ไม่ยอมให้อภัย

Translation Commentary

Monthita Rojtinnakorn / มนฑิตา โรจน์ทินกร 

Among all the translations I made, I find “Unforgiven” to be the least problematic ones. Even with regard to that, it is the only story whose title generated a discussion during the translation process. I initially chose “อภัยไม่ได้” which is literally translated into Thai as “cannot be forgiven.” However, one of the reviewers questioned whether it is the most suitable translation. This is because there is a nuance between the adjectives “unforgiven” and “unforgivable.” My translation would make the meaning lean towards “unforgivable” rather than “unforgiven,” which is the original title. Hence, the translation “ไม่ยอมให้อภัย” is chosen which literally means “does not/would not forgive.” This will allow a more open-ended meaning by showing that something could be forgiven but has not yet been forgiven, which I think is the space for interpretation that the author tries to establish.

The next challenging expression to translate is “Looking at people on the television with a vague sexual interest.” The phrase “vague sexual interest” is remarkably difficult to find the right words in Thai. At first, I translated this as “with the eyes that contain (sexual) feelings” (ด้วยสายตาเหมือนมีอารมณ์). My reviewer, Dr. Carina Chotirawe, instead suggested that I use “ด้วยสายตาเหมือนมีอารมณ์รัญจวน” which is more specific on what type of feeling they have since the word “รัญจวน” conveys an emotion that can be interpreted as sexual.

One part of the short story introduces that term “New Men” which is a counterpart concept of “New Women” or “New Woman,” a feminist movement that emerged in the 19th Century. There is more than one translation in Thai for New Woman; since it is a technical term, the right translation is up for debate. I decided to select “นวสตรี” which is the term employed in an article by Dr. Tapanat Khunpakdee, a literary scholar at Chulalongkorn University whose research focuses on this movement. After choosing this translation, I altered it to match the original phrase, thus creating “นวบุรุษ.” In order to understand the nuance of this phrase, it requires a theoretical knowledge of the movement, so the footnote is also provided.

Further difficulties are posed by the different nature between Thai and English sentence structure, as well as the incompatible words and language register. First, I had to alter the structure of some sentences such as “Is it possible that in twenty years or so we will find it is the caring father, and not the caring mother, who is ultimately to blame?,” which I translated as “Is it possible that in twenty years, we will turn to blame only the caring father instead of blaming the caring mother” (เป็นไปได้มั้ยว่าในอีกยี่สิบปีข้างหน้าเราจะหันไปโทษแต่พ่อผู้โอบอุ้มเลี้ยงดูลูก แทนการโทษแม่ผู้โอบอุ้มเลี้ยงดูลูก). The reason is that placing the verb at the end of the sentence is not natural in Thai. In English, one can employ a passive voice and put the verb towards the end to emphasise the subject (or rather the object), but a passive voice is not a common feature in Thai. Therefore, this altered structure needs to be adopted.

In English, one can also add the word “grand” in front of a family member’s role to indicate that they are one step removed from that role. For example, a mother can become a grandmother, a son can become a grandson, and an uncle can become a granduncle. This is not at all possible in Thai. Each role has a different name assigned to it and it is difficult to conduct a play on words with double meanings as Enright has done in “says the (grand)mother.” Due to this, my reviewer suggested that we use “a mother who has become a maternal grandmother” (แม่ที่กลายเป็นยาย) to maintain both meanings in the original.

As I have mentioned in the commentaries I wrote for her other stories, the matter of finding the right language register will often be a challenge when translating from English to Thai. This is a result of English not having a rigid language register such as Thai, where every speech is made with the social relationship between the addressor and the addressee in mind. If one group of audience is identified, the entire speech often maintains the same level of formality or informality. For example, the word “damn” from “becomes too damn lovely,” if used in a Thai speech, would mean that the speaker has an informal or hostile relationship with the reader. In English, the word can be a slang but is used here to create emphasis. If I decided to literally translate “damn,” it would make the whole translation sound strange as it would immediately change the relationship between the speaker and the reader to informal, while the rest of the story has been told in a semi-formal register. I then decided to change it to “begins to be too cheesy” since the word “cheesy” in Thai can be comparable to “damn lovely.”