“Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies”
— Emily Dickinson
A translation can be perfectly readable and still leave something essential behind.
The sentences flow. The vocabulary is appropriate. The meaning is clear. Perhaps the English is even more elaborate, more polished, or more immediately accessible than the original. And yet, something doesn’t quite feel right.
The author seems to have changed.
Last month I explored how AI had changed the author’s intention in the translation of a passage from The House of Edrisis by Ghazaleh Alizadeh. The comparison between a translated passage by Rosa Jamali and the same passage translated by AI turned an expected yet surprising result.
مه تا نیمهٔ دریچه های قوسی پایین می آمد، به شیشه ها می سایید، می چرخید و رو به درختهای کاج و صنوبر می رفت
AI’s version: “The mist descended as far as the middle of the arched windows, brushed against the panes, swirled around, and moved toward the pine and poplar trees.”
This is one of the more subtle challenges in working with a translation. We are accustomed to asking whether the meaning has been conveyed accurately, whether the language is natural, and whether the text reads well. But there is another question worth asking: Does the author still sound like themselves?
Sometimes the answer is to change a word. Sometimes it is to restructure a sentence. And sometimes, perhaps more difficultly, it is to leave the sentence alone.
Gratitude for What Does Not Translate Easily
Dickinson asked us to tell the truth slant. This November, I’m grateful for the friction in my work: the sentences that resist, the typos that make me look twice, the silences between words that no machine has learned to hear. And I’m grateful to the authors who tell it slant, and to the translators and readers who stay close enough to notice.