The Secret Island

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Chrissie777
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Re: The Secret Island

Post by Chrissie777 »

Courtenay wrote:I know I keep saying this, but I do believe that if a translator can't simply translate what the original author actually wrote (or as near to it as possible), they should just leave it alone... :x Honestly, a lot of these Blyton translators sound like they have even less respect for the integrity of her work than the editors in 2010 who rewrote (and dumbed down) the Famous Five!! :evil:
Courtenay, I don't even think it was the German translator's fault. The translator gets hired by the publisher, but before that I assume somebody higher up at the publishing house reads the book in question at first in English, because severe changes from original books were a common thing at German publishing houses which I already noticed before I had access to the Internet.

In September 1994 on a trip to Canada, I bought "The Kennedy Women" by Laurence Leamer which just was published in the US. Back at home a friend told me that Bertelsmann is already working on the German translation. I received the German version for Christmas 1994 and had the chance to compare both books.
The German version has only 50 pics (the US version has 85) which would not have been that bad, had Bertelsmann decided to include the more interesting photos of not so well known Kennedy relatives. But they decided to publish the pics that every Kennedy aficionado already has seen a thousand times and left out the interesting pics of lesser known relatives which are only contained in the US version. :evil:
Bertelsmann shortened the genealogy/family tree pages from 9 to 2 pages. :?
Both books have about the same size and the same font. Nevertheless the German book has only 850 pages, the US version more than 1.000 pages.

This was not one isolated instant, I noticed the same with French author Régine Desforges (The Blue Bicycle), Judith Michael and very extreme with "Charm School" from Nelson DeMille where more than 100 pages are missing from the English original text (I read both versions parallel and wrote down what is missing).
Many German readers complained in amazon.de about these butchered translations, but the German publishing houses just don't care. :roll:
There should be a law that books have to be translated in their entirety and not just fragments.
Sorry, but this is a topic where I get really passionate.

Back to EB. Bertelsmann most likely made the translator merge both book series and maybe even gave them orders to stay below a certain amount of pages. :roll:
Or the German editor didn't care for Prince Paul. Unfortunately I have no clue what really happened.
We might never find out.

But I'm convinced that EB must have been Bertelsmann's best selling children's book author # 1.
Maybe way back in the 1960's the German publishing houses still tried to make it easier to read for a young German readership, so they decided to skip Prince Paul instead of widening their (the German children's) horizons?

Same goes for Bluechert who published the Famous Five, before Bertelsmann took them over (unfortunately I don't know anything about how and why that happened, but in case Wolfgang or Tony know more, please tell me about it) and for Erika Klopp Verlag (Adventure series, FFO & Dog series). I noticed several slight changes and left out sentences in the German translations from the Adventure series.

All three German publishing houses have one frustrating thing in common: they did publish the EB books with much less illustrations than in the British old, original hardcovers. :cry:
I found that out in 1981 when I bought all 8 Adventure series books in hardcover at Foyle's in London.
Then a few years ago I compared my English hardcovers of the Famous Five series with my German hardcovers and they had done the same. Often 20+ Soper illustrations are missing. :roll:
Erika Klopp Verlag had their own illustrator for the FFO & Dog translations. But they kept a certain amount per Adventure book of the Stuart Tresilian illustrations.

Sorry, this has gotten much longer than intended. :oops:
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Re: The Secret Island

Post by Wolfgang »

I haven't read the German version of the Secret Series in ages, and it never was one of my favourite series. What I'm aware of is this: The Secret Island was edited severely, and so were of course the two "Adventurous Four" books, their plots is edited beyond recognition compared to the English ones. The 4 remaining Secret books are heavily editied, but as far as I remember they kept the basic plot intact. They altered the age structure of the children though, making Peggy the youngest always chewing on one of her plaits.
I actually liked, and I still do in a way, the German "Secret Island" version, but it's also no comparison to the English version. They removed the key element, that the children believe they're orphaned, they know they're three weeks without parents. It makes the plot unbelievable, that Mrs Grimm (who runs a holiday house) exploits the children the way she does. But it's an element you ignore as a child.

To answer Chrissie's questions, a Miss Jones appears in 5 of the 8 German books, though I can't remember if she's always the same person. She has to be in The Secret of Spiggy Holes and the two "Adventurous Four" books, but in the other two books Miss Jones is a friend of their parents. In "The Adventurous Four save the great horse race" we meet a Mr Jones, but he's a forest warden and not associated with Miss(es) Jones (if I remember correctly).

To add insult to injury, when "Off with The Adventurous Four Again" was published in German in 1998 as an adventure of "die verwegenen Vier", the title under which the series runs in Germany now, they kept the English names.
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Re: The Secret Island

Post by Chrissie777 »

Wolfgang wrote:To answer Chrissie's questions, a Miss Jones appears in 5 of the 8 German books, though I can't remember if she's always the same person. She has to be in The Secret of Spiggy Holes and the two "Adventurous Four" books, but in the other two books Miss Jones is a friend of their parents. In "The Adventurous Four save the great horse race" we meet a Mr Jones, but he's a forest warden and not associated with Miss(es) Jones (if I remember correctly).
Wolfgang, thanks for all the information. I intend to reread the first 4 Arnoldkinder books in German later this year.
I think I mixed up Miss Jones with Miss Pepper in the RR series.

I wonder if the very first translation into German was already so butchered or if Bertelsmann did that later on?
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Re: The Secret Island

Post by Rob Houghton »

Presumably Miss Jones is 'Dimmy' - Miss Dimnity - in the English versions...?
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Re: The Secret Island

Post by Chrissie777 »

Rob, I couldn't tell as I've never read them in English.
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Re: The Secret Island

Post by Rob Houghton »

Miss Dimnity is the children's mother's old governess (as far as I can remember) and looks after the children in several books - most notably in Spiggy Holes and Moon Castle. 8)
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
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I'll warm me with your echoes
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Re: The Secret Island

Post by Fiona1986 »

Thanks for the further details, Chrissy and Wolfgang.

Have to say I agree entirely with Courtenay that a translation should purely be to put the book into another language. I understand a couple of things being altered to make sense to a foreign audience ie if they had made Prince Paul into a millionaire's son, that doesn't significantly change the books if he remains a bit stuck-up and unused to other children. It doesn't mean that it's OK to write out his bodyguards, though. Once you start removing things like that you're rewriting half the book to come up with new characters and new reasons for doing things.

I highly recommend you read the Secret Series in English, Chrissie. I have no doubt they will be far better.
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Re: The Secret Island

Post by Chrissie777 »

Rob Houghton wrote:Miss Dimnity is the children's mother's old governess (as far as I can remember) and looks after the children in several books - most notably in Spiggy Holes and Moon Castle. 8)
Thank you, Rob. :)
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Re: The Secret Island

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Fiona1986 wrote:I highly recommend you read the Secret Series in English, Chrissie. I have no doubt they will be far better.
Fiona, I will try it once more at some point. The first time in 2008 when André bought me these books in English, I had a hard time getting into them, probably because I don't have all of them and cannot read them in the correct order (I got "The Secret Island" much later).
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Re: The Secret Island

Post by Wolfgang »

Rob Houghton wrote:Presumably Miss Jones is 'Dimmy' - Miss Dimnity - in the English versions...?
Yes, it (or rather she) is, Rob.
Fiona1986 wrote: bodyguards
Actually Larry has bodyguards, after being kidnapped they installed them on him.
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Re: The Secret Island

Post by Fiona1986 »

So do the bodyguards play the same roles and Ranni and Pilescu do? I ask because earlier it is said they are omitted I assumed that meant entirely, not just renamed.
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Re: The Secret Island

Post by Wolfgang »

The names of the bodyguards are Ranny and Peter Potter, and going from memory, their tasks are more less the same.
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Re: The Secret Island

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

Rob Houghton wrote:Miss Dimnity is the children's mother's old governess (as far as I can remember) and looks after the children in several books - most notably in Spiggy Holes and Moon Castle.
I think Miss Dimity is just "an old friend". Miss Pepper in the Barney series is Mrs. Lynton's old governess.
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