FECHA

25/05/1962

REMITENTE

Emile Capouya

DESTINATARIOS/AS

Francisco Ayala

DESTINO

54 West 16th Street. Apt. 4F. New York 11 N. Y.

ORIGEN

S.l.

FICHA DESCRIPTIVA

[Carta mecanografiada con anotaciones a mano, firma autógrafa y con membrete:] The Macmillan Company / Publishers / Sixty Fifth Avenue New York 11, N. Y. 

DEPÓSITO DEL ORIGINAL

Fundación Francisco Ayala

May 25, 1962

Mr. Francisco Ayala

54 West 16th Street

New York, New York

Dear Mr. Ayala:

I enclose a copy of a letter just received from the British publisher of Muertes de perro, which quotes a letter from Mrs. Barea.

I note that she still has not committed herself to a date, and I shall try to get her to do so again. Messrs. Michael Joseph appear [sic] to be satisfied with her explanation, but I must confess that I am not.

Cordially,

Emile

Emile Capouya

Senior Editor

Trade Department

ec/ki

[Escrito a mano:] Dear Mr. Ayala:

This letter should have gone out to you on the 25^th , and I assumed that it had. I have just found it, however. This may account for a small area of mutual incomprehension in our conversation yesterday.

E.

[Copia de carta dirigida a A.L. Hart por Michael Joseph Lt.]

 4th May, 1962.

Mr. A. L. Hart, Jr.,

The Macmillan Company,

60, Fifth Avenue,

New York 11,

N.Y., U.S.A.

Dear Mr. Hart,

I asked Ilse Barea to explain how she came to give precedence to the Hortelano book. She has given me a detailed account of her health troubles over the last year (which I can confirm as I often see her and speak to her). I think I had better quote from her letter to me today.

“I read the Hortelano book for Weidenfeld in MS before it won the Fomentor, and was anything but impressed. I classified it as readable, but only just a good second-rate novel. However, I knew it was one of the easiest jobs for translation imaginable, the only one in my personal experience I could dictate straight on the tape. This was very important to me. As you know, I have had a double difficulty with my health for years: on the one side I cannot do much typing without greatly worsening the local arthritis in my two main typing fingers, up to a point when I simply cannot go on typing because of acute pain and swelling –on the other hand I have that wretched diabetes which will not respond quite as it ought to treatment, and produces baddish slumps each time I am under particular strain or worry, or overwork too grossly.

“Now, as a rule I do at least three versions of a translation. In the case of the Fomentor novel I only corrected the transcription from the tape: this is possible with dialogue of that sort, and the result appears not too bad, though I didn’t like it and felt bad about it.

“A Dog’s Death is an entirely different matter. I must have done about five versions by now at least of the two thirds for which the stylistic problems are extraordinarily great… I have had a beautifully typed version, and rejected. The more I have been working on the book, and this is by now a dreadfully long time, the more I have become convinced that it is an exceptionally good and exceptionally difficult novel entirely dependent on the rightness of style. It is by far the most difficult translation I ever did, and I have done many as you know, if I want to achieve the standard it needs and deserves. I started dictating on to tape, but it was a dismal failure. It just isn’t a book one can do –or I can translate, rather– without constant checking by sight, in typing. I tried dictating to various “secretaries”, and sometimes it worked, but more often I only retyped certain sections afterwards. Also, I had not one but two true-blue British friends going through version (3) and (4) with a fine comb. The amount of labour –and, incidentally, expense– I have invested may seem out of proportion, but anything less would be not quite good enough.

“Now I have another “fair copy” at home, and am going through it again. It must clearly be the last time, otherwise there will never be an end to it. And I know I’ll never be satisfied anyway. But I do insist that the other translation did not steal time I would have used on Ayala; it filled time I physically or technically couldn’t have used to any good effect on A Dog’s Death.

“As I said, I shall force myself now to put a stop to my endless revisions, and perhaps this will leave me with a less strained and unhappy conscience that I have now”.

I hope this will comfort the author and you as it does us.

I hope to see you when I come over to New York in October.

With best regards,

Yours sincerely,

AJ/JB