So
here’s an idea I’ve been toying with: I’m one of roughly two million people on
earth who speak Slovenian (Sounds like a lot, but that equates to less than 3
hundredths of one percent of the world’s population.) The vast majority of the
seven billion other people on earth have never even heard of
Slovenia—and if they have, I’d bet good money that they’ve never picked up a
book of Slovene literature a) because it’s
a small country, b) because it’s only 20
years old, but c) mainly because most of
the Slovene canon remains untranslated.
And
while there are a few academics out there who are slowly working their way
through a couple of the most important works, the door is wide open for, say, a
Slovene-speaking native English speaker, and an English-speaking native Slovene
speaker to put their heads together and start translating some stuff. Mrs. DeMarest and I just happen to fit the
bill. So we’ll see… This would be a
years-long project, of course, and a huge commitment of free time, but it might
just be something I’d look back on with immense satisfaction.
Anyway, while mulling this over I was reminded of a passage from Don Quixote that rang true to me at the time:
“…it seems to me that translating from one language to another, unless it is from Greek and Latin, the queens of all languages, is like looking at Flemish tapestries from the wrong side, for although the figures are visible, they are covered by threads that obscure them, and cannot be seen with the smoothness and color of the right side”
—
From
Don Quixote , by Miguel Cervantes
