“ The Bookman's ” Review

Northern Advocate, 8 January 1938, Page 12

“ The Bookman's ” Review

“Aryans”). Last summer, the Reie League of German Government Of

ficials presented to Hitler an illuminated manuscript of “Mein Kampf” in ■Gothic script; the volume was the work of seven graphologists who toiled for eleven months to transcribe the text on vellum, after which the leaves were bound in iron (as being the only mitable medium).

Popular Outside Germany.

Visitors to the Olympic Games were astonished to see this monument to propaganda exhibited in the “Hall of Honour” not far from a copy of the Gutenberg Bible. It is scarcely astonishing that German industrialists have considered the printed book a suitable Christmas present for employees. “Meip Kampf” is a popular work outside of Germany. It furnishes fuel for many fires of hatred. The Arabs in Palestine are very fond of it. But what the outside world learns about Hitler’s ideas and policies is .quite different from what the Germans know almost by heart. Hamilton Fish Armstrong, in his invaluable book “We c-r They” quotes four times from “Mein Ksmpf,” but states in a foot-note that only one of the passages quoted is to be found in the American version, published by Houghton Miffin Company under the title “My Battle.” Mr Armstrong’s three censored passages are: . . so-called humanitarianism, that product of a mixture of stupidity, cowardice and superciliousness, (which) will melt away like snow in the March sunshine.” (No use in offending some of the influential brain-trusters.)

Hitler’s Peace Ideal. “Anyone who/really from his heart desires the victory of the pacifist idea in this world should support by every means the conquest of the world by the Germans.” Hitler hopes for peace, but a peace “established by the victorious sword of a master-nation which leads the world to serve a higher culture,” (You couldn’t ask for anything more peaceful than a victorious sword.)

Another commentator, Otto D. Tolischus, writing in the “New York Times Magazine” for October 18, 1936, says: “The worst examples (of translations edited with a view to softening the rough spots) is the English translation published in London. It has eliminated most of the passages referring to France; it has even elimin-

ated the justification of war cited in the opening of the book and toned down the language to the point of falsification.

“Franco, the country most affected by the book, has no translation of it at all. Hitler has steadily refused to authorise a French translation, and an unauthorised translation issued in Paris was suppressed on the ground ol copyright violation after an appeal to the French commercial courts by Hitler’s publishing house.

Embarrassing Passages

“The authoritative explanation of (the existence of) the embarrassing passages is that they were written at a time of special stress when Ger-

many was suffering from African troops in the Rhineland, from the

Ruhr occupation, and reparations.” Hitler, in other words, doesn't mind repeating his old slurs on France for the ears of his own people, but he doesn’t want the French to suspect that he’s doing it.

What do you suppose the Chinese translation says? Here, it seems to me, is a legitimate subject for study by some modern language seminar. I may be the only person who thinks so, and the whole story may never be told. To be sure, Dr. Goebbels ought to be able to supply all the clues to the puzzle, but somehow or other, I doubt if he would.

The Old. Old Question

This opens up the old, old question, and a very interesting one, of the translator’s duties. Surely these are to supply as accurate a version as possible of the work he is dealing with in the language to which he transfers it. How often this is far from the case is little appreciated by readers confined to the text in their own tongue. It is bad enough when only the author’s reputation suffers, but when his very intentions arc distorted or ignored—even though this be by his own wish or command—the matter is a serious wrong to purchaser or reader who. thinking he buys the real substance, has foisted upon him the rubbish of a substitute. The Italians say, making no exceptions, “The translator is a betrayer,” and they have much to support them.' A famous English translator once laid down the rule that a translation should be as neai'ly as possible the book, complete and exact, such as its author would have Written it had he been as conversant with the language now adopted as he was with his own. This, it cannot be denied, is an ideal not easily attained, but worth the striving for.