“Not to be taken seriously”: irony’s echo in the Thai translations of Anna and the King of Siam and The Romance of the Harem

Abstract

“Readers should be reminded that this book was meant for pleasure reading, and not to be taken seriously,” announced Aw Sanidwong, the Thai translator of Anna and the King of Siam. The translator’s negative attitude toward the book by Anna Leonowens, Siam’s most “hated” woman, is hardly discreet. When translating the novels they disagree with, the translators’ fidelity to the source text, as well as the reliability of the translation, would naturally be questioned. To explain the disassociated voices of the translators, I use Theo Hermans’ concept of “irony’s echo” which treats this kind of translation as a form of irony. Translation that is done with a disapproving attitude problematizes the translator’s position, as well as the sociocultural discourses surrounding it. To illustrate, the Thai translations of Anna and the King of Siam, and The Romance of the Harem will be discussed. I argue that the Thai translations of the Anna Leonowens’ narratives can be seen as quotations, in which the quoter strategically avoids direct responsibility to the quoted texts, and such a position reveals “the transideological” function of irony which complexifies the relationship between the encroaching power of the West and resistance from the Thais as manifested in translation.