something was wrong when she looked at the Portuguese. She read the poem and she liked it, but there was a point that she didn’t think made sense. And that’s the thing she kept asking about, and she said, ‘He didn’t do it right here; he translated literally what you said, but that wasn’t what you were getting at. By staying literal. . .’ and suddenly her jaw dropped and she said, ‘I get it. I understand it, I know what translation is. I understand now why you had to change things, why you can’t do exactly what I did in your language sometimes because it has a different effect.’ And that was a really moving moment . . . because she was saying it, not because someone was saying it to her. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘you have total permission to do what you do.’”
Fidelity is as fidelity does. Translation is not a matter of words and inaccuracies, disrespect for authors, or power plays. What Milan Kundera does not understand is that it involves obligations not just to the author or the original work, but also to things he cares nothing about, such as the translator’s language and readership. It is about responsibility and it requires belief in and respect for the act and art of translation. As Ben Belitt once wrote, “The operative word is faith, and not fidelity."
Those who make the loudest noises about fidelity are those who embrace the Romantic ideal of the irresponsible artist, and see the translator as a non-artist who either serves or betrays him. Kundera threatens with castration any translator who dares betray him. And he has castrated. When push comes to shove, this is what fidelity is all about: a theory, a metaphor, that’s there to use against a betrayer, to emasculate another artist. Or one that’s there for translators who don’t want to take responsibility for their decisions, who don’t want to have to balance their obligations: I just tried to
be faithful, they say, and everybody smiles.
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