their - The University of Texas at Dallas

English speakers phrase exhortations for divine
intercession.
On many occasions, the rendering of the original
requires more than finesse, it requires a change in
perspective. Modulation refers to a reverse
substitution such, as “Be quiet” rather than “Don’t
speak,” or the substitution of a concrete for an abstract
term and vice versa. In a description of the neighbor
Amelia’s changing facial expressions, Leyva writes:
“Esas dos expresiones se persiguen y se derrotan
sucesivamente, como las fichas de un juego de damas
expuestas sobre un tablero desplegado junto a la
esquina de un rincón muy íntimo” (Leyva 26). The
ladies’ game becomes bridge in the English translation
to retain a level of sophistication lacking in the North
American conceptualization of checkers, and the
successive changes of expression are expressed with
jargon from the game, to discard. Thus, the image is
rendered: “These two expressions overlap each other
successively, as if discarded by ladies playing bridge
at a table tucked into a private corner” (Dougherty 9).
A second description of Amelia incorporates the
adjective “engalanada” (Leyva 32), for which no good
English equivalent exists, and then describes her
hairstyle as “con el largo cabello recogido hacia lo
alto de la cabeza” (Leyva 32), which can simply be
expressed more directly through English idiomatic
expressions. In this case, synonymy is seen working in
both directions as the passage becomes: “Amelia
appears, dressed to the nines … her long hair in an updo”
(Dougherty 15).
Frequently, the poetic license taken during
translation is purely syntactic. Transposition refers to
the manipulation of syntax rather than vocabulary to
ensure realistic utterances in the target language.
Common examples in the translation of Ruth include
the suppression of relative pronouns used in Spanish
but omitted in spoken English, as well as the
placement of prepositions. In each case, however, the
degree of manipulation varies according to the voice
of the character speaking. Whereas Pepe, an
unpretentious man from the working class, would
undoubtedly speak in English allowing his
prepositions to dangle at the end of sentences or
questions, Ruth would not.
Last in this series of common translation
techniques is compensation. In the case of Ruth, most
examples are cultural rather than linguistic. One
occurrence is found in a passage refering to Christmas
gift-giving traditions that vary between Hispanic and
North American cultures. Referring to Pepe’s
happiness, Ruth compares him to a child at Christmas:
“¡Qué contento estaba Pepe! Así nos poníamos de
chiquitos a esperar a los Reyes Magos” (Leyva 157).
Although North American children eagerly await
Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, the cultural
authenticity of the original comparison could be
maintained by simply highlighting the parallel
between the Wise Kings and Santa Claus as giftbearers.
“Pepe was so happy! Like when we used to
wait for the Three Wise Men to bring us gifts at
Christmas when we were little” (Dougherty 141).
In addition to employing these standard
techniques in the translation of the novel, I found
myself extending with increasing intentionality
Leyva’s recurrent metaphors for oppression and
isolation, typically expressed throughout the work in
military terms and through images of water and
islands. One passage in particular, a description of
Colonial Havana in which Ruth is overcome by the
disrepair of the city’s former splendor under the
current regime, plays on the water imagery of Leyva’s
metaphors. Fantasies spill from grottos to reach into
the swell of the city. Dilapidated balconies are shoredup,
garbage overflows and Pepe is buoyed by privilege
(Dougherty 79 - 80). Of the multiple ways in which
each of these phrases could be expressed, the choice
of water-referent vocabulary seemed most suitable
and in keeping with the lyricism of the original
language. In much the same way as David Constantine
refers to Hölderlin’s assessment of lyric poetry as “a
continuous metaphor of one feeling,” Leyva’s lyrical
prose to me embodies in both structure and expression
a feeling of isolation hightened by water-inspired
vocabulary connoting insurmountable barriers and
monotonous, wave-like repetition.
Ultimately, little has changed and nothing has
been resolved at the conclusion of the novel. The
illusion that Ruth might escape the oppression of the
Great Protector and her own past is dashed by Pepe’s
death. And she returns to her daily pilgrimage to the
cemetery, as steady as the tide. The closing passage of
the novel, again voiced by the neighbor Amelia,
recalls the opening.
Ruth, you who fled from the Bible. You walk
as if you’re devastated. You’re walking toward
the cemetery, to fulfill your unappealable
ceremony before you’re too dead. There you go,
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