“The Catcher in the Rye”: the Voice Lost in Translation

Abstract

Although J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” has been rendered into Russian multiple times, in each new version its protagonist, Holden Caulfield, sounds surprisingly different. In this paper we seek to elaborate on some issues concerning the translation of the novel. We contend that it is vital to check translation against the reaction of the original recipient (the American reader) to the original text, on the one hand, and the effect the existing translations produce or produced on the new recipient (which is the Russian reader in our case), on the other. An examination of the difference between the former and the latter will create the necessary touchstone against which it will be possible to critically evaluate the existing renditions and offer guidelines for every new translator to follow. It is shown that data obtained through such analysis might provide more valid criteria for the criticism of existing translations and, appropriately enough, contribute to the quality of those yet to come. We also challenge the commonly accepted opinion that translation of slang expressions in the novel plays a dominant role in achieving the necessary level of equivalence. Against this backdrop, we make a few points about the narrator’s voice as something instrumental in character development. To this end, we shall focus on the more well-known Russian versions of Rait-Kovaleva (1960) and Maxim Nemtsov (2008), of which there can be found documented reader feedback, both professional and amateur. We do so with special regard to the author’s intentionality and sociolinguistic factors.

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