Michael Kandel’s humility borders on self-deprecation. The leading English-language translator of Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem sees the translator’s lot as utilitarian, unromantic, invisible. His mantra is that failure is inevitable. And yet, the scope and significance of Kandel’s work would have a brasher personality gobbling up laurels – and well deserved ones, at that.
Michael Kandel’s translations of The Cyberiad (1974), His Master’s Voice (1983), and Fiasco (1987), among other works, contribute to the more than 30 million copies of Lem’s books that have been sold worldwide. What began as a doctoral student’s fan letter to a beloved author developed, over the course of two decades, into a working relationship between Lem and Kandel that would introduce a generation of readers to the darkly imaginative worlds of interstellar explorer Ijon Tichy, the indefatigable constructors Trurl and Klapaucius, and scores of fantastical creations that hold a mirror to society.
In this interview, Michael Kandel speaks with ALTA Language Services about the triumphs and frustrations of translating literary works. Embedded in the text are excerpts from Kandel’s lecture at the Transnational Literature and Translation Conference, which took place at Swarthmore College earlier this year.
How did you get your start as a translator and writer of science fiction? Were there any pivotal moments that led you to the profession or genre you work in?
At first it was a reflex, which I’ve seen in many other people: you find something beautiful or clever or moving in another language and want to show it to people who don’t know that language. I sent Lem a letter in the spirit of fan mail. I think I also sent him a copy of an essay I wrote about him and cybernetics. He responded with the request that I fix an English translation of his Memoirs Found in a Bathtub for McGraw-Hill. After that, the publisher (Seabury, Continuum, Harcourt) began asking me to suggest Lem books to publish, and I became an official translator.
Science fiction I loved as a kid and then growing up and then growing old. I never thought of myself as a writer, but the praise for my translations made me think that maybe I was after all.
Stanislaw Lem’s style of writing is famously rich with wordplay, puns, and unconventional language. What are the most difficult aspects of translating that kind of work? And what are some of the easiest, if in fact there are any?
The wordplay is actually easy: fancy footwork, and of course the audience applauds. The most difficult aspect of translating Lem, I think, is to preserve the wit and energy of his essays (e.g., his Summa), which is sort of British 19th-centuryish philosophical and doesn’t survive the repotting in American modern soil.
One of my favorite lines in your translation of The Cyberiad comes from the second sally, where the bewildered king attempts to destroy a mechanical adversary, only to find “the thing was twinned instead of twained”. What are some of your proudest translation moments – uncanny turns of phrase, hard-won successes, and “aha!” moments?
I used analogues a lot. So, for example, in a story where the inhabitants of a planet speak in medieval Polish, I went through Chaucer for things like ywis. A proud moment: In Krakow once I was complimented on catching a joke in The Cyberiad: a warrior cries “Awruk” when he attacks. Awruk backward is kurwa, which is what a Pole says when he hits his thumb with a hammer – I heard that curse not so long ago in Chinatown, from a man working on a road repair. Literally, it’s “whore,” but the sense is extremely rude in the vein of “fuck.” The complimenter, a Ukrainian, told me that all the other translators missed that. (The translation said, “Tikcuf!”)
Has your approach to translation changed over the years?
I’ve become less confident. I feel that the prose often is lifeless and flatfooted. Ditto with my own writing.
One of the cardinal rules of translation is “You can’t translate what you don’t understand.” It’s easy to see how that applies to straightforward texts, but what does that mean for translating fiction? How well do you feel you need to understand the author’s philosophy to do your job well?
I agree with that rule and could give many examples of a translation that failed because the translator didn’t understand what the author was doing. I believe that a translator has to understand not only intellectually but also viscerally – wavelengthly.
In an interview with Restless Books, you stated: “Translators…are going to fail. No matter what you do, you’re not going to succeed. People may like what you do, but they like something else that isn’t exactly what you really set out to do.” Can you elaborate on that?
The original Lem is so much better, worlds better, than Lem in Kandel’s English. This is our punishment for trying to build a tower that reaches heaven.
Interview conducted by Maria Khodorkovsky. Maria covers research at the intersection of language, psychology, and society for ALTA Language Services. Her work has appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Curbed, and on the websites of the Terminology Coordination Unit of the European Parliament and the National Museum of Language. Maria studied Russian Translation at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
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Photograph: Michael Kandel with spouse, Margie, in Poznań © Michael Kandel