{"id":421032,"date":"2019-05-20T16:00:16","date_gmt":"2019-05-20T20:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/?p=421032"},"modified":"2019-05-21T11:28:16","modified_gmt":"2019-05-21T15:28:16","slug":"four-attempts-at-approaches-drawn-quarterly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2019\/05\/20\/four-attempts-at-approaches-drawn-quarterly\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Attempts at Approaches [Drawn & Quarterly]"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post comes to you thanks to a few different starting points: a box of translated graphic novels that Drawn & Quarterly sent me a couple of weeks ago, the fact that Janet Hong translated one of them (see last week\u2019s interview<\/a>), the fact that I don\u2019t have time this month to read a ton of novels for these weekly posts, but can totally handle some graphic novels, and because part of my mid-life crisis is a desire to challenge myself and try new things. Like extreme amounts of exercise (at 43 I can still at least be in shape by book-people standards, right?) and trying to write about things I don\u2019t already know how to write about. Like graphic novels. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That said, <\/span>I am extremely familiar with comic books and graphic novels (total nerd! and yes, of course I saw <\/span>Avengers: Endgame\u00a0<\/span><\/i>and\u00a0<\/span>Captain Marvel\u00a0<\/span><\/i>on opening night)<\/span>, but I\u2019ve never tried to write about them\u00a0<\/span>in the ways in which I\u2019ve written about translated fiction. Or even poetry. Although I feel like this post is pretty much in parallel with any of my posts on <\/span>poetry in the sense that I know from the start that I don\u2019t have the proper set <\/span>of terms and concepts to clearly elucidate what makes a poetry collection \u201cgood\u201d or \u201cgreat\u201d or \u201cfine\u201d or \u201cgarbage,\u201d but I have some undefined, general <\/span>understanding of what I like. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Since I haven\u2019t even had time this week to steal a\u00a0<\/span>fun framework from Sam Miller, I think I\u2019m going to simply write\u00a0<\/span>something\u00a0<\/span><\/i>about each of the four books\u00a0<\/span>I read, namely one aspect of\u00a0<\/span>what makes reading graphic novels interesting.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

First though, a couple digressions. (Would this even\u00a0<\/span>be\u00a0<\/span><\/i>a Three Percent post if I went straight at that\u00a0<\/span>topic?)\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the years, a number of people have asked me<\/span>\u00a0why we don\u2019t track graphic novels in the Translation Database. The answer is so much more mundane and dumb than hoped for, but also has some odd corollaries. Basically, I can\u2019t figure out how to get accurate, reliable numbers on manga published here in the U.S.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When booksellers or translators ask about graphic novels in translation, they usually are thinking of books from Drawn & Quarterly or\u00a0<\/span>Fantagraphics<\/span>\u00a0or First Second or NYRB Comics<\/span>. They\u2019re not necessarily thinking about Dragon Ball<\/em> or Naruto <\/em><\/span>or\u00a0<\/span>Fruits Basket\u00a0<\/span><\/i>or\u00a0<\/span>Death Note<\/span><\/i>. All of which have tons of volumes available in English, mostly from presses I don\u2019t regularly come in contact with.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is unfortunate, especially since it results in Japanese works in translation being\u00a0<\/span>grossly\u00a0<\/span><\/i>under represented in the Translation Database. I have done a lot of research lately to try and capture all the Japanese \u201clight novels\u201d that have come out (again, thank you Rachel\u00a0<\/span>Cordasco<\/span>), but manga is something I don\u2019t currently have a hold on.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And so we end up with a weird situation in which, if I were to add the translated graphic novels that I\u00a0<\/span>do\u00a0<\/span><\/i>know about, it\u2019ll ignore far too many Japanese works. OR, I could figure out all the manga, and all the D&Q\/<\/span>Fantagraphics<\/span>\/<\/span>NYRB Comics books would\u00a0<\/span>be a pretty tiny percentage of all the graphic novels in translation that are available.\u00a0<\/span>Which\u00a0<\/span>actually makes me wonder what the language distribution really\u00a0<\/span>would\u00a0<\/span><\/i>be. Like 90% Japanese, 10% French, 10% everything else? I feel like Spanish graphic novels are a bit of a rarity, much less a book from the Balkans or\u00a0<\/span>Baltics<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Someday. Someday . . .\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Shit Is Real<\/b><\/em><\/a> by Aisha Franz, translated from the German by Nicholas Houde (Germany)<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

After an unexpected breakup, a young woman named Selma experiences a series of reveries and emotional setbacks. Struggling to relate to her friends and accomplish even the simplest tasks like using a modern laundromat, she sinks deeper into depression. After witnessing another couple break-up and chancing upon the jilted male of the couple, Anders, at his pet store job, Selma realizes that her mysterious neighbor is the woman of that same couple. Her growing despair distances her from from her eager and sympathetic friend. One day, as the mysterious glamorous neighbor is leaving for a business trip, Selma discovers the woman has dropped her key card to her apartment. Selma initially resists but eventually she presses the key to her neighbors lock and enters.<\/p>\n

Aisha Franz is a master of portraying feminine loneliness and confusion while keeping her characters tough and real. Her artwork shifts from sparseness to detailed futurist with ease. Her characters fidget and twirl as they zip through a world both foreign and familiar. Base human desires and functions alternate with dreamlike symbolism to create a tension-filled tale of the nightmare that is modern life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A book with a swear in the title\u2014is\u00a0<\/span>this\u00a0<\/span>not\u00a0<\/span>the most \u201con brand\u201d graphic novel for me to start with?\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For this book, which I didn\u2019t love as much as the others, but did totally enjoy, I want to highlight the idea that<\/span>\u00a0graphic novels are<\/span>, for me, the Netflix of reading.\u00a0<\/span>Not just in terms of comic books as monthly \u201cepisodes\u201d in a particular series, but in the way that you can generally finish a graphic novel in a few sittings, a few hours<\/span>. In less time than it takes to watch\u00a0<\/span>Avengers: Endgame.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And as I\u2019ve been reading th<\/span>ese books, I\u2019ve gotten so much gratification about being able to\u00a0<\/span>finish things<\/span><\/i>. Contrast this with the\u2014probably never<\/span>–<\/span>ending\u2014project<\/span>s<\/span>\u00a0of reading\u00a0<\/span>Annivers<\/span><\/i>aries\u00a0<\/span><\/i>or Marie-Claire Blais. Not that one is \u201cbetter\u201d than the other, but the process of reading\u00a0<\/span>Against the Day\u00a0<\/span><\/i>by Thomas Pynchon over 55 audiobook hours and that of reading\u00a0<\/span>Shit Is Real\u00a0<\/span><\/i>over two beers on a Friday night is wildly different.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For me, personally, the main benefit<\/span>s are two-fold: 1) being able to actually\u00a0<\/span>finish\u00a0<\/span><\/i>something really triggers that lizard<\/span>\u00a0part of the brain that gives you an adrenaline boost for things like this, and 2) it\u2019s much easier to think about a narrative\u2019s \u201cstructure\u201d if you can digest it in one or two sittings. Trying to keep the shape of\u00a0<\/span>Against the Day\u00a0<\/span><\/i>in my mind\u2014over the FIVE months I\u2019ve been reading it\u2014is impossible. I have to keep rereading the synopses of each section, and reading other overviews. And will have to read a lot more after I\u2019ve finished to try and hold all the pieces, all the storylines, all the ideas in mind at once to see how these things fit together.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A graphic novel can be like a good TV episode or miniseries in that you actually\u00a0<\/span>can\u00a0<\/span><\/i>hold the various parts in mind simultaneously and examine how things fit together or don\u2019t. What the progression is, and<\/span>\u00a0how various scenes mirror or play off of one another.\u00a0<\/span>Narrative structures are fascinating, and it can be hard to pick them out when it takes a month\/twenty hours to read a novel.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have a lot to say about\u00a0<\/span>Shit Is Real\u00a0<\/span><\/i>other than it was a bit heartbreaking and surreal and I liked that. And it had a lot of pages like these, which allowed me to be able to read it in one sitting<\/span>:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And<\/span>\u00a0here\u2019s a short review from\u00a0<\/span>Vulture<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>that will give you a bit more context:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We take for granted that visions of tomorrow\u2019s technology will be drawn with sleek lines and popping sheen, but Aisha Franz\u2019s Shit Is Real<\/em>\u00a0tacks in the opposite direction, rendering a\u00a0Black Mirror\u2013<\/em>esque world with chalky pencils and deliberately childish figure-work. The result is hypnotically surreal. It provides a backdrop for the achingly relatable tale of Selma, a woman who\u2019s just been booted by her boyfriend and is trying to sort out her life while navigating a complicated friendship, recurring nightmares, and an awkward romance born in a pet shop. Sexual frustration and crippling loneliness abound, yet the book is curiously buoyant and consistently engaging<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Red Winter<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/b>by Anneli\u00a0<\/span><\/b>Frumark<\/span><\/b>, translated from the\u00a0<\/span><\/b>Swedish by Hanna Str\u00f6mberg (Sweden)<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One thing that\u2019s easy to dismiss\u2014for non-comics readers\u2014is the depth and weight of the stories told in graphic novels.\u00a0<\/span>Red Winter\u00a0<\/span><\/i>has all the makings of a novella<\/span>, and was as much of a gut punch as anything else I\u2019ve read this year.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The story opens\u00a0<\/span>in media res\u00a0<\/span><\/i>and slowly unveils the situation of\u00a0<\/span>Siv<\/span>\u00a0(a married mother of three who lives a not-so-amazing home life with her labor-centric husband) and Ulrik (a young communist she\u2019s having an affair with, who is trapped by his communist ideals and his age).\u00a0<\/span>It unfolds through a variety of perspectives, each section presenting the viewpoint of one of the characters impacted by this affair:\u00a0<\/span>Siv<\/span>\u00a0and Ulrik, obviously; but also\u00a0<\/span>Siv\u2019s<\/span>\u00a0children, her husband, etc.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Granted, I\u2019m a sucker for books in which various perspectives clash and bounce off one another, in which you can see the emotional motivations and rights and wrongs of each of the characters. But this affair, the\u00a0<\/span>doomed<\/span>\u00a0(1970s Swed<\/span>en) aspect of it, the issues with the communist party at that time\u2014they all hit home.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span>Although none of them are as impactful as when\u00a0<\/span>Siv\u2019s<\/span>\u00a0daughter is left alone for the night.\u00a0<\/span>This section (54-?) is\u00a0<\/span>a testament to the sort of storytelling you can find in graphic novels that you can\u2019t exactly replicate in a normal prose book.\u00a0<\/span>There\u2019s a latent anxiety in the drawings, and in her actions exploring the house, answering the phone (and accidentally covering for her mom), her fears of waking up and finding that her mom\u00a0<\/span>still\u00a0<\/span><\/i>isn\u2019t home . . .<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Again, I don\u2019t have the right critical vocabulary at hand, but\u00a0<\/span>there\u2019s something intriguing about how your mind fills in narratives in graphic novels based on existing tropes, subtle artistic elements, and\u00a0<\/span>unadorned dialogue. (By which, I mean, it\u2019s perfect that graphic novels NEVER have \u201che yelled\u201d or \u201che whimpered\u201d or any other dialogue tag\u2014the reader\u00a0<\/span>sees\u00a0<\/span><\/i>those tags<\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>knows\u00a0<\/span><\/i>how the lines are being spoken.)<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That same principle can be extended much more broadly though, to more complicated emotions and reactions.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And there is something compelling about\u00a0<\/span>allowing the reader to fill things in . . . I\u2019ve always been a fan of the Cortazar\/Calvino reader-interaction theories, but<\/span>\u00a0that\u2019s a bit more limited\u00a0<\/span>with prose tha<\/span>n it is in relation to<\/span>\u00a0graphic novels.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This was my favorite of the four books in this post. I\u2019m not 100% sure I know why, but I\u00a0<\/span>really\u00a0<\/span><\/i>got into this. Read it in a sitting. Felt things.\u00a0<\/span>And enjoyed the cartooning and color palate:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Strange<\/b><\/em><\/a> by J\u00e9r\u00f4me Ruillier, translated from the French by Helge Dascher (Madagascar)<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking of the art, let\u2019s talk about\u00a0<\/span>The Strange<\/span><\/i>, a graphic novel that\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>likely going to get the majority of its attention because of its status as an allegory about immigration (and on that level, it\u00a0<\/span>is\u00a0<\/span><\/i>horrifying and unnerving)<\/span>, but for which the art does so much heavy lifting.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"I hate talking animals in fiction. Drives me absolutely insane, since the rules about what the animal knows\/doesn\u2019t know (aka how much its simply a human in polar bear form), is usually inconsistent and logically troubling. Which then leads to a lot of questions about\u00a0<\/span>why you chose to use an animal to speak in the first place<\/span><\/i>?\u00a0<\/span><\/i>And then shit goes sideways and I can\u2019t focus on the narrative because I\u2019m nitpicking over how a dog would or wouldn\u2019t think and gah. Fuck books with animal narrators.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But then we have this.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

All characters are \u201canimals\u201d in this book, emphasizing how \u201cthe\u00a0<\/span>stranges<\/span>\u201d stand out in this society. And for me, for that reason, it works. It\u2019s not forcing some sort of bullshit logic, or over-explaining an animalistic perspective\u2014it\u2019s simply illustrating how society quickly identifies others as\u00a0<\/span>other<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span>There\u2019s a lot going on in presenting the protagonist of this graphic novel as a hulking dog, much larger than the duck\/cat\/mouse people who surround him. Is that realistic, or some sort of prejudice of the mind? <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"It\u2019s also worth noting that this book (#19 on Paste Magazine’s “Best Comic Books of 2018<\/a>“<\/span>) is clearly French\u2014and loaded with shitty quotes from Marine Le Pen\u2014but could so easily apply to parts of 2019 America. Remember when the future was all flying cars and home robots, and not a burning trash fire, no water, and insane amounts of xenophobic hatred? Remember when \u201cthe future\u201d meant something space age and glorious and not imminent doom? I know this is a digression, but things have gone off-the-rails, and I want to spend some time with some books\/movies that present almost idealistic amounts of hope about the future, instead of seeing the next thirty years as the end of everything.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I mean, not to get too political\u2014and this is a Chad W. Post statement, not anything from Open Letter or the University of Rochester\u2014but it\u2019s 2019 and we\u2019re having states ban abortion. We are living in a backward world in which the wrong side is fucking up. Constantly.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Again: Not to get too political, but instead of wasting your time on this bullshit, why don\u2019t you try and pass legislation so that my one-year-old son has even a 50% chance of living to the age of 80. Instead of being the worst combination of moralistic, misogynist, xenophobic, pro-Uber-capitalist, and just overall disconnected from people.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\/end rant.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Bad Frie<\/b>nds<\/strong><\/em><\/a> by Ancco, translated from the Korean by Janet Hong (South Korea)<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have<\/span>\u00a0yet to talk about translation at all in this post. (Although, apologies again for a minor political interlude. @ me all you want. I kind of don\u2019t care anymore.) But given that I talked to Janet already about this book\u2014which is great! And violent! And quite complicated in its structure!\u2014this seems like a good time to highlight a few issues in translating\/publishing graphic novels versus doing the same for more conventional novels.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the big things\u2014for both translators and publishers\u2014is lettering. From a very pragmatic perspective, if you already have a book available in Korean, drawn with word bubbles of a particular size,\u00a0<\/span>you would prefer to change as little as possible and just replace the text in the original word bubble with words in a new language.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Obviously.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But if you\u2019re going from Korean to English? How easy is that, really? There are a number of languages that require 20% fewer\u2014or more\u2014words when going into English, which is an insane percentage to think about when you\u2019re talking about fitting these words into a specifically sized bubble.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s a logistical issue. One that translators don\u2019t necessarily have to consider when they\u2019re translating a novel.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another thing: For the most part, graphic novels are told through dialogue. Which is one of the hardest things for translators to translate. Novels in translation that fail\u2014or receive \u201ctoxic\u201d reviews\u2014are generally those in which the dialogue sounds flat or off or dumb or not native. Sure, every example cited here has some sort of first- or third-person narration, but dialogue still drives the majority of graphic novels. (I think.) And that makes it a trick thing! Get the tone right\u2014in a predetermined amount of space\/words . . .\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bad Friends\u00a0<\/span><\/i>is phenomenal, by the way. Maybe one day there will be a major<\/span>\u00a0U.S.-based graphic novel award in translation for this book to win. Because it deserves it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post comes to you thanks to a few different starting points: a box of translated graphic novels that Drawn & Quarterly sent me a couple of weeks ago, the fact that Janet Hong translated one of them (see last week\u2019s interview), the fact that I don\u2019t have time this month to read a ton […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":421092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67486],"tags":[69132,68942,69162,68952,69112,69172,69202,68932,69192,69142,69152,69122,69182],"class_list":["post-421032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-aisha-franz","tag-ancco","tag-anneli-frumark","tag-bad-friends","tag-drawn-and-quarterly","tag-hanna-stromberg","tag-helge-dascher","tag-janet-hong","tag-jerome-ruillier","tag-nicholas-houde","tag-red-winter","tag-shit-is-real","tag-the-strange"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421032"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":421182,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421032\/revisions\/421182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}