Jonathan Trager, prominent television producer for ESPN, died last night from complications of losing his soul mate and his fiance. He was thirty-five years old. Soft-spoken and obsessive(1), Trager never looked the part of a hopeless romantic(2). But in the final days of his life, he revealed an unknown side of his psyche. This hidden quasi-Jungian persona surfaced during the Agatha Christie-like pursuit for his long, reputed soul mate; a woman whom he only spent a few precious hours with. Sadly, the protracted search ended late Saturday night in complete and utter failure(3). Yet even in certain defeat, the courageous Trager secretly clung to the belief that life is not merely a series of meaningless accidents or coincidences. Uh-uh. But rather, it is a tapestry of events that culminate into an exquisite, sublime plan. Ask about the loss of his dear friend, Dean Kansky, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and executive editor of New York Times, described Jonathan as a changed man in the last days of his life. Things were clearer for him, Kansky noted. Ultimately, Jonathan concluded that if we are to live life in harmony with the universe we must all possess a powerful faith, of what the ancients used to call fatum; what we currently refer to as —— destiny.
(1) 原文的“obsessive”译成“公而忘私”,窃以为不大贴切。“公而忘私”应是obsessive with work. 光是obsessive一字,有迷恋,痴迷,专注于某事之意。纵观庄君平生,天生情种,必是对情对事执著之人。不妨译为“秉性执著”。
(2) a hopeless romantic 译成“绝无痴态”,“痴态”容易让人联想到弱智者,没有道出”romantic” 的韵味来。 我想到了一个绝配:“情痴“。何不改成“绝非情痴之辈”?
(3) This hidden quasi-Jungian persona surfaced during the Agatha Christie-like pursuit for his long, reputed soul mate; a woman whom he only spent a few precious hours with. Sadly, the protracted search ended late Saturday night in complete and utter failure。
我把它译成:
“惊鸿一瞥,原来天生情种坠情网;欲寻芳踪,怎奈踏破铁鞋无觅处。”
我觉得此段乃全文最难译之处,尤其要将它译为带点古意的白话文,那简直就是汤姆告鲁斯的电影-----不可能的使命(Mission Impossible)。原文出现了quasi-Jungian persona 和Agatha Christie-like pursuit这种非常西方化的句式。它引用具有象征代表意义的人物来表达深层的意义,便有了一言九鼎的功效。可对译者而言,却是一场冷汗淋漓的恶梦。