The Vegetarian

Reading through the articles for this week, I was struck by the various levels on which the conversation was taking place. Parks identifies some possible weaknesses of Smith’s translation, most compellingly, for me, pointing out inconsistencies in the register of the first person narrative voice. The Yun piece is more sympathetic, while still noting the criticisms that the translation elicited from some Korean readers. Smith’s response, in the LA Review of Books, succeeds at acknowledging the fallibility of the translation, while rightly pointing out that any translation would be fallible, and defending her own choices – for me, this is the most salient set of ideas among the readings. The longer academic article, while offering compelling feminist analysis of the translation, seems to be primarily concerned with the book as a cultural artifact and this approach, while well argued, understands the purpose of the book as a world-object in a different way from Parks and the conservative literary establishment that he is meant to represent.

One point that occurs to me is that the world of literary translation seems like an effort-based world in so far as taking the time to translate a book confers a certain authority in and of itself. It seems abundantly clear that Smith made a good faith effort at carefully bringing the Korean text into English. (For me, this good faith effort is the most important criteria besides the endorsement of the original author, if possible.) Indeed, many people found the translation compelling and so it garnered wide acclaim and brought fame and attention to the original author, too. What’s more, no one prevented anyone else from making an earlier effort (as far as I can tell), and so the objection that Parks is raising feels more like an objection to the reading public and the Booker Prize Foundation on the grounds that they have different taste and appetite than he does. Maybe he would have preferred a different translator, but this stance starts to become a paradoxical variation of the chicken and the egg, the cultural impact of an alternative translation being in no way guaranteed. It doesn’t seem to me like a great cosmic injustice that Parks, in the course of his life, read Smith’s translation of The Vegetarian. If he is convinced that Smith did such a poor job and is also (impossibly) certain that there are hidden merits to the source text that he is unable to read himself, he is free to encourage another translation or learn the language and read the original.  

Although the criticism that was laid at Smith’s feet seems maybe unfair (although lets not forget that there was plenty of praise and acclaim as well and that at a young age her career as a translator was secured), the whole situation seems like an example of what literary community is all about. Through lively discourse, the community, on a individual to individual basis, was prompted to critically reevaluate its own position on the issue of translational fidelity. The gusto with which this reevaluation took place indicates the vitality of the contemporary scene and the interest of English language readers in global literature.

-Elijah Frydman