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On Recruiting Migrant Farmworkers

2008-05-30T11:28:00.000-07:00

The following is an excerpt from the previous posting.
Before examining the new and improved recruiting requirements, let us contemplate an instance of how the old and tried ones work, as I had the opportunity to experience first hand. Wanting to embrace the Simple Life, I assumed that given the chronic and permanently threatening shortage of harvest labor there must be a plethora of jobs in states such as Florida and as a prospective domestic worker I would be welcomed by all farmers who resort to the use of foreign labor only as a dire last resort. I expected an embarrassment of riches. Pondering whether picking tomatoes would be more or less rewarding than picking oranges, and unable to make up my mind, I decided to let the employers’ offers lure me to the most enticing job. At the Fort Lauderdale Public Library I asked about the resources for prospective harvesters. The starry-eyed reference librarian confessed ignorance. I was quite sure that somewhere there must be a thick binder, or even better, an endless online listing of jobs openings, and that this one information expert was simply uninformed. A second staff person, of a riper age, after giving me a long non-judgmental look from behind thick glasses, suggested that I consult the Work Force One web site. Work Force One has been contractually hired by the SWA to provide job placement services in the Fort Lauderdale area. Its web site was not very easy to navigate, but I used to be a seasoned researcher in my day and managed to find one (let me repeat with quiet force: ONE) job under the heading “farm labor”. It announced the opportunity of picking tomatoes in 33 positions at an undisclosed Private Sector establishment near Myakka City, FL US. This was also my first encounter with the as of yet mysterious “H2-A” program. The posting stipulated no minimum age, test, education or prior experience requirements, stating that

“workers must be physically able to work in hot, humid weather as well as cold weather in Winter [sic], with requisite physical strength and endurance to repeat the picking process rapidly, working skillfully [as in an unskilled job] with their hands, carrying a large number of sacks or tomato harvest buckets. General farm work will include lifting and moving plastic on rolls and other weighted [sic] items of 50 to 75 pounds or more frequently during the work day. Uneven footing in rows and soft soil will be encountered.”

I knew at once I was fully qualified. Point B of Job Description was somewhat less straightforward: “Adverse Effect Wage Rate of $8.56 per hour applies […] No Bonus. Many Piece Rates Apply: [a list of piece rates followed].” Was I supposed to be paid $8.56/hour just for showing up, and also, “$0.50 per 24 quart bucket and up”? For a prospective domestic unskilled worker, with no education requirements, the pubilshed formulation of this single most important aspect of a job is less than edifying. At the time I figured that if Mexicans are willing to leave their families for many months at a time for the prospect of this pay, it must be worth a try. The last line on the Work Force One site read: “To display more information including how to apply for this job, click the button below.” Upon clicking, I was informed that I must register with Work Force One before becoming worthy of further information. The registration pages contained the usual nine yards, education, previous employment, all utterly impertinent to the job order, which required little else beside the presence of four extremities in good working order, opposable thumbs and a dependable cardiovascular system. Next day I took two buses and within less than two hours I arrived at the Work Force One office in Fort Lauderdale. I failed to persuade the receptionist into just letting me apply for the job. If it says register, then register you must. So I did. Cowed by her staunchness, I took some license relating my education and work history, figured that some understatement is at least as pardonable, for the sake of obtaining gainful employment with the Anonymous Private Sector in Myakka City, FL US, as crossing the Rio Grande with a hired coyote. After having registered, I once again reached for the magic e-button: click to apply. But instead of an address, a phone number, or yet another form to fill out I got the stern injunction to go see a Placement Specialist, whatever that is. Why does a migrant farmworker need a specialist to place him, I didn’t know (now I do), but I went up to the same receptionist. She informed me that I am not yet fully qualified to see a placement specialist: I must be orientated first. This ritual of initiation is offered on certain days, and luckily tomorrow is one. And it was the third day. I showed up in a timely fashion (two buses, less than two hours one way). An affable lady gave us a slide show (Microsoft Powerpoint), from which I remember two resources we were informed of: a resumé writing wo rkshop (I did not need a resumé) and a dress-for-success workshop, with the availability of presentable clothing from charity (just how fancy ought a tomato picker to dress?). The other information was less useful. Having imbibed it qualified me to sign up for an interview with the much longed-for placement specialist who will presumably give me the name of the farm, its address and phone number. I signed up and waited. I sat for a half hour in the wrong row of chairs and had to be set straight. I moved to the right row, and waited some more. A kindly gentlemen sat next to me and tried to start a conversation. On the third day of my quest I was less genial than usual. Undaunted, Ed Rosario introduced himself as the Manager of the Work Force One Office, gave me his card and told me that he was concerned watching me wait for a long time. As if by magic, at this point my name was called. I moved to the cubicle of the kafkian placement specialist. I gave her the number (9270630) of the job order about which I came. Upon looking up my data in the computer she told me that she couldn’t help me, for my address was in Massachusetts, while Work Force One serves Florida. My protest summonned the supervisor, who reassured the specialist that even Yankees may be helped, or something to this effect. We were ready for phase two, to verify my eligibility for employment. She asked for my Social Security card. I avoid carrying that flimsy and minute document, but having foreseen that I shall be called upon to prove my lawful existence, I produced my passport. The specialist found this proof unacceptable. Again protests from my part, supervisor summonned again. Supervisor examines the whimsical document (cover portrait, pages landscape, then portrait), turns it this way and that, then asks: “How does this prove that you are an American citizen?” I point at the cover, then at the injunction of the Secretary of State printed on page one. Argument won. Supervisor departs, specialist turns to the screen, then dials a telephone number. No answer. She jots down a name, Chuck Hautot, just like this, no Job Title, no Farm Name, and a phone number, for me to try later. “Would you please print out for me the page from where you copied this?” “Not permitted.” I went to see Mr. Ed Rosario, the office manager, whom I was fortunate to have met earlier. He invited me into his office. I briefly mentioned the Specialist’s and the Supervisor’s conundrum with the US Passport and its virtues, and dwelled in more detail on the fruits of my three days’ labor: Chuck Hautot’s phone number, voicing my doubt that any job related information available at Work Force One should be classified. After a brief aparté with the Supervisor, Mr. Rosario gave me the requested printout and volunteered the following piece of further information. The sentence in the job order that read : “ALL QUALIFIED UNITED STATES DOMESTIC WORKERS (CITIZENS AND FOREIGN WORKERS WITH VALID WORK VISAS) INCLUDING MSFW AND NON-MSFW WORKERS MAY BE REFERRED”, by virtue of a confidential agreement, has the opposite meaning. Because it was typed ALL CAPS, this meant that the job SHOULD NOT be offered to domestic workers. “They [the employer, that is] are required to advertise the job, but they want to hire only H2-A foreign workers” (and this is how I first learned who H2-As are). If hitherto I genuinely wished to live the simple life, now I became positively keen on learning why there is no simple life on a Florida farm. My interest grew over time, lead me to read up on it and eventually write this.

If this narrative seems tedious it merely reflects the excruciating tediousness of my endeavor to find a job in a field where domestic workers are needed and missed. To resume.

This is where the narrative of my job search ends, and that of my employment with Grainger Farms, Inc. begins. I never picked a single tomato. On day four I spoke with Chuck Hautot, the Manager of the stilll unnamed farm. Rather than asking me anything, Mr. Hautot tried to dissuade me from the job his company was advertising. Having failed, he refused to help me getting to the farm. I purchased my own bus ticket and travelled hours across state to Bradenton. From there I had no means to continue my journey other than my own two feet. I walked several miles in the August heat and hitchhiked for another twenty (illegal in Florida). Once I arrived at the jobsite, Mr. Hautot flat-out refused to hire me. I spent the night until the return bus sitting at a picnic table at the Bradenton Greyhound station.

On Migrant Farmworkers ETA-2008-0001-0832

2008-05-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

Docket: ETA-2008-0001
Temporary Agricultural Employment of H-2A Aliens in the United States; Modernizing the Labor Certification Process and Enforcement
Comment On: ETA-2008-0001-0001
Tracking No. 804f8d52
Document: ETA-2008-0001-0832

General Comment

My own failed attempt to join the ranks of domestic migrant farmworkers aroused my interest in the very real problems surrounding this almost mythical population group and the attachment is the result of a modicum of thinking and reading about the broader context of my personal experience, which can be summarized thus: in seasonal farmwork domestic laborers find themselves at a huge competitive disadvantage to more docile H2-As.
In considering the proposed new rules I shall focus on general theoretical flaws with which this document is replete, that effectively ensure that its scope and aim are misguided. It distorts notions and capitalizes on false yet convenient and therefore widespread assumptions which lead to harmful results, both theoretical and empirical. Although its very title labels it as “modernizing” the proposed rule continues the time-honored practice established since the New Deal of excluding agricultural workers from the standard measures of labor rights and protection; less obviously, but no less perniciously, it relies on arguments whose spirit can be traced back to much older and wholly indefensible thought-patterns.

Comments of a Taxpayer

According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, to modernize means to “adapt to modern needs, taste, or usage”. The only item in the entire proposed rule that conforms to this definition is that in the future employers will be encouraged to process the temporary labor certification on line. All other changes are in keeping with the tradition established with the New Deal legislation, of scrupulously excluding farm workers from many of the important labor protections. Modernizing the regulations concerned with agricultural employment would entail bringing them in line with the current regulations applicable to other economic sectors. Short of this, the very title of the document is a purple misnomer, that merely confuses while it decorates.

The proposed changes, rather than touching upon the fundamental aspects of the problems familiar throughout the history of legislation aimed at improving the lot of MSFW are, save one, beneficial to employers and detrimental to farm workers. The lone exception is wholly inconsequential and I shall address it first.

Additional and expanded recruiting requirements

The underlying premise of the alleged need for temporary alien agricultural workers is summed up in Secretary Chao’s words: “There simply are not enough U.S. workers to fill the hundreds of thousands of agricultural jobs that are available in this country.” Far from new, this is merely a restatement of the growers’ historic claims, well documented since the Reconstruction, and as unsubstantiated now as it has always been; conversely, the growers’ motivation to ensure an oversupply of laborers is also well documented. Indeed, if the shortage of domestic workers was true, there would be no need to include protections for the unwilling domestic workers.

Although demonstrably untrue, the claim has been so often, unquestioningly, repeated that journalists hardly can write a sentence about foreign farm laborers not followed by the dog-like clause “because domestic workers are unwilling to take these jobs”. The message, that growers would gladly hire domestic workers, if only they were willing to to sign up, becomes almost axiomatic.

Before examining the new and improved recruiting requirements, let us contemplate an instance of how the old and tried ones work, as I had the opportunity to experience first hand. Wanting to embrace the Simple Life, I assumed that given the chronic and permanently threatening shortage of harvest labor there must be a plethora of jobs in states such as Florida and as a prospective domestic worker I would be welcomed by all farmers who resort to the use of foreign labor only as a dire last resort. I expected an embarrassment of riches. Pondering whether picking tomatoes would be more or less rewarding than picking oranges, and unable to make up my mind, I decided to let the employers’ offers lure me to the most enticing job. At the Fort Lauderdale Public Library I asked about the resources for prospective harvesters. The starry-eyed reference librarian confessed ignorance. I was quite sure that somewhere there must be a thick binder, or even better, an endless online listing of jobs openings, and that this one information expert was simply uninformed. A second staff person, of a riper age, after giving me a long non-judgmental look from behind thick glasses, suggested that I consult the Work Force One web site. Work Force One has been contractually hired by the SWA to provide job placement services in the Fort Lauderdale area. Its web site was not very easy to navigate, but I used to be a seasoned researcher in my day and managed to find one (let me repeat with quiet force: ONE) job under the heading “farm labor”. It announced the opportunity of picking tomatoes in 33 positions at an undisclosed Private Sector establishment near Myakka City, FL US. This was also my first encounter with the as of yet mysterious “H2-A” program. The posting stipulated no minimum age, test, education or prior experience requirements, stating that

“workers must be physically able to work in hot, humid weather as well as cold weather in Winter [sic], with requisite physical strength and endurance to repeat the picking process rapidly, working skillfully [as in an unskilled job] with their hands, carrying a large number of sacks or tomato harvest buckets. General farm work will include lifting and moving plastic on rolls and other weighted [sic] items of 50 to 75 pounds or more frequently during the work day. Uneven footing in rows and soft soil will be encountered.”

I knew at once I was fully qualified. Point B of Job Description was somewhat less straightforward: “Adverse Effect Wage Rate of $8.56 per hour applies […] No Bonus. Many Piece Rates Apply: [a list of piece rates followed].” Was I supposed to be paid $8.56/hour just for showing up, and also, “$0.50 per 24 quart bucket and up”? For a prospective domestic unskilled worker, with no education requirements, the pubilshed formulation of this single most important aspect of a job is less than edifying. At the time I figured that if Mexicans are willing to leave their families for many months at a time for the prospect of this pay, it must be worth a try. The last line on the Work Force One site read: “To display more information including how to apply for this job, click the button below.” Upon clicking, I was informed that I must register with Work Force One before becoming worthy of further information. The registration pages contained the usual nine yards, education, previous employment, all utterly impertinent to the job order, which required little else beside the presence of four extremities in good working order, opposable thumbs and a dependable cardiovascular system. Next day I took two buses and within less than two hours I arrived at the Work Force One office in Fort Lauderdale. I failed to persuade the receptionist into just letting me apply for the job. If it says register, then register you must. So I did. Cowed by her staunchness, I took some license relating my education and work history, figured that some understatement is at least as pardonable, for the sake of obtaining gainful employment with the Anonymous Private Sector in Myakka City, FL US, as crossing the Rio Grande with a hired coyote. After having registered, I once again reached for the magic e-button: click to apply. But instead of an address, a phone number, or yet another form to fill out I got the stern injunction to go see a Placement Specialist, whatever that is. Why does a migrant farmworker need a specialist to place him, I didn’t know (now I do), but I went up to the same receptionist. She informed me that I am not yet fully qualified to see a placement specialist: I must be orientated first. This ritual of initiation is offered on certain days, and luckily tomorrow is one. And it was the third day. I showed up in a timely fashion (two buses, less than two hours one way). An affable lady gave us a slide show (Microsoft Powerpoint), from which I remember two resources we were informed of: a resumé writing wo rkshop (I did not need a resumé) and a dress-for-success workshop, with the availability of presentable clothing from charity (just how fancy ought a tomato picker to dress?). The other information was less useful. Having imbibed it qualified me to sign up for an interview with the much longed-for placement specialist who will presumably give me the name of the farm, its address and phone number. I signed up and waited. I sat for a half hour in the wrong row of chairs and had to be set straight. I moved to the right row, and waited some more. A kindly gentlemen sat next to me and tried to start a conversation. On the third day of my quest I was less genial than usual. Undaunted, Ed Rosario introduced himself as the Manager of the Work Force One Office, gave me his card and told me that he was concerned watching me wait for a long time. As if by magic, at this point my name was called. I moved to the cubicle of the kafkian placement specialist. I gave her the number (9270630) of the job order about which I came. Upon looking up my data in the computer she told me that she couldn’t help me, for my address was in Massachusetts, while Work Force One serves Florida. My protest summonned the supervisor, who reassured the specialist that even Yankees may be helped, or something to this effect. We were ready for phase two, to verify my eligibility for employment. She asked for my Social Security card. I avoid carrying that flimsy and minute document, but having foreseen that I shall be called upon to prove my lawful existence, I produced my passport. The specialist found this proof unacceptable. Again protests from my part, supervisor summonned again. Supervisor examines the whimsical document (cover portrait, pages landscape, then portrait), turns it this way and that, then asks: “How does this prove that you are an American citizen?” I point at the cover, then at the injunction of the Secretary of State printed on page one. Argument won. Supervisor departs, specialist turns to the screen, then dials a telephone number. No answer. She jots down a name, Chuck Hautot, just like this, no Job Title, no Farm Name, and a phone number, for me to try later. “Would you please print out for me the page from where you copied this?” “Not permitted.” I went to see Mr. Ed Rosario, the office manager, whom I was fortunate to have met earlier. He invited me into his office. I briefly mentioned the Specialist’s and the Supervisor’s conundrum with the US Passport and its virtues, and dwelled in more detail on the fruits of my three days’ labor: Chuck Hautot’s phone number, voicing my doubt that any job related information available at Work Force One should be classified. After a brief aparté with the Supervisor, Mr. Rosario gave me the requested printout and volunteered the following piece of further information. The sentence in the job order that read : “ALL QUALIFIED UNITED STATES DOMESTIC WORKERS (CITIZENS AND FOREIGN WORKERS WITH VALID WORK VISAS) INCLUDING MSFW AND NON-MSFW WORKERS MAY BE REFERRED”, by virtue of a confidential agreement, has the opposite meaning. Because it was typed ALL CAPS, this meant that the job SHOULD NOT be offered to domestic workers. “They [the employer, that is] are required to advertise the job, but they want to hire only H2-A foreign workers” (and this is how I first learned who H2-As are). If hitherto I genuinely wished to live the simple life, now I became positively keen on learning why there is no simple life on a Florida farm. My interest grew over time, lead me to read up on it and eventually write this.

If this narrative seems tedious it merely reflects the excruciating tediousness of my endeavor to find a job in a field where domestic workers are needed and missed. To resume.

This is where the narrative of my job search ends, and that of my employment with Grainger Farms, Inc. begins. I never picked a single tomato. On day four I spoke with Chuck Hautot, the Manager of the stilll unnamed farm. Rather than asking me anything, Mr. Hautot tried to dissuade me from the job his company was advertising. Having failed, he refused to help me getting to the farm. I purchased my own bus ticket and travelled hours across state to Bradenton. From there I had no means to continue my journey other than my own two feet. I walked several miles in the August heat and hitchhiked for another twenty (illegal in Florida). Once I arrived at the jobsite, Mr. Hautot flat-out refused to hire me. I spent the night until the return bus sitting at a picnic table at the Bradenton Greyhound station.

Numerous past lawsuits, a recent newspaper article (Rick Laney: “Hispanic worker progam raises questions” Maryville (California) Daily Times, April 6, 2008), as well as Mr. Erik Lang’s (ETA-2008-0001-0746.1) video dramatization (http://tiny.cc/H2A; or http://blip.tv/file/803178/) substantiate that mine is not an idiosyncratic case, and that domestic workers are systematically discriminated against in hiring for H-2A jobs. The new and improved Recruitment Obligations bring no improvement whatsoever to the process. Not only remain these jobs little known, but as my experience illustrates, every effort is made to discourage potential domestic workers from actually coming anywhere near them. (Compare my ordeal with the process of hiring, say, at McDonald’s, where domestic workers are actually sought: within a day or two the fellow is ready to punch in. Mr. Lang’s video illustrates this point in more detail.)

Let us now see how this process will be modernized if DOL has its way.

“Employers would also be required to contact former employees to determine their willingness to accept the employer’s job opportunity.” Never mind that, as per Secretary Chao, there are hardly any former domestic employees. Migrant farmworkers are difficult to contact at their “permanent place of residence”; most lack telephones or fixed addresses. It would be discriminatory to link these workers’ employability to the possession of cell phones. On the other hand, such a modernized requirement would provide an unassailable excuse for the employers’ failure to locate domestic work force.

“Under the new recruitment system […] U.S. workers’ ability to identify job
opportunities would be further enhanced by requiring employers to place
three advertisements, instead of the currently required two, in a newspaper of
general circulation most appropriate for the agricultural occupation and most
likely to reach the U.S. workers who will apply for the job opportunity.

According to the employment statistics approximately 14% of the available jobs are filled through newspaper ads. I suspect that migrant farmworkers are less likely to peruse newspapers than the general population. Furthermore, a migrant farmworker can only avail himself of local newspapers, which is precisely where the season is ending and he must leave. There would be no need for the Labor Secretary to designate any state “of traditional or expected labor supply”, if one only ensured that modern channels of advertising, such as the Internet, were used. There are many web sites (CraigsList, JobSeekers, to name only two of the best known) that carry advertisements for day laborers, janitors and many other entry level jobs, and also, remarkably, quite numerous advertisment from agricultural employers genuinely seeking domestic workers, such as in North Dakota and Montana.

“Employers would begin advertising job opportunities no earlier than 120
calendar days and no later than 75 calendar days before the date on which the
foreign worker would begin work (i.e., the date of need). “

It has been already pointed out in the press and in prior comments, one originating with growers, that the timeframe is impractical for employers. It is likewise impracticable for migrant farmworkers. What I wish to emphasize is the blatantly bureaucratic character of this “modernization” (Mr Lang uses the correct terms farce and façade). While the previous novelty (of three versus two advertisments) was merely useless, this one is outright counterproductive for employer and employee alike. The old rules stipulated simply that recruitment must begin whenever the order was filed with the Regional Office and the SWA, leaving the grower the discretion of knowing his own business and the worker to scurry after the jobs.

The problem of housing sets farm labor apart from other minimum-wage jobs, seasonal or permanent, in an urban setting. The city-dweller can switch jobs without necessarily having to change residences, for a multitude are available within the same commuting radius. This is not possible for most migrant agicultural laborers. For this reason, minimum wage urban jobs are more appealing to domestic workers not merely by it being inherently more agreeable to flip hamburgers or bus tables than to harvest oranges, but their ready availability within a confined area lends them a peculiar but real security. In addition, since families can live together, apart from the obvious social aspects, it renders expenses more manageable. Thirdly, as we learn from the media, most workers must cumulate several minimum-wage jobs to cobble together a, if not easy, yet livable living. A migrant worker has a single pool of employment opportunities in any given area and season, related to the local crop, and he can not work more than one job on any given day. Farm jobs often entail a prohibitively long commute, sometimes a four hours round-trip and seldom less than two. In addition, farm jobs often feature uncompensated waiting time in the mornings, when certain crops (such as tomatoes) cannot be picked before the dew has dried. Thus, the average harvester spends 10 to 12hours every day while being paid (at or near minimum wage) for 6 to 8.

At this juncture I must refer to the comments of the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association (ETA-2008-0001-0042.1) Under the heading RECRUITMENT it presents a truthful and convincing picture of the hassle presented by domestic workers. Indeed, from the vantage point of the Fruit and Vegetable Grower, the domestic worker spells trouble and expense. Consider the third and fourth bullet points on page 5 of the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association (ETA-2008-0001-0042.1): • Received call from worker’s family member wanting information on housing, work hours, etc. He did not want worker to share living or cooking space with other workers. (15 minutes) • Received call from another family member asking more questions about living arrangements. Invited the whole family down to see housing and working conditions. (15 minutes) How much easier is to deal with an H-2A worker, whose family often has no telephone and speaks no English in the first place, and who, should he find anything objectionable about such niceties can be reminded of his temporary visa and that there is next year’s visa he is now gambling with? While there is a largely unenforced and unenforceable provision against arbitrary termination, one cannot prevent the inquisitive H-2A worker from being blacklisted. The other bullet points (pp. 4-5) are all to the point. This prompts the question as to how all other industries, including millions of low-paying jobs, make do with workers coming from the same demographic pool so utterly unmanageable by FVGs: newly-minted or home-grown Americans.

HOUSING

With regard to housing, the new rules propose to substitute the obligation to provide an actual roof with that of providing paper housing, i.e. vouchers. This modernization is not really new either, merely a hitherto overlooked method with dual benefits. It shifts the burden of locating affordable housing from the grower to the laborer and effectively puts a “dynamic” cap on the growers’ housing expenses, which will perpetually lag, if only slightly, behind the market. If vouchers are being introduced because availability of housing is a problem, it ought to be harder for a just-arrived Mexican temporary worker to find shelter than for a local businessman to provide accommodation for his crew. The Mexican H-2A worker is also burdened with having to find housing on his own, unpaid time, without his own transportation, in a rather wide, and unfamiliar rural sprawl. For the mythical domestic worker, such as myself, if hired by Grainger Farms, it would have been a nightmare having to walk two miles uphill to the farm, then back down to Myakka at 10 PM, and ask around on deserted streets, with shuttered storefronts. The temporary alien can either begin by a) paying for short term lodging, which is considerably more expensive, b) sponge on friends and fellow countrymen, if available, or c) rely on middlemen, not unlike the recruiters in Mexico, who charge significant fees; they will, no doubt, charge a finder’s fee for locating a shared trailer, which will now be exempt from housing standards.

The revised housing requirements merely add another reason why picky and spoiled domestic workers became “unavailable”.

WAGES

This section of the proposed rules is a tour de force. Its central premise is that the hitherto miserly pay rate of migrant farmworkers must be further reduced, for their own good. Based on an arsenal of slipshod but very quantitative-sounding arguments and new techniques to calculate “prevailing wage”, the new rule proposes to break down the wage requirements into numerous local prevailing wages. As a result the current Adverse Effect Wage Rate would be drastically reduced in most locations. This proposal blissfully ignores the fact that the pay rate has stagnated over decades and does not constitute a living wage except if exported to poor countries.

“Minimum wage” and “adverse effect wage rate”, ought to mean, respectively that no one should be paid less than that, and that a slightly higher minimum wage is imposed in order to a) compensate for the woeful lack of baragaining power of temporary alien laborers and b) at least in part, counteract the adverse effect on domestic workers. Throughout the proposed regulation it is obvious that minimum wage (or less) is the actual wage paid by the vast majority of employers. A particularly valuable contribution of Farmworker Justice’s comments is its demonstration how, with the help of piece rates used in harvesting the AEWR, instead of being a forced higher minimum wage in practice ends up becoming an effective maximum wage.

The AEWR is intended to fulfill a broader function, and emphatically not to establish a shadowy minimum wage. (By the same token, should the FLSA minimum wage become an effective real wage throughout the economy at large, it would have lost its meaning and new measures would have to be found and implemented to supplant its current role.) The situation appears to be that the overall conditions of temporary farmworkers has not improved over the past two decades, and if anything, it has worsened, and this trend will only be aided by the proposed new ways of calculation of AEWR. The DOL ought to admit its impotence and at the very least to refrain from meddling with a tool is unable to improve on.

A hypothetical example show the inadequacy of the proposed AEWR. Assume in a given region a prevailing wage of $8. This wage will increase under two circumstances. The employer will have to increase it, if he wants to attract workers, or he will be forced to increase it, by employees who exercise their bargaining power. But the supply of H-2A workers is virtually bottomless, and they would still arrive should the wages decrease to $6.50, or $6, or $5, thanks to their domestic economic conditions. Their bargaining power is nil, since should they so much as dream of exercising it, the employer would refrain from putting their names on next year’s visa application. Domestic workers are, at best, in dire minority, so their bargaining power is negligible.The sole remaining motive for increasing the prevailing wage remains the good heart of the employer, seldom a dependable factor. Hence, the prevailing wages are bound to decrease. Approving the proposed rule on wages, would be an endorsement of a steady and predictable decrease in migrant farmworker wages, staved only by the FLSA minimum wage, unless a new wave of modernization will find a modality to altogether do away with it.

There is no need here to repeat the detailed and thorough comments of watch-dog organizations, such as Farmworker Justice. These comments thoroughly synthesize available historic facts, in this particular instance powerfully arguing the effect of foreign laborers on depressing prevailing wages; farmworkers’ notorious lack of bargaining power; their relative contentement with insultingly low pay, of which they often acquiesce even being cheated of due to the dire economic realities of their respective home countries, etc.

I politely differ from the views expressed by Farmworker Justice in a small detail: there is nothing “irrational” about the growers’ resourcefulness in avoiding the increasing labor costs, nor in DOL’s catering to their interests. The former keeps a watchful eye on narrow and short term profitability, the latter on the constituency: the domestic farmworker is virtually nonexistent, while the foreign workers are not constituents, so that the only remaining political force to be reckoned with is agribusiness. Should the DOL explicitly own up to this, I would no longer object to the term “modernizing” in the title. It would be a truly modern, indeed unprecedented, approach to the role of government in modern history.

“In announcing these changes [i.e. the new rules] Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao said: ‘This issue must be addressed now, or our country will see eroding competitiveness in its agricultural sector, crops being left to rot in the fields, and increasing shifting of domestic food production overseas.” (Naples Daily News, March 23, 2008). We have seen, by and large, what these industry-saving changes amount to. (It is worth noting, the Secretary’s placing Mexico, one of the main competitors, overseas.) We have seen that the earlier quoted “there simply are not enough U.S. workers” is probably true only because the working conditions and pay in these temporary jobs are appalling. Should a misguided domestic worker consider taking the job, the employers see to it that he is kept at arm’s length. This second quote amplifies the first with the specter of rotting crops. Since the advent of truck farming in the late 19th century growers have stoked this fear, albeit it has never really come to pass. (It is true, that sometimes it was good business to let crop go unharvested, but not because of lack of manpower.) Until documented instances are produced, this should be viewed but whole-cloth fear-mongering: initiated by growers, reflexively perpetuated by politicians, broadcast by journalists. A threat that for over a century has failed to materialize is as real as the bogey-man, and as convenient as the latter is for manipulating children into behaving.

The Secretary’s argument runs: unless cheap labor is imported, the crop will rot; it is urgent to make it easier for the agricultural business to import this much needed cheap labor instead of importing cheap produce from remote overseas lands, such as our southern neighbor.

There is a more chilling aspect of this argument that fascinates attentive readers: the implication that the status quo, the unavailability of domestic workers, is unavoidable. Not only was this argument used at least since the implementation of the Bracero Program, during World War II (and refuted by the facts after 1964 when for a few years the crops were harvested by domestic labor instead of rotting in the field, at the expense, true, of some threat that domestic harvesters might demand comparable conditions to that of American workers in all other sectors of American industry). In earlier days, the main economic argument in favor of slavery was essentially identical. It was then argued that not only American economy will come to a standstill, but the entire world economy will go to seed without the benefits afforded by the well established Southern slavery. A few excerpts from a contemporary treatise might be instructive: “He who looks for any other result, must expect that nations, which, for centuries, have waged war to extend their commerce will abandon that means of aggrandizement, and bankrupt themselves to force the abolition of American slavery!” p. 56. “To supply the existing demand for tropical products, except by the present mode, is impossible.” p. 219. (David Christy: Cotton is King. In: Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments. E. N. Elliott, L.L.D. ed., Pritchard, Abbott & Loomis. Augusta, Georgia, 1860) A few decades earlier, the English manufacturers had argued that a Ten Hours’ Bill would increase the cost of production and incapacitate the English producers for competition in foreign markets.

As we know, England remained the major industrial force after the passing of the Ten Hour Bill, and the U.S., as well as the world economy continued to grow after the, and in spite of, the abolition of slavery. But the mindset that gave rise to the prospective fear of those affected is understandable. British industry and American agriculture existed under those historic conditions, and if, in imagination, one mechanically subtracted and essential element, one could not but see their ruin. Likewise, unforeseen changes in other aspects of life brought about changes that could not have been imagined in earlier days. It was still a measure of the Great Gatsby’s grandeur to bring in fresh orange juice to his Long Island party (in the 1920s); today, it is a fact of life, deplored by the likes of Michael Moore, that the General Motors is moving much of its manufacturing to the same Mexico from which US agriculture imports unskilled labor and fears moving its produce fields. On the other hand, Henry Ford would have institutionalized any madman to prophesy that his workers will be offered severance pays in the range of a hundred thousand dollars for volunteering to unburden its payroll. It is, I believe, safe to say, that these upheavals are much greater than the difficulties of controlling the quality and safety of imported produce, an issue that is sometimes mentioned as an argument for keeping US agriculture at home.

Labor-intensive American agriculture has developed into an industrial enterprise, and has as little in common with traditional farming as modern industry has with nineteenth century manufactories; while the regulation of industrial labor has, for better or worse, kept pace with the demands of contemporary industrial labor, the regulation of agricultural labor was arrested in its main aspects at the pre- New Deal stage, followed by a patchwork of improvements and grudging compromises. The new set of rules proposed by the DOL only adds new haphazard palleatives meant to benefit the growers, under the assumption that the status quo is the only option, and does it under the heading “modernization”, which it definitely is not.

CONCLUSION

The situation is viewed from the vantage point of agricultural business, from which it appears that food production can be profitable only by maintaining the seasonal farmworkers around the level of dire misery. Any measure of improvement to their lives is out of question. A historic and often renewed solution for maintaining seasonal farmworkers so blatantly out of keeping with the rest of the working population was to replace the domestic work force with one from abroad. As they assimilate, newcomers will evolve the same needs and wants as everyone in this country and will either raise demands or move on in search for better paying jobs. Therefore it is essential to maintain a work pool for which the miserly earnings are still meaningful, people, that is, who

spend abroad what they earn here: mainly temporary Mexicans, who send their earnings back home. Following the Immigratio n Reform and Control Act of 1986, the country started with a more or less clean slate, but over twenty years the illegal Mexican population has increased dramatically and is perceived as unduly problematic. The sole function of the H-2A program is to provide a legal substitute for the former, while maintaining its vulnerability and its temporary character, perchance perfecting these desirable traits. There is no real concern for protecting domestic seasonal farm labor, and not even lip service is being paid to the possibility that such a large country could supply, and a healthy industry should be able to attract, the workforce necessary for its normal functioning.

Upon this background, the purpose of the DOL Proposed Regulations is to render H-2A workers less costly, thereby a workable alternative to employing undocumented workers, thus phasing out illegal immigration without the least inconvenience for agricultural businesses. This simple and cynical purpose is dressed up in reassuring sound bites and respectable statistics, and even earnest and knowledgeable advocates are liable to get entangled in the convoluted language and intricacies of regulatory considerations, so that a semblance of fairness is maintained by shifting the blame from naked Realpolitik to bland and faceless bureaucracy.

As a private person, a taxpayer and a citizen, I oppose the regulatory changes to the H-2A program and request that the DOL either withdraws this proposal or purges it of the misleading wording.

Looking forward to your detailed response.
Sincerely,
Peter Ratiu

Chomsky and the responsibility of intellectuals

2008-05-28T05:53:00.000-07:00

Only now, on overall reflection, we can see
that there is much of the implausible in it.
Nikolai Gogol, The Nose

1.
In the beginning, Noam Chomsky was a tortoise supporting my universe. The little I have learned about generative grammars resonated with my embryonic conviction that diversity is bound to possess a common core to make navigation through the phenomenal world unfrightening. Piaget’s little book, Le Structuralisme, had once established Chomsky’s reputation in the eyes of a high school student.

A sixties’ lefty with gray ponytail of a length only those could have seen who had the chance to watch old peasant women comb their hair in the morning, before covering the bun they gathered it into with their kerchief. A sixties’ lefty keeping company with another gray ponytail of the same first name, both teachers of the same discipline. They have lunch before retiring with the academic rank it had been their lot to reach. I listen for the first time to American left wing intellectuals exchanging ideas over lunch. Their grown children are my age; in a windowless office of a state university one of them, a West Coast programmer in Birkenstocks, tells me of Chomsky. He is among the few good things the institution of tenure produced. Tenure afforded Chomsky shelter, making it possible for him to become an unafraid speaker of truth. I buy at a garage sale one of Chomsky’s volumes, busy to eke out a career never read it, and endow its author with extra glow.

Already seeing the light at the end of my personal tunnel, I resumed asking the questions that I had shelved for some time, when Boston Mobilization was selling for $10 the privilege to witness Chomsky expose in a Cambridge church the first 100 days in office of the Bush Administration. He spoke about manufacturing consent, and about the hypocritical peace process in the Middle East, meticulously misrepresented by the media. I did not know the extent to which he has written and lectured on these subjects before, and was decidedly impressed by the detail of his documentation. I was impressed by Chomsky’s conceitedness too, its aftertaste enhanced by the aggressive fundraiser following his lecture. I recorded my impressions in an email to a colleague and left it at that.

His name came up again in a chance conversation with a colleague I respect, about a year ago. Chomsky accedes to the virtues of sound thinking, but rejects the hazy dialectics, I was told.

Mara, my daughter came during mid-winter break with Manufacturing Consent in her suitcase. It is not easy to grow up in a West Coast suburb and pick up more along the way than what the advertisements of a campaign or other in Teen magazine are willing to sell you as social consciousness, for a modest contribution; no easier than living with the awareness of one’s dismal performance as an absentee father, who could scarcely claim to have outperformed Teen magazine.

Shortly before Mara’s visit I had an exchange with the same colleague of dialectical memory about the impending war. I tried to articulate my skepticism of dusting off banners from the Viet Nam era, going through the same motions that had eminently failed us before; that, worse than ineffective, these protests obstruct our prospects to finding better means by lulling us instead into the cozy kinship with the Care-Bears. Such debates would run aground with a screech, leave me frustrated, and my counterpart with the uneasiness of a near miss with a weirdo. My friend’s earnestness made me realize this time, that something basic escapes me.

Here was Mara, college bound, for the first time beknownst to me, trying on the world one size bigger than the realm of personal wishes and wants, and an academic I respect, wielding dull and rusty weapons in an attempt to change it. With the Iraqi war in sight, Chomsky, and what he stands for in the eyes of many, was a focal point of sorts. I had to confront my impressions of a fleeting talk biased by the sleaze of his hosts. I had to confront my dislike, and articulate it, for neither in that lecture, nor in the few scores of pages I read from Manufacturing Consent from Mara’s suitcase, was there anything that I could object to. And yet…

2.
Everything should be made
as simple as possible, but not simpler.
(attributed to Albert Einstein)

I set forth and dutifully read all the nearly six hundred pages, including foot and endnotes of the 1999 edition of Fateful Triangle[1], advertised on the back cover as a “seminal tome on Mideast politics, a classic in the fields of political science and Mideast affairs … this new, updated edition highlights the book’s lasting relevance”. Edward Said introduced it in his foreword as “perhaps the most ambitious book ever attempted on the conflict between Zionism and the Palestinians”.

Chomsky’s preface to the updated edition cuts to the chase, and it is not until the third chapter, that he states his assumptions. The chase” consists in a thoroughly documented chronological catalog of the atrocities committed by Israelis from before the declaration of the statehood in 1948 till the Lebanon War of 1982, with some updates ending in 1999; a number of quotes from Israeli politicians on the Palestinian question, illustrating their ruthlessness and cynicism; a plausible presentation of the thesis of Israeli rejectionism and the U.S. support of this policy; finally, convincing evidence to the effect that the U.S. media is willfully misrepresenting the facts in order to manipulate public opinion against the Palestinians, and to rally support of the unjust rejectionist policy of the U.S. – Israeli partnership. Within the confines of this essay I shall accept all of Chomsky’s factual claims set forth in the book. Now his assumptions:

Chapter 3. Rejectionism and Accommodation.
1. A Framework for Discussion.
What have been the attitudes and policies of the major participants in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and those concerned with it, during the period since 1967, when the U.S.-Israel relationship became established in something like its present form? To approach this question sensibly, we should begin by clarifying what we take to be the valid claims of those who regard the former Palestine as their home. Attitudes towards this question vary widely. I will simply state certain assumptions that I will adopt as a framework for discussion. The first of these is the principle that Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs are human beings with human rights, equal rights; more specifically, they have essentially equal rights within the territory of former Palestine. Each group has a valid right to national self-determination in this territory. Furthermore, I will assume that the State of Israel within its pre-June 1967 borders had, and retains, whatever one regards as the valid rights of any state within the existing international system. One may formulate these principles in various ways, but let us take them to be clear enough to serve at least as a point of departure. [page 39]

These 190 words[2] constitute the theoretical framework for the analysis of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Therefore, a closer look is in order.

On the grounds that “Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs are human beings with human rights, equal rights”, they do not have, “essentially equal rights within the territory of former Palestine”. I doubt that the Hungarians would be welcomed back by their Udmurt cousins, although they will have spent only half as much time abroad, as the Jews. It is only on the grounds of the Biblical tradition, that the Jews have a claim to the land of Israel. Aside from this, they are intruders, who settled the land of the Palestinians against the desire and the will of the latter, aided by the political circumstances of the two World Wars to rally international support for the establishment of Israel in 1948.

Accordingly, the existence of the State of Israel within or without its pre-1967 borders is legitimate either on grounds other than abstract human rights, or is not legitimate at all.

The next notion introduced is that of the right to national self-determination. From the existence of the American, French, or German nations the existence of a Jewish and a Palestinian nation are inferred. The long and complicated process of nation formation is made to appear an instantaneous exercise of a self-explanatory right.

Chomsky’s assumption, “that the State of Israel within its pre-June 1967 borders had, and retains, whatever one regards as the valid rights of any state within the existing international system”, places a heavy burden on the UN resolution that authorized the creation of Israel. A conceivable subsequent resolution, mandating, let’s say, the expulsion of the Jews or of the Arabs, could then be as valid as the one it would replace. In which case, the ongoing conflict is but the reenactment, or a continuation, of the turmoil preceding the 1947 resolution.

The notions fudged into the quoted paragraph are (in order of appearance): (1) human beings with human rights, equal rights (2) equal rights within the territory of former Palestine. (3) valid right to national self-determination in this territory. (4) valid rights of any state within the existing international system. Chomsky makes the promise to “approach this question sensibly”. A careful reading reveals that his assumptions don’t add up to an “acceptable framework” for the analysis of the Israeli-Arab conflict, or even a sensible approach.

The promise Chomsky makes here and he does keep, is that this is “a point of departure”. There are more remarks scattered throughout the book, all worth paying attention to. A pedantic reader may have preferred them better organized, but the author of this “most ambitious book ever attempted” on the subject did not find it important.

On page 42, Chomsky discusses the international consensus regarding the necessity of a “two-state settlement”, apt to satisfy “the valid claims of the two major parties as well as is possible under existing conditions”. He then concludes by writing:

A simpler but quite accurate formulation would be that U.S.-Israeli rejectionism has consistently blocked the achievement of “a viable and equitable comprehensive settlement” [quoting Seth Tillman, The United States and the Middle East, pp. 276-277].

The settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict (consistently blocked by the U.S. – Israeli rejectionism) was deemed at the beginning of the paragraph “as good as possible under existing conditions” and became a “viable and equitable comprehensive settlement” by the end of it. The new wording is deemed “simpler and quite accurate” . Now is it one way, or the other? Or perhaps the distinction is academic. We need not wonder too long, for Chomsky soon comes to our help.

In the unlikely event that it [the two-state settlement] is realized, a major security problem will remain – namely, for the Palestinian state, confronted with one of the world’s major military powers and dependent of the most conservative elements of the Arab world for survival. [Pp.45-46]

Dependency on foreign aid comes second to the security threat posed by Israel. We will return to this in a moment.

Furthermore, Israel is now heavily dependent on the West Bank for water, a more significant commodity than oil in the Middle East. Its own water supplies are exploited to the maximum limit, and it is now estimated that about 1/3 of Israel’s water is from the West Bank. [Page 47]

Hence, a two-state settlement will necessarily be inequitable, or an equitable one will not be viable, depriving either Israel, or the Palestinians, or both, of “a more significant commodity than oil in the Middle East”.

Let us now return to the prospects of a Palestinian state “dependent of the most conservative elements of the Arab world for survival.” There is a wealth of truth stuffed into this brief statement. The natural resources of the West Bank and Gaza, even after having eliminated the burden by dismantling the Jewish settlements, are insufficient to support the Palestinian population[3]. In other words, according to Chomsky the international consensus advocates, in the name of human rights and the rights of national self-determination, the creation of a state predicted by its champion to depend on handouts for survival. In addition to the internal situation of a Palestinian state of such design, hardly compatible with the notion of human dignity, the security problems Israel will face, with a neighboring populous and resentful country unable to support its citizens, are “not impressive” (see the full quote below).

One wonders what measure of support can one anticipate on the part of these “most conservative elements of the Arab world” that have a track record, according to Chomsky, to not have supported the nationalist efforts of the Palestinians:

Or it is argued against the Palestinians that the Arab states have not supported their nationalist efforts, a stand that contrasts so markedly with the loving attitude that Europeans have shown towards one another during the centuries of state-formation there. Other familiar arguments are at about the same moral and intellectual level. [page 45]

The attitude of the Arab world should not be criticized, on account that Europe was no better during the centuries[4] of state-formation there. On the other hand:

Whatever merit the charge of hypocrisy may have, the fact is that brutal and inhuman practices that were tolerated when the plague of European civilization spread over much of the world no longer are. [p.167]

In keeping with Chomsky’s methodology, I could now move on, after a bilious remark about the moral and intellectual level of the argument. I shall deviate from his standard in order to belabor the obvious, saving the joy to pour my scorn for later. Let us summarize what we learned so far:

In the name of human rights and the right of national self-determination, the Palestinian Arabs are entitled to an independent state, which cannot survive without subsidies from the most conservative elements of the Arab world, who did not support the nationalist efforts of the Palestinians in the past. And while the Arab states are justified to model their loving attitude on European precedents, Israel should acknowledge that the brutal and inhuman European practices once tolerated, no longer are.[5] Amen. The Jews should also revise their arbitrary need for a commodity more significant than oil. Conclusion:

Whatever security problems Israel would then face do not compare with those it has been in the process of creating for itself by its commitment to expansionism and confrontation, which guarantees endless turmoil and war, and sooner or later, probable destruction.

Though Israel’s security concerns – by now, in large part self-generated- are not to be dismissed, they do not provide an impressive basis for U.S.- Israeli rejectionism, even if we were to accept the familiar tacit assumption that the security of the Palestinians is of null import. [page 46]

For someone “capable of registering contradictions, distinctions and lapses which occur between [his staggeringly complete sources]”[6], this much could suffice. Those of us of lesser gifts are still not content to drop the case. We keep wondering, why would the Jews not seize on the opportunity offered by the international consensus and advocated by Noam Chomsky, and accept such a viable and equitable comprehensive settlement? Chapter 4 (Historical Backgrounds) concludes thus:

The conflict over Palestine has sometimes been depicted as one of “right against right”, an arguable – and in my view defensible- proposition, though naturally not one that the Palestinians are likely to accept as morally valid. It is not clear that there is much to be gained by pursuing the question. (p. 168.)

There is indeed little to be gained, if we wish to make our modest contribution toward the achievement of “a viable and equitable comprehensive settlement”. But perhaps, there is something to be gained, by pursuing this question, if we stubbornly want to understand the world we live in, instead of advocating attractive and unattainable remedies for its ailments. The result may well be unsatisfying. Perhaps, we will discover, that illustrious scholars are no more articulate than the politicians taking cheap shots at some axis of evil[7].

The right of the Jews to the land of Israel if there is such a right, cannot be found anywhere else, except in the Biblical tradition. The notion is fraught with difficulties. The Jewish ties to Israel come as a package deal, complete with the Jews’ controversial view of themselves, not shared even by all Jews. Nevertheless, they cannot be discarded in one bold move, without first disentangling the skein of Mosaic tradition.

The definition of the Jewish state criticized by Chomsky flows from the premise of Jewish identity. A national state defined as that of its citizens is attractive as the notions of human rights flaunted earlier. True, the United States of America is the state of its citizens; I don’t know to which other states it applies, but at least Germany and Hungary take a special interest in ethnic Germans and Hungarians living outside their respective borders. The Jewish identity was characterized by and often criticized for “clannishness” (see Erich Fromm and Yehoshafat Harkabi, to name only two Jewish critics from a broad spectrum). Contrasting the Jewish State with a hypothetical Sovereign State of Christian Whites as Chomsky does is an easy way to make look like a monstrosity something that is complex and problematic. The analogy is faulty on multiple accounts. First, there is no need to postulate a hypothetical idiosyncrasy, as long as existing countries offer grounds for empirical comparison (Hungary and Germany, at a minimum). Second, Christianity is a supranational religion by definition, while Judaism is national; third, because (to make things more confusing), the Jewish religion, while it does not proselytize, someone embracing it becomes a Jew, a Semite and an Israeli citizen (real or potential), irrespective of race. In other words, the racist and elitist basis of the Jewish state, stipulated by Chomsky, is in fact neither one nor the other. I wonder, whether the idea of a Sovereign State of Christian Whites stems from Chomsky’s slovenly haste to make a point, or from contempt for his readers.

Without taking sides one can see that whether it is “a right against right” situation or otherwise, Chomsky’s view is unsubstantiated. This is not to deny the human suffering inflicted upon the Arabs by the Israelis, and the fact that the Palestinians have killed, maimed or otherwise harmed a lesser number of Jews. Based on what Chomsky presents, no more than this can be said about the Israeli-Palestinian crisis with clarity: Israel’s existence is admitted as a bald fact, leaving the door open for Arab invectives about the Zionist conspiracy. The legitimacy of the Palestinians’ desire for a national state is stipulated on the ground of human rights, and Chomsky makes the case, against his own wish, that a two-state solution would not be viable.

In our secular mythology, whatever issue can be made to appear reducible to human rights, the solution seems obvious; it follows that only due to either or both parties being unaccommodating, that the conflict remains unsolved. My analysis of Chomsky’s “framework” does not do away with this assumption. While leaving untouched the lofty principles dear to many, we remark that Chomsky has failed to show how they bear on the principal aspects of the Israeli-Arab conflict. It is true that, while Chomsky’s framework has crumbled, I did not propose an alternative that could fulfill a basic need, namely, to view the problem in terms rendering it susceptible to an obvious and attainable solution, responsibility of which can be assigned. Conjuring human rights is convenient, because it follows that the Israelis should respect them, the U.N. should enforce them, and the U.S should not interfere with them. It does not appear important to understand why is that Israelis, the U.N. and the U.S. don’t do what they are supposed to, or how should we, the concerned citizens, go about enforcing these values, for it is quite satisfying to assign blame, speak the truth and expose the lies. This is part of the reason why Chomsky has been comfortable for thirty-six prolix and prolific years to go on in his self-appointed job of “the devil’s accountant” as he was charitably referred to. He went on clipping the news, while the media, the U.S. government and Israel were doing the work for him, manufacturing new lies to cover up new atrocities and more consent that he can then expose, regardless of whether or not exposure leads to change. The result is what Hegel referred to as “no more than a device for evading the real issue, a way of creating an impression of hard work and serious commitment to the problem, while actually sparing oneself both”.

The conclusion of a lucid reading of Chomsky is that the Arab-Israeli question is not susceptible to an obvious answer. It is not the purpose of this essay to further the inquiry, but a few pointers are apparent: the notions of the rights of the Jews to the land of Israel and of the Palestinians to live undisturbed in that land cannot be assumed as given, but must be considered in depth; ditto for the notions of nationhood, national self-determination and that of historical precedents in international affairs. These issues should be approached not by applying cherished and dear principles to the facts, but rather by means of historical, cultural and philosophical analysis.[8] Perhaps the most difficult will be to explain in secular terms the Biblical tradition, its historical role and effectiveness. It is nowadays simply not a matter of debate, whether or not the thunderous voice of someone whose butt crack Michelangelo portrayed commanded a gang of ex-slaves from Egypt to settle the land of Israel. It will be challenging to account for this as a plausible basis for very real claims to a country[9]. As the record shows, varnishing this unruly amalgam of history and fairy tale with the more enlightened concepts of cultural heritage and the like did not help to understand the power and effectiveness, much less the structure of what accounts for the survival of the Jewish people[10].

By realizing the irrelevance of the position expressed (I almost wrote articulated) by Chomsky, we gain nothing “positive”. Instead we are saddled with uncomfortable consequences: dear principles become un-operational; we must face up to the difficult task that lays ahead, and we can not see the light at the end of the tunnel. This awareness alone seems sufficient to make us embrace Chomsky’s noble righteousness.[11]

According to Fateful Triangle, Israel’s rejectionism and the atrocities committed against the Palestinians are made possible by U.S. support; the role of the media consists in providing cover-up for outrageous facts and propaganda to put the remaining ones in a favorable light, and to rally support for Israel and its U.S. sponsors.

The fact of the U.S. support of Israel is established by Chomsky’s argument, if this was necessary in the first place; its legitimacy is merely contingent on that of Israeli rejectionism. Until one answers the latter, one can only maintain that, for whatever reason the U.S. government finds it advantageous for the nation whose interests it represents to support Israel, it is merely fulfilling its mandate by so doing. The point that survives from Chomsky’s argument is that Israel, with U.S. support, has inflicted more harm on the Palestinians than the Palestinians inflicted on Israelis. Since Chomsky has refused to undertake a similar “grisly calculation” on a previous occasion[12], and since my aim here is only to shed further light on the “lasting relevance” of this “seminal tome”, I consider myself exempt from this pursuit.

Whatever else might be said about the Middle East conflict, facts are facts and by not reporting them truthfully, the U.S. media is in dereliction of duty. Worse, the published news are heavily biased in Israel’s favor, the Palestinian atrocities are blown out of proportion compared to those Israel perpetrates; the commentaries are no better. One could not wish for more examples to this effect, purveyed by Chomsky in this book and in countless previous and subsequent writings[13]. Chomsky wrote extensively[14] on the art of manufacturing consent, its mechanics and what fuels the zeal of its executioners. The same happy family of corporations that derives incredible profits from the U.S. control of the Middle East[15] also owns and controls the media, and is responsible for manipulating its content.

It is not in the scope of Fateful Triangle to discuss in detail just how the Arab-Israeli conflict ensures the U.S. control of the Middle East, and how this in turn translates into increased profits for select U.S. corporations. We can intuit the links well enough to accept Chomsky’s view.

The interests of misguided Jews and of greedy corporations standing to profit from the conflict can account for the tragic situation, but they can not account for its distorted media coverage. We must identify a third interest group to satisfy the following requirements: it must share Chomsky’s values regarding human rights, the right to national self-determination etc.; it must demand that these values be upheld in print, but not to see them guide the real business of international affairs[16]. This interest group must be powerful enough to effectively pressure the corporations controlling the media into meeting their demands. We must look for an interest group with a real need for fictitious values. It sounds twisted, but short of postulating this, we would be forced to accept the implausible notion that powerful and efficient corporations, normally unwilling to undertake anything that will not result in increased profits could be pressured by lunatics in pursuit of a futile exercise.

Such an interest group can be found. George Kennan[17] gives us a historic pointer:

And let us not forget the Kellog Pact: one of the strangest and most bizarre of the episodes of modern diplomacy. Here was an instance in which competing groups of well-meaning peace enthusiasts in our country succeeded needling two harried Foreign Ministers, M. Briand and Mr. Kellog, into an embarrassing involvement from which the latter could see no graceful exit except by pressing all the nations of the world into associating themselves with one of the most meaningless and futile of all international engagements. For months the two unhappy statesmen were obliged to duel publicly with each other to see who could appear most concerned for world peace without sacrificing anything real from the standpoint of national interest. [my emphasis] […] People were encouraged to place solemn hopes and expectations in the enterprise. Millions took it in dead serious. […] Yet the final solution could not, as might have been foreseen, have been more sterile. When World War II came along, twelve years later, even the memory of the Pact of Paris was lost in the general shuffle.

The well-meaning peace enthusiasts who wished to appear most concerned for world peace without sacrificing anything real are the group of peculiar interests postulated above. Just who is the constituency of this powerful interest group?

Dwight Macdonald[18], whom Chomsky holds in high regard, comes in our help. This is what he wrote in 1947:

Thus the actual production of American foodstuffs is enough to greatly increase the present starvation-levels rations of German people. The obstacles to such a decent and farsighted policy are of a commercial and psychological nature. No large number of Americans seem to give a damn whether the people of Germany – or of Europe and Asia for that matter – are starving or not. The fact that it has taken CARE over a year – despite a big newspaper advertising campaign – to dispose of a few million food parcels is one indication. Another is the fact that only 3,065,000 food parcels were mailed from the U.S.A. to people in Germany between June of last year and December 27; I hazard the guess that more than three million Americans have relatives now living in Germany, which would work out to one package per German-American in six months, assuming that no packages at all were sent by Americans without relatives in Germany! The farmers don’t give a damn: they forced the Government to give them a bonus last spring before they would deliver wheat for export, and even then they held back for higher prices. (In mid-December, 1946, wheat prices were higher than they have ever been, except in the Civil War and World War I.) The trade unions are indifferent: great suffering was caused in Europe by first the maritime strike and then the coal strike but, so far as the labor and liberal press reports at least, there was no consciousness of this among the strikers. The businessmen, and their Republican allies, have been the most callous and selfish of all: the chief reason for the low ration level in Germany is the abolition of the domestic price controls by the Truman administration under the pressure of businessmen and speculators. […]

We may conclude this survey with a report from Time of July 15, 1946, which epitomizes the profit-and-loss spirit in which the American public – business, labor, and politicians as well as farmers – approach the question of feeding the hungry.

A Time reporter interviewed a prosperous Kansas wheat farmer and asked him why he and his neighbors were refusing to sell their grain to the Government for export, despite the high market prices then prevailing. […] Said he: ‘I know there are people starving in Europe, and I’d like to help them. But this is a business. If I sell even half of $13,600 worth of wheat, I’ll get into a higher income bracket and my tax will go sky-high. […] I’ve got to stay in business.’”

Frank Anderson is a kindly-looking fellow, and he’d “like to help” the “people starving in Europe”. So are most of our farmers, businessmen, workers, and politicians kindly folk, and they would no doubt also “like to help”. But business is business.

The complex mechanisms of manufacturing consent are another means for the U.S. government to once again uphold the interests of its electorate. The consent is already given, the government is “pre-approved”. What one must manufacture is a reality that conforms to ideals without sacrificing anything real from the standpoint of national interest. The media successfully accomplishes this task.

I am no expert of Middle Eastern affairs, and Chomsky’s towering authority compelled me to take at face value all the facts that he presents. In so doing, I utterly failed to make sense of them. The suffering of the Palestinian people is a sad fact. There is hardly someone to disagree with Chomsky, that it should not be so[19]. Aside from this commendable feeling, Fateful Triangle only adds to our confusion, and if this is indeed “the most ambitious book ever attempted on the conflict between Zionism and the Palestinians”, we are indeed, as George Steiner suspected, “in a very complex trap”.

3.
The following is a fragment from an interview Chomsky gave in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It is representative for evolution of his thinking in recent years.

[Question-Miguel Mora for the Spanish daily El País] What do you suggest the citizens of the Western world could do to bring back peace?

[Chomsky’s response] That depends what these citizens want. If they want an escalating cycle of violence, in the familiar pattern, they should certainly call on the U.S. to fall into bin Laden’s “diabolical trap” and massacre innocent civilians. If they want to reduce the level of violence, they should use their influence to direct the great powers in a very different course, the one I outlined earlier, which, again, has ample precedents. That includes a willingness to examine what lies behind the atrocities. One often hears that we must not consider these matters, because that would be justification for terrorism, a position so foolish and destructive as scarcely to merit comment, but unfortunately common. But if we do not wish to contribute to escalating the cycle of violence, with targets among the rich and powerful as well, that is exactly what we must do, as in all other cases […].

The question was clear. Chomsky’s sermon starts with a spin, pretending that it asked something else: “That depends what these citizens want” and follows a three-step downward spiral: (1) “If they want an escalating cycle” (2) “If they want to reduce the level of violence” and finally, (3) “if we do not wish to contribute to escalating the cycle of violence”. The actual terms of the question are ignored: it assumed neither the desire to escalate nor to reduce violence, but to bring back peace. (In Chomsky’s view, there was no peace to begin with, so there is nothing to bring back; this could have been an easy way out, but the call of duty was louder.) Now let us see, what were the concerned citizens holding their breath to hear: “they should use their influence to direct the great powers” . What we need to do, if we wish to direct great powers, is to use our influence (all of it, I suppose). Whereto shall we direct them? “in a very different course, the one I outlined earlier”. Obviously different, for it is peace that we want. But I could not find any direction Chomsky has outlined earlier in this interview, or earlier in this book. He is responsible for eighty-odd previous book, and I did not read them all. If anyone can point me to the outline I missed of where should we direct the great powers by using our influence, please send me an e-mail.

Next, Chomsky invites the citizens of the Western world to show “a willingness to examine what lies behind the atrocities”. Had Chomsky followed his own advice, he would have spared me the trouble of analyzing Fateful Triangle, from which all I could gather was that behind the atrocities of the Jews there is the U.S., behind which there are profit-hungry corporations, which was not edifying. He must have realized the importance to examine what lies behind the atrocities some time between the revision of the seminal tome (January, 1999) and the date of this interview (September 20-22, 2001).

An important remark follows: the opposite view (that one should not examine what lies behind the atrocities), although common, does not merit comment because it is foolish and destructive. I beg to differ: it is precisely the foolishness and destructiveness of commonly held views that warrant our utmost attention and effort in fighting them. The more commonly foolish and destructive views are held, the more we should take them in earnest[20].

This is not an excerpt from a silly interview with a socialite on his way to a reception. The questions were e-mailed and so were the responses; they were then collected in a book and edited, presumably with input from the author, unless he was busy giving more interviews. The readers – members of the general population, sick of the manipulated media and patronizing journalism, thirsting honest, well informed opinion guided by a noble moral stance reflecting their interests and their aspirations.

Noam Chomsky’s 9-11 is not a seminal tome, but it is a best-seller[21].

4.
Some of Chomsky’s critics[22] have accused him of factual errors, even misrepresentations. To question his empirical foundations amounts, however, to granting him more plausibility than warranted. Chomsky’s principial foundations are deeply marred from the very beginning of his political career.

Chomsky’s first political essay entitled “The Responsibility of Intellectuals” appeared in the February 23, 1967 issue of The New York Review of Books. The question hits home for many of us. Not so the answer: “It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies”[23] Back in 1967, Chomsky too found it unsatisfying, and the essay ends on a note of hesitation, rather than indignantly, as his later writings will. George Steiner, then a Fellow at the New York University Schweitzer Program in the Humanities insisted in a letter published a month later:

The intellectual is responsible. What then shall he do?
I do not ask in order to make a debater's point. But in deep personal perplexity. Perhaps we are in a very complex trap. The present Administration and Congress do appear to represent the duly expressed views of a majority of our fellow-citizens. We are committed to the full rights and power of that expression. Not one Congressman has been elected on a true anti-war platform. We feel with anguish that we know better, that an elite of conscience and insight must be heard. But how, and in what politically active form? If we cannot act politically, or only very slightly, what then can we do personally, now, in our professional and private lives? How can we help subvert the ugly, inhumane coexistence of a brilliant intellectual and artistic culture with a simultaneous Vietnam policy which many of us find self-defeating and abhorrent?
Does your essay not stop almost at the point where it ought to begin?

Chomsky starts his response with equal candor: “I not only appreciate what you said, but also agree without essential reservations with the criticism that you voice. I do feel that the crucial question, unanswered in the article, is what the next paragraph should say.”

He missed the specifics of Steiner’s question, as he was later to miss, or ignore, the specifics of Miguel Mora’s. Chomsky never wrote that next paragraph, nor did he hesitate to add upward of ten thousand pages to the preamble. The achievement is spectacular. Recognizing the foundations as laid down in 1967 helps to understand the inevitable shoddiness of Chomsky’s political oeuvre. It is worth our while to read his entire response to Steiner’s letter.

Chomsky goes on recounting what he did, by way of response to the iniquities of Vietnam and rationalizing (by his own admission) what he did not, namely to resign, as Steiner suggested, from MIT. He will hasten to amply retract his closing chastisement on the next occasion:

Finally, I would like to reformulate a comment that I made in a letter to George Steiner that was printed in NYR, March 23rd[24], namely: “as to MIT, its involvement in the war effort is tragic and indefensible.” This statement is unfair, and needs clarification. As far as I know, MIT as an institution has no involvement in the war effort. Individuals at MIT, as elsewhere, have a direct involvement, and that is what I had in mind. I do think that such involvement on an individual basis is tragic and indefensible, because the war itself is tragic and indefensible. There are important further questions as to whether or to what extent participation in the coercive activities of governments is consistent with a dedication to the intellectual values that a university should preserve and defend. At the same time, there is a question to what extent, if at all, a university should set conditions on the individual activities of faculty members. These are not simple matters, but I think that they will sooner or later have to be faced.

Chomsky added this paragraph at the end of his response to three other comments on the article, in the April 20 issue of NYRB. A reading of the full document reveals that the quoted paragraph has been wisely tacked onto it, and bears no relevance to the points at issue. It was however an excellent forum to retract a dangerous remark that could have cost him dearly. It would be interesting to know whether the repentance was prophylactic, or encouraged by an administrative frown.

The “things” Chomsky has “tried”, admittedly “unsatisfying” were: “harassing congressmen, "lobbying" in Washington, lecturing at town forums, working with student groups in preparation of public protests, demonstrations, teach-ins, etc.” all honorable, safe and ineffective, duly commended by G.W. Bush[25]. They were preempted by Steiner’s question, who knew, that “we cannot act politically, or only very slightly” and asked in clear distinction “what then can we do […] in our professional and private lives?” Chomsky could boast one remarkable measure: “The only respect in which I have personally gone any further is in refusal to pay half of my income tax last year, and again, this year.”

Let us conjecture the outcome of this act of civic courage. An ample profile in The New Yorker[26] tells us that “Chomsky didn’t just speak against the war; for ten years, he refused to pay his taxes”. He is then quoted saying: “It was a big thing to make decisions that could land you in jail.” MacFarquhar then writes, without apparent connection that “at one point, when it looked as though he might spend several years in prison”, his wife decided to finish her PhD, so that she can support the family while Noam will be serving time. Fortunately, “Chomsky did not, in the end, have to leave his family to go to jail.” It is hard to imagine any reason why a distinguished professor at MIT would have to make provisions for his imminent incarceration. Protesters are summarily arrested. A more likely hypothesis is, that after ten years of tax refusal, the IRS had finally had it, and suggested Chomsky to pay up, or else. Ten years’ worth of back taxes, plus penalty and interests are a pretty penny. Did Chomsky prudently save up, in case his protest did not work out? It would have been a lucrative dissent, if it did (and as writing no doubt became).

Chomsky closed his response to Steiner thus: “I meant it quite sincerely in the article, when I referred to the page of history on which we find our proper place, those of us who stood by in silence and apathy as this catastrophe developed and who continue, today, to look away and to restrict our protest.”

During the subsequent 36 years Chomsky produced eighty-odd books and great many uncollected essays; he gave countless talks, in the U.S. and abroad, grew to be a “relentless revolutionary” and last January he retired with due honors as an MIT Institute Professor. But he did not answer George Steiner’s question.

To “speak the truth and expose the lies” while insufficient, is more than nothing, according to Chomsky, I suspect. Once again, we did well to take a closer look at his assumptions. As we have seen in Fateful Triangle, what Chomsky refers to as truth are indeed facts and they remain as impenetrable and disjointed after being spoken as they were before, unless made sense of; the lies he purports to expose are statements that do not correspond to the empirical data. Chomsky’s method is thus no different from waxing indignant over the ravings of a madman. We may call it a lie, that our crazy or malingering fellow declares himself Noam Chomsky, and we can resort to biography to prove that he is not. By exposing it, nothing is gained, though. But what is that we are to attain? This depends on who the person facing our lunatic, or liar, is.

To put it bluntly, the biologist, the physicist, the philosopher are intellectuals, the physician, the engineer and the politician are not. They often trade places, but one should not be fooled by the choreography. The physician treats ailments as best he can (and he pays no mind to Molière poking fun of him). It is the job of the biologist, not of the physician, to understand diseases and to evaluate drugs.

The physicist must not admit, even under pain of death, that the earth is supported by tortoises; but the surveyor is in his right to be Ptolemaic, if this serves him fine to draw a good map. How good a map? – the question asks itself. Good enough to build a house, to draw a bridge, no more. Bridges, houses are not forever, everyone knows. Nor are treatments or policies. They are not forever, and none are perfect. The politician must find a solution for a specific problem, clear and present. The intellectual’s job is to lurk about, ready to pry, to test its soundness. His conclusions will only come in handy next time around.

One could say that the responsibility of the intellectual is to explain the world, not to change it. The understatement is unavoidable and deceiving, so let us watch some of our colleagues at work.

When he critiques the Gotha Program, Marx is an intellectual at his best. His job is to safeguard the clarity of ideas and the rectitude of inferences. He must fight off attempts to recruit adherents to the cause with catchphrases and to muddle concepts for the sake of political gain, however noble the hoped for result may be. Marx does just that, and no one performed better the part. But when he sails off to envision the communist future he ceases altogether to be an intellectual. The passage in question is not only a blunder, but it had historical consequences of unfathomable proportions. It will be the job of a future historian to compute how many innocent bystanders were hit by a stray paragraph from a brief writing, not meant for publication, by a tired philosopher, marginalized émigré political activist. We had better watch what we say or write, and refrain from indulging in reckless prophecies lacking divine imprimatur.

A less gory example is Lynn White and his landmark paper, The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis[27]. White is concerned about how we fouled up our nest as any tenant on this planet is, or should be. His mandate as an intellectual is to question seemingly obvious and popular remedies and he discharges his duties con brio:

The simplest solution to any suspect change is, of course, to stop it, or better yet, to revert to a romanticized past. […] The “wilderness area mentality” invariably advocates deep-freezing an ecology […] as it was before the first Kleenex was dropped. But neither atavism nor prettification will cope with the ecologic crisis of our time.

What shall we do? No one yet knows. Unless we think of fundamentals, our specific measures may produce new backlashes more serious than those they are supposed to remedy.”

He goes on, pointing to those fundamentals:

Science was traditionally aristocratic, speculative, intellectual in intent; technology was lower-class, empirical, action-oriented. The quite sudden fusion of these two, towards the middle of the 19th century, is surely related to the slightly prior and contemporary revolutions which, by reducing social barriers, tended to assert a functional unity of the brain and hand. Our ecologic crisis is the product of an emerging, entirely novel, democratic culture. The issue is whether a democratized world can survive its own implications. Presumably we cannot unless we rethink our axioms.

As a professional historian of technology and a Christian, he deploys the tools of his trade to show how Western production and lifestyle are tied to Judeo-Christian ideology. His conclusions are compelling. White’s analysis does not accomplish to stop the damage done to the environment, but this was not its task in the first place.

Lynn White then oversteps his mandate, and forgets what had prompted his analysis, namely, his doubt that one can halt a process by the exercise of will. His aim is not to pick up all the Kleenexes in Yellowstone, but something perhaps more ambitious, to reform the Christian mentality by enlisting Saint Francis. The latter part of his paper is a failure as much as the first part was a brilliant success, because he tackles two different tasks with the same set of tools, that of the intellectual. He could have capped his pen, ceasing to be an intellectual stricto sensu to take on a different role, of Al Gore. His responsibility would have changed then, and together with it the required method.

The Singer Solution to World Poverty[28] is both more far-reaching in scope as it is more tentative in approach than the writings just discussed. Anyone inclined to read into Singer’s essay more than its author intended, would have to overlook the ironic caveat in the title. (Had he who caused the writing of mine have titled one of his The Chomsky Solution to the Ills of the World, much would have been forgiven[29].) In the event that the American middle-class, thanks to an essay in a Sunday magazine, would undergo a change of heart, and start spending its disposable income to relieve world poverty, not only the structure of the U.S. economy would undergo more profound changes than the all too serious readers were quick in pointing out in their letters to the Editor. It would presuppose a very different social fabric of the U.S. than the present one. A philosopher of Singer’s thoroughness was no doubt aware of this, his aim in this essay being merely to point out the inconsistency in our prevailing views on right and wrong, and that this is not an academic subtlety, but cuts deeply into the very flesh of our value system guiding us in our everyday lives. Singer too is switching positions, from moral philosopher to activist, and it is not obvious which one he holds more dear. The difference is that he does it with awareness, and controls the acrobatics better.

In commenting on Chomsky’s piece, Steiner asked his question ”in deep personal perplexity” , then returned to what he does best, putter on the brink of erudition. Humbly, he answered his own question. Chomsky however, continued what was useless to begin with, became confusing later, and disintegrates now into incoherent chatter.

Our three fellow intellectuals have shown what intellectuals ought to do: analyze; mercilessly, the arguments of those attempting to provide ideological justification for the status quo, and to an equal extent, of those who say they wish to change it (Marx). The roots of our problems, as Lynn White, of our environmental crisis, and as I hope to have suggested for the Middle East. Singer’s lesson concerned our ethical values, and by extension, our value system in general. If this “makes living a morally decent life extremely arduous, well, then that is the way things are. If we don’t do it, then we should at least know that we are failing to live a morally decent life”[30].

The provisos of Steiner’s question were missed on Chomsky[31], but they are important for us to remember. The U.S. Government, whether or not evil in its ways “represents the duly expressed views of a majority of our fellow-citizens”. Dwight Macdonald elaborated on this point earlier, and not only in the quoted article, but Chomsky systematically avoided to consider the issue, from which Steiner’s second stipulation follows: “we feel with anguish that we know better”. Anguish is unavoidable if we acknowledge that a healthy majority of our fellow citizens holds the opposite view. Neither anguish, nor the perception of a conflict between two opposite views are to be found in Chomsky’s writings, only shrill righteousness. Those who think otherwise are either villains or too stupid for him to waste his time. Third, Steiner seeks to “subvert” not the “abhorrent” Vietnam policy, but its coexistence with a “brilliant intellectual and artistic culture”. He also finds these policies to be self-defeating before being abhorrent. This is the only aspect somewhat addressed by Chomsky in the essay, but perhaps we should avoid this time the thicket of difficulties its discussion would entail.

There is no way around the fact, that those of us who find the U.S. policy impetuous and perilous, are in a minority; that even fewer are willing to do, or give up whatever it takes, to bring about a world of their dreams.

We must admit that “we are in a very complex trap”, in a “real fix”, as Chekhov said. As intellectuals, we also know that this is no news, and remember that our predecessors were often tempted by Apocalyptic feelings. We should resist them and recall Chekhov’s words:

Yes, I am intelligent enough at least to refuse to hide my malady from myself and lie to myself and cover up my emptiness with other people’s rags like the ideas of the sixties, etc. I won’t throw myself down the stairwell the way Garshin did, but neither will I flatter myself with thoughts of a better future. I am not responsible for my malady and I am not the one to treat it, because I can only assume that it has goals that are good, yet hidden from us and that there is a motive behind its being sent… There is a method to this madness.[32]

5.
As an intellectual, I must not “tolerate the deceptions that will be used to justify the next defense of freedom”[33]. As an individual, it would be unforgivable for me to look the other way while people are being seduced by these deceptions, Chomsky’s atrocities of the mind[34]. And if I can help the ills that there is something I can do about, I trust that they will affect the ones I seemingly can not.

The “very complex trap” to which Steiner alludes, is that while much lip service is being paid to ethical values, our real life is no different of that for which we so harshly judge our grandfathers; the manufactured consent that Chomsky is so fond of exposing is more like manufactured reality. And if this is so, and Dwight Macdonald bitter assessment was correct, Noam Chomsky’s lifelong meaninglessness is part of the scheme. The same need that generates fictitious media coverage, also generates fictitious concern for safely compartmentalized causes: animal liberation, environment, world poverty. And since this complicated screen is bound have imperfections, there is a dire need for fictitious dissent by proxy, which Noam Chomsky readily provides.

(2003)
Post scriptum, April 2008. Mara is about to graduate from college without having read this, the twice-mentioned colleague has constructive retirement plans, we got used to the Iraq War, and Norman Chomsky has been interviewed by Ali G. But my main point had to do with the responsibility of intellectuals, not a really hot topic, then or now.

NOTES
[1] South End Press, Cambridge, Massachussetts, 1999
[2] In earlier days I would have written “this curt paragraph”; word count is irresistible.
[3] This holds true for the population currently residing in Gaza and the West Bank, estimated to be at least 1,201,000 (UNRWA estimate, June 1995). The total estimated Palestinian population according to the same source was 6.6 million in 1995. (http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/MEPP/PRRN/proverview.html, accessed on April 16, 2003). At least part of this population is expected to want to return, or to actually return to Palestine.
[4] Centuries now successfully replaced by a number of well thought-out international resolutions. Or so they should be, had unreasonable elements not obstruct the endeavor.
[5] I wonder whether Chomsky’s dislike of George Kennan is because the latter is, in general, "an incredible villain", or only because he is articulate. Consider the following passage: “Where is the right and wrong in the Kashmir dispute? I am glad that it is not my task to seek it. And how about the conflict between the Israeli and the Arabs? The very establishment of the State of Israel, at which the Americans warmly connived, was – whether right or wrong – essentially an act of violence. Do you find this shocking? There is hardly a national state in this world community, including our own, whose ultimate origins did not lie in acts of violence. The source of every governmental claim to legitimacy will be found to rest in some situation created originally by the arbitrary exertion of armed might. There is hardly a constitution that does not trace its origin to some act which was formally one of insurrection or of usurpation. Let us recognize that the creation of higher political forms has normally been a process of erosion from despotism, and not the result of the workings of any social compact.” (Realities of American Foreign Policy, WW Norton, 1954, p. 37) Finding an alternative to violence may take more than conjuring lofty principles.
[6] Edward Said on Chomsky in the Preface to Fateful Triangle.
[7] “I am not much of a linguist” G.W. Bush was recorded to have confessed. Lame attempt to dissociate himself from Chomsky!
[8] Nothing exotic, actually. These disciplines and their methodologies are widely cultivated, although little applied outside of academic circles. Tiresome labor, which will result in a framework of the Middle East problem that cannot be squeezed into 190 words. But as Hilary Putnam put it, “every philosophy that can be said in a nutshell belongs in one.”
[9] Plausibility must be ascertained before legitimacy can be sought. The fact that the majority of the Jews are secular only compounds the problem. On the other hand, imagine having to deal with a nation of ultra-Orthodox Jews.
[10] No small miracle, considering that during the same three thousand years, more powerful and numerous peoples have vanished, often without even being displaced from their homelands. A sustained dedication and an international consensus compared to which that achieved in current affairs pales, was applied without success to the seemingly important task of doing away with this recalcitrant people. Much less effort had sufficed to melt all other peoples into the national and ethnical entities of today.
[11] But then, we had faced similar difficulties before. For the physician of the past it must have been hard to admit, all at once, that the untimely death of a fellow human is not brought about by the wrong mixture of the four humors, that pneumonia and lung cancer are not one and the same thing, and that he knows how to treat neither. Nevertheless, he had to accept all these uncomfortable truths, and only then became medicine empowered to find a cure for pneumonia. Note, that although cancer has not yet been defeated (it may never be), we can now do a great deal in many other ailments that would have appeared unrelated to the pioneers.
[12] Noam Chomsky. The responsibility of Intellectuals. An Exchange. Reply to Arthur Dorfman. NYRB, 1967
[13]I wonder whether anyone has read all of Chomsky’s indictments, or at least all of them regarding the Middle East. In addition to presenting us with numerous grueling examples, he also presents them many times. His frequent and unapologetic repetitions are more instructive when meant to illustrate the depravity and cynicism of political leaders. A reason for these frequent repetitions may be Chomsky’s fondness to speak the truth and expose the lies –new lies are constantly being generated, but there seem to be few new truths to be spoken; moreover, Chomsky does not trust his readership and audience to remember them; indignation prevents him from considering their explicative value, hence simple repetition will do.
[14]Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing consent : the political economy of the mass media /; with a new introduction by the authors. New York : Pantheon Books, 2002. 476 pages including introduction; in addition to several other books dedicated to this topic, chapters, shorter articles, and the genre Chomsky is the undisputed master of, book length interviews. An especially effective genre, enabling prodigious output of printed stuff.
[15]The quote Chomsky repeats most often issues from a State Department analysis of 1945, describing Saudi Arabia as “…a stupendous source of strategic power and one of the greatest prizes in world history”.
[16] If this was not the case, this unidentifed group would reject the embellished media coverage.
[17] George F. Kennan: Realities of American Foreign Policy. WW Norton & Company, Inc. New York, 1966. (The Stafford Little Lecture Series at Princeton University, March 1954), p. 21.
[18] When I thought to have finished this typescript, I wanted to check Chomsky’s reference to the author whose essays of 1945 inspired The Responsibility of Intellectuals. I opened the volume of the 1947 issues of Politics and read the very first article by Dwight Macdonald, titled We are responsible. It expresses my argument. Let therefore Chomsky’s favorite author speak for me. The incredible villain Kennan and Macdonald make good company.
[19] Including Moshe Dayan, quoted on page 481: “we have no solution, and you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever prefers - may leave…”. Dayan is here as cynical as he is compassionate, but Chomsky has no time to waste on ambivalence.
[20] Which is why I am writing this essay.
[21] Noam Chomsky. 9-11. An Open Media Book. Seven Stories Press, New York. 2001. The fragment discussed appears on page 81.
[22] Most recently, Keith Windschuttle: The hypochrisy of Noam Chomsky. The New Criterion, May 2003, pp. 4-12.
[23] Brevity and expediency in matters of broad scope were to remain his personal marks.
[24] Eerie birthday present for Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin.
[25] “Mr. Bush pointed to the meeting on Tuesday in Ur, Iraq, of leaders from across Iraq as evidence of progress in bringing stability to the country. ‘They even had some protesters outside the meeting, a sure sign of freedom’, he said with a smile.” Richard W. Stevenson and Felicity Barringer. Bush Urging U.N. to Lift Sanctions Imposed on Iraq The New York Times, April 17, 2003. Bush’s smile, briefly on display at reuters.feedroom.com spoke volumes of the wight of this sort of freedom.
[26]Larissa MacFarquhar: The Devil’s Accountant. The New Yorker, March 31, 2003. pp. 64-79.
[27] Lynn White, Jr. The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis. Science, Volume 155, Number 3767, 10 March, 1967, pp. 1203-1207. The brief ensuing exchange is also instructive: see Science, Volume 156, Number 3776, May 12, 1967, pp.737-738.
[28] Peter Singer. The Singer Solution to World Poverty. The New York Times Sunday Magazine, September 5, 1999. Reprinted in: Writings on an Ethical Life. HarperCollins Publisher, New York, 2000. pp. 118-124.
[29] I dare not picture an expanded version of the proposed solution for world peace, quoted above.
[30] Peter Singer, op.cit.
[31] Someone found my nitpicking tedious. A run of the mill impostor would not merit such painstaking effort, but Noam Chomsky is special. If it is open to debate, how many victims the bombing of the pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum makes Bill Clinton responsible for, so is the number of minds Chomsky has confused. No nitpicking were be too much, if it only succeeded to defuse his pernicious body of writing.
[32] Anton Chekhov to Alexei Suvorin, November 25, 1892. Anton Chekhov’s Life and Thought. Selected Letters and Commentary. Selection, Introduction and Commentary by Simon Karlinsky. Northwestern University Press, Evanston, Illinois, 1997.
[33] Thus spake Jeremiah, in closing The Responsibility of Intellectuals.
[34] Retracing Chomsky’s path, I ran across the August 1945 issue of Dwight Macdonald’s Politics. A photograph on the cover shows “General George S. Patton, Jr. talking to a Sunday School class in the Church of Our Savior, San Gabriel, California, on June 10 last. “You are the soldiers and the nurses of the next war” the general told the kids. “There will be another war. There always has been. Sunday school will make you good soldiers.”” The title of the caption reads: “Atrocities of the mind”. It applies to Chomsky’s political thinking and their social impact, and one could say less in their defense, than in General Patton’s.

Nabokov in traducere romaneasca

2008-01-03T23:07:00.000-08:00

Un caz de mutilare: Pnin in traducerea Monei Antohi
(Editura Humanitas, 2005)

Aceasta gradina de roman adaposteste, printre multe altele, un profesor de literatura franceza caruia nu-i place literatura si nu stie frantuzeste si care, am aflat de curand, e var de-al doilea cu traducatoarea romanului.

Prima fraza a primului capitol e tradusa corect. Nenorocirea incepe abia in cea de-a doua, chelia lui Pnin nefiind perfecta, ci ideala (ideal, nu perfect) - e intruparea ideii de chelie; ratata aici, corectata pe pagina 59, unde, in schimb, se incurca notiunile de a demonstra (ca pe o teorema) si a dezvalui (ca pe ceva invaluit, ascuns):

would demonstrate its ideal baldness

dezvaluia chelia ideala (3/2, p59)

[primele doua numere se refera la capitol si sectiune; pagina la editia româneasca]

Pe aceeasi pagina: clean-shaven nu inseamna proaspat ras (1/1, p7), ci fara barba sau mustati; spindly legs nu sunt picioare fusiforme (iar mai tarziu, 5/5, p116, picioare slabanoage), ci gambe subtirele; dar odata ce legs e tradus picioare, urmatorul avorton e inevitabil: [frail-looking, almost feminine] feet devine talpi, iar mai tarziu se re-metamorfozeaza in picioare (5/5, p 116), ceea ce ar fi trebuit sa fie de la bun inceput. Doamna Antohi are dificultati nu doar cu anatomia membrului inferior, ci se balbaie si cu alti termeni anatomici: bright pink canthus e tradus glanda lacrimala de roz aprins (2/4, p39), ceea ce da fiori reci cititorului subtire, caci glanda lacrimala nu se vede decit daca evertam pleoapa ca pe o manusa, lucru incompatibil cu frumusetea Lizei, fosta sotie a lui Pnin, caci despre dansa e vorba (traducatoarea probabil se gandea la unghiul intern, unde insa canalul lacrimal e vizibil, nu glanda,); ochii (most luminous orbs) devin orbite (5/3, p109), leonine glabella devine spatiul leonin dintre sprancene (6/7, p139), cu toate ca glabela exista si in vocabularul românesc. De asemenea, taut skin nu e piele ingrijita (2/4, p43), ci intinsa; gleznele si incheieturile mainilor putin cam ingrosate (2/4, p39) sugereaza edem, iar a certain thickness of ankle and wrist, doar ca sunt groase din constitutie; sleek dark head inclined nu este redat corect prin capul inclinat impodobit de un par negru (1/3, p25), iar a sweep of hair e strans intr-un coc sau o coada de cal si e neted, pe cand o coama de par (2/4, p39) e ce purtau G. Calinescu si Einstein. Inainte vreme Pnin purtase barba: this divided monastic growth, topped by a fat glossy nose, adica aceasta excrescenta monastica despartita in doua, peste care se inalta un nas puternic si unsuros (2/4, p40). O excrescenta e un soi de tumora; un nas rusesc, ca un cartof (adesea descris astfel de Nabokov), nu e puternic, si, daca e stralucitor, nu e numaidecat din pricina de seboree, cum doamnele folositoare de pudra stiu prea bine.

Cuvinte anatomice pretentioase (cantus, glabela) o oripileaza pe doamna Antohi, nu insa termenii stiintifici si medicali, pe care ii vira fara justificare:

Around half past one the Sheppards started to snore, the deaf one doing it with a rattle at the end of each exhalation and many volumes louder than the other, a modest and melancholy wheezer.

… cu cativa decibeli in plus fata de celalalt, astmatic modest si melancolic (4/9, p98)

Exista un simptom de astm care si in româneste se cheama wheezing. Cu toate acestea, nu tot ce suiera e astmatic, cum vom vedea in fragmentul urmator. Dar decibelii de unde au mai aparut?

Professor Pnin sat down on the wheezy hassock

… se aseza pe marea perna suieratoare (6/7, p140)

Taburetul (the hassock), iar nu perna, suiera, de fapt. Oleaca de imaginatie ar fi fost profitabila, caci nu e frumos sa-l vedem pe Pnin, cel cu trunchiul puternic si picioarele subtiri, acum imbracat de sarbatoare intr-un smoching, asezandu-se alaturi de noul sau prieten, antropologul-ornitolog, pe o perna si aflandu-se cu vreo doua sau trei capete mai jos decat interlocutorul; iar sa ni-l inchipuim ridicandu-se de pe dusumea ar fi si mai dureros.

Si nu doar cu anatomia se afla doamna Antohi in inimicitie, ci si cu invelitorile anatomiei umane: slacks nu sunt pantaloni pescaresti (1/1, p7), ci, pur si simplu, pantaloni care nu fac parte dintr-un costum; polo shirt nu e camasa sport (2/4, p37), ca cea de la pagina 8, ci o camasa tricotata, cu guler moale si cu trei nasturi, de regula cu maneci scurte, chemata si tennis shirt; plus fours nu sunt tocmai pantaloni de golf (2/4, p43), desi le seamana, ci pantaloni de drumetie pana sub genunchi, cu patru degete de material in plus (plus four), care se rasfrang, acoperind astfel panglica imbutonata, vizibila la cei de golf; se mai numesc si knickerbockers, care nu sunt pantaloni bufanti (3/6, p65). Sa mai vedem ce poarta lumea sub centura: shorts in wearing nothing but shorts nu este un slip (2/4, p36), ci o pereche de indispensabili scurti, de regula cu prohab - acelasi articol de imbracaminte pe care Pnin il aduce pe furis (smuggles) din camera lui sa hraneasca masina de spalat a lui Joan, iar nu pantaloni scurti de prin camera lui (2/4, p35), caci Pnin nu e dezordonat; baggy home-made shorts, pe care ii poarta Praskovia in Vermont, nu sunt nicidecum salvari cusuti in casa (5/2, p106), decat poate pentru cine crede ca rusoaicele poarta salvari, iar Al Cook e un consilier particular al tarului (7/6, p167; Privy Counsellor se traduce consilier secret). Sa mai coboram oleaca sa vedem ce poarta oamenii in picioare (sau pe talpi?): black Oxfords nu sunt botine negre (1/1, p7), ci niste pantofi de o anume croiala traditionala (conservative), cum se gaseau in România chiar si in anii puterii populare, la pret de lei 360, daca nu ma insel; iar loafers nu sunt mocasini (6/7, p139), ci niste pantofi comozi, adesea necaptusiti, dar nicidecum imprumutati de la pieile rosii, cu toate ca actiunea romanului se petrece in tara lor. Overcoat ar putea fi un pardesiu (3/2, p59), dar daca traducatoarea ar fi bagat de seama ca actiunea de la pagina 59 se petrece marti, 10 februarie, 1953, in nord-estul Statelor Unite, daca si-ar fi amintit ca peste cateva pagini Pnin va aluneca pe gheata, ar fi tradus overcoat cu palton; dupa doi ani si mai bine, cu toate ca nu are nici un motiv sa creada ca e mai frig, doamna Antohi cade in extrema cealalta si-l incotosmaneste pe bietul Pnin cu un soi de pufoaica, traducand storm coat cu palton matlasat (7/7, p170). Si, ca sa incheiem cu versiunea antohizata a garderobei lui Pnin, sa mai precizam ca flamboyant goon tie e o cravata exuberanta de mardeias, iar nu ridicola cravata tipatoare (1/1, p7).

Ma indoiesc ca doamna Antohi n-ar sti ca cigar este trabuc si ma intreb de ce il tot traduce (2/6, p47; 6/13, p153) tigara (cigarette), dar faptul ramane fapt.

Si metalele ii dau doamnei Antohi de furca. In a head like a polished globe of copper, copper este cupru, iar nu alama (2/2, p29), care ar fi brass, ceea ce nu e un amanunt de chitibusar, caci culoarea testei pniniene, imbaiata in razele lampii de ultraviolete este maronie-rosietica, iar nu galbuie ca alama si nici maslinie, cum insinueaza aiurea, maltraducand brownish (4/8, p92). La fel si obiectele din metal: door lock nu este lacatul usii (2/7, p53); usa de intrare a casei unui profesor universitar, care, fiindca veni vorba, nu e facuta din sindrila (the Clements' clapboard residence - resedinta din sindrila a familiei Clements, 2/2, p29), ci e o constructie de lemn, cu peretii exteriori acoperiti cu lemnarie vopsita; cele mai multe case sunt astfel construite, desi unele sunt pe de-a intregul, sau in parte, tencuite – da, tencuiala e substantivul care traduce stucco in not all, for instance, were clapboard ones; a few were stucco, or at least partly stucco; stuc (3/1, p58) in limba româneasca se refera la decoratiile de ipsos. Zabovind inca putin la arhitectura:

casement windows.

ferestre batante (2/6, p53)

Pnin shook open the casement

Pnin deschise fereastra cu oarecare efort (5/4, p111)

Oare o fereastra batanta e ca o usa batanta, prin care, in aceeasi rotatie, un liliac poate intra in timp ce altul iese? Pentru ca aici, casement window e o fereastra ce se deschide lateral, ca ale noastre, in loc sa gliseze in sus, ca majoritatea ferestrelor americane.

Physically, St Bart's was a great mass of self-conscious red brick

In exterior, St. Bart era o cladire masiva de caramida rosie imposibil de evitat (4/4, p83)

Caramida rosie nu e imposibil de evitat (si daca ar fi, nu stiu ce-ar insemna), ci e foarte mandra de a fi caramida rosie, e plina de constiinta de sine, fiind un material nobil, dupa moravurile locului.

Apartamentul parizian al lui Pnin e dingy: ponosit, nu sumbru (2/4, p40-41).

Cuvantul bright e si el nazuros:

bright pat of dog dirt	gramajoarele stralucitoare de excremente de caine (3/1, p56)
a mirrored row of bright book spines.	oglindirea unui rand de cotoare albe de carti. (3/6, p70)

Fecala canina nu straluceste nici la New York si nici in textul lui Nabokov, cotoarele de carti stralucesc insa - in loc sa fie albe, in reflectia unei ferestre.

De asemenea, fellow nu este flacau (1/2, p17) nici in litera si nici in spiritul scenei: impiegatul cu pricina este un tanar casatorit a carui nevasta e in durerile facerii; freak nu e zanatic (2/1, p28), pretty nu e dragalas (2/2, p32), holding aloft nu e tinand tantos (2/2, p32), warm world of natural scholarship nu e lumea calda a cercetarii naturale (2/4, p36), just nu e cinstit (2/4, p44), iar innocent nu e naiv (3/6, p66).

To walk up and down the stairs inseamna, e drept, ca cineva urca si coboara scarile, dar up and down a room nu inseamna catararea peretilor incaperii, ci, printr-un capriciu al ambelor limbi, o miscare care se desfasoara strict pe planul orizontal:

as they walked in opposite directions up and down a room

cand mergeau in directii opuse, urcand ori coborand dintr-o camera (2/4, p36-37)

Daca doamna Antohi are atatea necazuri cu cuvinte si locutiuni relativ simple, nu ne vom mira ca expresiile idiomatice (care, in treacat fie spus, nu e traducerea lui idiomatic proverbs ca in 1/1, p14) ii sunt foarte straine. Am sa le pun intr-un tabel, pentru placeri ruminative, din care voi extrage apoi cite una, ca pe iepuri dintr-o cusca.

He had lost, dumped, shed many more valuable things in his day.	Pierduse, aruncase, imprastiase mai multe lucruri de valoare in acea zi. (1/2, p17)
there is no way of rendering it in less than so many consecutive words.	nu poate fi redat decat printr-o multime de cuvinte consecutive (1/2, p20)
It stood to reason that if the evil designer	Cugeta ca, desenatorul cel rau (1/2, p21)
thenceforth, so far as Pnin was concerned, Office R had gone to seed.	Asa ca, din punctul de vedere al lui Pnin, biroul R incetase sa mai infloreasca (3/4, p63)
Mr Pennant, a melancholy Englishman with a past	domnul Pennant, un englez melancolic care avea un trecut (4/1, p77)
I never cared much for Bolotov and his philosophical works	nu m-au interesat niciodata prea mult (5/2, p107)
the seedy philosopher	filozoful pricajit (5/2, p107)
From that crest he had been painting a view of the valley beyond, complete with quaint old barn, gnarled apple tree, and kine	De pe acea culme pictase o vedere a vaii, completata cu pitorescul sopron vechi, marul cioturos si o cireada de vite (5/4, p113)
under her breath	cu rasuflarea taiata (6/10, p144)
a stickler for historical truth	maniac cand era vorba de adevarul istoric (6/11, p146)

He had lost… many things in his day – nu se refera la ziua curenta (in care, de altminteri, Pnin n-a mai pierdut nimic, cu toate ca ziua era nefasta – vineri, 13 octombrie, 1950); his day s-ar traduce cu expresia româneasca “la viata lui”.

So many words, in acest context, care reapare si in “Lolita”, si in alte unghere nabokoviene, nu inseamna “atat de multe”, “o multime”, ci doar “un numar de cuvinte consecutive”, adica o experienta instantanee se extinde, volens nolens, intr-o suita verbala temporala.

It stood to reason nu inseamna ca Pnin cugeta, ci ca i se impunea ratiunii (ca daca A, atunci B).

Office R had gone to seed inseamna ca s-a dus naibii, s-a dus pe apa sambetei.

An Englishman with a past, ca si a woman with a past, inseamna nu ca are un trecut oarecare, ci unul regretabil, tenebros.

I don’t care for Jack nu este antonimul lui I care for Jack, care inseamna ca-mi pasa de el, si se traduce cu “nu-mi place de Nica”. Si fiindca Vladimir Vladimirovici, naratorul, nu-l place pe Bolotov, se refera la el ca seedy philosopher, adica filosof vulgar, sordid, decazut, dupa cum seedy restaurant ar fi un birt ordinar.

Complete with in antepenultima rubrica se refera la clisee, iar fraza s-ar traduce: De pe acea culme pictase un peisaj al vaii, cu nelipsitul pitoresc sopron stravechi etc cu tot.

Under her breath – cu voce coborata, sotto voce. De la ce sa i se fi taiat rasuflarea bietei femei, sezand?

Stickler – expresie venind de la verbul to stick to, a insista: pedant, chitibusar.

Toate acestea sunt expresii idiomatice mai mult sau mai putin cunoscute (probabil mai putin, judecand dupa performanta doamnei Antohi). Altele sunt nabokoviene dar nu ermetice:

Most of the other men had seen sixty and had trudged on

Majoritatea celorlalti barbati ajunsesera la saizeci de ani si trasesera din greu (5/2, p105)

Majoritatea vazuse [pe soseaua vietii, marcajul de] saizeci [de ani] si isi urmase drumul [dincolo de saizeci].

Exista cuvinte pe care doamna Antohi le “bungheste”, dar nu le pricepe cu adevarat, ceea ce nu o impiedica de la a le inlocui cu nonsalanta cu ceva care, dupa parerea domniei sale, se potriveste cat de cat. Vom vedea mai tarziu ca munca de mantuiala nu e nici ea aplicata cu consecventa.

Dutiful nu este docil (3/3, p60), ci constiicios; laborious nu e constiincios (1/1, p14), ci trudnic sau cu truda, daca e adverbial; diligent nu e harnic (1/1, p15), ci poate chiar diligent; verbal flow nu e nicidecum potop verbal (1/1, p15), iar patchy English nu e engleza pestrita (ibidem), ci plina de lacune sau chiar carpita, ca, ma tem, engleza doamnei Antohi:

With one hand the driver grimly milked out a handful of coins from his little machine

Cu o mana, soferul extrase batjocoritor un pumn de monede din micul lui vehicul (1/2, p18)

Grim nu e batjocoritor, iar his little machine nu se refera la autobuz, care nu este mic, ci la micul aparat din care soferul, printr-o operatie repetitiva care aduce cu mulgerea, extrage pretul biletului de calatorie a lui Pnin. Coborand din autobuz, eroul nostru nu este parasutat (1/2, p18), desi traducerea literala a lui landed ar fi si a ateriza, ci se trezeste in mijlocul unui oras strain, iar la sfarsitul scurtei sale crize va fi nu speriat si zdruncinat (1/2, p23), ci infricosat si tremurand (frightened and shaky).

To draw out the end of the sentence nu este a extrage sfarsitul propozitiei (1/1, p14), ci a o lungi, cum reiese si din context.

Cuvantul cafenea evoca o institutie pariziana sau newyorcheza, cu intelectuali fumand, cafele aburind, pe cand coffee shop-ul unui orasel ca Whitchurch e un mic local unde se bea cafea slaba din cani nepretentioase (care nu traduce homely), pe graba, dimineata, iar la pranz se mananca, tot fara multa tihna (care nu traduce staid), cate un sandvici cu sunca, o supa sau altceva, care nu este totusi o masa de pranz, ci un dejun intermediar, o gustare, o “ujina”, asa ca traducerea corecta ar fi mic restaurant (1/2, p17).

Potato chips nu sunt fulgi de cartofi (3/5, p63), ci cartofi prajiti, cum se servesc in carciumile englezesti (fish and chips), ceea ce ne duce cu gandul la dificultatea, tot de origine britanica, a verbelor to rent si to let. In timp ce to rent inseamna inchiriere de ambele parti ale tranzactiei, verbul to let (semne oferind rooms to let nu se vad SUA) se refera numai la cel care da cu chirie, ceea ce o ia prin surprindere pe doamna Antohi in fraza: Casa de tara inchiriata in acea vara de familia Belocikin se afla in aceeasi statiune baltica langa care vaduva generalului N. le lasase Pninilor o cabana de vara (5/5, p118). Belocikinii inchiriasera, iar doamna general le inchiriase Pninilor asa-zisa cabana de vara (let a summer cottage).

Nu stiu cum sa procedez cu pletora de boacane. Sa incerc sa le pun din nou intr-un tabel pe care sa-l intrerup cu comentarii.

during the staid European era of his life

in timpul tihnitei perioade europene (1/1, p7)

Pentru cine a citit romanul (chiar si in versiunea româneasca), este limpede ca faza europeana a lui Pnin a fost plina de seriozitate (staid) carturareasca, lipsita de frivolitate (staid), dar nicidecum tihnita. Era e o era, ceva ireversibil, pe cand perioada e ciclica, ceva ce revine; iar daca ne displace cuvantul era in versiunea româneasca, am putea zice, cu oarecare licenta, etapa.

letting his gaze dwell upon various objects

lasandu-si privirea sa hoinareasca asupra celor mai felurite obiecte (2/4, p34)

To dwell are o puternica conotatie de repaus (semnificand in primul rand a locui), asa ca privirea zaboveste, iar nu hoinareste; si oare de unde provine ‘celor mai’ din versiunea româneasca? Si nici privirile, nici vagabonzii români nu hoinaresc asupra locurilor, lucrurilor, ci printre ele.

A kindly, very reserved man of stocky build

Om de treaba, rezervat, scund si gras (5/2, p103)

Daca mai inainte ‘celor mai’ a fost adaugat fara justificare, aici in schimb s-a economisit very; pe de alta parte, nici kindly nu e ‘om de treaba’ si nici stocky nu e scund si gras, ci prietenos, amabil si respectiv indesat.

Sometime in the nineties

La un moment dat, cam prin 1890 (3/6, p69)

Nu numai literalitatea cere ‘candva’ pentru sometime, dar si contextul ne spune ca o calatorie (a unui american in Rusia) nu este un eveniment momentan.

ZFL was now asleep in Pnin's lap.

ZFL se odihnea acum (3/7, p72)

Sa fie asta vreo subtila cerinta artistica? Dupa mine ‘ZFL dormea acum in poala lui Pnin’ ar fi fost nu numai fidel originalului, dar si la fel de eufonic.

the local Republic's Ministry of Agriculture

ministrului Agriculturii (3/7, p73)

Ministry e minister, ministru e minister – incurcatura mare!

with the […] patience of an insatiable child

cu rabdarea unui copil nesatul (4/5, p88)

Oare nesatul, flamand, sa fie sinonim cu nesatios?

state highway just mentioned

autostrada statala abia mentionata (5/1, p99)

Autostrada e freeway sau speedway, ba in acelasi capitol chiar autostrada, termen mai putin frecvent in SUA. Highway e sosea, iar deosebirea e importanta. Cat despre eufonie …

some old-fashioned wag

un mucalit demodat (5/1, p100)

Daca am zice ‘mucalit de moda veche’, si fidelitatea ar fi pastrata, si nu am fi trimisi cu gandul la ‘mucaliti la moda’

a pile of firewood

o gramada de lemne de foc (5/1, p101)

O gramada e lucru urat si dezordonat si in engleza ar fi heap. A pile este o stiva.

the Bolotov girl, a handsome slattern with Egyptian eyes and brown limbs, who went to a dancing school in New York.

o faptura sleampata cu ochi egipteni si membre cafenii… (5/2, p106)

O dansatoare frumusica si sleampata cu ochi de egipteanca? Neingrijita, poate.

a plain washstand

o chiuveta simpla (5/4, p111)

Lavoar, caci chiuveta ar fi sink si nu s-ar potrivi intr-o camera decenta, pe cand lavoarul e doar un usor anacronism pentru anul 1953, dar foarte in ton cu vila descrisa.

Pnin, with brutal indifference, croqueted, or rather rocketed, an adversary's ball.

… cu o brutala indiferenta …lovea, sau mai degraba spulbera o minge a adversarului. (5/5, p116)

Care va sa zica to rocket = a spulbera!

in the first dusk of the arbour,

sub arbore, in inceputul de crepuscul … (5/5, p118)

Ministrul e ministry, machine e vehicul (iar camera e camera, nu-i asa?) Arbour e un chiosc, si de aceea crepuscular inaintea crepusculului de afara…

commencement speech

discurs inaugural … (5/5, p121)

… iar commencement este festivitatea de incheiere a anului scolar – iote pozna!

a shadow as distinct as its own weave

o umbra la fel de distincta ca propria-i tesatura (6/4, p129)

Inca o pacaleala. Weave mai inseamna si impletitura, ca a nuielelor pentru cosuri, sau a plaselor de pescari; iar aici avem de a face cu un cos de baschet deasupra garajului.

homely Venus

Venus fara pretentii … (6/1, p122)

Chiar uratica, nu doar fara pretentii.

underhand methods

Metode secrete (6/1, p124)

Nu secrete, ci necinstite, pe sub mana, cum se “gasea” carnea pe vremuri. Pe la spate, am zice aici.

to loiter in the vicinity of an American college.

sa zaboveasca (6/2, p126)

Sa dea tarcoale, sa piarda vremea. Exista o interdictie in preajma unor institutii: “No loitering. Police take notice”. A zabovi nu-i o crima, a da tarcoale este.

two wing-back chairs, an overstuffed easy chair, a chair with a rush seat, one hassock, and two footstools

doua fotolii cu aripi, o berjera umpluta excesiv cu calti, un scaun cu speteaza de trestie, o perna mare si doua taburete (6/4, p130)

Am auzit de cai inaripati, dar nu si de fotolii cu aripi, cu toate ca s-ar prea putea sa existe in empireul român, dar sunt sigur ca un overstuffed easy chair nu e umplut excesiv si se traduce simplu ‘fotoliu’, poate decorat cu adjectivul adanc. Aidoma, reclama la un oversized couch nu se refera la o canapea mult prea mare, ci cauta sa ne spuna ca e grozav de incapatoare. Hassock nu e o perna, ci tot un fel de taburet, dar cu lemnaria camuflata (reapare in Ada ca ivanilich (a kind of sighing old hassock upholstered in leather) numai ca sa deruteze pe ignorant si sa incante pe cine a citit analiza nabokoviana a taburetului din nuvela lui Tolstoi).

the campus dummies

paiatelor din campus (6/4, p130)

Marioneta, manechin, in nici un caz paiata. Accentul e pe caracterul lor neinsufletit, ca in crash dummies, niste papusi de dimensiuni naturale, care se folosesc pentru testarea autovehiculelor.

head janitor

administratorul-sef (6/4, p131)

Asta ar fi superintendent. Batranul Carrol este seful oamenilor de serviciu din Frieze Hall. Doamnei Antohi i-o fi venit greu sa creada ca Pnin ar invita o specie asa de joasa – un bun exemplu de lapsus freudian. Un altul, si mai bun, este:

actually written from beginning to end by two frail drudges, John and Olga Krotki, both dead today

scrisa, de fapt, de la un capat la altul de doi “negri” amarati, John si Olga Krotki, ambii morti in prezent (2/4, p35)

Drudgery este o munca grea si prost platita, iar drudge, cel nevoit a o face, ar fi aproximativ un zilier sau palmas. Frail, adjectivul cu care e descris si piciorul (nu talpa!) lui Pnin, si care a fost atunci tradus cu ‘fragil’, este si un amestec in parti egale de acest din urma ingredient, plus bolnavicios si slab. Dar faptul ca n-a gasit doamna Antohi de cuviinta nici macar sa le zica sclavi, ci de-a dreptul negri amarati, ne spune atat de multe…

the local postmaster

postasul de prin partea locului (6/5, p132

Seful postei locale, mai precis.

Russian countryside birds

pasari din provinciile rusesti (6/5, p133)

De la tara, rural, nu provincial.

lavatory

baie (6/5, p133)

Spalator, veceu, toaleta, nu insa baie. Baia e lucru’ dracului:

among crashing bathroom cascades and banging doors, two monstrous statues on primitive legs of stone would grimly tramp

printre cascadele spumegande ale baii si usile trantite, doua statui monstruoase protapite pe niste picioare primitive de piatra tropoteau sinistru (3/1, p57)

In original nu exista nimic sa sugereze spuma sau spumegare; este vorba de zgomotul apei trase la veceu; la asta se refera si daramatul nocturn al casei (p 98). (Motivul apare si in Lolita). Si daca o toaleta a invocat baia aceasta de la etaj, sa notam stangacia logica: statuile, odata protapite, nu tropotesc; daca tropotesc, nu sunt protapite; iar atunci ar fi mai bine sa spunem simplu: doua statui monstruoase pe picioare primitive de piatra. Si tot aici reintilnim adverbul grimly, mai inainte batjocoritor, acum, mai corect, sinistru.

had squandered a decade of grey life

isi risipise zece ani de viata cenusie (6/7, p140)

Isi irosise, mai degraba.

A supper à la fourchette is, I think, awaiting us.'

nota: Manger a la fourchette (pop) – a manca cu degetele (lb. fr.). (N.t.) (6/7, p140)

Foarte pop. Sa ne imaginam pe Pnin si musafirii lui, universitari intre doua varste si consoartele lor, pescuind cu degetele din vinegreta creveti, castraveciori si mazare. Manger a la fourchette inseamna a manca cu furculita, adica fara cutit, motiv pentru care nu e necesar a sedea la masa, dar nu licenta de a vari destele prin mancaruri. Cine insa nu e oripilat de asemenea maniere risca sa confunde holul de intrare cu sala de receptie, unde se primesc vizitatorii, la case mai bune:

In the reception hall I found her talking …

In holul de la intrare … (7/2, p158)

the feud

neintelegerile (6/9, p142)

Ostilitatile, cearta, nu neintelegerile, care ar fi misunderstandings, poate arguments.

Roy Thayer was weakly twinkling to himself

… clipea molatic (6/9, p142)

Nu clipea, si nu molatic. Ochii ii scanteiau usor, amuzat de un gand, isi zambea usurel siesi, am zice noi.

Despre o carte pe care

Victor … had left with Pnin.

… ii lasase lui Pnin (6/10, p143)

Nu ii lasase lui Pnin, drept cadou, cum ar veni, ci doar o lasase la Pnin, in casa lui, ca cineva care nu are mult loc la camin.

… mimicked droll Pnin were sure the painter and Pnin were excellent friends

… maimutareau pe amuzantul Pnin … prieteni buni (3/5, p64)

Droll e amuzant numai daca excellent este, la randul sau, bun.

closet

dulap (6/11, p145)

Dulap care sa contina un cufar, dupa care sa cada bastonul unui musafir? In America dulapurile sunt rarisime si se cheama wardrobe, uneori cabinet. Paltoanele si bastoanele musafirilor se pun intr-o debara, un dulap zidit, iar daca ne-am feri de o pletora de note de subsol, am putea traduce closet cu garderoba.

Liberation of Serfs

abolirea sclaviei (6/12, p150)

Serfs sunt iobagi, nu sclavi.

good-natured banter

o gluma nevinovata (7/3, p160)

Banter e un dialog glumet, nu doar o gluma singurateca: sa-i zicem palavrageala glumeata.

a pair of twittering young Englishmen

o pereche de englezi tineri si agitati (7/3, p161)

Agitatia tinerilor trebuie sa se fi nascut din spuma cascadelor din veceu, caci twittery este ciripitor si n-are nimic agitat.

a vile temper

temperament marsav (7/3, p162)

To have a bad temper inseamna a fi dispus(a) a face scene, pe cand temperament marsav nu stiu ce inseamna.

she waylaid me in the little garden

ma atrase intr-o cursa (7/3, p162)

Nici vorba de cursa. Ma intercepta in mica gradina, asteptandu-ma, stiind ca voi trece pe acolo in drum spre casa. Pe pagina 35 acelasi verb e tradus cu “a prinde la cotitura”, nu grozav, dar cel putin nu o cursa.

after nightfall

dupa miezul noptii (7/6, p166)

Intr-o lucrare doar putin mai putin de mantuiala as fi crezut ca a fost numai in fuga condeiului. Aici insa, ma indoiesc. Ce putea fi rau cu “la caderea noptii”?

a roar of greeting

un mormait de salut (7/7, p170)

Dimpotriva, un raget de salut! Si, din nou, contextul ar fi putut veni in ajutorul traducatoarei, daca i-ar fi pasat de context.

what miracle might happen

ce miracol urma sa se intample (7/7, p170)

Ar putea - modul conditional!

Doffing his spectacles, he rubbed with the knuckles of the hand that held them his naked and tired eyes

Scotandu-si ochelarii, isi freca ochii goi si obositi cu incheietura mainii (3/6, p70)

Knuckle este articulatia metacarpo-falangeala, asa ca Pnin isi freca ochii cu pumnii, nu cu incheietura (wrist), dupa cum Praskovia in capitolul urmator sta nu cu mainile, ci cu pumnii (knuckles) in sold (5/2, p106), purtand nu salvari, ci pantaloni scurti bufanti (pe care nu Alpheus Frieze ii poarta in loc de knickerbockers).

Sa inchei aceasta sectiune cu un specimen special. Traducerea nu e doar de-a-ndoaselea, ci si in contradictie cu contextul, ceea ce ma face sa banuiesc fie o obtuzitate de proportii infricosatoare, fie ca doamna Antohi lucreaza cu niste sclavi, iobagi, palmasi sau negri, care, din cand in cand, isi rad de dansa, cum se spune c-a patit-o unul din estetii anilor lumina - Eugen Barbu.

Pnin's academic perch

Fieful academic al lui Pnin (1/1, p8)

Cautand in dictionar, aflam ca fieful este un domeniu feudal, o mosie, unde stapanul taie si spanzura dupa voie. Se poate spune una ca asta despre bietul Pnin? Pe de alta parte, perch e craca sau stinghia dintr-o colivie pe care sta cocotata pasarea cat sa-si traga sufletul, temporar, tocmai ca Pnin al nostru. Imi vine greu sa cred ca doamna Antohi n-a priceput atata lucru. Sau poate chiar n-a citit romanul, ci l-a tradus pe masura ce-l citea, fara sa mai revina la ce lasase in urma. Un mister colateral este cuvantul fief. Cum s-ar explica recursul la un substantiv rar? Eu cred ca stiu, dar ipoteza ne-ar duce in domeniile tenebroase ale psihologiei.

Asemenea manifestari de obtuzitate (logica, artistica, dupa cum e cazul) sunt numeroase:

Roy, a mournful and mute member of the Department of English

membru posomorat si tacut (6/7, p139)

De ce tacut in loc de mut?

Hagen began to retell the story, and Thomas began to re-grin

Hagen lua de la capat istorisirea, iar Thomas zambi din nou (6/9, p143)

De ce stangacia in locul literalitatii: Hagen incepu sa repovesteasca, iar Thomas sa reranjeasca? Si de ce nu ranjet in loc de zambet?

On the porch he pumped Pnin’s unresponsive hand with enough vigour for two.

stranse mana inerta a lui Pnin cu destula putere pentru doi. (6/12, p152)

Pompa mana inerta a lui Pnin cu destula vigoare pentru amandoi. Din nou, varianta cea mai facila e totodata si cea mai fidela, si artisticeste mai reusita.

Dr Wind … a radiophile

radioamator (4/3, p80)

Radioamator e wireless enthusiast sau radioamateur, iar radiofil n-ar fi fost chiar atat de greu de inventat, ma gandesc.

trying to induce sleep

incercand sa cheme somnul (4/1, p76)

De ce nu incercand sa induca somnul?

his morning shave still held. It did.

daca mai era valabil (6/6, p135)

Ar fi fost mai fidel sa traduca held cu tinea. Si mai departe:

Ivan Dub, who never materialized

Ivan Dub, care n-a dat niciodata pe acolo

Un nume care nu se materializeaza intr-un student; in versiunea româneasca doar un student chiulangiu.

the reflections of a comfortable fire

la lumina unui foc reconfortant (2/4, p38)

Oare pantofii pe care ii port sunt confortabili sau reconfortanti, sau e tot una?

Madam Pushkin said: "You annoy me with your verses, Pushkin"

Madam Pushkin a afirmat: (2/4, p38)

Said devine a afirmat in loc sa ramana a spus, in schimb Madam este importat as is, cu toate ca in contextul românesc apelativul e vulgar, chiar ofensiv, pe cand in engleza e doar usor exotic, subliniind inclinatia galicizanta a lui Pnin si a rusilor din capitolul cinci. Nu-i asa, madam Antohi?

you were supposed to call a grey-templed stranger 'Jim',

Trebuia sa-i spui un tip complet strain “Jim” (4/8, p93)

Un strain cu tample argintii a devenit complet strain si si-a vopsit parul. Dar de ce, oare? Mai sunt si alte asemenea metamorfoze inexplicabile. Unele cuvinte apar prin generatie spontanee, altele dispar, inghitite de arta traducatorului (nesatios, nesatul sau nehalit?):

a bridle path

un drum de munte pentru calareti (1/2, p21)

De unde muntele?

the meek beloved monster

monstrul blajin si mult iubit (5/4, p110)

Cat de mult?

'why had one to put that horrid camp so near!'

De ce au trebuit sa aseze lagarul acela asa de aproape! (5/5, p121)

Cum s-ar putea justifica, oare, simplificarea ‘lagarului aceluia oribil’?

A cranky-looking oil furnace

Un cazan de pacura aratand destul de exotic (6/4, p129)

‘Destul’ a aparut din neant. Destul de ce? De exotic. Dictionarul ne spune ca cranky ar putea fi excentric, si probabil ca excentricitatea e exotica pentru doamna Antohi, dar un cazan care trimite in sus o caldura anemica este nu exotic, ci bolnavicios, care tot cranky este, zice dictionarul.

The thunder of trucks

bubuitul camioanelor de mare tonaj (7/7, p169)

Nabokov nu s-a simtit dator sa ne informeze cu privire la tonajul camioanelor, dar pentru talmacitoarea lui bubuitul trebuia justificat. In schimb, autorul tinuse sa ne spuna ca Betty Bliss, studenta, adica absolventa, adica doctoranda (toate traducand, unul si acelasi lucru, graduate student), era un spin suav in carnea tomnateca a lui Pnin, dar doamna Antohi fuse de alta parere:

a soft thorn in Pnin's ageing flesh.

un spin in carnea tot mai batrana a lui Pnin (2/4, p38)

scholarly strands of steel-grey hair

falling over the right side of his small but corrugated brow

suvite de savant gri-metalizat cazandu-i peste partea dreapta a fruntii lui mici dar ridate (6/5, p132)

In original, suvitele insele erau savante, o imagine mult prea dificila pentru doamna Antohi, iar corugarea fruntii trebuie, se vede, netezita cumva, pentru beneficiul cititorului român.

Domnul Thomas Bowdler si-a castigat odinioara imortalitatea bowdlerizand opera lui Shakespeare, eliminand detaliile de gust indoielnic; un pictor al carui nume imi scapa acoperise prea multele parti rusinoase de pe tavanul Capelei Sixtine. Eu nadajduiesc ca Mona Antohi va fi sarbatorita ca imbunatatitoarea lui Nabokov, iar fericitii cetitori români ii vor ramane indatorati pentru usurarea trudei de a pricepe prea multele intortocheri ale originalului.

Dr Hagen, who was her main director of cerebration.

dr Hagen, indrumatorul ei stiintific. (1/1, p15)

Director de cerebratie, inmintosare; sau, daca vreti dumneavoastra, indrumator stiintific.

after a ruminant pause

dupa o pauza de meditatie (2/1, p26)

Ruminatie exista si in limba româna…

Un pahar jumatate plin e acelasi lucru ca unul jumatate gol, nedelicat e acelasi lucru ca brutal, iar un cantec mai mult sau mai putin contrafacut e acelasi lucru ca unul mai mult sau mai putin autentic, asa-i?

Untenderly she cradled the receiver.

Si puse brutal telefonul in furca (2/1, p28)

more or less phony folk-songs

cantece populare rusesti mai mult sau mai putin autentice (3/5, p64)

Pentru edificarea slabului de minte cititor român, trebuie explicat cine sunt stramosii de ambele parti:

Her ancestors on both sides fought on both sides in the Revolutionary War.

Stramosii sai pe linie materna si paterna au luptat de ambele parti in razboiul revolutionar (1/3, p24)

Ca sa nu se creada ca Pnin ar fi avut veleitati necrofile, sicriul a fost transformat intr-un cufar:

huge Russian-alphabet typewriter in a broken coffin

uriasa lui masina de scris cu caractere rusesti adusa intr-un cufar crapat (2/2, p31)

Iar fiindca tanarul universitar nu e un pervers dulapofil, nu imbratiseaza, ci ia in brate raftul de carti:

Young Miller, under Pnin's direction, embraced and brought over Pnin's part of a sectional bookcase.

luase in brate (3/4, p62)

Batul trebuie sa substituie ziarul, caci cititorul român n-ar pricepe ce va sa zica o aruncatura de ziar:

He was still at a newspaper's throw from his porch

Era inca la o aruncatura de bat de veranda (3/2, p59)

Pnin spalandu-si capul ca un glob de bronz cu firescul cu care se spala pe maiini e o imagine induiosatoare, care trebuie, totusi, imblanzita, dupa parerea traducatoarei:

At noon, as usual, Pnin washed his hands and head.

La pranz, ca deobicei, Pnin se spala pe maini si isi dadu cu apa pe fata (3/5, p63)

Chelalaitul de avertizare trebuie si dinsul imblanzit intr-un simplu strigat, caci o asemenea mama s-ar putea sa te si muste:

had not her mother's warning yelp stopped her in time.

Daca strigatul de avertizare al mamei (3/7, p74)

O aluzie pasagera, la jumatatea drumului unei idei – mult prea dificil pentru român:

a passing allusion tacitly recognized in the middle distance of an idea

o aluzie grabita recunoscuta tacit in mijlocul unei idei (2/4, p36)

Simplificarea ucide fara gres; iar daca e temeinica, cadavrul devine de nerecunoscut:

There are human solids and there are human surds, and Clements and Pnin belonged to the latter variety.

Exista fiinte umane solide si altele irationale. Clements si Pnin apartineau celei de-a doua categorii (2/4, p36-37)

Solid este un numar intreg, produsul a trei numere, corespunzand volumului unui solid geometric, iar surd este un caz special de numar irational, un radical imperfect, dar cind zice “exista fiinte umane irationale” nu la asa ceva ne gandim, si tot sensul has gone to seed.

rectangular brush of grizzled hair that had something topiary about it.

peria rectangulara a parului sau grizonant, parca taiat cu un foarfece de gradina (6/7, p139)

Topiary e legat de arta tunsului gardurilor vii, deci, prin extensie, ar putea avea ceva si cu uneltele de gradinarit. Dar cand citim ca freza doctorului Hagen era parca taiata cu foarfeca de gradina ne gandim ca parul e taiat grosolan, inegal, nicidecum la peria patratoasa si dreapta ca un boschet bine tuns.

two lumpy old ladies in semitransparent raincoats, like potatoes in cellophane

doua doamne cocosate, in impermeabile semitransparente, ca niste cartofi in celofan (4/8, p92)

Lumpy nu e cocosat, ci cocolosat. Doua cocosate batrane in acelasi autobuz cu un infirm batran coltos e o panarama (freak show), nu una din procesiunile burlesti (droll) nabokoviene.

Uneori mutilarea se obtine nu prin simplificare, ci prin obtuzitate:

a dazzling flow of unsuspected lovely laughter transfiguring Josephine

Un torent orbitor de adorabile si neasteptate hohote de ras care o transfigurau pe Josephine (1/1, p12)

Hohotul de ras al unei fete este mai degraba monstruos, decat adorabil, chiar impodobit cu epitete optice, dar sa remarcam si traducerea lui unsuspected cu neasteptat in loc de nebanuit.

On the chalk-clouded blackboard, which he wittily called the greyboard,

Pe tabla invaluita intr-un nor de creta pe care o numea spiritual “tabla gri” (3/3, p60)

Fara o explicatie la subsol (blackboard – greyboard) cititorul român, desi cu mult mai inteligent decit ar crede doamna Antohi, nu va pricepe de ce zice Nabokov ca Pnin ar avea umor. Cand doamna Antohi se sileste sa salveze o gluma care nu se transfera intre cele doua limbi, rezultatul e o ineptie, care nu reuseste decat sa discrediteze personajele:

vanilla ice-cream, which contained no vanilla and was not made of cream

inghetata de vanilie, care nu continea de loc vanilie si nu era de la gheata (4/8, p95)

E plauzibil ca Tim si Victor sa manance cu nepasare o inghetata facuta din surogate, dar nu una care mai e si topita.

Voi trece acum la o tema speciala, engleza lui Pnin, fara indoiala centrala in economia romanului si ilustrata cu o arta remarcabila. Ca multi est-europeni, printre care ma numar si eu, Pnin are dificultati cu diftongarea vocalelor englezesti, din care Nabokov ne da mostre putine dar relevante, si care supravietuiesc, in chip surprinzator, transcrierea, nu insa si traducerea: moozishan (musician), noz (nose), Cleef (Cliff), rodd (road). In traducere, aceste contorsiuni fonetice devin de neinteles: “muuzisan stuupid cu nazul ros”; “fhaleza” etc. nu ne spun nimic si nu cred ca exista solutie mai buna decat o nota copioasa explicand problema; dar, la urma urmei, acest aspect al limbii pniniene e secundar. Cunosc tot felul de venetici vorbind cu accentele lor (italiene, nemtesti) o engleza buna si corecta, care ne serveste cu credinta. Problema englezei pniniene este structurala, iar aceasta e generos ilustrata si se preteaza la a fi tradusa. Numai ca, dinsa a scapat aproape in intregime doamnei Antohi si, ca atare, cititorului român.

Cuvinte si expresii pe care Pnin le transpune direct din franceza sunt cu atat mai ciudate cu cat ele exista si in engleza, dar cu sens mai mult sau mai putin alterat. Iata cateva exemple:

'But I must obtain my valise!'

Dar trebuie sa obtin valiz! (1/2, p17)

'No douche?' inquired Pnin, looking up. 'Maybe it is better so. My friend, Professor Chateau of Columbia, once broke his leg in two places. Now I must think. What price are you prepared to demand? I ask it, because I will not give more than a dollar per day — not including, of course, nootrition.

Fara douche? se interesa Pnin privind in sus. Prietenul meu, profesorul Chateau, de la Columbia, si-a rupt o data piciorul in doua locuri. Acuma trebuie sa reflectez. La ce pret v-ati gandit? Fiindca n-am sa dau mai mult de un dolar pe zi… fara sa mai socotim aici si nuuutritia. (2/2, p31)

With apologies for his 'negligent toilet',

Cerandu-si scuze pentru “toaleta neglijenta” (2/4, p37)

'I don't any more play at games of infants'

Nu mai joc jocuri de copii (3/1, p57)

Valise e doar usor desuet; douche, insa, este folosit azi in exclusivitate pentru spalatura vaginala; Demand (what price are you prepared to demand?) e tot de import, dar in engleza are o nuanta vindictiva – grevistii sau talharii, demand money, pe cand o gazda, cerand chirie – asks. Nutrition tradus ca “nutriente” ar reda ceva din ciudatenia originalului, pe cand prelungirea vocalei, pe langa ca e neinteligibila in româneste, are importanta minora. Toilet are in ziua de azi doar sensul de veceu, nu si de ingrijire (desi exista substantivul toiletries); infants, doar in terminologia juridica mai denota copii sau minori in general; in limbajul curent se aplica doar copiilor foarte mici, bebelusilor, nu si celor care ar putea juca ping-pong; sintaxa pniniana a frazei e si ea remarcabila.

Pnin importa galicisme si in germana, unde e mai batator la ochi, caci koschmar e un cuvant pur pninian, iar Sprache, care inseamna limba, ar trebui sa fie Gespräch: discutia asta de cosmar (diese koschmarische Sprache) (2/4, p45).

Quittance (kvtantsiya) receipt e un termen arhaic si cu un inteles diferit, iar traducandu-l stalcit ‘cvitansa’ (1/2 p17) nu ne spune nimic.

Sunt apoi ciudateniile gramaticale:

Are you anarchist? (1/1 p10), Is temperature uniform? (2/2, p31) sunt eliptice de articol, dar greseala se pierde, caci in româna nu se cere articol. Enumerarea anarchism practical, metaphysical, theoretical, mystical, abstractical, individual, social (1/1 p 10) are haz fiindca incepe cu substantivul, si fiindca din cele sapte adjective cu terminatia identica unul e incorect, ceea ce i-a scapat doamnei Antohi.

'Important lecture!' cried Pnin. 'What to do? It is a catastroph!'

– Conferinta importanta! striga Pnin. Ce sa fac? E un ca-tas-trof! (1/1, p16)

Primele doua propozitii au cate o hiba fiecare, a treia are doua;doamna Antohi a sesizat una.

The name of the informer, sonic disturbance, reformed man, sunt mici ciudatenii, desi nu strictamente gresite, pe cand in româna n-au nimic neobisnuit.

I am connected with Mrs Clement?'

Vorbesc cu doamna Clement? (2/1, p28)

Greseala evidenta (corect: Am I connected with… ?) a disparut in versiunea româneasca, iar in fragmentul de mai jos elipsa a fost completata, caci in original nu apare “vorbindu-se despre ea”:

She is my former wife, now Dr Liza Wind — maybe you have heard in psychiatric circles.'

Este fosta mea sotie, pe care o cheama acum dr Liza Wind – poate ca ati auzit vorbindu-se despre ea in mediile psihiatrice (2/4, p39)

serenely browsing in a corner: 'Excuse me, I only am grazing,' as the gentle intruder (whose English was growing richer at a surprising pace) remarked, glancing over the higher of his two shoulders;

scotocind senin intr-un colt: “Scuzati-ma, pasteam si eu pe-aici”, remarca intrusul (a carui engleza se imbogatea intr-un ritm surprinzator), aruncind o privire peste umarul sau mai ridicat. (2/4, p36)

Browse in contextul bibliotecii lui Clements inseamna a frunzari, nu a scotoci, iar intelesul originar e inrudit cu to graze, cu care il confunda Pnin. Mai tarziu, cand tot din lipsa de familiaritate cu engleza, Pnin inverseaza posesorul si obiectul posedat, doamna Antohi nu observa greseala si netezeste diagnosticul:

Golovin who fell and got in consequence kidney of the cancer

care a cazut si s-a ales cu un cancer la rinichi (4/8, p96)

La fel, imbunatateste alte pninisme:

'Some stamped Mrs Miller,'

Pe unele le-a stampilat doamna Miller (6/11, p146)

'Unwrap,' said Pain.

Despacheteaz-o (4/8, p96)

Si chiar si o stangacie majora ii scapa. Expresia corecta e house-warming party:

A little house-heating soirée

O modesta petrecere de casa noua … (6/5, p134)

In capitolul al saselea doamna Thayer vorbeste despre Cinderella, Pnin despre Cendrillon, iar doamna Antohi le impaca traducand ambele cu Cenusareasa (6/8, p141).

Pnin pufneste in rusa 'huliganï’, devenind simplul si românescul ‘huligani’ (3/6, p65) in traducere.

In superbul, tragicul, tristul

'I search, John, for the viscous and sawdust,' he said tragically.

John, spuse el tragic, caut viscous si sawdust. (2/7, p53)

a disparut ne-englezescul I search (I am looking for, ar zice un american) si au ramas giumbuslucurile intraductibile.

I-a mai ramas doamnei Antohi ceva de exterminat in aceasta capodopera: magia numelor. Daca se intampla sa priceapa, dumneaei nu se multumeste sa traduca si sa comenteze, cu modestie, la subsol, ci adauga glose drept in text:

his large, Duchess of Wonderland chin

barbia ampla, asemantatoare cu cea a ducesei din Alice in tara mununilor (3/2, p59)

Sau traduce, ungurizand numele: Testul Abstract Angoasa Augusta (4/3 p81) provine din the Augusta Angst Abstract Test. Cu aceasta, modesta dumneaei sensibiltate s-a epuizat. Nu s-a codit sa atarne o nota constiincioasa in care sa explice, gresit, ca leteana vine din “simbolul uitarii” cand de fapt e o limba pescuita din Lete, fluviul uitarii (este, adica, o limba care merita a fi data uitarii), si corect, probabil, ca Fenugreek, Tirgonella foenum, este schinduful. Dar n-a sesizat ca numele acestui condiment oriental, e un val-vartej de Fino-Ugric si Fino-Grec, daca te uiti mai cu atentie, si deci limbile predate de raposata Olga Krotki sunt cele mai fantastice din turnul Babel. Toate celelalte comori onomastice si toponimice i-au scapat: Whitchurch, oraselul fatidic din capitolul intai e biserica vrajitoarelor; doctoranda Betty Bliss e preafericita si aliterativa (Miss Bliss, domnisoara Bliss p145-6); poetesa Linda Lacefield e diafana ca un intreg camp de dantele; vecina familiei Clements, Miss Dingwall, loveste peretii; profesorul de muzica dr. Robert Trebler are o voce foarte inalta; Rosetta Stone e plina de mister ca piatra cu acelasi nume de la British Museum, care a fost, in cele din urma, descifrata; Jorjik Uranski este uranist, adica homosexual; Eric Wind e gaunos (a wind-bag), suavul bibliotecar Mr. Case se numeste chiar raft de carti (book case), librarul care scrie poezie de circumstanta poarta numele stofei intelectualilor, Tweed, profesorul Idelson e trandav, iar dusmanii de la biblioteca colegiului, Shrill si Basso, au voce stridenta si respectiv foarte adanca. Batranii frati din capitolul al patrulea dorm pe saltele Beautyrest, care iti asigura odihna necesara frumusetii (I need my beauty sleep, zic cucoanele).

Doamna Antohi a tinut sa ne informeze cine e ducesa din tara minunilor, dar nu si de ce doamna Garnett de pe raftul de carti se da drept altcineva (3/1, p58): fiindca a fost traducatoarea exasperant de mediocra a importante cantitati de literatura rusa.

Inca o vorba la capitolul onomastic. Vladimir Nabokov a scris despre problema terminatiilor feminine ale numelor de familie ruse si a insistat ca in limbi straine sa nu se foloseasca. De aceea, toate numele personajelor ruse din Pnin au terminatie unisex. Sau aproape toate: exceptia este Anna Ahmatov, al carei nume apare de doua ori astfel, a treia oara Ahmatova. Doamna Antohi, neavand habar de toate acestea, a rescris toate numele cum a apucat din batrani: Ahmatova, Bogolepova, Belocikina etc. Acest amanunt, marunt doar in comparatie cu uluitoarele grosolanii ale traducerii, e patognomonic pentru ignoranta traducatoarei, cit si pentru nepasarea dumneaei fata de litera operei.

Am cules mai bine de o suta de corpuri delicte pe care nu le voi mai include in acest rechizitoriu deja mult prea lung, dar le voi pune la dispozitia doritorilor.

Voi incheia cu doua bijuterii, ce in engleza s-ar chema howlers, in care indolenta si ignoranta se imbina armonios cu obtuzitatea artistica.

Leninized Russia

Rusia leninista (1/1, p 8)

Mai trebuie explicat ca Rusia leninizata este o locutiune de loc magulitoare, pe cand versiunea antohizata provine direct din Scanteia tineretului?

Chintesenta mestesugului antohist se concentreaza in cuvintele “dar si din”, strecurate in mijlocul unei enumerarii:

banners bearing snatches of old Russian ballads such as 'Ruki proch ot Korei,' 'Bas les mains devant la Corée,' 'La paz vencera a la guerra,' 'Der Friede besiegt den Krieg,'

lozinci cu crampeie din vechi balade rusesti precum ‘Ruki proci ot Korei’, dar si din 'Bas les mains devant la Corée,' 'La paz vencera a la guerra,' 'Der Friede besiegt den Krieg,' (3/7, p72)

Incredintata ca ‘Ruki proci ot Korei’ este un crampei dintr-o veche balada ruseasca, pe cand 'Bas les mains devant la Corée,' 'La paz vencera a la guerra,' 'Der Friede besiegt den Krieg,' nu sunt din vechi balade rusesti si gasind de datoria dumneaei nu doar sa traduca romanul dar sa si corecteze scaparile zanaticului (scatter-brain, nu freak!) autor, doamna Antohi si-a facut datoria!

Clasorul meu mai contine o serie instructiva cu privire la româneasca doamnei Antohi. Trebuie sa marturisesc insa ca mi-ar fi greu s-o astern pe computer. Neavand sculele diacritice la dispozitie, imperfectul s-ar confunda cu perfectul simplu si tot demersul ar deveni mai degraba enervant decat profitabil. Dar ma gandesc ca, daca am reusit sa va conving ca doamna Antohi e verisoara de-a doua cu profesorul Blorenge, poate ma veti crede sau va veti convinge si singuri ca nu doar simtul artistic si limba engleza ii lipsesc, ci si ca româneasca ei e cam cheala si schioapa.

Doua suroriDolores si Ada Popescu

[Pentru Lolita am folosit editia Universal Dalsi, 1994. Din motive de criza valutara am folosit o editie electronica a Adei românesti, plutind in eterul gratuit al reproducerilor ilicite si de aceea nu m-am putut referi meticulos la pagini, parti, capitole. Cititorul pedant e binevenit sa ignore aceasta sectiune, fara mult profit pentru reputatia traducatorului.]

Nu m-am invrednicit sa o citesc in intregime, dar, dand paginile inainte si inapoi, am constatat ca versiunea româneasca a Lolitei e incompleta: Capitolul 2 al celei de-a doua parti este cu vreo trei pagini mai scurt decat originalul. Se incheie cu urmatoarele cuvinte: “Furia lui Lo se intetea ori de cate ori incercam sa-i dau mai insistent sfaturi”, ceea ce corespunde, mai mult sau mai putin, cu: “With every word of persistent advice I would only augment Lo's sullen fury”, dupa care insa urmeaza in original 1367 de cuvinte inaintea capitolului 3, unde copia si originalul se reintalnesc.

Daca cenzorii comunisti vor suferi focurile Gheenei pentru mutilarea Poeticii muzicale, vor fi, neindoios, si jupuiti pentru a fi plivit, mai catolici decat cenzorii sovietici, Maestrul si Margareta. Oricat de fantastice si imorale, mutilarile au avut, totusi, un profil rational. Dar oare de ce a gasit de cuviinta domnul Popescu sa elimine paginile respective si de ce, editoarea, doamna Maria Marian, s-a facut partasa la crima?

Sa contemplam acum ramasitele pamantesti ale romanului. Din primul paragraf, atat de vestit, atat de des citat:

the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth

varful limbii executa o miscare in trei timpi, coborand pe valul palatului, ca sa atinga, la timpul trei, dintii

Miscarea e o excursie si, trecand sub tacere calitatile estetice ale transpunerii, ma vad nevoit sa insist asupra anatomiei. Limba nu poate cobori si nici urca pe valul palatului, dar, daca ar reusi totusi, ar starni mai intai reflexul de voma, conform manualelor de fiziologie; consultand un dictionar, constatam insa ca the palate nu este valul palatin, ci palatul dur sau cerul gurii.

Ca doamna Antohi, domnul Popescu are dificultati sartoriale. Pe prima pagina Lo poarta pantaloni pescaresti, ca amaratul Pnin (slacks in original); pe pagina 40 (1/10), mama ei e imbracata in pantaloni de camping (maroon slacks in original), pe care ii va purta si in ceasul mortii; iar pe pagina 144 (1/24), Jean poarta pantaloni marinaresti (tot slacks, in original); pe pagina 175 (2/2), apare o tanara in short rosu "in loc de ginsi" (red shorts instead of those jeans and slacks). Pe pagina urmatoare apar niste fete imbracate in blugi (faded slacks de data aceasta), iar pe pagina 182 un asirian elegant e imbracat in pantaloni purpurii (magenta slacks). Pe pagina 232 (2/16), Lolita poarta blugi (slacks, in original); pe pagina 301, Humbert Humbert se schimba din costum in blugi (tot slacks, in original); pe pagina 336 (2/35) apare o femeie anonima in blugi (adica slacks, in original). Domnul Popescu nu doar ca nu pricepe deosebirea dintre jeans si slacks, dar nici nu isi da osteneala si traduce dupa cum il taie capul, introducand si pantaloni fantastici: caci eu unul n-am vazut vreodata pantaloni marinaresti (bluza, da!) si nici de camping.

Un alt cuvant tradus nastrusnic: englezescul “curb” nu e tocmai “curba”, cum cauta sa ne convinga domnul Popescu. Dictionarul ne spune ca s-ar putea sa fie struna (la fraul calului), frau, ghizd, sau bordura (la trotuar). Il vom lasa pe cititor sa aleaga sensul corect in cele trei aparitii in Lolita:

I pulled up at the curb and in darkness drank deep

Am oprit inaintea unei curbe si am baut pe intuneric, cu nadejde (2/30, p310)

a wire receptacle on the curb

un recipient de sarma impletita asezat in curba (2/30, p310)

So I ushered her into a taxi which had been invitingly creeping along the curb for some time

Asa ca am bagat-o intr-un taxi care ne urmarise curtenitor in timp ce luam curba

(1/8, p30)

Curtenitorul usher devine mitocanescul baga, inviting devine curtenitor, in loc de ispititor sau poate incurajator, sugerand nu galanterie, ci spiritul comercial al unui sofer in cautare de musterii; dar si mai remarcabila e stalcirea frazei de-a lungul curbei imaginare, caci numai tradandu-i intregul sens putem indesa curba de-a lungul bordurii: in engleza taximetrul se tara ademenitor, de la o vreme, de-a lungul bordurii, ceea ce devine in intruparea româneasca “vrednica de toata lauda” (dupa cum ne asigura prefatatorul Dan Haulica) “in timp ce luam curba”. Pe cand pietonii, fie ei chiar si români, nu iau curba, ci dau coltul.

Verbul to nurse:

was already nursing the cancer that was to kill her at thirty-three

facea tratament pentru cancerul care o va ucide la treizeci si trei de ani (1/24, p114)

Nu facea tratament, ci si-l ingrijea, cum se ingrijeste un copil sau o planta sa creasca. Activitatea surorii medicale, nursing, e de ingrijire, oblojire, nu de tratare (to treat); to nurse mai inseamna a alapta, a ingriji, a dadaci - cum dadaca, the nurse, ingrijeste plodul.

who sat on a chair perfunctorily nursing a bald doll.

care statea pe un scaun si parea preocupata de hranirea papusii (1/6, p26)

Perfunctorily a disparut probabil pentru ca era prea mare belea de tradus; to nurse a devenit de asta data a hrani, cu toate ca aceea ar fi fost to feed, dar unde a disparut chelia papusii si de ce? Ceea ce este cu atat mai regretabil cu cat fraza devine de neinteles: papusa, cu articol hotarat, apare din neant; in original a aparut cu articol nehotarat (a bald doll), cum se si cuvine: "[fata] sedea pe un scaun, dadacind mecanic [am putea spune – de mantuiala] o papusa cheala”

and nursing as I did a tingle on my breastbone at the exact spot her silky top had come level once or twice with my heart

si cum ma furnica intr-una punctul in care crestetul ei matasos fusese o data sau de doua ori in dreptul inimii mele (1/25, p118)

Aici afurisitul verb e eliminat fara multa ceremonie (perfunctorily), in schimb suntem regalati cu propteaua unui adverb, "intr-una", care nu face decat sa altereze logica frazei: vai si vai de cel pe care il furnica intruna o amintire a sternului!

Shall we take these candles with us and sit for a while on the piazza, or do you want to go to bed and nurse that tooth?”

Nurse that tooth.

sau doriti sa va culcati si sa va doftoriciti dintele acela? Sa-mi doftoricesc dintele acela (1/14, p69)

A obloji ar fi fost mai nimerit, daca n-ar fi trebuit tinut in rezerva pentru mutilarea unei alte fraze nabokoviene, pentru ca domnul Popescu prefigureaza aici tehnica antohizanta:

She took him for repairs to the kitchen.

L-a luat in bucatarie sa-l oblojeasca (2/29, p301)

Cea mai putin perfida din echivalentele popesciene pentru verbul to nurse ne-ar face sa speram ca dansul i-a venit, in sfarsit, de hac:

He nursed his glass and, nodding sagely, replied:

Si-a mangaiat paharul si, dand din cap plin de intelepciune, a replicat: (2/29, p302)

Dar dupa alte cateva pagini cercul se incheie, revenind la "interpretarea" initiala:

I need quiet. I have to nurse my impotence.

Am nevoie de liniste. Ca sa-mi tratez impotenta. (2/35, p 331)

Nu, domnule Popescu! Quilty ar fi vrut sa faca cu impotenta acelasi lucru pe care Jean il facuse cu cancerul si nu tratament se chema!

Basement si cellar:

Happy Louise was gurgling and scolding her swain in the basement

In pivnita, fericita Louise isi giugiulea si isi cicalea dragutul (1/23, p 108)

Nici nu si-l giugiulea si nici nu-l cicalea, ci se ineca, de placere, cu saliva in gat si il certa, la subsol – spatiu locativ in America, care este altceva decat pivnita sau beciul.

They had a good cellar, as cellars go in this country

aveau o pivnita bine garnisita cu vinuri asa cum sunt garnisite pivnitele din acest tinut. (1/23, p111)

Aici avem, in adevar, o pivnita adapostind monstrii domnului Popescu. Pentru elvetianul dispretuitor, country se refera la intreaga tara. Si vrea sa zica ca pivnita e buna, adica bine garnisita, in masura in care poate fi, in masura in care vinurile din aceasta tara se poate spune ca sunt bune. In schimb Nabokov ramane eliptic si doar ne lasa a intelege ca de vinuri e vorba, ceea ce nu e greu de ghicit, dar domnul Popescu n-are incredere in perspicacitatea cititorului român.

Soferul –Maximovici, Taxovich in versiunea humbertiana, devine Taximovici in cea a domnului Popescu. Vatama dumnealui si un al doilea rusnac, in partea a doua a romanului, unde Humbert face ravagii in spitalul din Elphinstone, se asaza, plin de disperare si alcool, pe un pacient chel cu capul cafeniu (un alt Pnin?). Traducatorul netezeste ciudatenia imaginii imprumutandu-i pacientului o tigva cafenie, dar nu observa limbajul victimei, cu un prezent neintilnit in engleza, o intrebare retorica ce e caracteristica natiilor est-europene si un accent nastrusnic (nu absurd!) doar pentru urechea snoaba a lui Humbert; pentru a unui cititor atent insa, foarte rusesc: nevrotic, zice pacientul cel chel, adica neurotic, iar nu nebun. Si chiar daca n-ar sti ca-i rus, ar fi putut domnul Popescu, macar cu fidelitate servila, sa traduca nu “te intreb”, ci pastrand stingacia frazei si neduplicand interogativul sa zica “Acu’, cine-i nevrotic, intreb eu?”:

Now, who is nevrotic, I ask?

Acu’ spune si dumneata cine-i nebun, te intreb? (1/22, p268)

Iar cu asta conationalul lui Nabokov ar fi iesit nevatamat. Dar un refugiat sovietic e vulnerabil si mai usor de maltratat decat foarte biblicul final al aceluiasi capitol: “free to destroy my brother”, care ar veni pe româneste “slobod sa-mi distrug aproapele”, caci, altminteri, izul biblic si ironic se evapora ca eterul. Alte gauri in eruditia religioasa a traducatorului lasa sa se vada goliciuni rusinoase:

Thomas had something. It is strange that the tactile sense, which is so infinitely less precious to men than sight, becomes at critical moment our main, if not only, handle to reality.

Stia el, Thomas, ceva. Vederea este simtul cel mai pretios al omului si, totusi, ciudat, pipaitul devine in momente critice principalul, daca nu chiar singurul mijloc de contact cu realitatea. (2/36, p 337)

Cititorul naiv s-ar putea intreba daca i-a scapat numele vreunui personaj episodic. E vorba de Toma, cel care a crezut abia dupa ce “pusese degetul sau pe semnul cuielor”, zis si Necredinciosul. Si sa mai notam ca pipaitul domnului Popescu este o rubedenie saraca a simtului tactil (the tactile sense, in original), care nu devine, dupa Nabokov, principalul sau singurul contact cu realitatea, ci principala sau cea mai importanta parghie sau, poate, principalul sau cel mai important loc de unde s-o apucam.

Iata cum se mai poate trada proza lui Nabokov:

He struck a light, but because he was drunk, or because the wind was, the flame illumined not him but another person, a very old man, one of those permanent guests of old hotels—and his white rocker.

A scaparat un chibrit, dar din cauza ca era beat sau fiindca batea vintul, lumina flacarii nu a cazut pe el ci pe o alta persoana – un om foarte virstnic, unul din acei musafiri permanenti ai hotelurilor batrine – si pe balansoarul sau alb. (1/28, p139-140)

Trei dintre cele mai nabokoviene artificii le gasim zvarlite in groapa comuna a traducerii: “a scaparat un chibrit, dar fiindca era beat sau fiindca vantul era [beat], flacara il ilumina nu pe el [lumina n-ar fi putut sa cada in sus, unde se afla fata necunoscutului aprinzandu-si o tigara], ci pe altcineva, un om foarte batran [Nabokov nu ducea lipsa de sinonime, iar daca maestrul gaseste de cuviinta sa repete un adjectiv, nu e de caderea traducatorului sa-i imbogateasca vocabularul] unul din acei clienti [hotelurile au musterii, clienti, poate oaspeti, nicidecum musafiri] permanenti ai hotelurilor batrane”

Asasinarea se mai poate realiza prin brutala amputare. Ce l-a impiedicat pe domnul Popescu sa traduca ultima fraza a capitolului 1/6?

With a surge of pity dramatizing my idiotic gesture, I thrust a banknote into her indifferent hand. She surrendered my gift to the ex-detective, whereupon I was suffered to leave.

Am impins o bancnota in mana ei indiferenta, cu un gest idiot, dramatizat printr-o puternica tresarire de mila. (1/6, p26)

O bancnota se va boti daca o impingi in mana cuiva – se poate vari insa; inceputul scurtei scene e manjit in versiunea româneasca, iar cu sfarsitul eliminat devine de neinteles: “Un acces de mila dand gestului meu idiot un aer teatral, am varat o bancnota in mana ei indiferenta. Dansa ceda cadoul fostului detectiv, dupa care mi s-a permis sa-mi iau masul.”

O fraza se mai poate mutila prin simpla neglijenta:

Quine, Dolores. Born in 1882, in Dayton, Ohio. Studied for stage at American Academy. First played in Ottawa in 1900. Made New York debut in 1904 in Never Talk to Strangers. Has disappeared since in [a list of some thirty plays follows].

QUINE, Dolores. Nascuta in 1882, la Dayton, Ohio. S-a pregatit pentru scena la American Academy. Debut la Ottawa in 1904 in Never Talk to Strangers. De atunci a mai aparut in … (urmeaza o lista de circa treizeci de piese) (1/8, p35)

Oare de ce Never Talk to Strangers a ramas netradus? "Sa nu vorbesti cu necunoscuti"- cum ar fi trebuit sa se traduca - a devenit vermiformul "Nu intra in vorba cu oameni necunoscuti", care reapare, aproape identic, si nu intamplator, pe pagina 340.

Anul debutului din New York s-a mutat la Ottawa, iar New York-ul a fost inecat in Lethe, pastrandu-se titlul piesei de debut, in original. Some thirty plays s-ar fi cuvenit sa fie "vreo treizeci de piese", in nici un caz "circa" si nu doar fiindca vorba exista si in engleza. Dar mai importanta este traducerea lui disappeared cu "a aparut", pentru ca urmeaza mai jos remarca autorului: "am observat scaparea de condei din paragraful precedent, dar, te rog, n-o corecta, Clarence." Poate ca traducatorul n-a observat scaparea si nu si-a batut capul sa priceapa textul.

Capitolul se incheie cu o nereusita dar scuzabila incercare de a sugera rime - caci ele nu se pot traduce: guilty – Quilty, Quine – Swine. Altele, nu mai putin importante, n-au fost nici macar marcate, semnalate, cu toate ca traducerea pedestra nu doar omite un sfichi, dar transforma un dialog plin de Nabokov si de Quilty intr-unul banal, dintre un om doar beat si un neghiob, ceea ce Humbert Humbert nicidecum nu este:

“Where the devil did you get her?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said: the weather is getting better.”
“Seems so.”
“Who’s the lassie?”
“My daughter.”
“You lie—she’s not.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said: July was hot. Where’s her mother?”

– De unde naiba ai facut rost de ea?
– Ce spuneti?
– Ziceam ca se face vremea buna.
– Asa se pare.
– Cine-i fetiscana?
– Fiica mea.
– Minti, nu e.
– Ce spuneti?
– Ziceam ca iulie e luna lui cuptor. Unde e maica-sa? (1/28, p 139)

Ori:

I have not much at the bank right now but I propose to borrow—you know, as the Bard said, with that cold in his head,
to borrow and to borrow and to borrow.

– acum nu am cine stie ce in banca, dar imi propun sa imprumut – stii, asa cum s-a exprimat Bardul, exasperat de guturai, sa imprumut, sa imprumut, si iar sa imprumut. (2/35, p 332)

Nici urma de exasperare in atitudinea Bardului – head cold, racit la cap, cam stangaci in româna, s-ar fi putut traduce, daca ar fi stiut domnul Popescu cine e Bardul (Shakespeare) si ce persifleaza Quilty, cu “nasul infundat” : Macbeth, actul V, scena V: To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,/ Creeps in this petty pace from day to day. Drept e, ignoranta ne face mai curajosi, caci ne ascunde primejdiile (pe cine am parafrazat, domnule Popescu?). Si daca ar fi observat referinta, tot nu cred ca ar fi putut s-o redea, dar i-ar fi dedicat macar o nota de subsol (nu de pivnita). Exista dificultati insurmontabile in textul Lolitei, dar traducatorul le ignora cu usarnicie. Acest amanunt l-ar fi putut obtine nu doar multumita harului unei acuitati literare pe care traducatorul se vede ca nu o poseda, dar chiar si consultand lucrari de referinta curente: comentariul lui Alfred Appel (The Annotated Lolita, 1970).

Sa mai vedem cateva exemple de cum imbina domnul Popescu “fidelitatea cu frumusetea”, cum ne asigura Dan Haulica in prefata:

a tartan laprobe had dropped in a heap

un pled de tartan acoperise o movilita (1/23, p107)

Este vorba de o patura caroiata; pled vine de la plaid si insemneaza caroiat ca tartanul, adica avem aici un pleonasm pe româneste. Dar patura caroiata nu cade pe o movilita, ci intr-o movilita (in, nu on): in momentul acela Humbert nu stie ca pledul acopera ramasitele pamantesti ale doamnei.

to the car which he had finally run to earth

masina pe care o haituise pana la capat (1/23, p107)

Potaia se bucura nu ca haituise masina pana la capat, ci ca, in fine (finally), a reusit sa o opreasca (run to earth), haituind-o.

Now I must explain my reasons for keeping Dolores away.

Sa va explic acum de ce voiam sa o tin pe Dolores la distanta. (1/23, p111)

Acum sa va explic motivele mele etc. Caci intregul paragraf precedent a fost despre motivele fictive, motivele tatalui imaginar, Humbug Humbug.

thickly rimmed glasses and conspicuous nostrils

ochelari cu rame groase si nari imense. (1/23, p112)

Conspicuous nu este imens, ci remarcabil, care sare in ochi.

Fred showed how by a jerk of his padded shoulder

Fred a aratat cum, smucindu-si umarul sau bine captusit cu muschi. (1/23, p113)

Captusit da, dar nu umarul cu muschi, care ar fi atunci invelit, ci umarul sacoului cu vata, cum se purtau costumele anilor ‘50.

he shook his head and my hand

a dat din cap si mi-a strins mana (1/23, p113)

Doua dintr-o lovitura: asa se pierde atat frumusetea, cat si fidelitatea: Fred, caci tot de el e vorba, si-a scuturat capul [lui] si mana mea. Acelasi verb, si nici macar nu trebuie repetat, e polivalent, ca cliseele - vorbe si gesturi -, pe care Fred, ca si raposata Charlotte, le adora.

I had palpated the very flesh of fate—and its padded shoulder

Palpasem chiar carnea soartei – si umarul ei musculos. (1/23, p113)

La fel ca mai sus – umarul cu vata; fie si numai din pricina genului gramatical, ar fi de preferat sa zicem: Pipaisem chiar trupul destinului – si umarul sau vatuit.

Ca domnul Popescu nu agreeaza dictionarele ar explica unele neajunsuri. Dar de ce very mediocre devine foarte prost, iar baseball baschetbal, e greu, foarte greu de pus pe seama simplei ignorante:

In Kasbeam a very old barber gave me a very mediocre haircut: he babbled of a baseball-playing son of his

In Kasbeam un frizer foarte batrin m-a tuns foarte prost; sporovaia intr-una despre un fiu baschetbalist (2/16, p231)

Nu mai putin misterioasa e combinatia zelului cu munca de mantuiala: domnul Popescu se grabeste sa traduca “gros Gaston”, o locutiune frantuzeasca in naratiunea elvetianului, in loc s-o lase in pace, apoi o mai si traduce cu “burtosul Gaston” (2/17, p233), ceea ce mai este si inexact, caci gros ar putea fi gras, poate gros, dar in nici un caz burtos.

Se pare insa ca engleza domnului Popescu s-a imbunatatit spre sfarsitul muncilor domniei sale. La inceput, dumnealui a crezut ca blackheads se refera la culoarea inchisa a parului, dar a aflat intre timp ca inseamna comedoane:

Viola, of the blackheads and the bouncing bust;

Viola, bruneta cu sanii mari (1/11, p 57)

I had the idle urge to squeeze out the blackheads on the wings of his perspiring nose

si mie parca imi venea sa-i storc ... punctele negre ... (2/29, p301)

A invatat cuvantul blackhead, dar nu si cuvantul idle, asa ca l-a omis. (Daca l-ar fi citit pe Puskin, domnul Popescu ar fi stiut ca "iti trec prin minte ganduri de nimic,/ cand ratacesti hoinar, sau c-un amic".) Nu s-a luminat insa de fel in privinta anatomiei femeiesti. Caci sanii nu trebuie sa fie mari ca sa fie saltareti (bouncing), iar spatiul dintre niste sani nu prea mari nu este o linie imaginara, ci o diviziune umbroasa (uneori in forma de pumnal, zice Nabokov, aiurea):

the shadowy division between her pale breasts

...linia de despartire imaginara dintre sanii ei palizi... (2/29, 301)

Ada
(Editura Polirom, 2004)

De altminteri, nu doar anatomia feminina ii da de furca domnului Popescu, ci si cea masculina, ceea ce se va da in vileag cand dumealui se va arunca asupra unui roman, daca nu mai bun, in orice caz cu mult mai complex – Ada:

Marina knew aroma and hombre, and an anatomical term with a ‘j’ hanging in the middle.

Marina stia de aroma si hombre si cunostea un termen anatomic cu un ,j" atîrnat la mijloc (1/6, p 52)

Al treilea cuvant din vocabularul spaniol al Marinei este cojones, coaie, cu j-ul nu atârnat, ci atârnând, altminteri frumusetea imaginii se pleosteste. Si nu doar forma, ci si functia ramane un mister pentru domnul Popescu:

‘Well, why,’ … ‘why do you get so fat and hard there when you —’

„Bine-bine, dar de ce", … „de ce devii atît de gros si brutal acolo cînd...?" (p118)

Oare "brutal" sa fie cuvintul sau "tare"? Grea intrebare... Putin mai jos, descrierea procesului este redata cu relativa fidelitate si doar pozitia observatorului e schimbata:

Ada was presently watching, cheek on fist, the impressive, though oddly morose, stirrings, steady clockwise launch, and ponderous upswing of virile revival.

Ada a urmarit, cu obrazul în palma, miscarile impresionante, desi ciudat de ursuze, zvacniturile slabe, lansarea constanta în sensul acelor de ceasornic si înaltarea greoaie a revigorarii virile. (p119)

Ce considerente l-au impins pe domnul Popescu sa schimbe pozitia Adei, care in engleza urmarea cu obrazul sprijinit in pumn, iar in româna cu obrazul in palma, invierea virila? In orice caz, obiceiul e recurent:

and her black-socked foot hooked the door shut with a bang

si talpa ei cu sosete negre a împins usa, închizand-o cu un bufnet (1/9, p64-65)

Piciorul trasese usa, iar nu talpa o impinsese.

Nu doar anatomia specifica sexelor ramane ezoterica:

He caressed and parted with his fleshy folds, parties très charnues, in the case of our passionate siblings, her lank loose, nearly lumbus-length (when she threw back her head as now) black silks as he tried to get at her bed-warm splenius.

El o dezmierda si despartea cu faldurile lui carnoase, parties tres charnues în cazul patimasilor nostri frati, matasurile negre despletite, lungi pana la noada (cînd îsi dadea capul pe spate, ca acum), în vreme ce încerca sa ajunga la muschii ei cervicali, ce pastrau caldura patului.

Doua, chiar, intr-o singura fraza: lumbus sunt salele, zona lombara, portiunea dintre ultima coasta si marginea bazinului, pe cand noada ar fi fost coccyx. Cat priveste anatomia proximala, originalul stipuleaza spleniusul, din care avem cate doua de fiece parte, iar nu sumedenia abstracta a "muschilor cervicali". Imediat mai jos si dupa multe zeci de ani, Ada il chiar admonesteaza pe autor, adica pe Van, pentru termeni anatomici de care s-ar cuveni sa se dispenseze.

Unde anatomia si fiziologia, forma si functia, se intalnesc, domnul Popescu pierde orice urma de sens:

They stopped for a moment under the shelter of an indulgent tree, where many a cigar-smoking guest had stopped after dinner. Tranquilly, innocently, side by side in their separately ordained attitudes, they added a trickle and a gush to the more professional sounds of the rain in the night, and then lingered, hand in hand, in a corner of the latticed gallery waiting for the lights in the windows to go out.

S-au oprit un moment la adapostul unui copac îngaduitor, unde multi oaspeti fumatori de trabuc se oprisera dupa cina. Linistiti, inocenti, unul langa altul în atitudinile lor predestinate separat, ei au adaugat sopote si efuziuni sentimentale la sunetele mai profesioniste ale ploii în noapte si apoi au zabovit, mana-n mana, într-un colt al galeriei cu grilaj, asteptand sa se stinga luminile la ferestre. 1/39, p256

Ce-ar putea fi atitudinea predestinata? Si de ce sunt sentimentale efuziunile? Si, in fond, ce se petrece in pasajul acesta? Este probabil cea mai neobisnuita scena lirica din literatura universala: Van si Ada urineaza, ea ghemuit, el de-a-n-picioarelea, dupa cum le-a fost harazit:

S-au oprit un moment sub un copac ingaduitor, la adapostul caruia nu putini musafiri fumatori de trabucuri se oprisera dupa cina. Tihnit, inocent, alaturi, fiecare in pozitia randuita, au contribuit cu un susur si un suvoi la zgomotele mai profesioniste ale ploii nocturne, zabovind apoi, mana in mana, intr-un ungher al porticului cu grilaj, asteptand sa se stinga luminile la ferestre.

(Intebare de baraj: cine contribuie cu suvoiul, cine cu susurul?)

Daca cineva i-a soptit domnului Popescu ce inseamna blackhead, nimeni nu l-a informat in privinta tartanului. Reintalnim in Ada familiarele carouri patrate ale paturii din Lolita:

wavered now between pulling on a pair of shorts, or draping himself in his tartan lap robe.

si acum nu se hotara ce sa faca : sa-si traga pe el o pereche de pantaloni scurti sau sa se înfasoare într-un pled în carouri (1/19, p 115)

Si, la fel ca inainte, avem maruntele marsavii comise de amorul sau in dusmania artei:

Larivière without her midday coffee cream

Larivière fara cafeaua cu frisca de la amiaza

D-soara Lariviere ramasese nu fara cafea, ci fara frisca dintr-insa.

They’ve all gone and left me behind, as old Fierce mumbles at the end of the Cherry Orchard (Marina was an adequate Mme Ranevski).

Plecasera cu totii si pe el îl lasasera acolo, cum mormaie batranul Firs la sfîrsitul Livezii cu visini (Marina era o Madame Ranevskaia perfecta).

Daca doar jocul de cuvinte de le Firs la Fierce (fioros) s-ar fi pierdut, am fi putut spune ca traducerea nu e perfecta. Dupa cum stau lucrurile, dansa nu e nici macar adecvata, caci "perfect" nu traduce adequate nici macar in chip "satisfacator".

‘Relief map,’ said the primrose prig, ‘the rivers of Africa.’ Her index traced the blue Nile down into its jungle and traveled up again. ‘Now what’s this? The cap of the Red Bolete is not half as plushy. In fact’ (positively chattering), ‘I’m reminded of geranium or rather pelargonium bloom.’ ‘God, we all are,’ said Van.

„Harta în relief", a spus primula pedanta, „rîurile Africii". Aratatorul ei a urmarit Nilul albastru pana în jungla lui si a facut cale-ntoarsa. „Ei, ce-i asta? Palaria buretilor rosii nu-i nici pe jumatate atat de catifelata. De fapt" (turuind, pur si simplu), „îmi aminteste de floarea de geranium sau mai degraba de cea de muscata." „Dumnezeule, asa suntem cu totii!" a spus Van. (p119)

Am sa trec sub tacere pierderea unei ambiguitati (prig este pedant, dar si puritanic) si voi evita discutia pedanta a perfectului simplu, care s-ar fi potrivit aici. Ceea ce trebuie insa mentionat e ca we all are se traduce cu "asa suntem cu totii" numai cand uiti contextul: Van raspunde la I am reminded si de aceea ar trebui sa spuna "Chiar asa, ne aminteste tuturor" (ba bine ca nu!)

But beware, anime meus, of the marcel wave of fashionable art; avoid the Proustian bed and the assassin pun (itself a suicide — as those who know their Verlaine will note).

Dar fereste-te, anime meus, de marcel-wave, valul marcel al artei la moda, evita patul proustian si calamburul asasin (el însusi un sinucigas, asa cum vor remarca aceia care-si cunosc Verlaine-ul lor). V/p518

Ignoranta, crede domnul Popescu, se camufleaza prin repetitie: daca juxtapunem marcel-wave si valul marcel vom capata doritul iz de seriozitate profesionala. Din nefericire limba româneasca nu cunoaste locutiunea "valul marcel". Englezescul marcel-wave se refera la creatia coaforului francez Marcel Grateau, o repetitie de carlionti sau valuri, o moda interbelica. Iar daca as zice englezeste, Mr. Popescu does not know his anatomy ar insemna nu ca-l suspectez de necunoasterea propriei sale alcatuiri, ci a anatomiei in general, cum s-a si dovedit mai sus; asijderea cu Verlaine.

Dar pazeste-te, anime meus, de ferchesul carliont al artei la moda, evita patul proustian si calamburul asasin (si sinucigas, cum vor sti cei care-l cunosc temeinic pe Verlaine).

but a moment to him is not ‘hours to a fly,’ because if that were true flies would know better than wait to get swapped.

dar ceea ce e un moment pentru el nu înseamna „ore pentru o musca", fiindca, daca lucrurile ar sta asa, mustele ar gasi altceva mai bun de facut decat sa astepte sa fie înlocuite. p520

Cu ce, oare, se inlocuiesc mustele? Noi nu le inlocuim, ci le plesnim; si consultand dictionarul aflam ca to swap chiar inseamna a plesni.

In loc de incheiere

… fidelity to one's author comes first, no matter how bizarre the result. Vive le pedant and down with the simpletons who think that all is well if the "spirit" is rendered (while the words go away by themselves on a naive and vulgar spree – in the suburbs of Moscow for instance – and Shakespeare is again reduced to play the king's ghost.

Vladimir Nabokov

Hazliul duel din The New York Review of Books a rapus prietenia lui Nabokov cu criticul Edmund Wilson. Acesta din urma, enervat de aroganta lui Nabokov (caracterizat de Stravinski drept cel mai increzut scriitor de la Goethe incoace), a indraznit sa atace traducerea lui Evgheni Oneghin. (Wilson n-a fost singurul indignat de literalitatea meticuloasa si de aparatul critic monstruos, a fost insa cel mai aproape de a pricepe ca metoda nu se datoreaza unui tern zel filologic ori lipsei de sensibilitate poetica, dar acest aspect e neimportant in contextul nostru).

Traducerea romanului puskinian este doar ocazia, nu cauza diatribei, iritarea lui Wilson fiind intetita de dispretul lui Nabokov nu doar pentru incompetenta profesionala a traducatorilor, ci si pentru aspectul moral al muncii de mantuiala [“Mr. Nabokov is in the habit of introducing any job of this kind which he undertakes by an announcement that he is unique and incomparable and that everybody else who has attempted it is an oaf and an ignoramus, incompetent as a linguist and scholar, usually with the implication that he is also a low-class person and a ridiculous personality”]

Parca il vad, cu ochii mintii, pe bucalatul american exasperat de aroganta veneticului. E dificil, chiar imposibil de a fi in dezacord cu obiectiile lui Nabokov in privinta traducerilor; ceea ce il supara pe Wilson era judecata morala: ca un traducator prost e totodata neghiob si ticalos. Si tocmai acesta e aspectul important, caci eruditia se intemeiaza pe constiinciozitate, are un aspect etic, iar munca de mantuiala e si nemernica.

Eu, de pilda, sunt tamplar nepriceput si ma feresc a “bricola” in dodii, iar nevoit sa repar un sertar, nu sunt surprins cind surubul intra stramb, cleiul se prelinge, vopseaua se manjeste. Daca insa, inarmat cu aceasta nepricepere, precum si cu tupeu, m-as tocmi sa-i fac aproapelui meu o masa, nu s-ar gasi scuze.

“Ceva trebuie facut, o voce singurateca si ragusita trebuie ridicata in apararea neajutoratului poet mort si a credulului student de nemilosul si iresponsabilul parafrast” – zice Nabokov cu alta ocazie. In multe randuri a ridicat Nabokov vocea, cautand sa-i fereasca pe neprevenitii cititori de atacurile parafrastilor fara minte, inima si literatura.

Este o o problema de filozofie a dreptului de ce legea nu ne permite sa-i punem la stalpul infamiei, sa le tragem cate un bocanc in fluierul piciorului sau macar sa le distrugem exemplarele inca nevandute, caci nu vad de ce este mai putin daunatoare colportarea unor asemenea marfuri de contrabanda decat desfacerea alimentelor contrafacute, a cicoarei in cafea sau a vinului indoit cu apa.

Nota asupra editiilor

Coperta a patra a Lolitei, amplificata in Comentariile critice, citeaza pe Mary McCarthy: “…aceasta carte ce seamana cu un centaur – jumatate poem, jumatate proza – sirena a adancurilor, e o creatie de o frumusete desavarsita, o opera stranie, originala, fundamentand importante adevaruri morale. Pretinzand ca e doar un divertisment, ea nu poate ascunde ca e una dintre cele mai mari opere de arta ale acestui secol…” Strasnice vorbe si s-ar potrivi, am zice, oricarui roman pe care l-am voi decretat mare si straniu. Si cine ar indrazni sa nu vada in Lolita un centaur jumatate poem, jumatate proza? Doar ca M. McCarthy a scris aceste randuri nu cu privire la Lolita, ci la un roman ulterior, Pale Fire, care literalmente se alcatuieste dintr-un poem si comentariul unui nebun si de aceea chiar este un centaur si o aparenta curiozitate (curio in engleza, nu divertisment). [Eseul intitulat A Bolt from the Blue a aparut intai in revista The New Republic (4 iunie,1962), apoi in volumul The Writing on the Wall and Other Literary Essays. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1970.] Ma intreb daca editoarea Maria Marian a fost doar neglijenta sau lipsita de respect pentru cititorul român, incluzand citatul cu buna stiinta – merge la tara, lipit peste Lolita ca un timbru. Dan Grigorescu incurca si domnia sa detalii critico-bibliografice: romanul Ras in intuneric nu a fost tradus in englezeste Camera obscura, ci invers: originalul rusesc Camera obscura a devenit Laughter in the Dark (Ras pe intuneric), in engleza. De altminteri se cuvine a pastra regula româneasca – doar primul cuvant al titlului se scrie cu majuscula, iar a ortografia un titlu româneste, al doilea englezeste este inca o marunta neglijenta. Khodasevich este nu Vladimir, ci Vladislav si, raposand in 1939, ar fi avut prea putin de spus despre creatia engleza a lui Vladimir Nabokov, care debuteaza in 1941.

Scurta nota din editia româneasca a lui Pnin (p2) aduce contributiile ei modeste la dezinformarea cititorului român: pseudonimul lui Nabokov a fost nu Vladimir Serin, ci V. V. Sirin (corect pe p104); a tradus, e drept, cateva poezii de Heine, dar nu dupa 1922, ci in 1918, la Yalta, si nicidecum n-a devenit cunoscut datorita lor, caci nu le-a publicat [Brian Boyd. Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990, p 145]; a mai tradus, in tinerete, pe Romain Rolland, iar versiunea nabokoviana a lui Lewis Carroll pare a fi cu adevarat o traducere clasica si i-ar fi deschis portile universitare americane. Cu toate acestea, nota romaneasca mentioneaza doar obscura traducere din Heine pentru uzul meloman al refugiatilor rusi in timpul razboiului civil. Invitatie la esafod (mai precis, Invitatie la decapitare) a fost scris si publicat inaintea romanului Darul, in limba rusa, pe care, a-l caracteriza drept “o istorie romanesca a Rusiei secolului al XIX-lea” este tot atat de pertinent ca a spune despre Hamlet ca e o istorie a Danemarcei medievale.