These are the things for which children (eventually) forgive their fathers:
Going out.
Coming home late.
Smelling of drink.
Reading the newspaper.
Watching the television.
Looking at people on the television with a vague sexual interest.
Not being bothered, much.
Having other important things to do.
These are the things for which children never, ever, ever forgive their mothers:
Going out.
Coming home late.
Smelling of drink.
Reading the newspaper.
Watching the television.
Looking at people on the television with a vague sexual interest.
Not being bothered, much.
Having other important things to do.
When I was in my teens and twenties, it was fashionable among girls to complain about your mother — despite the fact that these women had given their lives over to rear us. It was never fashionable to complain about your father, unless they were very drunk, all the time. At worst, fathers provoked a shrugging silence — presumably because this was what they gave.
So what about New Men? Will we need a new psychology in twenty years for children, now grown up, whose fathers were there half the time, who changed the nappies and sang the lullabies, half the time, or more? 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?
I doubt it.
I have met some of these maligned mothers since and it is great fun having a look at them. Some of them, to my surprise, really do seem wretchedly ungiving. But most of them are quite nice. Or ordinary. Or even dull.
A dull mother? There is no such thing. It is odd that, as a group, mothers are seen as a lardy wodge of nothing much; of worry and love and fret and banality. As individuals we are everything. Between these two extremes, where does the person lie?
In my thirties and forties, many of the daughters who gave out about their mothers started going shopping with them, talking about kitchen units, doing all the things that friends might do and more, while the mothers — I don’t know what the mothers did, exactly, but they shifted too. They let their children be. The battle was over. As though each side had fought its way into the light of day and looked at each other to find . . .
Now that I have become a mother myself, it is a great comfort to me to see how most of us come to an accommodation between the ‘MOTHER!’ in our heads and the woman who reared us. The whole process reaches a sort of glorious conclusion if and when the daughter has children herself. ‘Now you understand,’ says the (grand)mother. ‘Now you see.’ This is what they yearn for — as much as any adolescent, they need to be understood. They need an end to blame.
I take the baby home, and watch my parents with different eyes. My father likes looking at small children — just that. He hates disturbing them, or telling them to do anything, or scaring them in any way; he does not seem to believe in it. My mother loves babies — some women don’t but she does — even when they are very new; all raw and whimpering and scarcely yet human. Her love is more passionate than his; I think, she can be almost hurt by it. At any rate I know that this is where my current happiness comes from, that the better part of my mothering is compounded of my mother’s passion and of my father’s benign attention.
A woman asks me, ‘Are you going to have a typical mother-daughter relationship?’ You can tell that she thinks this would be a nice comeuppance. The world loves to remind parents that soon it will all go awry.
I think about this when the baby is eighteen months and every hug contains the idea of squirming away. She will stay on my lap if I sing to her, and she will stroke my face, but if all this loving becomes too damn lovely, she will push or pinch or kick her way out of it, and I think, with some trepidation, of the day she turns fourteen.
She also has a neat line in accident-on-purpose elbow jabs, and great aim.
What about sons. Are they the same?
Anne Enright, ‘Unforgiven’ in Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood, London: Vintage, 2005, 152-54.
Iată lucrurile pentru care copiii își iartă (în cele din urmă) tații:
că ies în oraș.
că vin acasă târziu.
că miros a băutură.
că citesc ziarul.
că se uită la televizor.
că privesc oamenii de la televizor cu un vag interes sexual.
că nu-și bat capul prea mult.
că au alte lucruri importante de făcut.
Iată și lucrurile pentru care copiii nu își iartă niciodată, dar niciodată, mamele:
că ies în oraș.
că vin acasă târziu.
că miros a băutură.
că citesc ziarul.
că se uită la televizor.
că privesc oamenii de la televizor cu un vag interes sexual.
că nu-și bat capul prea mult.
că au alte lucruri importante de făcut.
În adolescența mea și până pe la vreo 20 și ceva de ani, era la modă ca fetele să se plângă de mamele lor – în ciuda faptului că femeile acestea renunțaseră la viețile lor ca să ne crească. În schimb, nu era la modă să te plângi de tatăl tău, decât dacă era beat criță tot timpul. În cel mai rău caz, tații stârneau doar tăcere și un ridicat din umeri – cel mai probabil pentru că asta și ofereau.
Deci, cum rămâne cu Bărbatul Modern? Oare vom avea nevoie, peste douăzeci de ani, de o nouă psihologie pentru copiii, acum adulți, ai căror tați au fost prezenți jumătate din timp, tați care le-au schimbat scutecele și le-au cântat cântecele de leagăn, jumătate din timp sau mai mult? Este oare posibil ca în vreo douăzeci de ani să aflăm că tatăl grijuliu, și nu mama grijulie, este de fapt de vină?
Mă îndoiesc.
De atunci am întâlnit câteva dintre aceste mame blamate și e foarte distractiv să te uiți la ele. Spre surprinderea mea, unele dintre ele par a fi îngrozitor de egoiste. Cele mai multe însă sunt drăguțe. Sau obișnuite. Sau chiar plictisitoare.
O mamă plictisitoare? Nu există așa ceva. Este ciudat că mamele, ca grup, sunt văzute ca o grămadă diformă de nu-mare-lucru; de griji, dragoste, agitație și banalitate. Ca indivizi suntem totul. Între aceste două extreme, unde se situează persoana?
Pe când aveam treizeci-patruzeci de ani, multe dintre fiicele care înainte se plângeau de mamele lor au început să meargă la cumpărături cu ele, să vorbească despre mobilă de bucătărie și să facă toate lucrurile pe care le-ar face niște prietene și chiar mai mult de atât, în timp ce mamele – nu știu exact ce făceau ele, dar până și ele s-au schimbat. Și-au lăsat copiii în pace. Bătălia se terminase. Ca și cum fiecare tabără se luptase să ajungă la lumina zilei, iar apoi s-au uitat unii la alții ca să găsească…
Acum că am devenit eu însămi mamă, e o imensă alinare pentru mine să văd cum cele mai multe dintre noi ajungem să asociem acel „MAMA” din mintea noastră cu femeia care ne-a crescut. Întregul proces duce la un fel de concluzie glorioasă atunci când și dacă fiica devine ea însăși mamă.
- Acum înțelegi, spune mama (mare). Acum pricepi.
După asta tânjesc ele, mamele – asemeni oricărui adolescent, au mare nevoie să fie înțelese. Au nevoie să nu mai fie blamate.
Îmi duc copilul acasă și îmi privesc părinții cu alți ochi. Tatălui meu îi place să se uite la copii mici – și atât. Urăște să îi deranjeze, să le spună să facă ceva sau să îi sperie în vreun fel; nu pare să creadă în așa ceva. Mama mea iubește copiii – unele femei nu îi iubesc, dar ea da – chiar și atunci când aceștia sunt proaspăt veniți pe lume; așa cruzi, scâncitori, abia aducând a ființă umană. Dragostea ei este mai pătimașă decât a lui; genul de dragoste care cred că o poate răni. În orice caz, știu că de aici vine fericirea mea actuală, că partea mai bună a maternității mele vine din pasiunea mamei mele și din atenția îngăduitoare a tatălui meu.
O femeie mă întreabă:
- O să aveți o relație mamă-fiică obișnuită?
E clar că, în opinia ei, acest lucru ar fi pedeapsa potrivită.
Lumii îi place să le reamintească părinților că în curând totul o va lua razna.
Mă gândesc la asta când copiluța are optsprezece luni și în fiecare îmbrățișare există o urmă de zbatere. Ea stă în poala mea dacă îi cânt, îmi mângâie fața, dar dacă toată această iubire devine iritantă, mă împinge sau mă ciupește, sau mă lovește ca să se elibereze și mă gândesc, cu o oarecare neliniște, la ziua în care va împlini paisprezece ani.
Se pricepe bine de tot să lovească cu cotul, bineînțeles accidental-intenționat, și țintește foarte bine.
Dar cum e cu fiii? Oare sunt și ei la fel?
Anne Enright, „Unforgiven” în Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood, London, Vintage, 2005, 171-72.
These are the things for which children (eventually) forgive their fathers:
Going out.
Coming home late.
Smelling of drink.
Reading the newspaper.
Watching the television.
Looking at people on the television with a vague sexual interest.
Not being bothered, much.
Having other important things to do.
These are the things for which children never, ever, ever forgive their mothers:
Going out.
Coming home late.
Smelling of drink.
Reading the newspaper.
Watching the television.
Looking at people on the television with a vague sexual interest.
Not being bothered, much.
Having other important things to do.
When I was in my teens and twenties, it was fashionable among girls to complain about your mother — despite the fact that these women had given their lives over to rear us. It was never fashionable to complain about your father, unless they were very drunk, all the time. At worst, fathers provoked a shrugging silence — presumably because this was what they gave.
So what about New Men? Will we need a new psychology in twenty years for children, now grown up, whose fathers were there half the time, who changed the nappies and sang the lullabies, half the time, or more? 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?
I doubt it.
I have met some of these maligned mothers since and it is great fun having a look at them. Some of them, to my surprise, really do seem wretchedly ungiving. But most of them are quite nice. Or ordinary. Or even dull.
A dull mother? There is no such thing. It is odd that, as a group, mothers are seen as a lardy wodge of nothing much; of worry and love and fret and banality. As individuals we are everything. Between these two extremes, where does the person lie?
In my thirties and forties, many of the daughters who gave out about their mothers started going shopping with them, talking about kitchen units, doing all the things that friends might do and more, while the mothers — I don’t know what the mothers did, exactly, but they shifted too. They let their children be. The battle was over. As though each side had fought its way into the light of day and looked at each other to find . . .
Now that I have become a mother myself, it is a great comfort to me to see how most of us come to an accommodation between the ‘MOTHER!’ in our heads and the woman who reared us. The whole process reaches a sort of glorious conclusion if and when the daughter has children herself. ‘Now you understand,’ says the (grand)mother. ‘Now you see.’ This is what they yearn for — as much as any adolescent, they need to be understood. They need an end to blame.
I take the baby home, and watch my parents with different eyes. My father likes looking at small children — just that. He hates disturbing them, or telling them to do anything, or scaring them in any way; he does not seem to believe in it. My mother loves babies — some women don’t but she does — even when they are very new; all raw and whimpering and scarcely yet human. Her love is more passionate than his; I think, she can be almost hurt by it. At any rate I know that this is where my current happiness comes from, that the better part of my mothering is compounded of my mother’s passion and of my father’s benign attention.
A woman asks me, ‘Are you going to have a typical mother-daughter relationship?’ You can tell that she thinks this would be a nice comeuppance. The world loves to remind parents that soon it will all go awry.
I think about this when the baby is eighteen months and every hug contains the idea of squirming away. She will stay on my lap if I sing to her, and she will stroke my face, but if all this loving becomes too damn lovely, she will push or pinch or kick her way out of it, and I think, with some trepidation, of the day she turns fourteen.
She also has a neat line in accident-on-purpose elbow jabs, and great aim.
What about sons. Are they the same?
Anne Enright, ‘Unforgiven’ in Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood, London: Vintage, 2005, 152-54.
Iată lucrurile pentru care copiii își iartă (în cele din urmă) tații:
că ies în oraș.
că vin acasă târziu.
că miros a băutură.
că citesc ziarul.
că se uită la televizor.
că privesc oamenii de la televizor cu un vag interes sexual.
că nu-și bat capul prea mult.
că au alte lucruri importante de făcut.
Iată și lucrurile pentru care copiii nu își iartă niciodată, dar niciodată, mamele:
că ies în oraș.
că vin acasă târziu.
că miros a băutură.
că citesc ziarul.
că se uită la televizor.
că privesc oamenii de la televizor cu un vag interes sexual.
că nu-și bat capul prea mult.
că au alte lucruri importante de făcut.
În adolescența mea și până pe la vreo 20 și ceva de ani, era la modă ca fetele să se plângă de mamele lor – în ciuda faptului că femeile acestea renunțaseră la viețile lor ca să ne crească. În schimb, nu era la modă să te plângi de tatăl tău, decât dacă era beat criță tot timpul. În cel mai rău caz, tații stârneau doar tăcere și un ridicat din umeri – cel mai probabil pentru că asta și ofereau.
Deci, cum rămâne cu Bărbatul Modern? Oare vom avea nevoie, peste douăzeci de ani, de o nouă psihologie pentru copiii, acum adulți, ai căror tați au fost prezenți jumătate din timp, tați care le-au schimbat scutecele și le-au cântat cântecele de leagăn, jumătate din timp sau mai mult? Este oare posibil ca în vreo douăzeci de ani să aflăm că tatăl grijuliu, și nu mama grijulie, este de fapt de vină?
Mă îndoiesc.
De atunci am întâlnit câteva dintre aceste mame blamate și e foarte distractiv să te uiți la ele. Spre surprinderea mea, unele dintre ele par a fi îngrozitor de egoiste. Cele mai multe însă sunt drăguțe. Sau obișnuite. Sau chiar plictisitoare.
O mamă plictisitoare? Nu există așa ceva. Este ciudat că mamele, ca grup, sunt văzute ca o grămadă diformă de nu-mare-lucru; de griji, dragoste, agitație și banalitate. Ca indivizi suntem totul. Între aceste două extreme, unde se situează persoana?
Pe când aveam treizeci-patruzeci de ani, multe dintre fiicele care înainte se plângeau de mamele lor au început să meargă la cumpărături cu ele, să vorbească despre mobilă de bucătărie și să facă toate lucrurile pe care le-ar face niște prietene și chiar mai mult de atât, în timp ce mamele – nu știu exact ce făceau ele, dar până și ele s-au schimbat. Și-au lăsat copiii în pace. Bătălia se terminase. Ca și cum fiecare tabără se luptase să ajungă la lumina zilei, iar apoi s-au uitat unii la alții ca să găsească…
Acum că am devenit eu însămi mamă, e o imensă alinare pentru mine să văd cum cele mai multe dintre noi ajungem să asociem acel „MAMA” din mintea noastră cu femeia care ne-a crescut. Întregul proces duce la un fel de concluzie glorioasă atunci când și dacă fiica devine ea însăși mamă.
- Acum înțelegi, spune mama (mare). Acum pricepi.
După asta tânjesc ele, mamele – asemeni oricărui adolescent, au mare nevoie să fie înțelese. Au nevoie să nu mai fie blamate.
Îmi duc copilul acasă și îmi privesc părinții cu alți ochi. Tatălui meu îi place să se uite la copii mici – și atât. Urăște să îi deranjeze, să le spună să facă ceva sau să îi sperie în vreun fel; nu pare să creadă în așa ceva. Mama mea iubește copiii – unele femei nu îi iubesc, dar ea da – chiar și atunci când aceștia sunt proaspăt veniți pe lume; așa cruzi, scâncitori, abia aducând a ființă umană. Dragostea ei este mai pătimașă decât a lui; genul de dragoste care cred că o poate răni. În orice caz, știu că de aici vine fericirea mea actuală, că partea mai bună a maternității mele vine din pasiunea mamei mele și din atenția îngăduitoare a tatălui meu.
O femeie mă întreabă:
- O să aveți o relație mamă-fiică obișnuită?
E clar că, în opinia ei, acest lucru ar fi pedeapsa potrivită.
Lumii îi place să le reamintească părinților că în curând totul o va lua razna.
Mă gândesc la asta când copiluța are optsprezece luni și în fiecare îmbrățișare există o urmă de zbatere. Ea stă în poala mea dacă îi cânt, îmi mângâie fața, dar dacă toată această iubire devine iritantă, mă împinge sau mă ciupește, sau mă lovește ca să se elibereze și mă gândesc, cu o oarecare neliniște, la ziua în care va împlini paisprezece ani.
Se pricepe bine de tot să lovească cu cotul, bineînțeles accidental-intenționat, și țintește foarte bine.
Dar cum e cu fiii? Oare sunt și ei la fel?
Anne Enright, „Unforgiven” în Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood, London, Vintage, 2005, 171-72.
Translation Commentary: Challenges in Translation
Dana Raduly
While translating the text I encountered a few issues that were problematic. First of all, there was that first part that contained gerunds which were impossible to translate as such, due to the fact that having an enumeration of gerunds in Romanian seems very forced and is tiresome for the reader or for the listener. Therefore, I chose to translate them by changing them into clauses. For example, I translated “[...] reading the newspaper” as „pentru că citesc ziarul” (Ro) which would be translated into English as “for the fact that they read the newspaper”.
Another difficulty I encountered was translating the phrase “at worst, fathers provoked a shrugging silence – presumably because this was what they gave”. The problem I had here was with provoked which is equivalent to the verb cause in this context and which, in Romanian, would have needed more words in order for the translation to be clearer. My first intention was to translate with the Romanian “a provoca” which is basically the same word. However, that did not sound right, since this Romanian verb generally needs a direct object. Also, I felt that the word is too strong and does not fit the context, so I chose to translate it by “a stârni” which in English would be “to stir up”.
The same phrase posed another challenge, which was “shrugging silence”. Although it is a very vivid phrase for the native reader, it was tough translating it into Romanian, since the word-for-word translation would sound extremely far-fetched. Instead, I translated it by splitting it into chunks “tații stârneau doar tăcere și un ridicat din umeri” (Ro)– the back translation to English for this would be “silence and shrugging their shoulders”.
The phrase “maligned mothers” is, in my translation, “mame blamate” (En. “condemned mothers”). I translated it this way because I connected the word maligned with the fact that these mothers are somehow defined by the blame that is set upon them, and this blame becomes a personality trait, it defines them.
Another phrase that posed great challenges was “…as a group, mothers are seen as a lardy wodge of nothing much….”, more specifically lardy wodge was the most difficult one. In my Romanian version this becomes “mamele, ca grup, sunt văzute ca fiind o grămadă diformă de, practic, nimic”. Lardy wodge of nothing much is o grămadă diformă de, practic, nimic (Ro). Translated back into English, this means “shapeless heap of basically nothing”. Since “wodge” means a “bulky mass”, I translated it by grămadă, which is similar in meaning. However, “lardy” was more challenging. I knew that it meant “fat” or “obese” or “full of lard”, so I tried to picture the image of anything having this characteristic. And the more I tried, the more I realized that anything lardy would be impossible to fit in a certain shape. Therefore, I chose the word diform (En. “shapeless”) to translate it by. Also, the expression grămadă diformă is an expression that I have encountered once or twice in Romanian literature.
Towards the end of the text, there is the phrase “babies […] are very new; all raw and whimpering and scarcely yet human”. A very vivid phrase indeed, which in Romanian becomes “proaspăt veniți pe lume, cruzi, scâncioși, abia umani” (En.newly born, raw, whining, barely human). My biggest problem was with the equivalent of whimpering, which would have a slightly different translation (Ro. scâncitori). I opted to translate it by a variant of this, which is, in my opinion, more expressive.
Andreea Trîmbițaș
The text did not provide many difficulties when reading it for the first time. However, after beginning to translate it, things slightly changed. I enjoyed the topic, since a pleasant topic is always a good start when translating, but some structures I encountered were either controversial, or provided multiple choices in the target language and none was perfect. First of all, there were vocabulary issues due to the fact that there are no perfect equivalents and the choice between synonyms can sometimes be difficult.
An example would be the structure “Smelling of drink”, which I intended to translate as “Că miros a alcool”. The reason why I changed it into “Că miros a băutură” was the register. I saw the register as semi-formal, somewhere between formal and informal, and “băutură” seemed to be much more appropriate to this type of register.
A second example of how vocabulary proved a difficulty is the structure “New Men”. It was a structure I had never come across before (also written with capital letters). It became clear it had an extra meaning besides the obvious one and catching that intended message was quite a challenge. I assumed the “new” referred to the new generation, the modern generation of parents who do almost everything different from the previous ones, and this is why I chose to translate it as “Bărbații Moderni”, while still preserving the capital letters to make sure the target language readers understand the structure as something special, out of the ordinary. Another vocabulary issue is “wretchedly ungiving”. The meaning seems to be that of a mother (the central theme) who does not share any emotions, does not care whether her baby is fine or not and does not get involved in raising him/her. She is not giving anything to the baby, that is how I understood the central image. And I believed the appropriate Romanian structure was “deplorabil de egoiste”, since someone who refuses to give, is considered selfish.
Another structure that proved a challenge was “(grand)mother”. The English vocabulary is quite generous and provides many words for our family members: mother, mum, mom, mommy, granny, grandmama, grandmother, grandma. There are plenty of choices. Besides this, the “grandmother” involves an addition (a prefix) to the “mother”, which is again very convenient since one can combine them in any situation. However, the Romanian language does not perceive family members like this and mother is “mama”, while grandmother is “bunica”. There is no possible combination of the two so as to preserve the image in the source text, which is why I improvised and translated the structure as “spune mama, acum bunică”.
One of the most challenging structures and definitely the most difficult image to render was the description of a baby as “all raw and whimpering and scarcely yet human”. This image was quite strange for me, because one of the most difficult tasks a translator has, involves rendering something into the target language that you do not fully understand and you cannot check it back with the author of that particular text. I could not view this image in my head, so I opted for a slight alteration and translated the structure as “veșnic iritați și smiorcăiți, abia veniți pe lumea umană”.
Another vocabulary issue was “comeuppance”, since its translation does not involve a perfect equivalent and, in my opinion, it does not have a close one either. This is why I opted for “ceea ce merită” which, I believe, somehow illustrates the original message. Taking all these challenges into consideration, the text cannot be referred to as difficult, but as sometimes challenging due to the presence of several terms that can be interpreted in multiple ways.
Alexandra Trifan
The biggest challenge I encountered while translating was probably choosing the verbal tense when translating the things that children forgive/do not forgive their parents for, especially “not being bothered, much”. The source text uses the continuous form of the verb at the beginning of each line. The word-for-word equivalent would be the gerund form, which is not an option because it would sound terrible, and it is never used in Romanian the way the continuous is used in English here.
The past participle of verbs in Romanian can be used in cases like these, but there are verbs with which it does not sound natural. I could not have used the past participle to translate “not being bothered, much”. I could have translated it into “Lipsa de prea mult interes” (= the lack of too much interest), but then the translation would have lost the uniformity the source text has, starting each line with the continuous form. Therefore, to keep it uniform and have it sound natural, I chose the Romanian present simple and started each line with “că” (=for/because/that). I felt this was the best way to be faithful to the source text (by keeping the list of things uniform, not grammatically) and have the translation sound natural in Romanian as well.
Another challenge was translating “When I was in my teens and twenties”, because there is no perfect equivalent for “teens and twenties” in Romanian and my translation, “Când eram adolescentă și când aveam douăzeci și ceva de ani”, translated back into English would be “When I was a teenager and when I was twenty-something”, which I felt is quite close to the original meaning, but sounds more complicated than “teens and twenties”.
I also did something similar translating “In my thirties and forties” – “La vârsta de treizeci, patruzeci și ceva de ani” would be translated back into English as “At the age of thirty, forty-something”. When I first read “says the (grand)mother” I thought “wow, this one is going to be hard”, because the term most often used in Romanian to refer to grandmothers is “bunica” and it does not contain the idea of the “mother”. Then, I remembered the term “mama-mare”, which means grandmother and would be literally translated as “big-mother” (or even “elderly mother”). It is much less often used, but everybody knows it, and it was the best option here, since I had to emphasize the fact that the grandmother is a mother. However, using brackets for “mare” (=big) would not have made sense in Romanian and that is why I chose to write “mama” (=mother) in italic.
Other slight challenges I faced were translating certain words or expressions that do not have perfect equivalents in Romanian, but I eventually found the right way to translate them. For example, I translated “They let their children be” as “Le-au dat pace copiilor lor”, meaning “they gave their children peace”, because the Romanian language does not have a perfect equivalent for letting someone be. Another instance would be that where I translated “never, ever, ever”. There is no such thing as “never ever” in Romanian, so I had to go with “absolut niciodată”, which would be “absolutely never” in English.