Journal of Italian Translation

18
Journal of Italian Translation
Sicilian is far more expressive and renders better what he had in
mind. But in general, there does not seem to be any logic, either
linguistically determined or contextually driven for the intrusion
of such terms. Their presence does not seem to emerge out of a
need to make a particular statement. One could ask Camilleri why
he places Sicilian words into his narrative, I am confident he has
been asked although I don’t know what his response may have
been, but even if we knew what he said we would have to assess
the effect that their presence has on the reader. I suggest that two
of the reasons for the interjections are primarily to add color and
to identify the narrator as a Sicilian. Ultimately it seems to me that
Camilleri probably speaks like that himself, that is, from time to
time, and in an unpredictable manner, he interjects Sicilian words
into his speech. If that is so what purpose do the interjections have.
I think that Camilleri uses this device for the purpose of making a
connection with his listener, of somehow taking the reader into
his confidence, by speaking a language that by its restrictive nature
constitutes a “secret” jargon that both the writer and his listener
understand. It is a method of drawing the readers into the
web that he is spinning, an act of captatio benevolentia. Sicilians
have been historically conditioned not to speak in their own language
to strangers or anyone whom they do not know or trust.
Camilleri, I think, is throwing in his Sicilian expressions as hooks
to draw readers into his world. As a literary ploy this is not new.
Boccaccio establishes the same kind of relationship with his readers,
a kind of complicity between author and reader that excludes
some of the characters themselves. As Boccaccio lets us be a knowing
audience, participants in the joke, Camilleri by using his
Sicilianized Italian or Italianized Sicilian is forming a bond with
the reader who understands—the trick is that after a while everyone
understands—and the use of a different code does not exclude
anyone.
These preliminary and somewhat tentative conclusions may
be sufficient to start working on a strategy for the translation of
Camilleri’s text. Let’s try to give a straightforward rendition of the
paragraph without making any attempt at signaling the shift in
code in the original.
Calorio’s name was not Calorio, but in Vigata everyone
knew him with that name. He had come to town, —nobody
knows from where—about twenty years back, with a pair of
pants more holes than fabric, tied at the waist with a rope,