The Miseducation of Max Lawton

...and Shoddy Translations

Having been around “alt lit” circles these past few years, I have invariably come across mentions of Dalkey Archive and their forerunning position in importing experimental literature written outside of the general Anglophonic world. Closely affiliated with Dalkey, of course, is Max Daniel Lawton, a prolific, prodigious, and generally highly regarded translator and polyglot, whose central focuses are taking on long, dense, or otherwise stylistically unconventional books and bringing them to a wider English audience, which seems noble enough, regardless of his obnoxious promotional tactics and posturing; I suppose it could be said that it comes with the territory, and that a little bit of snobbery and marketing is understandably par for the course. The issue, however, lies in the actual quality of his translations.

Namely, I have always found it somewhat improbable that someone so young could have a firm enough hold on Russian, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Turkish (alongside English, of course) to be able to undertake the task of translating these dense and abstract books and do them justice. Being unable to read Cyrillic, the extent of my insight into Lawton’s proficiency (or lack thereof) as a translator and a speaker of Russian was limited to brief dismissals from Russian speakers, or uncertain disappointment from Anglophones unable to determine whether these awkward, stocky, and stilted phrases were a byproduct of Lawton’s treatment of the text, or if they originated with Sorokin himself. Alas, earlier this year, Lawton happened to post a progress update on Twitter regarding his upcoming translation of Louis Ferdinand Celine’s Guignol’s Band—to my knowledge, Lawton’s first publication translated from French. Needless to say, reading through the excerpt, I was completely taken aback at its sheer incomprehensibility and its asinine structuring and syntax. For the sake of convenience, I have reproduced the excerpt below:

I know it all too well!...

Keepers of secrets both brazen and superb… arrogant or vile or mute… one after the other… all malefic stinkers to be disgorged by torture moon gall and accursed vows! Poisons, black messages… Martyred calves!

Let everyone attack the demon! that they persist, tie it down, occisate it, incite disgust, find the withered song in their heart… the graceful secret of the cuties… or may he perish a thousand deaths then be resurrected to a thousand pains! To suffocation so atrocious, a thousand flayings of approbation and green contortions of wounds, to boiling pitch, so tenacious, pliered apart, muscles into ribbons, paddling thus for a whole day and three months, a week in the hollow of a pot both hot and greasy, hissing serpents nestled in with bloated toads, with leprosy, juicy, yellow with venom, greedy salamander suckers, repulsive vampires ‘pon the bodies of the damned, wrigglers in your entrails to awaken your pain, in shreds of creased flesh, remasticated with fiery darts, thus for thousands upon thousands of years, only appeasing your thirst when it wishes to with a wineskin full of vinegar, with vitriol of such ardor that your tongue peels, bulges, bursts! then you pass into a painful death screaming about Hell torn to bits! day after day! thus for an eternal spell…

You see how serious the thing is.

Immediately one can note the bizarre schism between the subject and the connotations of the form, where stops and articles flood phrases and trip up the flow of the reading, and whimsical flourishes detract from all the serious and gruesome drama being outlined by Celine. It reads less like a scornful implication and tableau of sadism, and more like a wheedling soliloquy with ostentatious affect, hopelessly purple. More blatant, however, are certain phrases that make no sense whatsoever; items like “torture moon gall” and “green contortions of wounds” were particularly interesting.

Propagated by my own confusion, I opted to check the original French text, and juxtapose it with Lawton’s translation. Reproduced below is the French version of the excerpt, as written by Celine:

Je le sais bien!...

Effrontés cachottiers superbes… arrogants ou vils ou muets… l’un après l’autre… tous empuantis maléfiques à dégorger sous la torture fiel de lune et vœux maudits! Poisons, noirs messages… Veaux martyrs!...

Que chacun au démon s’en prenne! s’acharne, l’arrime, l’occisse, révulse, retrouve en son cœur la chanson, flétrie… le secret gracieux des mignonnes… ou bien qu’il périsse à mille morts et puis ressuscite à mille peines! A suffocation très atroce, mille écorcheries d’agrément et vertes contorsions de blessures, à poix bouillante tenacé, tenaillé, de muscles en charpie, barbotant ainsi tout un jour et trois mois, une semaine au creux de marmite grasse et chaude, serpents sifflants accolés de crapauds bouffis, de lèpre, juteux, jaunes à venins, sucons goulus de salamandres, vampires repoussants au corps des damnés, gigottiers en vos entrailles à réveiller votre douleur, à lambeaux de chairs froissées, remachonnées à dards de feu, ainsi de mille à mille ans, n’apaisent à gré votre soif qu’à l’outre pleine de vinaigre, de vitriol de telle ardeur que votre langue péle, bouffle, éclate! et passez à mort de souffrance tout hurlant d’Enfer déchiqueté! jour aprés jour! ainsi durant temps éternels…

Voyez que la chose est sérieuse.

Let us now slowly make our way across the two and assess their various points of departure.

The first egregious mistake occurs in the phrase “Effrontés cachottiers superbes”, wherein the noun “cachottiers” is sandwiched between the two adjectives “Effrontés” and “superbes”. So where did Lawton get the notion that these two adjectives qualify the secrets and not their keepers? “Cachottiers” directly refers to individuals hiding or keeping a secret (derived from the etymological root “cacher”, which means “to hide”), and so these two adjectives can only refer to those personages, and not their secrets (this is further validated by the next phrase, “arrogant or vile or mute”, referring to the keepers of the secrets, and not the secrets). And how can a secret be brazen? If a secret is bold, then it makes itself known, at which point it is no longer a secret.

The addition of “all too” in the preceding statement (“Je le sais bien!...”/”I know it all too well!”) also introduces the wheedling quality of his translation, as if Celine is not writing in a rage but in a languorous swooning recline, speaking not with force and chagrin but with near-helplessness.

Moving on, the use of “malefic stinkers” clashes awfully, with two registers completely at odds with one another. “Malefic” ascribes this florid tone that “stinkers” completely deflates, turning the whole sound of the sentence into some tittering tantrum. But no matter—the main issue in this sentence is Lawton’s translation of “sous la torture fiel de lune” as “by torture moon gall”, when “sous la” obviously means “under”, and “fiel de lune”, while literally translated as “gall of moon”, does not refer to audacity or temerity, as “gall” is generally understood to denote. “Fiel” is used by Celine as a term to refer to gall as in the “gall”bladder, where bile is produced, possibly referring to moonlight. An additional note could be made that “fiel de lune” might be a play on words for “clair de lune”, which does indeed mean “moonlight”. While, yes, one of gall’s English synonyms is “bile”, the general reader will not know this, and rendering the phrase the way Lawton did is nonsensical regardless. Bile also has a much clearer connection to the later use of “venom”. Stylistically speaking, “fiel” and “clair”, and “(moon)light” and “bile” are both assonant with each other, which only further justifies translating “fiel” as “bile” instead of “gall”.

Lawton attempts to correct this in a supplementary comment to read “all malefic stinkers to disgorge moon gall and accursed vows by torture” but once again completely omits “sous la” (under) from his translation. “All malefic stinkers to disgorge” makes zero grammatical sense as well. “By torture” would also necessitate the inclusion of “par”, or some other (any!) article to justify such a turn of phrase, none of which are present in the original French. It is also incoherent. Are the malefic stinkers disgorging this moon gall and these accursed vows themselves? How would they do so through torture? Would this not BE the torture? Where is the turn of phrase in the original French that indicates that “moon gall” and “accursed vows” are derived from torture? Or are their torture victims the ones disgorging moon gall and accursed vows? But why would their victims be the proliferators of these awful things? And what exactly is “moon gall”?

The syntactical carnival comes to a head when Lawton writes “that they persist, tie it down, occisate it, incite disgust” lacking all consistency through the abandonment of parallel structure in a way that the very propulsive original “s’acharne, l’arrime, l’occisse, révulse” does not. Celine uses “l’arrime” in the sense of lashing something down (as in tying something down, but “tying” does not hold the connotations of violence (and the double meaning) that “lashing” does), which could also be doubly rendered as lashing at something (whipping something; which continues from the preceding image of the demon being attacked). Most damningly, occisate is not an English word! Why create an unnecessary neologism (the root word means “violent death”) when countless substitutes (brutalize, slaughter, butcher…) exist in English?

Translating “mille peines” as “a thousand pains” also feels like a missed opportunity, since “peines” has numerous definitions (“punishments”, or “griefs”, or “sorrows”, for instance), all of which hold more gravity than simple “pains”.

Lawton slips up again by translating “écorcheries d’agrément” to literally mean “flayings of approbation”, or, flayings that approve. How is approval relevant to the act of flaying? How can being flayed be an act of approval? Unfortunately for him, d’agrément has a second meaning: “ornamental”. Ornamental (or “decorative”) flayings makes sense, and maintains that voice of sadism, almost to a point of grotesque glee.

Immediately after that is another embarrassment, where he mistakes “vertes” in “vertes contorsions de blessures” (““green” contortions of wounds”) to literally mean green. “De” (“of”) clearly distinguishes “contorsions” from “blessures”, so Lawton could not have meant to describe the wounds as green. Things become clearer when you factor in that “vertes” also means “unripe” or “undeveloped” in French, and that the word “vertes” has a much stronger connotation to the idea of immaturity or a rudimentary state in French in a way that “green” does not in English. The closest parallel would be “greenhorn”. Green can also be taken to mean “not ripened” in English, but, once again, translating it thus only introduces unnecessary confusion, since the general reader will not know this and default to the much more prominent definition of green as a color descriptor. And seeing as how Celine is referring to the shapes (contortions) of a flesh wound, the term “unripe” would also fit the imagery much better; a concession to replace “green” with “unripe” or a synonym must be made for the sake of coherence.

Writing in “to boiling pitch, so tenacious, pliered apart, muscles into ribbons” is at once wheedling and diminutive, and also inaccurate, since Lawton introduces an additional dependent clause trammeled by commas (“, so tenacious,”) not present in the original French (“à poix bouillante tenacé”, literally “to a pitch of tenacious boiling”). There is no need to isolate “tenacé”, since it can easily maintain its original syntax (it can also be translated to mean “persistent”), and “a tenacious/persistent boiling pitch” is far more accurate and coherent with the structure and character of Celine’s text. “Pliered apart, muscles into ribbons” also feels too purply; “charpie” means “shreds”, and “muscles in shreds” (describing a state of being) makes much more sense as a dependent clause than “muscles into ribbons” (describing some sort of action? It would make more sense if Lawton used “in” instead of “into”, but ribbons still feels a bit over the top, though this is more just personal preference). “Pliered” also doesn’t appear to be an actual English word.

“Nestled in” is another purple rendering of a phrase that is not there in the original French (more accurately translated as “joined by”).

The use of “greedy” in “greedy salamander suckers” also doesn’t mesh well thematically with the rest of the section’s imagery. Since there is an overwhelming focus on flesh and savage wild animals (and consumption through the term “suckers”), perhaps “gluttonous” would be better… but this is more of a nitpick.

Another deflation of Celine’s prose into a mode of over-the-top affect is the bizarre use of the modified “ ‘pon “ instead of the normal “upon”. Where in this paragraph has the precedent been set to introduce some twee or olden affect? “Au corps” is standard French.

“Creased flesh” also feels too light of a descriptor to accompany “shreds”, but that is another nitpick. It is better translated as “crumpled flesh”.

The inclusion of “when it wishes to” while referring to the feeding of vinegar is another one of Lawton’s fabrications; it does not appear in the original French. “N’apaisent” is understood as “not appeasing”, and “gré” could be understood as “will”, or “willing”; “quand il” (“when it”) or any other similar, relevant articles that could potentially justify Lawton’s addition are entirely absent from Celine’s text, making his translation read all the more stocky and stilted as a result. Lawton’s rendition of the sentence implies the torturer has thought to feed his victim vinegar of his own volition as another conscious form of torture, while Celine more readily showcases the torturer’s actions in feeding his victim vinegar as a sadistic reversal of mercy, as if the torturer is relenting by doing so.

Translating “bouffle” as “bulges”, when earlier Lawton translated “bouffis” as “bloated” is another inconsistency.

Moreover, “d’Enfer” means “from Hell”, not “about Hell”. No Francophone would use “de” to entail a space and its dimensions (i.e “about Hell” or “around Hell”). Even Frechtman’s translation, with all its liberties, agrees that “d’Enfer” is rendered “from Hell”. It can also be understood as “hellish”, in reference to “hurlant” (shrieking).

Having thus gone through and enumerated Lawton’s various errors and strange, unfaithful stylistic choices, I elected to try and reconstruct the entire passage myself to gauge how a more judicious translation might look. In my rendition of the passage, I attempted to replicate or at least parallel Celine’s stylistic flourishes, syntax, and intent as best as I could, with minimal additions of my own. I also sought to carry over (or at least emulate) certain literary devices (alliteration, assonance, parallel structure, etc.) I noticed in the original text. It is not without its flaws.

I know it well!...

Superbly brazen secret-keepers... arrogant or vile or mute... one after the other... all that befouling evil disgorging under the moon’s torture bile and accursed vows! Poisons, dark messages... Martyred calves!

That everyone would attack the demon! persisting, lashing, slaughtering, repelling, finding in his heart the song, withered... the cuties' graceful secret... or let him die a thousand deaths and then resurrect to a thousand sorrows!

In truly atrocious suffocation, with a thousand ornamental flayings and unripe contortions of wounds, to a persistent boiling pitch, torn, muscles in shreds, paddling thus for a whole day and three months, a week in the hollow of a hot and greasy pot, hissing snakes joined by bloated toads, with leprosy, juicy, yellow with venoms, gluttonous salamander suckers, repulsive vampires upon the corpses of the damned, wrigglers in your entrails to awaken your pain, within ragged crumpled flesh, remasticated by darts of fire, so for thousands upon thousands of years, only willing to appease your thirst with a wineskin of vinegar, with vitriol of such ardor that your tongue peels, bloats, bursts! while you pass into agonizing death all shrieking from Hell torn to pieces! day after day! persisting thus eternally...

You see that the thing is serious.

I now implore the reader to judge for themselves, in light of everything discussed above, whether or not Lawton’s translation holds up to scrutiny well enough to warrant publication, especially considering the fact that Lawton self-professedly reads and understands French at a native level.

I contend that Lawton’s translations are insufficient and are wholly divorced from their contextual, cultural, and authorial bases and origins, and go so far as to completely gut the original work of its potency and character, instead replacing it with a shambling jaunt. There is perhaps no writer less disposed towards such a make-over than Celine.

Some may object to this critique and point out that his translation is still a work in progress and subject to edits and changes. Maybe so. But I have heard of similar complaints of fragments of his translation of Sorokin’s Telluria, which is currently published and for sale. I also raise the question of what these fundamental misunderstandings of the language (and Celine as a writer as well) found within the excerpt from Guignol’s Band imply or indicate with respect to his treatment of the rest of the work, and, by extension, his comprehension of the French language as a whole, and, furthermore, the remaining languages he is apparently less fluent in. If so many errors abound in a single passage translated from his best-known language, what about the rest?