Mouse or Rat?

Umberto Eco

Umberto Eco's Mouse or Rat is not the first work of lit crit to suggest you can deconstruct literature by examining it in translation. Like Tim Parks' Translating Style, Mouse or Rat reminds us that when the translator grapples with a difficult text this often says something interesting about the original author's stylistic choices.

Again, as in the Tim Parks book, all this makes more sense - and is more enjoyable - if you're able to reed furrin'. But Unlike Tim Parks Eco ranges beyond just English and Italian. Eco is fluent in French, English and Italian and has an interest in Spanish and German (his wife is German). His illustrations range from mediaeval French literature through to modern technical manuals via several detours into his own work (more on this later).

Eco's signature example is from Shakespeare. Hamlet calls out "a rat, a rat" when he hears Polonius rustling behind the curtain in the crucial stabbing scene. In Italian, topo (mouse) is usually used to signify any rodent. Ratto (rat) exists but is used only when the scientific distinction is especially important. Should Hamlet's Italian translator use "topo"? Or use "ratto" for accuracy but risk drawing attention to size and species in a way Shakespeare may not have intended? These decisions are meat and drink to the translator. Eco calls it Translation as Negotiation. The competing demands are precision, euphony and stylistic faithfulness. The translator must aim for functional equivalence rather than equivalence of meaning. Eco's examples aren't always compelling, but his conclusions are always useful and eloquent.

If the book is occasionally tiresome then it's because Eco is slightly in love with himself. Many of the illustrations come from his own fiction. Take this example from my own canon, he too often seems to be saying. Admire the metafictional elements. Gasp at its many layers. Furrow your brow at the thought of having to translate the historical allusions in my feast of a novel.

Bill Weaver, the translator of Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, even produced a diary of the translation challenges he encountered and published it as the "Pendulum Diary". Unsurprisingly, Eco is thrilled and quotes enthusiastically from Bill's notes. But the Russian translator of The Name of the Rose is rebuked for her "insufficient appreciation of the deep sense of my text".

Pity the translator assigned to his next novel. Umberto, now well into 1970s, is still plainly a hands-on kind of guy when it comes to translation. And keen to negotiate... as long as it isn't his own text you're messing with.