Induction of the Artist Professors, 22 October 2008  

Newly appointed professors Kersti Juva, Olli Koponen and Kenneth Kvarnström. Photo Johanna Viljakainen/STT Info Kuva

 

Kersti Juva
Side by Side in Pursuit of Truth

Everyone knows translation is impossible. A translation can never match the original.
A translation is always a distortion - if not blurred, then prettied. A translated book is like counterfeit money: it resembles the original, but it isn't.

I'm not one for conspiracy theories. I don't believe that hiding the translator's name in tiny print somewhere on the back of the title page, where it was the custom to put it when I began translating, or omitting it entirely, as was common a hundred years ago, results from a desire to persecute translators. It stems rather from the view that a translation is a poorer version of the original: warped, wanting, flawed. So the smartest thing is to make the translator's role as invisible as possible and create the illusion that the reader holds in her hands the original.

Art is not created from such a base. …I have more than once been asked when I will write a book of my own, though I don't remember hearing the question again in this millennium.
For me, translating into Finnish is the only opportunity I have to express myself as an artist. There is nothing secondary, frustrated or lesser about it.

***

I believe that communication between human beings is fundamentally a question of formulating the truth. I have drawn help with this concept from Hans-Georg
Gadamer. The speech act involves two parties, the speaker and the listener, and only when the listener has understood (preferably correctly) what the speaker has said, does communication take place. A literary work seeks a person in order to say something to him or her, and that something becomes reality only when the book and the reader come together. I particularly like Gadamer's view that communication has a tendency to succeed; with good will the listener figures out even a difficult message.

At a literary event a month ago, Professor Arto Haapala gave a talk titled If art is indeed true. I think he nailed the core of the matter when he spoke about the nature of literature. He said something like this: good literature is always in one way or another true, because it gives us a believable picture of some aspect of human reality. Good literature deals with relevant, meaningful themes in human terms. Some of these are related to current issues, some to human existence in general (love, the question of good and evil, power and its usage, death).

A written text tries to reach the reader personally in order to say something. Literature involves a joint effort to understand and express the truth - you might call it a truth bee, with both the writer and the reader as participants. The message, of course, is attached to the words, it is neither behind nor beneath them, nor can it be separated into an explanation. But I believe that it can be transferred into different words in a different language. With the help of the translator, the writer can reach a reader who does not know the writer's language. If this is so, translation is not only possible, but imperative.
***
My professor father would be proud of me today. On the medal created in honor of my father is his motto: magis amica veritas, a greater friend is truth. He put his motto into practice as a clergyman, politician and scholar. I am trying to do the same in the realm of art.

I discovered the joy of reading early on. As soon as I could read fluently, I began to devour the books at home and to demand books for Christmas and birthday presents. I was perhaps nine years old when our nanny took me to the library. I stared speechless at the rows of shelves: so many books, so many worlds in which to lose myself!

Writing began to interest me in high school. At Kallio High School in Helsinki we had a charismatic language arts teacher, Viljo Tervonen. I was as infatuated with grammar as with literature, and I waited feverishly for what Ville would say of my essays. Then I ran into a problem. I had a compulsion to write, but nothing to say!

I have no imagination. My head does not produce stories, fates, characters.
On top of all that, I am a poor observer and cannot handle long threads of thought.
I see one thing at a time and focus on it, and everything else fades to grey.

I began studying Finnish language and literature at the University of Helsinki. In the university coffee shop I met a friend who took me with her to a class on translating into Finnish. I was 22 years old. Everything snapped into place. An art form exists that matches my talents. A way exists to read and write at the same time. I don't need to have something of my own to say. I can be part of this group effort, this bee, as both reader and writer, by saying what others have already said in another language.

I had taken "long English" in school, because Latin was not offered to girls in Finland as
a long language option. In retrospect I guess that was lucky. I began studying English at the university, realized that a language is extremely difficult to understand detached from its community, and began to spend longer and longer periods in Britain.

My lack of imagination turned out to be an advantage: because I cannot imagine, I don't insert my own thoughts, and I lose myself in the world of the book. Weak observation skills also turned into a gain: since I don't see the trees, I notice the forest. And thinking too analytically is harmful to translating. Instinctively and subconsciously one perceives more broadly. Translating can be described more or less like this: I dress myself in the original text and start to imitate the author's gestures and movements in Finnish.

When you have something to say, you find the words. My instrument is the Finnish language, and within the language, I am interested in how to use it to express meanings. I am convinced that the language features that are called stylistic, such as tone,
rhythm and register, also carry meaning. A bad translation chugs along beside the meaning of the words, closer or farther away from them, and demands an enormous amount of good will and guesswork from the reader. A good translation is one link in the truth bee.

***

Dear listeners. I want to thank you for your belief that translation is artistic work, a belief to which my appointment bears witness. In the next five years I hope to be able to translate good books well. I also intend to seize all available opportunities to continue teaching. The third field I have already begun to plow is writing about translation.
If I can bear to steal time from translating, I would like to read what others have written on the subject, collect my own thoughts and see if I come up with something useful to say.

(translated by JillTimbers)