Translated Tuesday – The Concubine of Shanghai by Hong Ying, translated by Liu Hong

August 25, 2009 in book review, translation, Uncategorized by Kim | No comments

 

My favorite part of the book--that's the author on the front cover

My favorite part of the book--that's the author on the front cover

  The Concubine of Shanghai by Hong Ying tells an age old “beach read” story–truly deprived girl makes good but the cost is high.  It even has a fairly common Asian twist, the girl is sold to a brothel owner and starts as a prostitute.  Cassia works as a servant in the Duchess Pavilion, the best whorehouse in Shanghai, and the leader of the Hong Brotherhood (presumably the powerful Triad, it’s never fully explained) falls for her unbound feet and breasts and her feisty attitude.  Their torrid romance is cut short when he is brutally murdered.  With Cassia’s support gone, she eventually re-makes herself as the leader of an acting troupe.  The new Triad leader notices her and as his mistress she rises once again to prosperity.  To the extent we all like stories that sweep us away, Hong Ying provides moments of that, but it feels like Judith Krantz Chinese style.

While the book quotes the New York Times describing Hong Ying as “a raw and powerful writer,” I think the reviewer was reading another book or the translation was bad.  As Claire discussed in last week’s Translated Tuesday post, sometimes reading translated books can feel alienating and it’s hard to know if it’s the intent of the writer, or if the writing just isn’t as good as it could be, or if it’s the translation.  Here, I suspect there is enough blame to go around.  Awkward phrasing is clearly the responsibility of the translator, especially when the word “the” is missing or when there is a direct translation of the words but the meaning is lost.  At one point in the book, the author pokes fun at a speech by the American ambassador saying “his pronunciation was good, but the words he used were too formal, causing most to applaud blindly even though they didn’t really understand what he was saying.”  The same could be said for parts of the book.

In any event, the translator can only work with what is provided and here I found the characters flat and the emotions between them unsupported.  I was constantly confused by how Cassie and Madame Emerald felt about each other for the first 200 pages.  The setting is the politics of the Triad, but the isn’t any explanation of them.  I have a basic sense of a mafia style organization, but there seemed to be an assumption that the reader understood the secret cermonies or that secret ceremonies and tests even existed.  And  maybe that is a safe assumption for the Chinese audience.  It made me want to go back and compare how the mafia was described at the beginning of the The Godfather.   Occasionally, the author would break in and speak directly to the reader, I almost always find that technique irritating and felt in this instance it was unnecessary.  The end the book is a 13 page chapter about  how the writer developed the story, I wish she saved it for the interviews. 

Sometimes the book was a page turner and at other times I wondered if it would ever end.  There are so many excellent books that provide an escape from life, I’d pick one of them and give this one a pass.  Of all the books this summer, I think The Concubine of Shanghai is an example of how books can’t always translate well to another culture.

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