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.
Toto sú veci, ktoré deti otcom (časom) odpustia:
Chodenie von.
Neskoré príchody domov.
Zápach po alkohole.
Čítanie novín.
Pozeranie televízie.
Sledovanie žien na obrazovke so zasneným pohľadom plným túžby.
Nezáujem, malý určite.
Dôležitejšie veci na práci.
Toto sú veci, ktoré deti matkám nikdy, ale nikdy neodpustia:
Chodenie von.
Neskoré príchody domov.
Zápach po alkohole.
Čítanie novín.
Sledovanie televízie.
Sledovanie žien na obrazovke so zasneným pohľadom plným túžby.
Nezáujem, malý určite.
Dôležitejšie veci na práci.
Keď som bola tínedžerka či dvadsiatnička, dievčatá sa rady sťažovali na svoju matku – napriek tomu, že tieto ženy nám a našej výchove obetovali život. Nikdy však nebolo v móde sťažovať sa na otcov, ak teda neboli celý čas v náleve. Najhoršie na tom bolo, že jedinú reakciu, ktorú z nás otcovia vedeli dostať, bolo len tiché krčenie ramenami. Zrejme preto, že oni sami sa na inú reakciu nikdy nezmohli.
A čo dnešní muži? Niektorí otcovia trávia s deťmi polovicu svojho času, možno aj viac. Menia plienky a spievajú uspávanky. Budeme o dvadsať rokov potrebovať nové psychologické postupy pre budúcich dospelých? Je možné, že o dvadsať či viac rokov zistíme, že na vine sú starostliví otcovia, a nie starostlivé matky?
Pochybujem.
Pár takýchto osočovaných matiek som už stretla a s radosťou ich pozorujem. Niektoré z nich, prekvapivo, vyzerajú naozaj bezcitne. Väčšina je však celkom milá. Alebo obyčajná. Či dokonca nudná.
Nudná matka? Také niečo predsa neexistuje. Je zvláštne, že matky ako skupinu vnímame len ako kypré kôpky starostí a lásky, a podráždenosti, a všednosti. Samostatne sme však úplne všetkým. Kde medzi týmito extrémami stojí ľudská bytosť?
V tridsiatke a štyridsiatke sa mnoho dcér na matky už toľko nesťažuje. Chodia spolu nakupovať, rozprávajú sa o kuchynských linkách a robia všetky veci, ktoré bežne robíte s kamoškou a dokonca ešte viac. A matky, neviem čo spravili, ale tiež sa zmenili. Nechali deťom priestor. Prestali bojovať. Ako keby si každá strana vydobyla vlastnú cestu a pri vzájomnom pohľade si uvedomili...
Teraz, keď som matkou, utešuje ma pohľad na dosiahnutý kompromis medzi MATKOU v našich mysliach a medzi ženou, ktorá nás vychovala. Keď má dcéra vlastné deti, táto cesta vedie k akémusi nádhernému záveru. ,,Teraz už rozumieš,” povie (stará) mama. ,,Teraz už chápeš.” Presne po tomto tak veľmi túžia – rovnako ako tínedžeri, potrebujú pochopenie. Potrebujú skončiť s obviňovaním.
Beriem si bábätko domov a pozerám sa na svojich rodičov inými očami. Otec rád pozoruje malé deti – proste len to. Nerád ich vyrušuje alebo im hovorí, čo majú robiť. Nerád ich desí, jednoducho tomu neverí. Mama však bábätká zbožňuje. Niektoré ženy nie, ale ona áno. Aj keď sú ešte malinké, čerstvo narodené a ufňukané a ledva sa dajú nazývať človekom. Jej láska je emotívnejšia ako otcova. Môže ju až zraniť. Viem, že moja radosť pramení odtiaľ – z poznania, že lepšia časť môjho materstva sa skladá z matkinej vášne a z otcovej láskavej pozornosti.
Istá žena sa ma spýtala: „Budeš mať s dcérou ten typický vzťah, ktorý mávajú matky a dcéry?” Vidieť na nej, že to by považovala za vhodný trest. Svet rodičom rád pripomína, že čoskoro sa všetko pokazí.
Dcérka má osemnásť mesiacov a ja rozmýšľam nad tým, ako každé objatie zahŕňa vykrúcanie sa. Obsedí mi na kolenách , kým jej spievam. Hladí ma po tvári, ale keď je na ňu tej lásky priveľa, odtiahne sa, odtlačí ma alebo kope, a ja nervózne premýšľam nad dňom jej štrnástich narodenín.
A tiež má priame, chcené-nechcené údery lakťom a skvelú mušku.
A čo synovia? Sú rovnakí?
Anne Enright, ‘Unforgiven’ in Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood, London: Vintage, 2005, 152-54.
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.
Toto sú veci, ktoré deti otcom (časom) odpustia:
Chodenie von.
Neskoré príchody domov.
Zápach po alkohole.
Čítanie novín.
Pozeranie televízie.
Sledovanie žien na obrazovke so zasneným pohľadom plným túžby.
Nezáujem, malý určite.
Dôležitejšie veci na práci.
Toto sú veci, ktoré deti matkám nikdy, ale nikdy neodpustia:
Chodenie von.
Neskoré príchody domov.
Zápach po alkohole.
Čítanie novín.
Sledovanie televízie.
Sledovanie žien na obrazovke so zasneným pohľadom plným túžby.
Nezáujem, malý určite.
Dôležitejšie veci na práci.
Keď som bola tínedžerka či dvadsiatnička, dievčatá sa rady sťažovali na svoju matku – napriek tomu, že tieto ženy nám a našej výchove obetovali život. Nikdy však nebolo v móde sťažovať sa na otcov, ak teda neboli celý čas v náleve. Najhoršie na tom bolo, že jedinú reakciu, ktorú z nás otcovia vedeli dostať, bolo len tiché krčenie ramenami. Zrejme preto, že oni sami sa na inú reakciu nikdy nezmohli.
A čo dnešní muži? Niektorí otcovia trávia s deťmi polovicu svojho času, možno aj viac. Menia plienky a spievajú uspávanky. Budeme o dvadsať rokov potrebovať nové psychologické postupy pre budúcich dospelých? Je možné, že o dvadsať či viac rokov zistíme, že na vine sú starostliví otcovia, a nie starostlivé matky?
Pochybujem.
Pár takýchto osočovaných matiek som už stretla a s radosťou ich pozorujem. Niektoré z nich, prekvapivo, vyzerajú naozaj bezcitne. Väčšina je však celkom milá. Alebo obyčajná. Či dokonca nudná.
Nudná matka? Také niečo predsa neexistuje. Je zvláštne, že matky ako skupinu vnímame len ako kypré kôpky starostí a lásky, a podráždenosti, a všednosti. Samostatne sme však úplne všetkým. Kde medzi týmito extrémami stojí ľudská bytosť?
V tridsiatke a štyridsiatke sa mnoho dcér na matky už toľko nesťažuje. Chodia spolu nakupovať, rozprávajú sa o kuchynských linkách a robia všetky veci, ktoré bežne robíte s kamoškou a dokonca ešte viac. A matky, neviem čo spravili, ale tiež sa zmenili. Nechali deťom priestor. Prestali bojovať. Ako keby si každá strana vydobyla vlastnú cestu a pri vzájomnom pohľade si uvedomili...
Teraz, keď som matkou, utešuje ma pohľad na dosiahnutý kompromis medzi MATKOU v našich mysliach a medzi ženou, ktorá nás vychovala. Keď má dcéra vlastné deti, táto cesta vedie k akémusi nádhernému záveru. ,,Teraz už rozumieš,” povie (stará) mama. ,,Teraz už chápeš.” Presne po tomto tak veľmi túžia – rovnako ako tínedžeri, potrebujú pochopenie. Potrebujú skončiť s obviňovaním.
Beriem si bábätko domov a pozerám sa na svojich rodičov inými očami. Otec rád pozoruje malé deti – proste len to. Nerád ich vyrušuje alebo im hovorí, čo majú robiť. Nerád ich desí, jednoducho tomu neverí. Mama však bábätká zbožňuje. Niektoré ženy nie, ale ona áno. Aj keď sú ešte malinké, čerstvo narodené a ufňukané a ledva sa dajú nazývať človekom. Jej láska je emotívnejšia ako otcova. Môže ju až zraniť. Viem, že moja radosť pramení odtiaľ – z poznania, že lepšia časť môjho materstva sa skladá z matkinej vášne a z otcovej láskavej pozornosti.
Istá žena sa ma spýtala: „Budeš mať s dcérou ten typický vzťah, ktorý mávajú matky a dcéry?” Vidieť na nej, že to by považovala za vhodný trest. Svet rodičom rád pripomína, že čoskoro sa všetko pokazí.
Dcérka má osemnásť mesiacov a ja rozmýšľam nad tým, ako každé objatie zahŕňa vykrúcanie sa. Obsedí mi na kolenách , kým jej spievam. Hladí ma po tvári, ale keď je na ňu tej lásky priveľa, odtiahne sa, odtlačí ma alebo kope, a ja nervózne premýšľam nad dňom jej štrnástich narodenín.
A tiež má priame, chcené-nechcené údery lakťom a skvelú mušku.
A čo synovia? Sú rovnakí?
Anne Enright, ‘Unforgiven’ in Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood, London: Vintage, 2005, 152-54.
Translation commentary
Anna Slatinská and Barbora Vinczeová
As stated by the future translator Soňa Funtaľová, student of English and Slovak in the Department of English and American Studies (Faculty of arts, UMB), Anne Enright opens the article with a comparison of some actions, and mistakes which are tolerated in men but not in women. Although this comparison casts a bad light on men, the future translator perceives the author's language as one which doesn’t try to criticize or mock them. The comprehension of the short story and the overall message was crucial for elaborating the appropriate translation to Slovak language.
Soňa Funtaľová, the Slovak student of translation and interpreting, stated after the initial (first reading) of the text that she understood everything the author wanted to share. The text was according to her easy to read even when she didn't get the precise meaning of some words, she could understand it from the context. But later on when following with translation, she was surprised that the text was not as easy to transform and translate into another language as she initially thought it would be.
The translation of the beginning of the text was not demanding for the future translator in terms of semantics but in terms of morphology. The activities expressed by gerunds such as going, coming, smelling, looking, being and having are expressed by verbs in the source language. In the target language, it was sometimes not possible to use the same form of words, it sounded unnatural. Therefore, Soňa Funtaľová had to be more careful in her choice of words which she eventually succeeded in really well.
The most challenging part of the translation for Soňa, as we could have seen, was the stylization of the text. For example, the paragraph: “So what about New Men?” was divided by the translator into smaller units to understand the idea properly. To express the idea better and correctly, Soňa had to reorder the sentences slightly so as to accommodate the Slovak reader better. She used one sentence to describe how the men change the nappies and sang lullabies, and later she made a question about new psychology in twenty years.
Other problems were with individual words, such as the name of the short story itself. Unforgiven has no equivalent in Slovak dictionaries. The translator wanted to keep the one-word name of the text, but words with similar meanings in Slovak were neodpustiteľný (unforgivable in English) or nezabudnutý (unforgotten in English). In the end, she came up with the word Neodpustené, which is a literal translation, but it is not a commonly used word in Slovak. Other words and phrases, that were more difficult to translate were for example: in my teens and twenties, and in my thirties and forties which are not so common forms in Slovak. Then there were phrases such as shrugging silence and ungiving which have no required equivalent in dictionary. As equivalent to shrugging silence she used Slovak equivalent tiché krčenie ramenami, it’s literal translation in Slovak, but it is not used as a phrase.
Next problem to solve centred around the translation of participial adjective ungiving, which she mastered really well. Then there was the adjective passionate which has an exact equivalent in Slovak, but in this context, to express the relationship between the grandmother and the granddaughter, the equivalent was not appropriate, so she decided to use word emotívny – emotívnejší, in English it means emotive – more emotive.
To conclude, the translation of the Unforgiven from original English language to Slovak language by future translator Soňa Funtaľová was really successful given the nuances, peculiarities and other stylistic subtleties of Anne Enright´s short stories.