and taboo are alluded to by Kubrick in words and images, whereas Lyne is more visually explicit. The aim of this paper is to show a case study of how censorship, taboo and ideological misconceptions of an author's work can affect its perception by the public, so that it becomes unclear whether popular images of Lolita as a fictional character are a cause or a consequence of certain translations and new film versions such as Adrian Lyne's.
[2016] Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita: Text, Paratext, and Translation
2016
This article addresses the relationship between text and paratext in the publication history of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita. Such paratexts include Nabokov’s own afterword to the 1958 American edition and his postscript (published in 1967) to his own translation of Lolita into Russian, as well as various introductions and afterwords, both in English-language editions and in translations of Lolita into Russian and other languages. A particularly interesting type of paratext is constituted by annotations to the main text, and the analysis focuses on parallel examples published in annotated editions of Lolita in English, Russian, Polish, German, Ukrainian, and French. The analysis shows that the most detailed annotations concerning the totality of the English and Russian Lolita text and paratexts can be found in editions published in languages other than English and Russian, whereas most English or Russian editions seem to focus on the respective language version. There is still no complete, annotated edition of the bilingual text containing all the authorial paratexts.
Perspectives (Preprint), 2016
There are many reasons for taking an academic interest in both Nabokov's 1955 novel, Lolita, and its 1962 film adaptation by Kubrick. Not least of these is the interest per se of their work, in their quality (in both senses of the word) despite any controversy due to the theme chosen. Both works are growing in prestige. Their artists have a gift for provocation, but that alone is not enough for them to emerge as giants of literature and film-making. The point of interest here is the humorous nature of their work, and how that relates back to the nature of humour, and how all of this is relevant to translation studies, as illustrated in the examples presented. A useful measure for this venture is Adrian Lyne's own 1997 film version of Lolita, claiming as it does to be a more faithful rendering of the book than the 1962 one. Kubrick and Lyne both reflect much of Nabokov's novel, but only Kubrick's is (classified as) comedy. All other things being equal, mostly, this provides unique insight into the nature of humour (at least in comedy) and the benefits of translating it to be funny and, to fit the genre of comedy. We find that sex and taboo are alluded to by Kubrick in words and images, whereas Lyne is more visually explicit. The aim of this paper is to show a case study of how censorship, taboo and ideological misconceptions of an author's work can affect its perception by the public, so that it becomes unclear whether popular images of Lolita as a fictional character are a cause or a consequence of certain translations and new film versions such as Adrian Lyne's.
Lolita’s Love Affair with the English Language: Heterolingualism and Voice in Translation
Meta, 2018
This article is a first-person account of the translation of Lolita into Portuguese dealing primarily with the question of how to treat English as a source language that should be replaced by the translating language. The novel foregrounds the narrator’s stridency as a non-“native illusionist” (Nabokov 1955/1991: 317), along with a heterolingual bend, presenting remarkable challenges for translation: how to represent the geopolitics of linguistic hybridity in the TT and how to maintain the ambiguity of alignments between (implied) reader(s), author(s) and competing instances of narratorial authority, including the “fictional translator” (Klinger 2015: 16). Selective non-translation is suggested as an option for addressing linguistic hybridity through which, in this context, the “differential voice(s)” (Hermans 2007; Suchet: 2013) might foreground linguistic (and hence cultural/ideological) difference and deviation. The adherence to a strategy of “overt translation” (House 2001) is n...
Lolita Reading "Lolita": the Rhetoric of Reader Participation
Nabokov Studies, 2016
Following Roland Barthes’ definition, this paper argues that "Lolita" is a “text of bliss”, namely a text that discomforts the reader, bringing to a crisis his/her relation with language. At the same time, it is based on Wolfgang Iser’s notion of the text as an event, designating the reader’s continual oscillation between involvement and observation. The research objective is to find out how "Lolita" is supposed to be read by Nabokov’s “good reader”: what the given instructions are and how the reader should interact with them. The development of the Humbert – Lolita relationship in the novel in contrast to its transformation in the screenplay is of particular interest because it seems to figure the interaction between author/text and reader. The findings uncover how aesthetic and sensual come together to entangle the reader in the text, and thus art is demonstrated as a clash and aesthetic bliss at the same time. -- Sincere thanks for the thoughtful comments and suggestions to the members of the Slavic Kruzhok at UC Berkeley (esp. Chloë Kitzinger, Matt Kendall), where an earlier version of this paper was presented, to the working group in reception theories of the Humanities Seminar in Sofia (Bogdana Paskaleva, Chavdar Parushev), and to the two anonymous reviewers for the "Nabokov Studies"; as well as to Michelle Asbill for proofreading. My interest in this novel was first instigated by Rumyana Evtimova, and further curiosity was kept by my talks with Reneta Bozhankova. This publication might not have existed if Irina Paperno hadn't encouraged me to keep on writing in English. Gratefully acknowledging the Fulbright scholarship, which brought me to Berkeley in 2014, I am most obliged to Eric Naiman’s inspiring seminar on "Lolita" and his invaluable guidance.
Given the conservative nature of Arab societies, Vladimir Nabokov's English novel Lolita (1955) poses considerable challenges to Arab translators because of its pornographic nature and controversial themes: pedophilia, incest, and young teenage sex. This study mainly examines the translation of Lolita by Mola with occasional references to Jubaili's translation of the novel. It also investigates the translation strategies employed by the two translators. The findings showed that Jubaili followed the literal approach of translation with no significant deviation from the novel's themes and characterization. On the other hand, Mola dysphemized the expressions and eroticized the events, which were more euphemistic in the original. Mola's utilization of some translation strategies such as omission, addition, and substitution affected the representation of the main characters, namely, Humbert (stepfather) and Lolita (stepdaughter), by shifting their roles as victim and victimizer, making Humbert's actions less culpable, and removing any traces of Lolita's innocence. In so doing, Mola reinforces sexual norms for young American women and diminishes the pedophile/incest angle. This study is significant, particularly within the context of translators' training and for those interested in literary translation.
" Reading Lolita in Tehran " sophisticated and bursting with texture and sensuality provides a partial record of her life and friendships in Iran before Dr. Naftsi reluctantly went into exile in 1997. More precisely to say, it is a passionate and thought-provoking account of reading English literature in adverse conditions. It is at times a little wordy and somewhat sentimental. However, it must be apparent that it is still a book of extraordinary interest. The book is a multi-layered memoir about teaching Western literature in revolutionary Iran in the late 1990s. It is a description of how a group of people attempt to " recover " their personal sphere thorough the discussion of literature within a deliberative community. From its provoking, intriguing title to its very last page, the book, partly a narrative biography, partly a history of a nation and its people, and partly critical analysis of great American, British and Russian authors, is astonishing, enlightening, and important. However, it is not simply a memoir on the inadequacies of Iranian society. Nor is it simply a memoir about a secret literary discussion group. Every Thursday morning for two years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, the bold and inspired Nafisi secretly gathered seven of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics. As Islamic morality squads staged arbitrary raids in Tehran, fundamentalists seized hold of the universities, and a blind censor stifled artistic expression, the girls in Nafisi's living room risked removing their veils and immersed themselves in the worlds of Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, and Vladimir Nabokov. These seminars offered largely uncomplicated lessons about the power of hope, imagination, and individuality that Nafisi graciously bestows upon her doting students. In this extraordinary memoir, their stories become intertwined with the ones they are reading.