《Re:對於《找不到出口的靈魂》一書之回應》
小仔  (2002-12-27 23:23)

左岸願意為自家出版的書負責，非常值得大家肯定，但以《找不到出口的靈魂》一書而言，社方似乎尚未掌握到譯文問題的重點。竊以為重點不在專有名詞譯法從不從眾，也不在譯者本人所堅持的人稱問題，而是確實有對錯之分的文意譯錯了。

在下先前在聊齋的討論串中曾經舉出文意錯誤的數例，用意就在指出問題的嚴重性。單在網路試閱的部份，這類錯誤便已不少，絕非寥寥數例得以一網打盡。以下試閱部份的譯文與原文對照，如果編輯仍然看不出有問題，在下也無話可說了。

Another half sister was mentally deranged. Virginia herself, while still quite young, suffered from periods of acute depression and even insanity.
另一個姊姊罹患了心智障礙，而維吉尼亞自己，即使在她相當年輕時，也受困於嚴重的憂鬱症與狂燥症狀。

As her early letters and diaries reveal more convincingly than her later recollections,
她早年的日記與信件顯示出充足的憑證，足以推翻
日後所做的回憶；

she had a gift for friendship
她擁有召喚人心的能力

very early in her life, an impulse to turn every experience into words.
在非常年少的歲月，維吉尼亞就能夠將每一則經驗轉化為文字。

Leslie`s first wife, a daughter of William Thackeray, the novelist, and Julia`s first husband, Herbert Duckworth, a handsome barrister, can have meant little to Virginia apart from the tragedy of their early deaths and the progeny of cousins, chiefly Fishers and Vaughans, which they generated.
賴斯黎的首任配偶──也是小說家威廉．薩克雷（William Thakray）的女兒；以及茱利亞的首任配偶赫柏特．度克沃斯，一個長相英俊的律師；對於維吉尼亞而言並無意義，僅除了她們各自孩子的悲劇性早夭，尤其是費雪家（Fishers）與沃漢（Vaughans）家的人。

Julia was the daughter of John Jackson, who spent much of his career as a doctor in Calcutta, and Maria Pattle.
母親茱利亞是醫生約翰．傑克森（John Jackson）的女兒，這老醫生與其妻馬利亞．派特（Maria Pattle）將大多數的時間花費在卡庫塔（Calcutta）等地行醫。

her aunt Julia Margaret Cameron, the photographer, who has left an image of her that is distinctly pre-Raphaelite, often tragic in countenance,
她的阿姨是位攝影家，且留下許多前拉斐爾時代風格的憂鬱美感作品。

as if life was a constant test of character which she would survive triumphantly,
假使生命是持續地畫作角色測試，她必會取得永遠的勝利。

but this impression may be due to the immobility needed for early photography:
如此的特質可能是當時的攝影作品所需求的不變動性：

and she controlled him by her submissiveness. In a sense she was the stronger character of the two, quietly dominating.
而茱利亞以她安靜溫和的風貌控御著賴斯黎。在這樣的關係下，看來茱利亞是兩者當中權力的掌握者，安靜地控制大局。

Born the son of Sir James Stephen, a senior civil servant and then a professor of history, he developed from a shy boy into a man who could be formidable, and as a mountaineer, tough.
身為詹姆斯．史帝芬這個年長公僕與歷史教授的兒子，賴斯黎從一個害羞的孩子成長為風格凜然的青年，充滿著高山居民的強悍特色。

He was ordained a clergyman in his youth but lost his faith and left Cambridge for London, where he earned his living as a literary and political journalist, and became a leading intellectual, the originator and first editor of The Dictionary of National Biography,
原先他以成為神職人員為職志，可後來改變志願，從劍橋到倫敦去求發展。在那個大都會，他成為一份文學與政治性刊物的記者，之後逐漸成為當代的智識領導成員之一，是《國家傳記雜誌》（Natural Biography）的創始者與首任主編。

They lived in a respectable Kensington cul-de-sac, 22 Hyde Park Gate
她們生活在一棟受人尊敬的肯新頓宅第，就在海德公園入口二十二號，位於尾端的房子