“A distortive glass of our distorted glebe”: mistranslation in Nabokov’s Ada

Juliette Taylor

doi:10.52034/lanstts.v4i.141

Abstract

This article examines the theme of mistranslation in Nabokov ’s Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle in the context of the novel’s multilingual style. Focusing on a selection of deliberate mistranslations carried out by the cen-tral protagonists, Van and Ada Veen, the article demonstrates that such playful mistranslation serves a function that is much more significant than mere parody. Though, on the surface, the mistranslations parody those forms of ‘paraphrastic’ or ‘free’ translation that Nabokov and his cha racters consistently critique throughout Ada, each instance of deliberately ‘bad’ translation also contains extremely inventive forms of interlingual mutation and play which have aesthetically-productive defamiliarising effects. The article relates those instances of explicit mistranslation to the overall style of the novel, arguing that problems of interlingual transfer and communication are intrinsic to the multilingual aesthetic of the novel as a whole.

Highlights

Multilingualism is central to Nabokov’s oeuvre: a translator and self-translator as well as writer, his decision, half-way through his career, to abandon his “untrammeled, rich, and infinitely docile Russian tongue” in favour of what he rather artfully describes as “a second-rate brand of English” (Nabokov 2000a: 316-317) leads him to make increasing use of multilingual forms of defamiliarisation in his fiction
The novel brutally parodies the practice of Juliette Taylor liberal or ‘readerly’ translation: its very first sentence, as Nabokov’s anagrammatic alter-ego “Vivian Darkbloom” informs us, parodies “mistranslations of Russian classics” (Ada 463), and, throughout the novel, its main protagonists revel in parodic processes of interlingual mutation and intentional mistranslation
For example, engages in a series of translations of English and French texts; examining a selection of these, we find that, besides their clear parodic function, they gesture towards some more aesthetically-productive effects of interlingual mutation

Summary

Introduction

Multilingualism is central to Nabokov’s oeuvre: a translator and self-translator as well as writer, his decision, half-way through his career, to abandon his “untrammeled, rich, and infinitely docile Russian tongue” in favour of what he rather artfully describes as “a second-rate brand of English” (Nabokov 2000a: 316-317) leads him to make increasing use of multilingual forms of defamiliarisation in his fiction Such thematic and stylistic concern with interlingual contact reaches its apotheosis in the notoriously difficult Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle, a novel that has itself been described as “a gigantic translation” (Cancogni 1985: 251). Reflects a profound ambivalence in Nabokov’s attitude to interlingual contact: though, thematically, the novel reflects Nabokov’s own extreme disdain for semantic inaccuracy in translation, its very style, as this article will demonstrate, is dependent upon complex processes of interlingual mutation and intentional mistranslation Throughout his oeuvre, Nabokov’s fictional treatment of translation tends to highlight the incommensurability of different languages, and the failure of complete and effective interlingual communication. For example, engages in a series of translations of English and French texts; examining a selection of these, we find that, besides their clear parodic function, they gesture towards some more aesthetically-productive effects of interlingual mutation

Ada’s mistranslations

Intertextual mutations

Multilingual defamiliarisation

The “syncopal kick” of exile

Conclusion