I knew I had to buy Catching Fire (2022) by Daniel Hahn as soon as I heard about it – and, boom, it’s not even three years since I bought it and I’ve read it! Such speed and agility. I don’t know why it took me so long, since I was pretty certain I would love it – and I definitely did.
Catching Fire is a subtitled ‘A Translation Diary’ and that’s exactly what it is. Hahn is a literary translator, and the book documents his process of translating Diamela Eltit’s Jamás el fuego nunca from Spanish into English. It would eventually appear as Never Did The Fire, though in the earlier sections of the translation diary it is called Never The Fire Ever. Catching Fire began life as a blog, and it retains the structure of a series of dated entries, responding to people’s comments and occasionally referring to real-world events. Because it was a blog, Hahn cautions (in his introduction) against reading it all in one go. Well, Hahn, I have not taken your guidance, and it didn’t stop me absolutely loving this book.
Even the very best translators will acknowledge this: essentially, theoretically, translation is impossible. It’s one of the paradoxes inherent in literary translation, I think. it’s easier to do it, or at least to do it well, once you’ve understood that in theory it cannot be done.
So Hahn writes in his introduction, before going on to explain exactly how he does it. I like his own description of translation: ‘Translation is like copying a work of art in a different medium. We’re art forgers attempting to reproduce an oil painting using only pencils, but so skilfully you won’t be able to tell the difference.’
Like most readers, perhaps, when I read a work in translation, I’m not trying too hard to see the original text behind the text I’m reading. Indeed, I tend to sort of pretend it doesn’t exist. Trying to balance the book I can’t access without the translator’s help into my reception of the book I am reading feels too fraught with challenge. It’s that suspension of disbelief (or something like that) that makes reading a translation possible. And perhaps the translator’s job is to make that possible.
I don’t read any languages other than English, with the possible exception of a very easy children’s book in French, so I already marvel at anybody who could speak more than one language – let alone have the skill to do what Hahn does. My appreciation of translators was already pretty sky-high, but after reading Catching Fire, it has stratospheric.
His process starts by doing a quick translation of everything. It is speedy and unapologetically shoddy. Hahn courageously shares examples of this initial parse through, and it is littered with ‘this/that’ options, words still in Spanish because he can’t think for that moment how best to translate in context, and sentences that, if complete, are ugly. It is, I suppose, the sort of translation that AI is trying to convince us is sufficient – and it shows exactly why it isn’t, especially for literary fiction.
After this, he goes through and looks at many words to check their precise meaning – and, since Eltit is Chilean, this also includes checking for different uses that are specific to Chile. Future drafts are about getting the nuance exactly right, trying to capture what is in the original even when English doesn’t accommodate an easy transfer.
The bulk of Catching Fire are about these nuances. I loved it, and it didn’t matter at all that I don’t speak Spanish. Hahn explains very well for the monoglot. How to capture the way that Eltit lists adjectives after a noun? How to translate words which tell you the gender of the speaker in Spanish, but don’t in English? What to do about allusions that refract across the novel when the same reaching-out moments don’t make sense in English?
One of my favourites of these was a character complaining of pain in his wrist – muñeca – which Hahn at first translates unquestioningly as ‘wrist’. It is only in the ensuing dialogue does it become clear that muñeca’s other meaning (‘doll’) is also significant. How on earth do you retain this in translation? (I may have missed the answer, or he didn’t tell us.)
I mentioned very early in this diary that ambuity can be the hardest thing to translate. I think some people imagine ambiguity as a kind of vagueness, but to my mind you might better consider it exactly the opposite, as an extreme sort of precision, and that’s what makes it hard.
If that sort of thing appeals to you, then Catching Fire is rammed full of them. It reminded me a lot of Kate Briggs’ This Little Art, though they are tonally and structurally very different – both equally fascinating about translation.
It also helps that Hahn is great company for the ride. Perhaps because we are similar ages, I appreciated his humour and his character shines through as someone intellectually curious while also being a good hang. I also appreciated his evident patience with the number of non-translators who were clearly giving their thoughts in the comments – perhaps he liked getting these, though I suspect I would have found it hard to deal with quite so many non-experts sharing their thoughts on my job. Maybe Hahn is just a better person than me.
Well, it’s ridiculous that I waited so long to read this when I knew I’d fall for it completely. Now I wish every book in translation came with exactly this sort of companion book. I have to confess that nothing in it made me want to read Eltit’s novel, which doesn’t sound like my cup of tea at all, but that is beside the point. Catching Fire is a total triumph, and it feels like a privilege to have had this window into the translator’s world.