{"id":96,"date":"2022-12-23T09:52:39","date_gmt":"2022-12-23T09:52:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.uantwerpen.be\/stephenking\/?p=96"},"modified":"2022-12-23T09:52:39","modified_gmt":"2022-12-23T09:52:39","slug":"the-dutch-translation-of-it-the-rape-of-stephen-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uantwerpen.be\/stephenking\/2022\/12\/23\/the-dutch-translation-of-it-the-rape-of-stephen-king\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dutch Translation of IT: “The Rape of Stephen King”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Continuing on from my previous post<\/a> about the German translation, I turn now to another translation that wasn’t based on the published text of IT<\/em>, but on an earlier draft version: the Dutch translation HET<\/strong><\/em>. Het<\/em> was published in October 1986, just one month after the UK and US first editions. As with the German ES<\/em>, the same issue of timing presents itself here\u2014how was the translation work done in so little time, if King himself only finished the novel on 28 December 1985, as it says at the back of the book? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

ES<\/em> and HET<\/em> are similar in that they were both translated from photocopies of drafts, but different in an interesting way: ES<\/em> made use of King’s first<\/em> draft, while HET<\/em> started from King’s second<\/em> draft. In both cases the translators did a quick update of their texts after the arrival on their desks of a copy of the unedited third draft text in early 1986. While it was presumed that the German translator had abridged IT<\/em> in her translation, the text is actually a faithful and complete translation of the first draft, which happened to be significantly shorter than the published text; but in the case of HET<\/em> the translator did drastically abridge the text of the second draft, cutting it by about half. So much so that one Dutch-language reviewer at the time called HET<\/em> “the rape of Stephen King”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The US first edition of IT<\/em> contains 1139 pages,\u200b1\u200b<\/sup><\/span> HET<\/em> is just 576 pages long; IT<\/em> contains 450 531 words, and I estimate that the word count for HET<\/em> is around 245 000. So, roughly speaking, the Dutch translator reduced the text of IT<\/em> to half its length. The translator, Margot Bakker<\/strong>, had previously translated Pet Sematary<\/em> (Dodenwake<\/em>, 1984), and a few other King books. She had slightly abridged those previous novels, but never as drastically as with IT<\/em>. Taking these two things into account\u2014the differences between King’s second draft and the published text and the severe cuts that add up to 50% of the novel\u2014the Dutch translation is a real hodgepodge<\/strong> of a text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would be wrong to attribute this treatment of King’s novel solely to the translator; I’m sure the decision to release a 600-page translation in October 1986 was made by the publisher, Luitingh<\/strong>, and the translator was asked to abridge. On the copyright page, it says, in English: “Published by agreement with the author and the author’s agents, Kirby McCauley Ltd.”\u200b2\u200b<\/sup><\/span>, which is clearly meant to preemptively defend against claims that the translation takes liberties that the author would not find acceptable. Even though the Dutch-speaking market is insignificantly tiny, I’d love to find out the particulars of that contract, how King(‘s agent) agreed to such a radical abridgment\u2014if he did\u2014and what the stipulations were about bringing the translation in line with the version that King submitted to his publisher in 1986.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m afraid you have to take my word for it when I state that ES<\/em>\u200b3\u200b<\/sup><\/span> was based on the first draft, and HET<\/em> on the second. I have access to these drafts as part of my PhD research, and I can quickly ascertain which version was used by checking certain passages. I’d love to find out when these deals were made, to determine why Heyne (ES<\/em>) received a copy of the first draft, and Luitingh (HET<\/em>) got the second draft. King finished the first draft of IT<\/em> in the summer of 1981, and had completed his second draft by March 1984. One explanation would be that Heyne made their deal before March 1984, and Luitingh did so after. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Eddy C. Bertin<\/strong>, a Belgian horror writer and reviewer, received his review copy of HET<\/em> in 1986. He started reading the book and quickly noticed something was wrong\u2014it didn’t read like a King novel. He decided to read the US edition first, and then compare the original and Dutch translation side by side. He was so frustrated with the translation that he wrote an essay: “IT<\/em> in the Netherlands, or: The Rape of Stephen King”\u200b4\u200b<\/sup><\/span> that was published in Castle Rock: The Stephen King Newsletter<\/em>, an authorized monthly newsletter put together by King’s assistent Stephanie Leonard. As his title suggests, Bertin is disgusted\u2014not only with the missing episodes but also with the language of the translation: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This dull prose which read like a computer printout, these characters who conversed with one-liners (even without puns), these situations which should be horrifying but which were just plain boring \u2026 it didn’t READ like a King novel, these weren’t CHARACTERS King used to create, these were cardboard-people, names with some characteristics added to them, but without flesh and bone, this was just text without feeling, happenings which read like a working draft, the synopsis for a novel to be written. This bloody stuff read like something written by some third-rate hackwriter trying to imitate Stephen King. […] Now they have just raped IT, and turned it into something which reads like a first working draft and notes. And it isn’t even a cheap abortion, the Dutch trade paperback sells for 650 Belgian francs, which is at the moment something like $17.20, you only get a paperback for a hardcover price, and you get slightly more than half of the real book. Fair deal? My ass!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Bertin makes very interesting points. In 1986, quite a few American reviewers of IT<\/em> remarked that the novel was way too long, and that an editor should have forced King to cut it down, that the novel would have been better for it. But by cutting away all “unnecessary dialogue”, character description and back story, and shortening action scenes in such a way that they read as summaries instead of scenes, the translator makes it impossible for the reader to engage with the characters and the story, and the text loses all its effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are some examples of cuts that Bertin identified in HET<\/em>: <\/p>\n\n\n\n