Posts tagged with "books"

Reading in Polish – translations or “native” books?

Posted by Anna No Comments
Jan 9 2010

It’s styczeń (January) now, dziewiąty (ninth) to be exact. Do you know where your postanowienia noworoczne (New Year’s resolutions) are?

Mine have already been claimed by the vicious vortex known as “real life.”

But maybe I should lead by example and come clean regarding my 2009 resolutions. Which were… Yeah, what were they? Ah yes! Czytać więcej książek po polsku – to read more books in Polish. Well, what I should have said was – “przeczytać przynajmniej jedną książkę po polsku” – to read (and actually finish) at least ONE book in Polish.

I don’t know whether it’s my fault that I failed, or whether the books I picked were really that boring that reading them was a form of torture. In retrospect, I should have stuck to the classics. But even when I had “Krzyżacy” already in my hand, watching the film proved just so much easier, not to mention – convenient, because it was being shown on TV right around that time.

I’m not going to list here the contemporary Polish writers whose books I attempted to read, because for all I know their works might be delightful to somebody else, and I don’t want to label them unfairly as coma-inducing.

As a last ditch effort I thought that reading something by my favorite author might fulfill my one book quota in Polish. And I didn’t even care anymore that the book was actually a translation from English. I dug up my copies of “Łups” (“Thud!”) and “Bogowie, honor, Ankh-Morpork” (“Jingo”) and valiantly plunged in.

Yes, I am a huge Terry Pratchett and Discworld fan. And I thought that by reading something that I already know and enjoy, it might make the experience that much more pleasurable. And as much as I would like to say that it was so, I can’t. I gave up on the Polish translations very quickly.

Now, please don’t get me wrong. Those were both very good translations. The translator, Piotr Cholewa did a fabulous job. But unfortunately, he’s not Terry Pratchett and a translation is and will always be just that – a translation.

And that brings me to today’s question. You see, I’ve always advocated reading books in the language you are learning. And I’ve always thought that reading translations of books that you already know might be easier and more fun. I’ve done it myself in a couple of different languages and it seemed to work fine. Until I tried to read Świat Dysku (Discworld) novels. Which leads me to believe that maybe I was wrong all along. Maybe sticking to books written by native speakers in their native languages is a better idea.

What do you think? Are translations OK, or is it better to go the whole nine yards and instead of Polish versions of foreign books take the “sink or swim” approach and pick up a 100% “native” work?

Adventures in Reading po polsku – a guest post

Posted by Anna No Comments
Aug 26 2009

Remember how a few posts back I said all kinds of fun things about Joanna Chmielewska and recommended her books as an easy and painless choice for a beginner Polish reader?

Hmmm… Not so, apparently. This is what our fabulous guest blogger, Barb from Canada had to say about her experiences of reading Chmielewska. But not only Chmielewska. Barb tackled a few other books and this is what she has to say:

My commitment to learning Polish naturally included reading Polish books. Up until last year, the only Polish book I had ever read was Sienkiewicz’s “W pustyni i w puszczy” (assigned reading in Polish school).  I wanted to read books written by Polish authors that had a distinctive Polish voice or soul (dusza polska), not books translated into Polish.  Scanning the shelves at our local library (biblioteka) wasn’t very helpful, so I approached a friend and asked to borrow (pożyczyć) a few books.

I started with “Jestem nudziarą” by M. Szwaja. A light, easy read that falls into the genre of “chick lit”.  The book was very contemporary (współczesna), exposed me to female dialogues and relationships with men… – tricky the world over, it seems.

Next, I tackled “Szajka bez końca” by J. Chmielewska.  Chmielewska is a very popular and humorous author of criminal mysteries/adventures (powieści sensacyjnych i kryminalnych).  Other than the novelty of having a few chapters set in Barry’s Bay, home to Polish-Canadian cottaging and scouting camps (obozy harcerskie) with unpleasant memories of scratchy grey wool uniforms (mundurki), the book fell flat for me.

These reading exercises sound painless right?  They were excruciating actually.  My need to slowly mouth each word, besides causing dry-mouth, quickly got tiresome.  My other challenge was deciding how often to consult my dictionary (słownik).  Mostly, I tried to ascertain the meaning of a word from the context of a given paragraph.  I did have a 4-word rule however: if an unknown word appeared four times within a single sitting I would look it up.

Much of my initial frustration centered around making the link between “known” words and “unknown” spelling (ortografia).  Inevitably, I would be struggling my way through a 5-syllable word (why do Polish words have so many syllables btw?), only to experience an “I know that word, so that’s how it’s spelled” moment.  Embedding those written letter patterns with the known word sounds in my head was painful.  I have much better French letter pattern recognition due to years of aimlessly reading bilingual cereal boxes over breakfast.

My word recognition and reading speed eventually improved which also resulted in less “dry-mouth”.  After a time, I decided that I should also read out loud every day.  Having a greatly inflated opinion of my abilities (did I mention that I have a confidence problem?) I wanted to give “voice” to the lovely prose I could “hear” in my head.  What a disaster!! (co za porażka).  More about my pronunciation and verbal abilities in another post.

Eventually, I hope to work up to some serious Polish literature (literatura polska).  One of my goals is to read “Pan Wołodyjowski” by H. Sienkiewicz, a book I’m rather sentimental about.

PS. Barb, you too? “Pan Wołodyjowski” is something that I want to read as well. I’m very sentimental about the TV series.

Required Reading – Joanna Chmielewska

Posted by Anna 10 Comments
Aug 10 2009

Since I’ve boring you to tears with all sorts of useless stuff recently (yeah, yeah, don’t deny it, I know I have) I think we should talk about something light and fun and maybe even interesting today. Namely – reading. Reading in Polish, of course.

“What?” I hear you say, “reading in Polish is supposed to be fun?”

Sure it is. But as in all other languages, it depends on what you read. And I can pretty much guarantee you, that if you read something by one of my favorite Polish authors, it will be fun. That’s the upside, all her books are more or less fun and light and entertaining. So, what’s the downside? As far as I know, none of her stuff has been translated into English yet. Yeah, that’s a pretty serious downside. But guess what? That means you can really push yourself and try reading one of her novels in Polish.

Oh wait, I haven’t even told you her name yet. Joanna Chmielewska. But that’s just her pen name, her real name is Irena Kühn. But whatever… The name is not important here.

What is important is the fact that she’s a hugely popular Polish writer. And she’s a woman. A very funny woman with a talent to tell a funny story.

I admit, her books may not be for everyone. If high-class literature is what you’re after, then definitely, skip Chmielewska and try some fat, classic, sleep-inducing volumes by Reymont, or some other long-dead dude. But if you want to be amused and entertained and have something to read on the beach on during a long flight, then Chmielewska is definitely your woman. Providing, of course, that you are brave enough to try reading a book in Polish.

To date, she wrote more than 50 books: crime fiction, young adult fiction and non-fiction. If you asked me to compare her style to a well known writer from the English speaking world, just to give you an idea of what she’s all about, hmmm… not sure who I should pick. Imagine Bill Bryson or Terry Pratchett writing crime/detective stories. In Polish. Yeah, not exactly, but something like that.

If I had to pick my favorite Chmielewska book, I’d have to go back to her “classic” novels published before 1990. In 1990 her “Dzikie białko” was released and at least to me, that marked the end of “classic” Chmielewska and the beginning of her more modern, post-communist incarnation.

So yes, if I had to pick my favorites, it would be classics like “Wszystko czerwone” (All Red) from 1974, or “Lesio” (1973), and most definitely “Całe zdanie nieboszczyka” (Dead Man’s Tale, 1972).
Yeah, that one. You have no idea how many times I’ve read that book. And it’s a bleeping shame that none of them have been translated into English.

I find it hard to believe that there isn’t a market for Chmielewska stories in the English-speaking world. I mean, after all, all sorts of foreign literature of questionable standards (if you can call them standards at all) get published in English. So why not Chmielewska, huh?

Is her literary agent asleep at the desk (or under the desk, perhaps)? Or too afraid to pursue an international deal? Oh c’mon people, don’t be such wusses! Get out and do your job, for crying out loud! Ms. Chmielewska is over 75 years old. The woman won’t live forever. And it’ll be a total shame if none of her books get published in English during her lifetime.

Required Reading – Jan Brzechwa

Posted by Anna No Comments
Aug 15 2008

Today is a public holiday in Poland, the Feast of the Assumption, which is an important Catholic celebration, I presume. Though when I asked my friend this morning about the reason for a day off, she mumbled something about the Battle of Warsaw instead. That battle, also known as the Miracle at the Vistula, took place in August (naturally) of 1920 and is considered as the most decisive turn of the Polish-Soviet War. A guy by the name of Józef Piłsudski was one of the Polish commanders. You might have heard of him. Some Polish-Americans think of him as “the George Washington of Poland” with which I must respectfully disagree. Piłsudski was definitely better looking.

But neither one of these occasions can match the truly important event that happened on August 15 in 1898. That day a guy named Jan Wiktor Lesman was born in a podunk little Galician town somewhere in the middle of nowhere. My Polish readers will recognize him as Jan Brzechwa.

And here I can just imagine them emitting loud snorts and feeling sorry for those of you who are not fluent in Polish.

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Henryk Sienkiewicz – Required Reading

Posted by Anna 5 Comments
Jun 18 2008

Lately I have been hearing a lot about what it means to be Polish. It seems to be a trendy discussion topic, both among my countrymen and foreign expats living in Poland. And while neither side can agree on what exactly characterizes a typical Pole, they are both of the same opinion when it comes to pride. Polish people are fiercely proud of being Polish. We’re proud of our history, culture, language, food, music, country, weather, alcoholic beverages and everything in between. Where that pride comes from, I’m not really sure. But in order to try to understand what it means, you need to take a closer look at the thick volumes of Henryk Sienkiewicz.

You might have heard of him, he’s the guy who wrote “Quo Vadis”. Yep, the same “Quo Vadis” that in the 1950s was adapted into a movie with Deborah Kerr, Peter Ustinov and a whole bunch of other stars. Actually, “Quo Vadis” has been turned into several film versions, including a couple of silent ones, in addition to just about everything else – stage plays, TV miniseries, and even an opera.

This book has definitely contributed to Mr. Sienkiewicz’s Nobel Prize for literature in 1905, which he got for his “outstanding merits as an epic writer”. There are other Poles that also got the prize – Władysław Reymont in 1924, Czesław Miłosz in 1980 and Wisława Szymborska in 1996, but we’ll talk about them another time.

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