Thread by @translationtalk

My translation of another novel opening, this one from Portuguese. This is the first short paragraph of “The Society of Reluctant Dreamers”, by José Eduardo Agualusa, which comes out later this year.
[1/23]

“Acordei muito cedo. Vi através da estreita janela passarem compridas aves negras. Sonhara com elas. Era como se tivessem saltado do meu sonho para o céu, um papel de seda azul-escuro, húmido, com um bolor amargo crescendo nos cantos.” So, quick first draft?
[2/23]

“I woke up very early. I saw through the narrow window long, black AVES passing. I had dreamed about them. It was as if they had jumped from my dream to the sky, a piece of PAPEL DE SEDA [tissue-paper?] that was dark blue, damp, with a bitter mould growing in the corners.”
[3/23]

Two things in capitals (I always do this): (1) need to double-check PAPEL DE SEDA; I *think* it’s what we’d call tissue paper, but I’m never sure. And (2) work out AVE – it means ‘bird’, but don’t know how Engl might differentiate b/w ‘ave’ and ‘pássaro’. (Do I need to?)
[4/23]

That 2nd sentence is a mess. Turn it round: “Through the narrow window” should start. And “I saw long, black birds passing”? I don’t like the verb. More natural “flying past”? (Port. doesn’t say they’re flying, but I think fair to assume that flight is what’s happening.)
[5/23]

Extra benefit of reversing sentence two: it avoids 3 consecutive I’s. (Port doesn’t always need pronouns, so Eng translations often throw up this problem.) “I woke up very early” is fine in itself, but you’re in trouble the moment you then launch into “I saw…”
[6/23]

Third sentence looks fine! (I quite like “dreamt” rather than “dreamed”, but don’t know if publisher will let me?) For the fourth, I prefer “as though” to “as if”. I have no idea why, so DON’T ASK.

So “It was as though they had …” But as though they had *what*?
[7/23]

"Jumped” is OK. “Leaped” would be better – it gives that moment and that image a lovely burst of energy. (Also ‘leaped’ is a word I like. So there.) And continuing that energy rush, perhaps leaped UP INTO the sky is stronger?
[8/23]

"a piece of tissue-paper that was dark blue, damp” – that’s rather lifeless. The “that was” feels like syntactical scaffolding. And there’s no reason the adjectives should be after the noun – they’re only that way here because that’s how they have to be in Portuguese.
[9/23]

So “dark blue, damp tissue-paper”. Or “damp, dark blue tissue-paper”? Better. (Tho’ I’m not 100% sure about the two adjacent d’s.) I’d like to hyphenate dark-blue – it’s a single adjective, not two. (Agualusa has made it a hyphenated compound adjective himself.)
[10/23]

But then I have “dark-blue tissue-paper”, and those two hyphenated pairs look peculiar together. Can I get away without the second? A piece of damp, dark-blue tissue paper? Or – better! – a damp piece of dark-blue tissue paper. (Avoids those repeated d’s, too.) So…
[11/23]

"I woke up very early. Through the narrow window, I saw long, black birds passing. I had dreamed about them. It was as though they had leaped from my dream up into the sky, a damp piece of dark-blue tissue paper, with a bitter mould growing in the corners.”
[12/23]

Hmm, now unsure about that comma after “paper” – the Port. has a pause I could respect, but then the Port *has* to have it because the adjective follows the noun. Better as one big para-concluding phrase in English: tissue paper with a bitter mould growing in the corners?
[13/23]

Oh, just occurs to me: this translation is being done, in the first instance, for a publisher in the US, so it’s “mold” rather than “mould”.

Two last (?) things I notice: …
[14/23]

… (1) at a glance, when I look at “black birds” I see “blackbirds”, which isn’t an association that’s supposed to be there. If I think of a clever way of avoiding this, I’ll change it, otherwise I’ll just leave it and hope nobody notices. (Don’t tell anyone.) And...
[15/23]

(2) that repeated “dreamed”/“dream” caught my eye, too. It comes from “sonhara” and “sonho”, in the original though the *sounds* of the two are closer in Eng. (The Port. words are stressed on different syllables.) A good argument for “dreamt”? Or am I worrying too much?
[16/23]

I do worry about sound, though - “dreamed” and “dream” bother me not b/c they look alike on the page but because they sound alike to the ear. I think even when we’re reading to ourselves, we often read aloud *in our heads* – if that makes sense? – so sounds always matter.
[17/23]

BUT the book is about dreaming (dreamers are in the title), so if we’re going to have any word repeated at the start, this is it. Perhaps that little chiming echo is useful? I’ll stand my ground, and keep it. (For now.)
[18/23]

But talking about sound, that reminds me – now I read this aloud. And it sounds good. Except I’d like it all just a tiny fraction *tighter*. So…
[19/23]

I mark a trim: “woke up”=>“woke”. And “I had” can be “I’d”, just once. (2nd "had" can stay.) And I’ve somehow landed myself with 2 commas in sentence two where the Port runs through with none, so I’m deleting one of mine. Oh, & surely you grow mould rather than *a* mould?
[20/23]

This, incidentally, is a writer I so love translating. It’s our sixth book together, and I feel like he has a pretty well-established English voice we’ve developed over the years. So it’s a voice I sort of *recognise* now. And this, I think, is how I’d like him to sound:
[21/23]

“I woke very early. Through the narrow window, I saw long black birds fly past. I’d dreamed about them. It was as though they had leaped from my dream up into the sky, a damp piece of dark-blue tissue paper with bitter mold growing in the corners.”
[22/23]

Yes! End of paragraph one. And so the novel begins!
I love it when this works out. (Translating is pretty fun when it does.)
[23/23]

(Then it passes into the hands of my brilliant editors at @archipelagobks and @HarvillSecker for their input. Prompted by @anotheriain's earlier question, we can perhaps discuss editing a bit tomorrow?)