How Language Translators Recreated One Hand Clapping

Taking into consideration that fact that the idiolect invented by Antony Burgess in his writing is a language that was never known, we may say that it is both peculiar and innovative. In his works Burgess did not intend to mime any dialect or jargon and he did not show what the factual processes occurring in the language were, either. Rather, English was made to experience a penetration that it has never undergone before. Feliciano Puerto, the translator who translated some of Burgess’s work for the Spanish Translator, made use of the Americanized slang used by Spanish teenagers, which is his governing principle. The combination of English and other languages does not point to the fact that English would one day sound like other languages, which was Burgess’s presumption. The language and the plot of A Clockwork Orange (growing cruelty and audacity of youth hoodlums) are treated by the translator as valid forecasts about what is to be expected in our modern society and Alex’s dialect is indicative of this, as it serves as a prophecy that transfers the novel to our cultural environment.

Burgess turns out to present considerable difficulties to both his translators and readers primarily owing to his linguistic inventiveness, which explains why he is not so widely read. Fortunately, A Clockwork Orange was adapted for the cinema by Stanley Kubrick, which gained Antony Burgess a cult status. Moreover, this is supported by the fact that right at the start of his career as a writer in 1962, Burgess’s work was divided into periods. The periods can be divided into: “the exotic period” – the first one, the “repatriate” – the second one and the “fantastic” period is the third one, which means that The Wanting Seed and A Clockwork orange belong to the third period. Throughout the world people are familiar in most cases with the “fantastic period” – the other two being less familiar. The information of Burgesses literary legacy is somewhat misleading as only few of his works are translated and published. The majority of translators had to use Certified New York Translation Services companies in order to obtain the right to translate his books. They concentrated on only one novel, as this was difficult, and were forced to ignore the rest of his works. Antony Burgess is incorrectly referred to as the author of one book – A Clokwork Orange, mainly due to the fact that only a selection of his novels has been translated. Unfortunately, Burgess’s vast heritage is either neglected or translated badly; for example One Hand Clapping was ideologically manipulated, while A Clockwork Orange had to go through some arguably appropriate linguistic experiments.

It is also worth taking into consideration the fact that Burgess is termed by the critics as an alternative author. This is proved by the fact that The Wanting Seed, which views the future quite controversially, is hard to find, while A Clockwork Orange was censored because of presenting the underground world of ultra-violence and for this it tastes like a forbidden fruit. One Hand Clapping that was translated into French by the French Translation is a reminder of propagandist literature and is tempting to those who are interested in the devices used to manipulate. For all of these reasons we might assume that though Burgess’s work was outside the mainstream, he can be considered as an author of experimental fiction.

Tagged with: book • novel • writing

Filed under: Uncategorized

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!