Lost in translation

I walked past the bookstore on my way to Dr L’s office yesterday* and noticed that Natalie Goldberg has a new writers’ book out, Schreiben in Cafes (Writing in Cafes). On closer inspection, I saw that Natalie Goldberg does not have a new book out. Schreiben in Cafes is the German title for Writing Down the Bones. (And Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird in German is Wort für Wort.) This happens to me a lot; last year I thought Barbara Kingsolver had written a new novel, Im Land der Schmetterling (In the Land of the Butterflies), but it turned out to be the German title for Prodigal Summer. Sometimes the titles fool me, like with the Kingsolver book. Often, they just annoy me. The German name for the movie Legally Blond is Natürlich blond – naturally blond, which kind of takes all the clever zing out of the name, doesn’t it? Why would a person do that? And The Cider House Rules in German is Gottes Werk und Teufels Beitrag, which the best I can awkwardly translate is God’s Creation and the Devil’s Contribution. Really. Why would a person do that? The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in German is Supergute Tage oder Die sonderbare Welt des Christopher Boone (Super Good Days or The Strange World of Christopher Boone). If you’ve read Curious Incident at least the title makes sense, but of course they obliterated the allusion to Sherlock Holmes by changing the title, didn’t they?

I don’t know why I get so peeved about these title changes but they really, truly annoy me. Into Thin Air is published in German as In eisige Höhen, which is literally In Icy Altitude (or Heights) but I suppose could be more literarily translated as In the Icy Realm or something (anybody have any suggestions?). R says In eisige Höhen makes him think of a high cold mountain top, which is of course right, but into thin air has so many layered meanings in English. Climbing Everest literally takes you into the thin air but also the climbers who perish on Everest might be said to have vanished into thin air. A double meaning I’m sure Krakauer had very much in mind when writing, and naming, his book.

There are things I love about German – I love the efficiency of some German words. Stillpause, for example. In Germany and Switzerland breast-feeding mothers are entitled by law to breaks during the day during which they can nurse their child or pump breast milk (they’re also entitled to a clean and private place to do this, i.e. not banished to the bathroom or something) and it’s called a Stillpause. What would we even call that in English, how many words would that take? A breast-feeding break, I guess. Nursing time? Somehow Stillpause strikes me as more elegant. But sometimes, when I see these mangled book titles, I wonder why German speakers seem to try to beat the capacity for subtlety out of a language that, stereotypes aside, does have that capacity.

Gottes Werk und Teufels Beitrag, indeed.

* Yes I realize I haven’t said anything about our appointment. I got overwhelmed with information; a bit panicked, frankly, by how quickly we could begin an FET – as soon as my next period, which is less than three weeks from now (and that is more than you ever wanted to know about me); and R and I haven’t really talked about the appointment yet so I don’t want to share my thoughts with the Internets before I share them with my husband. I’ll say only this: it would be a medicated cycle, so I have to wean Small Boy before we can do anything. Hm. Yes. Well.