Briefly following up on Tobias’ post below: DeLong has re-thought and amended his remarks on G?nter Grass.
(Thanks, Henry, for the pointer.)
For what it’s worth, I didn’t think much of the translation that DeLong had to go on. It’s serviceable, but it loses Grass’ rhythm, tone and more. Just as one example, it translates Dummkopf as “naive.” Considering that sentence is the one that talks about 17-year-old Grass’ belief in German victory in 1945, using a word as soft as “naive” could easily lead to a false impression among people not already familiar with his history. Why not just leave in Dummkopf? I think that most New York Times readers have a pretty clear idea what the word means. If it had to be translated, why not “idiot” or “fool”?
I don’t want to tear the translation apart, but between the timing issues that Tobias raises and the mediocre translation, misunderstandings about what Grass was up to by people who don’t know his work that well become much more comprehensible.
This might be a valid explanation if Brad had given the article a semblance of a fair reading. But it’s quite apparent from the sections he didn’t cross out that his modus operandi was to get pissed off, then to go back and scan the article for even the flimsiest support for his preconceived notion. The translation might have been sloppy, but to blame it for Brad’s outburst is to blame the flea for the rabid dog.