The Real Liza Marklund 2 - update

Liza Marklund's Annika Bengtzon novel, Studio Sex has been re-released in a new English translation, Exposed.

Here is the first paragraph in the original Swedish:

Det första hon såg var trosorna som hängde i en buske. De vajade knappt märkbart, lyste laxrosa mot den ångande grönskan. Hennes omedelbara reaktion var ilska. Att de unga inte kunde visa respekt för någonting. Inte ens de döda fick vila i frid.

In the first English translation, Studio 69, this is given as:

When she saw the salmon-pink panties hanging from a bush, her first reaction was one of outrage. Didn't young people respect anything these days? Not even the dead were allowed to rest in peace.

Exposed begins:

The first thing she saw was the pair of knickers hanging from a bush. They were swaying gently, their salmon pink standing out against the lush greenery. Her immediate reaction was anger. Young people had no respect for anything! They couldn't even let the dead rest in peace.

Paragraph three reads

Hunden släppte en stångkorv i gräset intill staketet. Hon vände bort blicken och låtsades inte se. Ingen var ute så här dags. Varför hålla på att hyckla med påsen?

S69: "The dog took a shit in the high grass next to the fence. She turned away, pretending not to see. No people were around this early in the morning..."

Exp: "The dog did a little sausage in the grass next to the railings. She looked away and pretended she hadn't seen. There was no one about at this time of day."

Without being too indelicate about this, korv means sausage... but stångkorv is a big, round sausage that hangs from the ceiling in a butchers shop.

My expert source feels the Studio 69 translation is more faithful to the original Swedish, but she also considers Marklund not to be the most elegant of writers. My impression is that for Exposed Neil Smith has been asked to provide a translation that improves on the original, or at least, one that is more engaging for an English reader.

Laxrosa is a straightforward translation - lax is salmon, rosa is pink - but doesn't laxrosa sound so much better than salmon-pink? 

Comments

[Dorte H]

This post supports one of my prejudices: some journalists are deft plotters but not exactly brilliant at writing prose. It also supports another theory of mine: some British translators improve the original language.

[Maxine]

What crime fiction is beautifully written, in a literary sense? Very little. It is popular fiction and engages/arouses the emotions, makes you think a little bit, but basically it is storytelling and not high literature. Occasionally there is a bit of a touch of it (Peter Temple) but even with the crime novels that are beautifully written they are always undermined by the needs of the plotting (eg Truth by Temple is a masterfully written book, well worth its literary award, but still the "crime plot" ending is pure genre).

I know views differ about this and have been extensively aired everywhere, but crime fiction is not literature, in my view. Liza M's Paradise, for example, is a great campaigning novel about abuse of trafficked women but although it sticks in your mind it probably would not win literary awards in Swedish or whoever translated it.

I agree with Dorte that this journalist is a deft plotter but not that they all are! And some are very good at writing prose (eg Gene Kerrigan). Many of the best writers learned their craft as journalists, going back in history too.

[Philip]

I think I value characterisation over plot, which is one of the reasons I like Marklund. I feel I know Annika well - I think I used to work with her! - and I certainly know Kurt Wallander well enough to forgive Henning Mankell's sometimes less than masterful plotting.

It is nice, though, when a writer can do both - step forward (journalist) Johan Theorin...

[Maxine]

Agreed totally on Theorin!

I also feel as if I know Annika - working for a busy international science and science news magazine, and also having had two daughters and continuing to work full time throughout. The author totally "gets" what that is all about.

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