This site uses cookies.
Some of these cookies are essential to the operation of the site,
while others help to improve your experience by providing insights into how the site is being used.
For more information, please see the ProZ.com privacy policy.
French to English translations [PRO] Art/Literary - Poetry & Literature
French term or phrase:Aujourd'hui, maman est morte (Camus)
Posting this because I read an old article in the New Yorker about the translation of Camus' "The Stranger," and it just baffles me that there was ever any disagreement about how to translate this line. Why is it hard???
I'm interested in hearing arguments for the various options. I personally don't see how it could be anything other than "Today, mom died" (or "mum died" for UK translators). But apparently there was heated debate! What's your opinion?
I read this in the original French for my BA degree years ago and that's the way I understood the first sentence (in my head) and how I'd translate it. I never read it in translation and don't really agree with any of these suggestions.
Mommy, Mom, Mum and Mama, Maman are all too childish IMHO
Yes, "Mother" is a bit cold and denotes a distance between them so I'd add "my" which brings them closer and which I think is just right to denote the relationship.
I'd also keep the structure of foregrounding "Today" which emphasises the fact that this is a portentous day in the writer's life
I agree with Yvonne and others who argued for putting "Today" first. It's a slightly odd structure in FR as well as in EN; Camus could've written "Maman est morte aujourd'hui," and that would've felt a bit more natural/less stilted, but he chose not to. I would respect his choice, as a translator: "Today, Mom/Mother/Maman died. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know."
And I would omit the possessive pronoun for the same reason: Camus could've included "ma" in his sentence, but he chose not to.
I don't love keeping "Maman" in French. Why not just use the word that an adult man would use to name or address his mother: Mom (US), or Mum (most other EN-speaking countries)? And "Maman" doesn't sound distant in French, so why use a more formal or distancing word such as "Mother"?
As I've said a couple of times before, we can keep "foreign" words where they add to the flavour of the book and are clear for English speakers, and "maman" is not therefore ruled out. I also feel it's like a proper noun (I know it isn't of course), in that for nearly all children of whatever age, they don't call their mothers by their first names but use "maman" (in French) or "mum" or whatever in English speaking countries. So as it is used like a proper noun and we don't normally translate proper nouns, I think we can leave it. Note that "Mother" etc. is often capitalized like in "Dear Mother", suggesting a proper noun Also, bearing in mind that the English version will be read by anglophones over the world, you avoid having to make a choice between Mum, mother, Ma, Mom etc. which as you can see on this forum, is not so easy.
https://www.dailyedge.ie/twitter-mentions-of-mother-1611834-... https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mam https://www.answers.com/Q/Do_Irish_people_say_'mom'... Typically Mam or Ma is used by Irish people. Ma would usually be considered more working class. Smaller children say Mammy, though in rural areas and among women, Mammy can continue to be used into adulthood. Few people say Mum, which is more of an English idiom, though it can be occasionally be heard in middle-class families especially in suburban areas. Mom has begun to creep in with the current generation of young parents being more Americanised in their speech.
When I say it's flat, I mean it has a flatness of tone. I think that rhythm what the original translator was aiming to conserve when he wrote "Mother died today", with those words in that order. Personally I think it's hard to improve on that translation. I don't think anything is gained by writing "maman" in the translation, and if none of our varieties of English conveys the exact tone of Maman, the best option is to lean towards an option that makes him sound more distant. After all, this novel, which famously starts with a death, climaxes with a death and ends with a death, is about a character who, faced with life, chooses to embrace death, in a way that's both bleak and absurd. He's a failure of a man.
Someone reading this in English who has no French is likely to substitute Mommy, Mom, Mum and Mama, all of which I think are childish. I also forgot to include "Mammy" or "Ma(m)" as many of us use in Ireland for our mothers. "Mum" is considered to be quite snobby and/or British and not used by the working class. Do remember that Meursault is not a colonial overlord but an impoverished "pied-noir" so would be unlikely to say "Mother". And, while he shows no signs of grief at the funeral (which he takes time off work to attend), he does think about his mother sometimes and feels some sort of kinship with her, e.g. when faced with his own execution he thinks about her feelings in the retirememt home when surrounded by death.
I think there is a case to be made for keeping the French position of "Today", even though it isn't the normal English structure so foreignises to some extent. However, that is what Camus wrote and he could have placed it at the end in French also. Is this really intended to be a "flat statement" since he immediately casts doubt on its accuracy? "Today" sets the tone for Meursault's existentialist living-in-the-moment (though he does consider the past and future on a few occasions), his detachment and lack of emotion. Anyway, I wouldn't insist on this position. But reiterate that this question is primarily about "Maman" as we could also go into a long debate about the title translation (i.e. is "The Stranger" better then "The Outsider"?). Let's not get sidetracked
Yes, keep "today" at the end cos you then have coming up "yesterday" and "tomorrow" and they too will be at the end of their sentences in all probability I also like "maman' in the English version I posted so I would have said "Maman died today"
The flatness of the rhythm is important, and I agree with Helen that putting "today" at the front of the English sentence shifts the emphasis the wrong way. It's a small thing, but this is an opening paragraph that really does set the tone of the book.
It's important that Meursault should not sound affectionate. As the author of the New Yorker article observes, he lives his life entirely in the moment - but this because he lacks the emotional imagination to see forward or backward, so when his mother dies, his affection dies too. Her death arguably untethers him in a way that sets off the rest of the novel's events, his act of murder and his ultimate embrace of his own death, but he does not grieve.
Everyone seems to be overlooking the fact that 'aujourd'hui' can also simply mean 'now' in FR â cf. « Auparavant, j'allait Ă la piscine, mais aujourd'hui, je n'y vais plus » The fact that FR uses 'ĂȘtre mort' for both 'to be dead' and 'to have died' creates an ambiguity not present in EN.
With Bokani. It is meant to be a flat statement. By putting âtodayâ first, it places an emphasis within the sentence that is not really there in the French. This radio programme about the opening of the book might be helpful: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01kr8dx
I read this in the original French for my BA degree years ago and that's the way I understood the first sentence (in my head) and how I'd translate it. I never read it in translation and don't really agree with any of these suggestions.
Mommy, Mom, Mum and Mama, Maman are all too childish IMHO
Yes, "Mother" is a bit cold and denotes a distance between them so I'd add "my" which brings them closer and which I think is just right to denote the relationship.
I'd also keep the structure of foregrounding "Today" which emphasises the fact that this is a portentous day in the writer's life
Yvonne Gallagher Ireland Local time: 20:38 Specializes in field Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 40
peer agreement (net): +7