ACTS OF TRANSLATION
MEN OF MAIZE. By Miguel Angel Asturias.
Translated by Gerald
Martin . Delacorte Press. $10.
A PLAN FOR ESCAPE. By Adolfo Bloy-Casares.
Translated by Su–
zanne Jill Levine. E.P. Dutton. $7.95.
One remarka ble thing a bo ut these two books is tha t they are
no t only trans la tions in the fo rm in which they reach us bu t tha t they
are a lso tra nsla tion s by na ture. T ransla tions in the broades t sense, I
mean .
A Plan for Escape
is ano ther o f Bioy-Casares 's deve lopmen ts of
H .G. Wells's story, "The Island of Dr. Morea u ," and Astu rias's
Men of
Maize
is the Guatema lan a utho r's culmina ting rendition o f the Mayan
myths he studied and began transla ting whil e do ing gradua te work at
the Sorbo nne. Bo th nove ls, therefore, tra nsla te in the litera l sense from
one culture to ano ther: the first from Edwardian England in to pre–
Peron Argentina and the second from pre-Columbi an Maya n (by way
o f French ) into the contempora ry Spanish of Mezoamerica.
Wha t's more, bo th nove ls are concerned with peculiar human
activities which are, properly, ac ts o f tra nsla tion :
A Plan for Escape
with the ga thering o f sensory informa ti on and its transla tion through
the bra in into interpreta tio ns o f rea lity and
Men of Maize
with the
filtering of ra ndom socia l, na tura l, and economic da ta th rough the
sorter of legend which tra nsla tes tha t da ta in to memora ble a nd there–
fore use ful exp lana tions of phenomena. And beyond tha t, bo th novels
show the process o f tran sla tion as exactly tha t-as
p rocess- in
which
the orig ina l " text" is in constant mo tio n of interpre ta tio n as it
deve lops within the necessarily progress ive but no t necessa ril y improv–
ing ac tio n o f the mind upon its da ta. In this la tter sense, neither novel
is concerned with booki sh transla tio n , which a ll too often has come
to
signify nit-picking comple tion , fin a lity.
T his fundamenta l, even epistemo logica l similarity between the
two nove ls is a ll the mo re remarka ble in tha t the books themse lves–
bo th in their indi vidua li ty and in their hi sto ry- a re so remarkably
different.
Men of Maize
is As turi as's second nove l, wr itten a fter his
famo us
E l Senor Presiden te,
and a long with tha t ea rlier book closes the
opening movement o f hi s ca reer by fulfilling his two p rincipal
techniques: po litica l criticism and mythic reconstruction , the firs t to
