A book is in the eye of the beholder

Recently a friend asked me if I thought that the essence of a book was lost once it had been translated into another language. I couldn’t help but be impressed by how impressive some of my friends are. However, it was early in the morning (well, it was before 10 o’clock), I had only had one cup of coffee and I really wasn’t up to such deep philosophising. I know that a lot of people say they are most alert in the morning and do their best thinking then, but I’m not one of them. By about 11 o’clock, after two cups of coffee, I can just about get my brain in gear and manage to string a fairly coherent sentence together, but contemplating the effectiveness of translation is really something that has to wait for maximum alertness, which in my case means sometime after midday. Or maybe next week.

It did get me thinking about readers, though, and how two people can take away entirely different ideas from the same book. I don’t really know what the essence of a book is, but I suspect that it may be lost long before it’s translated.  Once a novel has made the long journey from inside the author’s head onto a bookshop shelf it is then open season for everyone to interpret it as they choose. The author is writing it from their own viewpoint, beliefs, experience and knowledge, while every reader is approaching it from their own unique angle. I gather that authors are frequently surprised, and possibly horrified, at what readers see in their work – things they never intended or realised were there.

For instance, I read The Handmaid’s Tale many years ago. I struggle to read or watch anything frightening, violent or miserable, so a dystopian tale of the future is not usually my preferred choice of reading. However, I have an unwavering admiration for Margaret Atwood and read everything she writes. So, what is my abiding memory of The Handmaid’s Tale? I can recall Offred, who was a handmaid and not allowed to wear makeup, being struck by the unnaturally large eyes of the few women who did wear makeup. I also have vague memories of women being forced to wear bonnets so large that they acted as blinkers and of weird procreational sex scenes between handmaids, commanders and their wives, but it’s the memory of those unnatural eyes that has really stayed with me. A whole thesis could be written on wearing makeup, why women do it, whether it’s an act of conformity, freedom or rebellion, but I can’t imagine that Margaret Atwood wrote The Handmaid’s Tale hoping to provide material for a Master’s thesis on makeup. She might well be horrified at the thought.

It’s also entirely possible that I have completely mis-remembered the whole episode. It’s years since I read the book and to be honest I can barely remember what I had for lunch yesterday. I think the essence of one of Margaret Atwood’s greatest works may have passed me by completely.