Costas
¥
(Michael Scammell / NYRB)
There was no doubt. Weßel had stumbled across a copy of the German manuscript of Koestler’s masterpiece.
(...)
Koestler planned to escape to England and pressed Hardy—who had attended a German school in The Hague where her father was a diplomat—into translating his novel into English before it was too late. She did so at top speed and at times virtually as he wrote it. In her journal she describes herself bent over a tiny table behind a curtain strung down the middle of their studio apartment, while Koestler wrote furiously at the kitchen table on the other side.
(...)
The sum total of these mistranslations and omissions (of which I’ve given only a few examples) is overwhelming (...)
(...)
Now we no longer have the excuse of being denied the original text. It’s not only possible, but in my view imperative, that someone undertake a new translation that will communicate the book’s artistic qualities more accurately and offer a richer and more nuanced account of Koestler’s complex narrative.
There was no doubt. Weßel had stumbled across a copy of the German manuscript of Koestler’s masterpiece.
(...)
Koestler planned to escape to England and pressed Hardy—who had attended a German school in The Hague where her father was a diplomat—into translating his novel into English before it was too late. She did so at top speed and at times virtually as he wrote it. In her journal she describes herself bent over a tiny table behind a curtain strung down the middle of their studio apartment, while Koestler wrote furiously at the kitchen table on the other side.
(...)
The sum total of these mistranslations and omissions (of which I’ve given only a few examples) is overwhelming (...)
(...)
Now we no longer have the excuse of being denied the original text. It’s not only possible, but in my view imperative, that someone undertake a new translation that will communicate the book’s artistic qualities more accurately and offer a richer and more nuanced account of Koestler’s complex narrative.
