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March 2, 2006
[Books] [Humor] Laugh in a second language "Everything is illuminated": a story told in fluid English
I just finished Everything is illuminated, and I can say that it is the second best book I ever read in English. The first was Twelve Stories of Russia by A. J. Perry. "The first" in chronological order, I don't want to compare them and to decide which I like more, I like them both. And there is something similar in them, maybe narrator's voice. It's a voice of a stranger struggling to make sense out of incomprehensible world, sorting it into inadequate categories. The resulting makeshift meaning, while far from perfect or refined, still allows life to continue. The story is told by Alex (Alexander) Perchov, an Ukrainian student, whose fathers works for a travel agency. When a father's client, an American Jew visiting Ukraine, needs an interpreter, the father looks no further than his own son and promptly assigns him the mission. "Alex," he said, "what was the language you studied this year at school?" "The language of English," I told him. "Are you good and fine at it?" he asked me. "I am fluid," I told him. ... "Excellent, Alex. Excellent. You must nullify any plans you possess for the first week of the month of July." It is Alex's "fluid" English, the story is narrated in. When reading it, I wondered if native English speakers would find the text hilarious. Because I did not laugh. Not that I was offended, far from it, I wish I could laugh. I remember reading a detective story written by a Polish author. One of the story's heroes is not a native speaker of Polish. The book was translated into Russian, so don't know how funny it was in original, but I laughed until tears run down my cheeks. And I must admit that when I once received a letter from somebody for whom Russian was a foreign language, I laughed just as hard. I don't think there was any arrogance or feeling of superiority in this laugh, the text was so hilarious that it transcended any human foibles. So I felt frustrated that I can't get a good laugh reading a humor-wise similar story in English. You need much more intimate relationship with a language, for being able to use it for anything besides merely getting a message. Here is a question for you. If you are a native speaker of English, does this scene make you laugh? And if you aren't, I still wonder if it makes you laugh. Alex meets his client for the first time: He must have witnessed the sign I was holding, because he punched me on the shoulder and said, "Alex?" I told him yes. "You're my translator, right?" I asked him to be slow, because I could not understand him. In truth I was manufacturing a brick wall of shits. I attempted to be sedate. "Lesson one. Hello. How are you doing this day?" "What?" "Lesson two. Ok, isn't the weather full of delight?" "You're my translator," he said, manufacturing movements, "yes?" "Yes," I said presenting him my hand. "I am Alexander Perchov. I am your humble translator." To be continued... Thanks for your response! Actually, "Lesson one" and "unbelievable" kind of humor appear one once -- in the very paragraph I quoted. I had a feeling that is especially "fucking unbelievable" is a cheap shot, and it's unfair to quote it because it doesn't represent the text, really, and still I quoted it, for the sake of completeness, I guess... Here is another excerpt: When we arrived at the car, Grandfather was loitering with patience as father ordered him to. He was very patient. He was snoring. He was snoring with such volume that the hero and I could hear him even though the windows were elevated, and it sounded as if the car was operating. "This is our driver," I said. "He is an expert at driving." I observed distress in the smile of our hero. This was the second time. It had been four minutes. "Is he OK?" he asked. "What?" I said. "I do not make to understand. Speak more slower, please." I may have appeared noncompetent to our hero. "Is... the... dri... ver... heal... thy?" "With certainty," I said. "But I must tell you, I am very familiar with this driver. He is my grandfather." At this moment, Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior made herself evident, because she humped up from the back seat and barked in volumes. "Oh Jesus Christ!" the hero said with terror, and he moved distant from the car. "Do not be distressed," I informed him as Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior punched her head against the window. "That is only our driver's Seeing Eye bitch." I pointed to the shirt that she was donning, but she had masticated the major of it, so that it only said OFFICIOUS BITCH. "She is deranged," I said, "but so playful."
Comment from Map on March 4, 2006 1:47:52 AM PST
this is fantastic! i love this kind of humor, and when depressed, there's nothing like opening a randome internet site and using an automatic translator on it. i must say though, that the "unbelievable" part does seem a cheap shot, and the whole quote is a bit inconsistent, as already has been pointed out.
to answer your question: i am not a native english speaker (was born in russia), but i could feel the intended humor, and it did amuse me, though not very much in this particular case.
you mentioned a polish detective, may i ask for the details?
by the way, i love Lem for this very reason: he is so great at inventing languages and words that convey the meaning, but sound funny.
Comment from Nataly on July 11, 2006 2:57:12 AM PDT
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The excerpt is too short to make tears come down my cheeks, but it still is long enough to inspire three different kinds of laughs.
The "manufacturing" line is funny; I guess mistranslated idioms are always funny. This is the kind of humor you can manufacture yourself using Babelfish: type in some idiomatic text, translate to some other language, then to a third, and then back. Almost always funny. This is the transcendent humor you spoke of. We're laughing at language and its infinite variety.
Then there is the "Lesson one" part. The humor there is that the translator is like Searle's "Chinese Room." He doesn't really know English -- he's just repeating things he heard without any understanding. This is a little hard to believe, given the rest of the passage. It feels like a cheap shot, an easy laugh for the author. We're laughing more at the speaker.
Then there's the "unbelievable" line. This is yet a different kind of humor. Here, the speaker doesn't understand an idiom, and we feel he's terribly naive in his guessed meaning. We're laughing at his naivete, again, more at him than with him. This humor is really unrelated to language; you could laugh the same way if he saw a used condom in the gutter and thought it was a discarded balloon.
But what do I know.