Translation anthology
PREMA NANDAKUMAR
PUTUMAIPITTAN MOZIPEYARPPUKAL — Pudumaippittan’s Translations: A.R.Venkatachalapathy — Editor; Kalachuvadu Padhippagam, 669, K.P. Road, Nagercoil-629001. Rs. 450.
Translation or adapatation into Tamil is as ancient as Perunkathai. Century after century, gifted authors have sought to augment their creative powers with translations or transcreations. In the process they have left behind classics touched by their exceptional originality. The activity began to centre upon prose fiction in the 20th century. Bengali and Marathi novels found a ready audience while short fiction from abroad gained a dizzying popularity. It was, of course, d
ifficult when adaptations became a way of writing. The original moved far away from our view. No matter. At this distance of time, all we need to remember is that these writers who took to translations and adaptations of short stories in a big way were not suffering from any creative block but were genuinely interested in bringing the resources available in the West to the Tamil reader. Putumaippittan was certainly among the best of this kind.
Wide reading
The missionary zeal with which A. R. Venkatachalapathy has been working on a “critical, variorum edition of the complete works of Putumaippittan” has now reached the third volume. The compilation stands witness to the wide reading of Putumaippittan. A study of guilt in “Roger Malvin’s Burial” by Nathaniel Hawthorne; R.L.Stevenson’s Markheim who confesses to his crime thanks to his hatred of evil; the terrifying tale of Poe, “The Cask of Amontillado”; and Bret Harte’s immortal “Mliss” with a few clippings here and there. They are all direct imports from English which, of course, Putumaipittan knew very well. The other stories necessarily suffer a double-translation. Putumaippittan’s exceptional felicity with Tamil, however, carries the day. So we have the alarmingly childlike “A Little Fable” of Franz Kafka and Maupassant’s “The Mad Woman” with its concluding sentence: “I only pray that our sons may never see any wars again.” We have no idea of some of the original authors and this can be left safely in the hands of future researchers.
Meanwhile, in Putumaipittan Mozhipeyarppukal three plays of Shakespeare and one each from Moliere and Henrik Ibsen are retold with verve. The sheer horror of the Creature created by the scientist Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s gothic tale and the malbowges of prostitution in Alexander Kuprin’s Yama (The Pit) come through well, for the translator has understood the terror and pity of it all. There is neither any word-for-word verbiage, nor loss of the original drive and mood. For instance, the last words of the Creature in Frankenstein are effectively brought out in fewer words by the choice usage of “uttara duruvam” and “thee-kulithu” which explain everything to the Tamil audience. There lay the genius of the translator.
This sumptuous volume also contains some of his adaptations. It is a matter for some reflection that Putumaippittan had a penchant for creepy tales, paranormal occurrences and the nature of evil. It is a pity that even as he was scaling the heights of creativity by wandering in the subterranean passages of crime and punishment, he passed away at a young age, yet another “inheritor of unfulfilled renown.”
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