Kir Bulychev, Half a Life

by Bill Bowler

About the Translation

Let it be noted that the late Helen Saltz Jacobson did a magnificent translation of “Half a Life.” It appeared in 1977, at the same time as the original work. Jacobson was an active free-lance translator who also translated science fiction masterpieces by the Strugatskys, such as “Inhabited Island,” “It’s Difficult to be a God,” and others.

Jacobson’s collection of Bulychev’s stories has an introduction by Theodore Sturgeon, and many of her translations appear in Sturgeon’s series “The Best of Soviet Science Fiction.”

I discovered the Jacobson translation of “Half a Life” only after I had completed the first draft of my own version. Without taking anything away from Helen S. Jacobson’s work, I felt my efforts could at least make “Half a Life” readily accessible to the readers of Bewildering Stories.

Translating a text involves total immersion in the original, at the level not only of the paragraph or sentence, but at the most basic level: the word. A reader can skip over a tough part, or guess at its meaning. The translator has to stop and reach for a dictionary or consult with a native speaker.

Immersion in a text at this level establishes a deeply intimate bond with the author. It is a wonderfully rewarding experience. I was so touched, and moved, and impressed when I read “Half a Life” in Russian that I wanted nothing more than to share this marvelous story with readers who, not knowing Russian, would otherwise miss it.

Once I discovered the Jacobson translation, I was most curious to see what her approach to the Russian text was, and to see how she had solved some of the particular problems that “defied” translation. Here are a couple of examples, by way of comparison:

Natasha vs Nadezhda

The heroine is Nadezhda; her name is very common in Russian and means “hope.” However, it is not a name that speakers of English may be familiar or comfortable with. An English speaker might not know how to pronounce it. It contains the zh phoneme (as in the French jour or garage), which does not exist in English. There’s also a “y” sound, as in “yes,” before the letter “e” — Na-DYEZH-da.

Jacobson cuts this Gordian knot by calling our heroine “Natasha.” It’s a beautiful solution, though one involving the exercise of a fair degree of poetic license. Constance Garnett translated Dostoevsky’s title The Devils as The Possessed, a masterstroke of similar license.

I decided, in the end, to stick with “Nadezhda.” First, I would never have thought of Jacobsen’s idea myself and didn’t want to steal it. Secondly, many readers will immediately recognize the name “Natasha” as that of the teenage heroine of War and Peace. It creates a kind of associative dissonance. And finally, in the course of reading “Half a Life,” the heroine of the story became a dear, close person to me; her name is Nadezhda, not Natasha, and I’ve kept it.

Gloopies vs dummies

Another tough translation nut to crack. The robots on the alien ship are called glupyshki in Russian by the heroine. This is the diminutive of glupiy, “stupid.” As a diminutive, it conveys some hint of sympathy, of which the robots seem hardly deserving but which is part of Nadezhda’s heroic fortitude.

Jacobson transliterates rather than translates the term and uses “gloopies” in English, with a footnote to explain the meaning. This works pretty well. But I decided against transliteration and footnotes. I was determined to put the story into standard English as best I could no matter how tough the Russian word. So I used “dummies.”

Trepang vs sea slugs

The creatures on board the alien space ship are called “trepang” — a Malaysian word that has made its way into Russian and English. Jacobson goes with it. But I had to look it up. I rather think that most English speakers would have to, as well. It means “sea slug,” which is more commonly understood, and that’s how I’ve translated it.

Editor’s note: Some of the paragraphs in the original exceed Bewildering Stories’ “long road” guideline. New paragraphs have been made at likely points for the convenience of on-line readers.