English embellishments
23 September 2025 11:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeWhie hanging around on hold for an hour I took the opportunity to read some more of the French version of "Twenty Years After", going back afterwards to run a skim-comparison with the online English version I'd read. The differences really are quite considerable, but what gets me are the occasional sections where the translator has not just abridged the text when rendering it into English, but instead added in something that simply doesn't occur in the original.
I can see, after a fashion, the point of adding in the extra clarification as to what, exactly, the "Lightning" is, especially as for some reason the preceding allusion to the ship's name had been cut out, so it hasn't been mentioned for a while.
But changing Athos' quiet query into a jolly and out-of-character aphorism that isn't reflected anywhere in the original text (where a large chunk of the content immediately following that exchange is then omitted) just seems *odd*.
I gather that Dumas' text for Les Trois Mousquetaires exists in several different editions, where the "Brussels edition", published after newspaper serialisation, is actually deemed to be generally superior to the "Paris edition" released subsequently, after the author had fiddled around with the text, and that a subsequent hybrid edition exists, combining elements from both the others. (I wonder if this could explain the odd inconsistencies that I noticed...?)
So I don't know if a similar position applies to Vingt ans après, and if therefore some of these odd additions simply represent the English translator having a different source text under his hands. I find it hard to believe that Dumas chose to reduce his text as much as *that*, destroying a lot of its character interest in the process...
| — Ohé ! qu’est-ce que cela ? | "Oho! what’s that?" |
| — L’Éclair, dit le patron. | "The Lightning," answered the captain, "our felucca." |
| — Nous sommes donc arrivés ? demanda Athos en anglais. — Nous arrivons, dit le capitaine. |
"So far, so good," laughed Athos. |
I can see, after a fashion, the point of adding in the extra clarification as to what, exactly, the "Lightning" is, especially as for some reason the preceding allusion to the ship's name had been cut out, so it hasn't been mentioned for a while.
But changing Athos' quiet query into a jolly and out-of-character aphorism that isn't reflected anywhere in the original text (where a large chunk of the content immediately following that exchange is then omitted) just seems *odd*.
I gather that Dumas' text for Les Trois Mousquetaires exists in several different editions, where the "Brussels edition", published after newspaper serialisation, is actually deemed to be generally superior to the "Paris edition" released subsequently, after the author had fiddled around with the text, and that a subsequent hybrid edition exists, combining elements from both the others. (I wonder if this could explain the odd inconsistencies that I noticed...?)
So I don't know if a similar position applies to Vingt ans après, and if therefore some of these odd additions simply represent the English translator having a different source text under his hands. I find it hard to believe that Dumas chose to reduce his text as much as *that*, destroying a lot of its character interest in the process...