titles in translation

A good book title is like a seductive glance from a stranger. That moment where you lock eyes in a public space and both feel the pull of attraction. For me, an outstanding book title is just about as good.

Well, okay.

Not quite. But it’s certainly up there in the list of top literary experiences one can have.

Although I’ve lived in France for three years now, I still find reading a novel in French a challenge; something to be borne, rather than enjoyed. Sadly, the story in my second language never seems quite as ‘real’ as in English, my mother tongue.

Which doesn’t explain why in my free time, I wander the bookstores here, touching the covers, spines of books I can’t fully access; fascinated by these stories and the way the words fall onto the page. The music of the French sentences.

And of course, their titles.

For some unknown reason, book titles in French seem effortlessly graceful.

Here are just a few of many I’ve encountered, that just sing out…

J’étais derrière toi (I was behind you)

Dans le café du jeunesse perdu (In the café of lost youth)

La vie devant soi (The life before them)

La méchanique du cœur (The mechanics of the heart)

Le voyage en hiver (The Winter trip)

Le chagrin d’école (The grief of school)

Zazie dans le métro (Zazie in the metro)

We might even take, for example, Evelyn Waugh’s famous Oxford novel, Brideshead Revisited. As titles go, it’s reasonably plain; self explanatory even. In French: Retour à Brideshead (Return to Brideshead).

The translation feels clumsy and basic – yet in French, the simplicity works. It  feels just that touch more musical and perhaps I dare say, more profound, than its English counterpart.

Even: La chaussure sur le toit (The shoe on the roof) seems an acceptable title for a piece of adult fiction in French. In the English world, it only makes me think of Spot’s first Christmas.

It made me wonder about popular titles in English fiction. Are there (if any) any noticeable differences between the two lit traditions?

The online Abbeville Manual of Style provided a starting point with a list of their English faves, including:

Atlas Shrugged

Flow my Tears the policeman said

What we talk about when we talk about love

and Complete nonsense.

On first glance, all that English just seems more involved somehow, if you get what I mean.

But then remember that Anglophones have also unleashed: The Firm, The Road, The Stand etc, on the literary world…

It feels like it should be simple. But why, god help us, does The Shoe on the Roof work so beautifully in French, yet fail so miserably en Anglais? How is it possible that L’ignorance wins heads and shoulders over plain, Ignorance?

Is it just that je ne sais quoi most Francophiles obsess over – or something more?

While I’d like to dedicate another post to this topic of titles, I’d been keen to hear your thoughts on the issue of translation. Does there indeed exist a true difference between the nature of French and English titles, and if so, is it representative of a larger difference in literary tradition between the two countries?

In the meantime, however, Marvin Cloud throws out some general tips in his post entitled A strategy for coming up with a great book title.

As for me, I’m no closer to finding the answer. I do love the English language, but I just can’t help it…

La Route by Cormac McCarthy is just always going to sound better than: The Road.