Killing a best-seller: An analysis of the Spanish translation of Tim Winton's Dirt Music
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Killing a best-seller: An analysis of the Spanish translation of Tim Winton’s Dirt Music Jorge Salavert The Australian Academy of the Humanities Abstract This paper shows the results of a comprehensive analysis of the first and only Spanish translation of a Tim Winton novel. A careful scrutiny of the Spanish text reveals a wide range and a high frequency of errors across many different translational areas, to such an extent that the final product is a failed translation. Most of the original’s humour and irony were wiped out and the Spanish version failed also where the intrinsically Australian character of Winton’s language needed to be conveyed. As well as conveying dialogue and colloquial language erroneously, the Spanish text does not convey the landscape and the land of Australia itself appropriately. The translator’s approach to these textual elements was highly inadequate, and added to an inexcusable unawareness of Australia as a geographical entity. Música de la tierra cannot ever become a bestseller in Spanish as long as the text published by Destino in 2008 remains the one accessed by Spanish readers. Although Dirt Music is probably not his best novel, Winton deserved better than this. Keywords: Winton, Dirt Music, Spanish translation, Australian humour, Australian vernacular.
No one is likely to disagree with the view that translation allows human beings to share experiences
and exchange ideas. The aim of literary translation is to make it possible for readers in a different
language to have as much as possible a truly meaningful grasp of the experience of reading a literary
work originally written in another language.
Literary translation as an important cultural service may run into the wall publishers sometimes
appear to represent. This is in connection with the Spanish translation of Dirt Music, one of
Australia’s favourite novels, written by Tim Winton and first published in 2001. The novel was such a
hit amongst Australian readers that film director Philip Noyce secured the rights to make the movie.
Noyce signed Heath Ledger and Nicole Kidman to play the main roles in the film. However, as we
know, Ledger died in 2008, and as a consequence, the film project appears to have stalled.
It appears some Spanish publishers unfortunately tend to think of literature only as a money-
making venture: any work to be shown at movie theatres is quickly snapped as a possible best-selling
title. This is likely to have occurred because the names of attractive actors such as Ledger and Kidman
were linked to it. Dirt Music was quickly translated into Spanish and published in 2008 – before the
film was made. No other book by Tim Winton had been translated into Spanish, not even Cloudstreet,
his best-known novel (1991), and many times chosen as number one favourite of Australian readers. 1
As with any other local literature, the translation of Australian literature does require some
knowledge of intrinsically local linguistic features as well as some familiarity with cultural
particularities and geographical features. What happens if the translator is unfamiliar with important
elements such as the humour prevalent in the culture or the geography of the novel’s setting?
Música de la tierra contains many errors of a varied nature, and I do not hesitate to call it
unfaithful. Faithfulness, whatever we understand by it, is an attribute that every translator aims for – it
is not difficult to understand why authors and translators wish this to happen. Yet how often and to
what extent it is transgressed is something to be analysed, and where the consequences are disastrous,
it is to be deplored.
One of the best literary translators today, Edith Grossman (2010: 8), has correctly pointed out that
a good literary translation is “…the result of a series of creative decisions and imaginative acts of
criticism”. Where no imagination or creativity is employed in the process of translating a literary
work, the final product is likely to be lame and unexciting. If crucial linguistic elements of the work
are misunderstood or rendered incorrectly, then the final result probably does not deserve to receive
the tag of translation of the original. A good translator must never lose sight of their common sense,
1
The latest poll was the one conducted by the Australian Book Review in late 2009. The results were published
in the February 2010 issue, Australian Book Review, number 318. Winton had another two novels in the top 15:
Breath (2008) at number 4, and Dirt Music (2001) at number 13.
2their critical sense and their sense of objectivity (Torre, 2001: 124). Regrettably, the translator of
Música de la tierra lost sight of all three.
In my analysis I identified five broad areas where Música de la tierra is indisputably a failed
translation:
a) The Australian vernacular: idiomatic, informal language;
b) Humour and swearing: a distinct Australian cultural trait;
c) The land as text: the uniqueness of the Western Australian landscape and its fauna and flora;
d) Howlers: poor or non-existent understanding of the original; and
e) Legibility: poorly written, incomprehensible Spanish passages.
Given the word limit imposed on these papers, it was simply not possible to record exhaustively
every error found; yet the numerous examples I provide should give an idea of why Música de la
tierra kills this Australian best-seller irremediably.
The Australian vernacular
Winton has been widely identified as a characteristically Australian author (Ben-Mesahel, 2006;
Dixon, 2005); the fact that three of his novels appear among the top twenty all-time favourites for
Australian readers is proof thereof. In Dirt Music, Winton captured the colloquial speech of West
Australians flawlessly; the vernacular aspect of the language is in fact an essential characteristic of the
novel and the translator should pay careful attention to it.
What happens when the translator is unfamiliar with colloquialisms? What are the consequences
when the original is misunderstood and the translator does not conduct some basic and necessary
research? In the case of Dirt Music, the Spanish translation repeatedly demonstrates a
misinterpretation of colloquial expressions, thus conveying at best, plainly wrong translations, and at
worst, absurdities that most likely leave readers wondering.
Colloquialisms are too often rendered incorrectly. See, for instance, the translation of the
colloquial use of “juice” where drug-fiend Rusty asks the male protagonist, Lu Fox, if he has any
“juice money” before agreeing to take him as a hitchhiker (Dirt Music: 224). What Spanish readers
find is Rusty asking Fox if he has money for some fruit juice! Strangely enough, an earlier occurrence
of “juice” (Dirt Music: 64) with the same meaning was translated as “combustible” (Música de la
tierra: 65). The rendition, in any case, although semantically correct, is an incorrect register. A less
formal term is called for: the Spanish language does have several colloquial options at the translator’s
disposal (for example, caldo or gasofa).
3Another incorrect rendition of a colloquialism takes place where Winton describes the car that
Beaver finds for Georgie as “a cherry” (Dirt Music: 199). The literal rendition of “cherry” as “una
cerezita” demonstrates ignorance of Australian slang. In this context, “cherry” means virginity, hence
that the car is almost new, unused.
Certain significant descriptions of characters were rendered incorrectly, thus providing the
Spanish reader with a false storyline. Winton’s description of Georgie’s brother-in-law, Derek, tells us
that “[i]n the river suburbs of Perth he was notorious as a bit of pants man” (Dirt Music: 169). This
Australian idiom refers to a womaniser, but the Don Juanism so very well known to Spanish readers is
woefully translated as “afeminado” (Música de la tierra: 143), i.e., effeminate.
Another instance of a deceitful detail storyline in Música de la tierra occurs in Winton’s account
of Georgie’s relationship with her father. Winton writes: “After a certain age she went out of her way
to defy the old man – it was food and drink to her” (Dirt Music: 167). The translator fails again to
understand the colloquialism “food and drink”, and renders it as “era pan comido para ella” (Música
de la tierra: 141). Thus, what had become the most important thing for the young Georgie is
regrettably translated as “it was a piece of cake for her”.
When Fox returns home from his escape, he is scared of the White Point fishermen’s reprisals and
thinks they will kill him: “I’m gone” (Dirt Music: 156). The obvious meaning of the word in the
context is “I’m dead”, but the Spanish text reads “He desaparecido” (Música de la tierra: 135), i.e.,
“I’ve vanished”, wholly incongruous with the situation Lu is in, and a serious distortion of the plot.
The consequences of the translator’s unfamiliarity with slang also caused some hilarious howlers,
such as the one that follows. Winton describes what has been left on a table after a dinner: “The
verandah table is loaded with crabshells and sodden newsprint and already the ants are into it. Plates,
beer bottles, a roach end” (Dirt Music: 119). Common sense as well as some basic research should
have made it clear to the translator that the roach Winton describes has no legs. However, in Spanish
the roach end becomes “el culo de una cucaracha” (Música de la tierra: 110), i.e., the bottom of a
cockroach!
In another rather unfortunate error, the sentence “If it wasn’t for the girl he’d be bailing out here”
(Dirt Music: 239) was wrongly translated as “Si no fuera por la chica, ya se encontraría en libertad
bajo fianza” (Música de la tierra: 207). The translator misconstrued the whole sentence badly – in
other words, the translator did not apply common sense and failed to do a few necessary checks. The
result implies that Fox would be on bail (but wait a minute: he has not been arrested!).
Australians’ love for cricket is well known, and cricket expressions are often used in contexts
other than cricket for their symbolic effect. It is the case of this description of Georgie’s relationship
with her father: “She was a bit of spin, some shine on the Jutland ball. So she’d turned against him”
(Dirt Music: 169). Cricketers try to get shine on the ball to make it turn on the pitch. A literal
4rendition, while omitting the cricketing reference, does the Spanish reader no favours: “Era un poco
inusual, un poco de brillo en el mundo Jutland. Así que se volvió en su contra” (Música de la tierra:
143).
Humour and swearing
Jones (1988) has explained that Australians see “Australian humour [as] a distinctive and readily
recognizable phenomenon”, and has quite rightly identified irony as the chief characteristic of
Australian humour.
I have elsewhere (Salavert, 2010) shown the significant loss of humour in Música de la tierra. As
the translator was unacquainted with the Australian sense of humour, loss occurred and readers were
deceived. There are numerous instances where irony – possibly the most easily identifiable trait of
Australian humour – was misunderstood, and thus mistranslated. For instance, when Fox takes a beer
from the hotel room fridge and sees the prices charged by the Sheraton, he says “they should be
wearin a mask” (Dirt Music: 83). The Spanish translation reads “deberían taparlos”, i.e., ‘they should
cover them’. The sarcasm in his comment (hinting that the hotel ‘robs’ its customers) is totally lost.
The literary value of Dirt Music is seriously dented because of errors of this calibre.
In another passage where the Spanish translation misses the irony of the original, an exchange
between Georgie Jutland and Luther Fox is rendered as something totally incongruous. Georgie wants
coffee, but she can only find instant coffee in the kitchen. “—You strike me as the instant type”, says
Fox. The double entendre is not lost on Georgie, who replies: “Oh, cheap” (Dirt Music: 88) It was
however lost on the translator, who failed to understand Fox’s jibe on Georgie’s sexual promiscuity
and then rendered ‘cheap’ as ‘stingy’, not realising that the exchange is full of irony.
Another important linguistic area where Música de la tierra misleads its readers is that of swear
words. Swearing has become an almost normal sociolinguistic behaviour for ordinary Australians; as
a way of expressing humour or ironic despair, it is within broadly acceptable limits of social conduct
to use the odd swear word. Professor Roland Sussex, cited by Marcus (2009), believes that in terms of
attitudes to swearing, the US and Australia are on opposite ends of the spectrum, with Australians
demonstrating much more relaxed attitudes to this kind of social behaviour.
There are too many instances of swear word usage inappropriately rendered into Spanish. The
fundamentally Australian term “bugger” (used in its sense of person), “bullshit” (meaning nonsense)
or “Jesus” (used as an exclamation) 2 , have been sadly misconstrued by the translator. Particularly
inept is the rendition of “Jesus” as “Jesús”, which in Spain is usually said when people sneeze. See for
instance, Rusty’s exclamation when he stops driving, “Jesus, that’s me done” (Dirt Music: 228),
2
See Lambert, J. (Ed.) (1996) The Macquarie Book of Slang. (Macquarie University: The Macquarie Library)
5which is given in Spanish as “Jesús, yo ya estoy” – i.e., Jesus, I’m already there – (Música de la
tierra: 196), a totally incongruous turn of phrase in the context.
The incorrect rendition of numerous swear words, examples of which I have elsewhere (Salavert,
2010) alluded to, whether through misunderstanding or lack of basic research, means that the resulting
Spanish text is inadequate. Spanish readers encounter a text that does not reflect the subtleties and
nuances of Australian substandard language present in Winton’s original.
The land as text
Apropos Dirt Music, Ben-Messahel (2006: 101) has pointed out the enormous significance that
Winton’s description of the land of Western Australia makes to the narrative of the novel. According
to her, “Winton writes the land as text”. This is a very important aspect of Dirt Music, to the extent
that the landscape, its geological features, its flora and fauna, become partly the protagonist: “it is a
signifier prevailing only through its necessary and absolute relation with the signified” (Ben-
Messahel, 2006: 108).
A truthful translation of those geological features, of the characteristics that make the Western
Australian landscape an essential ingredient of Winton’s novel, is thus necessary. Anything less than a
reliable translation will give the reader of the translation the wrong images and impressions of this
vast part of the world where the narrative takes place.
In this sense, Música de la tierra deceives the reader on numerous occasions. Anyone slightly
familiar with Australia would know that there are no motorways in the regions where most of the
novel takes place: the imaginary fishing port of White Point, supposed to be three to four hours north
of Perth, and the northern tip of Western Australia. The west coast is joined by a highway, which has
one lane in each direction. The Spanish text, however, repeatedly mentions an “autopista”. According
to the Target Text (TT), drivers on the highway can see “picos” (Música de la tierra: 67). No basic
research was made to find out about the geography of Western Australia; there are no peaks; the
highest point in WA is Mount Meharry, in the Pilbara (north-western WA), a mere 1,249 metres. The
original makes mention of capstones, rocky projections that crown the fairly small hills of the area.
The land around the Indian Ocean Drive north of Perth, where this part of the narrative has its setting,
is mostly flat; the only peaks visible from the road are in the translator’s imagination.
Other significant errors in the translation include plants and animals. On page 131 of Dirt Music,
Winton mentions the “cicadas” that can be heard in the early morning. For some strange reason (or
more likely due to some unforgivable typo overlooked by the publisher-in-chief) the cicadas become
‘crayfish’ in the Spanish: “cigalas” (Música de la tierra: 117). This error will make any discerning
6Spanish reader wonder about this incredibly strange land where you can hear the crayfish singing in
the morning.
In another incomprehensible decision by the translator, the autochthonous shrubs known as
grasstrees are repeatedly referred to in the Spanish text as “blackboys” (Música de la tierra: 84); the
English term was accompanied by a succinct translator’s note that reads “Xanthorrhoea o árbol de la
hierba”. The term “blackboy” has certainly been the most common name among Australians for a
very long time, although political correctness discourages its use these days. Still, it is difficult to
justify its use in the TT because it is just as meaningless to the common Spanish reader as its scientific
name.
The grasstree was not the only plant that receives this dreadful treatment. The typically Western
Australian “peppermint tree” (Dirt Music: 104) is rendered as “árbol de pepermint [sic]” (Música de
la tierra: 98). The Agonis flexuosa or peppermint tree is known in Spanish as árbol menta or menta de
Australia Occidental.
Significant landscape features were also incorrectly rendered. For instance, “the strangling ditch
of the brackish river” (Dirt Music: 152) was translated as “la tortuosa acequia del río salobre” (Música
de la tierra: 131). The error in this case will lead the Spanish reader to believe the natural ditch of the
river is a man-made irrigation canal, an acequia.
A description of the small, idyllic island in northern Australia where Fox will flee to, a place
Georgie had already visited is inappropriately translated: “It was a great red rock skirted by rainforest,
like a mesa grown up through a garden” (Dirt Music: 208). The inaccurate TT misleads the reader; the
mesa becomes a low dune, “una baja duna” (Música de la tierra: 178).
Another inexcusable error was made in the translation of “outcrop”. Winton writes: “Fox begins
to notice graffiti on every outcrop” (Dirt Music: 238) on their approach to Port Hedland, but
“outcrop” is given in the TT as “cosecha”, i.e., crop: “Fox empieza a ver graffiti en cada cosecha”
(Música de la tierra: 206). Somehow, I have the feeling this is not the kind of creative, imaginative
decision Edith Grossman refers to. The idea that anyone could paint graffiti on their crops does stretch
our imagination beyond what is admissible, let alone the fact that the area south of Port Headland
described in that part of the narrative is, like most of Australia, a desert.
Wrong judgement (or ignorance) is also likely to be a reason why the names of two Australian
towns, Mount Isa and Charters Towers, were translated as “el monte Isa, las Torres Charters” (Música
de la tierra: 217). Yet giving “territorio norte” (Música de la tierra: 254) as the common Spanish
name for the Northern Territory demonstrates a terrible ignorance of Australia and points to very low
standards in professional practice.
7Another instance of the ignorance of the geographical characteristics of WA is shown in the
translation of this reference to the prevailing winds of the area: “… some unlucky conscript to work
the deck in a rank southerly” (Dirt Music: 24). The TT, “…algún recluta desafortunado para trabajar
en cubierta bajo ese apestoso viento del sur” (Música de la tierra: 28) tells us that the southerly wind
is “apestoso”, i.e., “stinking”. Anyone who knows Australia would realise that the southerlies in WA
always come from the ocean, and thus it is not possible for it to be foul-smelling. The context of the
passage calls for “rank” to be interpreted as “awfully strong”.
Howlers
Some book reviewers take delight in identifying howlers in translation so they can wave their fingers
and propagate the myth of the translator as a traitor. Unfortunately, they are given sometimes the
fodder they need. It is the publisher’s ultimate responsibility to detect howlers, and as Eco (2009: 26)
suggests, to tell the translator that their work is unpublishable. On top of the numerous errors
identified above, Música de la tierra contains other howlers that the publisher-in-chief should have
spotted before the TT was typeset and printed. The bow of a boat – “The bow grinds gently against
the sand” (Dirt Music: 130) – was regrettably mixed up with an archery bow: “El arco roza
suavemente la arena” (Música de la tierra: 117).
Similarly, it is difficult to justify that the publisher-in-chief overlooked the hilarious translation of
“gutted vehicles” (Dirt Music: 52) as “vehículos con tripa” (Música de la tierra: 51). The TT says
they are vehicles with a paunch. A correct, sensible rendition would be vehículos desvencijados.
Another amusing howler takes place in the mistranslation of “polaroids” as photographs. Winton
writes: “He finds his hat and polaroids and carries everything toward the wall of trees” (Dirt Music:
300). For someone who is fleeing into the wilderness from tragedy and his very own past, Fox appears
to be taking very useless things with him into the outback: “Encuentra su sombrero y sus fotos”
(Música de la tierra: 260). Yet later in the narrative (page 293) the polaroids are correctly translated
as “gafas polarizadas”.
Another important error, because it affects the Spanish reader’s understanding of the difficult
relationship between Georgie and Jim Buckridge’s sons, is the wrong assumption the translator made
that by “the S-word” Winton was referring to a swear word instead of stepmother. The original reads:
“Georgie wondered if it really was the S-word that had broken the spell” (Dirt Music: 11). The
Spanish version misrepresents the exchange (and thus the situation) by adding the word “palabrota”
(Música de la tierra: 19), although one can clearly realise that “the S-word” is actually “stepmother”,
mentioned on page 10; no swearing occurs. There are several swear words that begin with m in
Spanish, but madrastra is definitely not one. This unfortunate error is repeated on page 42.
8Even a not unusual idiom such as “dead in the water” (Dirt Music: 11) is clumsily rendered
literally (“sabía perfectamente qué quería decir … estar muerta en el agua” (Música de la tierra: 20),
where a creative, imaginative and above all idiomatic translation (estar en vía muerta) would be not
only accurate but also comprehensible to the modern Spanish reader.
One of the most serious errors, because it will affect our understanding of the novel, occurred in
the translation of a whole chapter, namely pages 334-35. Winton describes a scene where a man is
sitting in his truck, with jerrycans full of petrol in the back. He’s considering burning down a house.
Música de la tierra makes us believe that this man is Fox (his name is never mentioned) instead of
Buckridge, for the translator inserted “en esa jodida isla salvaje” (Música de la tierra: 290). This is
despite Lu Fox being in the north at this stage of the narrative.
A careless reading of any text may cause substantial shifts in meaning and alter the perception of
a character. Georgie’s character was unfortunately misrepresented in Música de la tierra. Early in the
novel, Winton writes about Georgie: “she wasn’t about to go running out to protect millionaires from
one bloke and his dog” (Dirt Music: 18). However, what the TT tells us, “no saldría corriendo a
proteger a esos millonarios y sus perros” (Música de la tierra: 25), is that she is not prepared to
protect those millionaires and their dogs (my underlining). Further into the novel, we are also told that
“She hated mirrors but she felt enough self-loathing to reef back the robe door…” (Dirt Music: 55).
The self-loathing was simply replaced with a dislike for mirrors: “Odiaba los espejos pero superó su
repugnancia y tiró de la puerta del armario” (Música de la tierra: 53).
Another very basic error is made in translating “the two-day grounding [of a yacht] in the islands”
(Dirt Music: 57), which becomes two days of basic lessons for Spanish readers: “los dos días de
lecciones básicas” (Música de la tierra: 54). This error happened despite an earlier mention of this
very incident on page 102.
Other errors might have an almost comical effect, were it not for the fact that the end result is
dismally erroneous. After sinking his boat and swimming ashore, Fox walks back to his house. Upon
approaching it, he follows the creek bed and soaks his feet there: “At the home bend, where the tyre
still hangs…” (Dirt Music: 152). The bend of the creek became a house in Spanish: “En la esquina de
una casa…” (Música de la tierra: 131). The information a Spanish reader gets is that at the corner of a
house Lu sees a tree lying – on the ground? – from which a tyre hangs. It makes one wonder where
Fox can be soaking his feet…
While Georgie is waiting for Lu at his farm, she sees something moving in the dark, and thinks it
may be “some stray cur from a farm across the river” (Dirt Music: 154). Again, the translator
misconstrued an English term, “cur”, and misled the Spanish reader: “algún patán perdido de una
granja del otro lado del río” (Música de la tierra: 132), i.e., some lost country bumpkin, rather than a
dog.
9Errors are also made when a translator neglects the most basic of rules for a good translation, that
of checking a good dictionary. Any dictionary would have shown that the idiom “high and dry” – as
in “By eight that morning they were high and dry” (Dirt Music: 208) – must be rendered as
encallados or varados, not “secos”.
Winton’s description of the young man Axle contains important errors in the TT. Winton writes:
“Aw, Lu, he upset everybody. All this crazy talkin and getting angry. Thought he’s a petrol sniffer.”
(Dirt Music: 304). In the Spanish version, “Ay, Lu, disgustó a todo el mundo por todas esas locuras
que dice. Y se enfadaban con él. Pensaban que esnifaba gasóleo” (Música de la tierra: 265), we are
led to understand that everybody got angry at Axle (not the other way round, as the original says) and
that he used to sniff diesel (as if that were possible).
Target language legibility
Gutt (2001: 99) has pointed out to communicability as one of the main problems of translation.
Sánchez (2009: 130) takes this issue further than the communication across languages involved by the
act of translation, correctly suggesting that “communicability” refers also to “communication at
monolingual level”. For this monolingual level to be fully understood by the reader, the TT needs to
be syntactically and semantically comprehensible for the Target Language (TL) reader.
Música de la tierra presents many problems of comprehension on both counts. Some passages
have been rendered in such carelessly structured syntactic sentences that readers are bound to be
confused about the narrative. Take for instance the translation of the following passage, where Winton
tells us of Georgie receiving a hostile comment from one of Jim’s sons: “Georgie felt [the snappy
remark] somehow directed at her, was stung as he grabbed an apple and sloped off” (Dirt Music: 35)
The Spanish text reads: “Georgie sintió que de alguna manera aquel comentario iba dirigido a ella; le
picó en la mano mientras cogía una manzana y se largó” (Música de la tierra: 37). By omitting the
subject for the verb – something not usual in Spanish – the translation is made nonsensical. It can only
be interpreted as “Georgie stung the boy in the hand as he (or she) grabbed an apple, and then she
left”, when in fact it is Georgie who felt stung.
A very similar problem of communicability occurs in the translation of “She left him reaching for
a cold baked potato” (Dirt Music: 155) as “Ella le dejó y alargó el brazo para alcanzar una patata
asada fría” (Música de la tierra: 133), where “Ella” becomes the subject for both verbs. How can she
leave the table to run the bath and reach for a cold potato at the same time?
Música de la tierra contains some inglorious passages where the syntax of the target language is
mistreated to such an extent that the text becomes messy, meaningless and confusing. This is an
10incident where Fox is hit with the piece of steak he has bought at a petrol station before walking away
from Rusty and Nora:
“It hits him in the belly and knocks him winded to his knees and when the van finishes its dirt
spraying U-turn and its brief wallow in the mulga scrub on its way back to the highway, he
finds the vacuum-sealed parcel of porterhouse in the dust by his knees. He gets his breath back.
He picks it up, hauls himself upright and presses on into the sunset and the gathering
mosquitoes” (Dirt Music: 241)
The TT mixes up verbs and subjects, losing control over the syntactic structures; some of the lexical
choices are infelicitous, too. The text makes little sense:
“Le golpea en el estómago y le tira al suelo enrollado [sic] en sus rodillas y, cuando la
furgoneta acaba, después de recibir [sic] una ducha de polvo en su giro de ciento ochenta
grados y un breve revolcón en los arbustos de mulga de vuelta a la autopista [sic], encuentra el
paquete envasado al vacío de carne en la arena junto a sus rodillas. Recupera el aliento. Lo
recoge, se levanta y sigue caminando hacia la puesta de sol y los mosquitos en aumento”
(Música de la tierra: 209).
Poor attention to syntax produced another ludicrous rendition in the TT. “He spends entire days
satisfying himself that he has the best camp on the island” (Dirt Music: 352) becomes “Se pasa días
enteros satisfecho de tener el major campamento de la isla” (Música de la tierra: 301), which implies
that the reader will think Fox spends days feeling relaxed, content with having found the best camp on
the island; this is not Winton’s narrative.
Sometimes the error is due to the translator’s inattentive reading. When Jim, Georgie and Red
Hopper at the island in search of Lu Fox, the following dialogue ensues:
“Jesus, he could be bloody anywhere, said Jim.
Anywhere there’s food and water.
Somewhere on the island?
Nah. No water.” (Dirt Music: 413)
But the Spanish text would have us believe they are not on the island when the dialogue takes place,
but somewhere else:
“Dios, podría estar en cualquier maldita parte—dijo Jim.
En cualquier parte donde haya comida y agua.
¿En alguna zona de la isla?
No. Allí no hay agua.” (Música de la tierra: 354)
11Barnstone (1993: 261) has identified good writing skills as “the true ethical task of the translator”,
whose ultimate objective therefore must be “to produce a work that is clear and beautiful”. The
Spanish translator of Dirt Music produced a few dreadful passages, which are obscure and confusing
because they are not well written. On one occasion, Winton narrates a very close encounter of Lu Fox
with a saltwater crocodile. Fox hits the croc, which escapes: “As it rolls and flees in surprise, all
flashing pale belly and armoured tail, he sees it’s bigger than the kayak and the surge of displaced
water shunts him sideways, cocked to the verge of capsize. It ploughs through the trees to leave him
shaking.” (Dirt Music: 403). The TT reads “La bestia, al voltear y escapar, sorprendido, mostrando su
pálida barriga y su cola armada, deja ver todo su tamaño y Fox comprueba que es mayor que el kayak
y las olas que ha levantado le apartan y ladean tanto que está a punto de volcar. Se interna por los
árboles temblando” (Música de la tierra: 345-46). The TT paragraph has been so poorly written –
there are also serious issues of gender agreement – that we might construe that it is Fox who ends up
moving through the trees, although the narrative clearly tells us he is in a kayak.
The communicability of the TT can also be seriously marred by the wrong choice of lexical units
or their order. At the beginning of the novel, Winton describes White Point as “a personality
junkyard” (Dirt Music: 17). However, Spanish readers are told that the town has a junkyard
personality: “La personalidad de la ciudad era de chatarrería” (Música de la tierra: 24). Or the
problem may be caused by a gender error when translating a homonym: “The music develops a
pattern whose order just eludes him” (Dirt Music: 402-03). The TT refers to a command (i.e., la
orden): “un dibujo cuya orden simplemente se le escapa” (Música de la tierra: 344-45).
In other cases, the poor judgement – the failure to apply the most basic common sense – produces
incongruous sentences: “Avanzado el día, el camino le resultaba más frío” (Música de la tierra: p.
360). Winton is describing here the fruitless search Georgie and Jim are conducting, hence “the colder
the trail” (Dirt Music: 420). But why would a pathway become cold in tropical Australia as the day
wears on?
When Lu Fox is almost starving, Winton writes that “Skippers or worse writhe across his belly”
(Dirt Music: 439). The translator wrongly interpreted “skippers” as fish, when skippers can also be
butterflies, hence the feeling of hunger Fox has.
Some very basic mistranslations add to the widespread inappropriateness of the TT. Where
Winton writes “Fox stops playing” (Dirt Music: 372), the translator mistranslates it as “Fox deja de
jugar” (Música de la tierra: 319), where the verb “tocar” is called for. The novel’s title, after all, is
Dirt Music.
Other significant errors were related to register; Georgie’s question about her dead mother,
“Where’s the body?” (Dirt Music: p. 169) is given in Spanish as “¿Dónde está el cadáver?” (Música
de la tierra: 144). It is shocking for a daughter to talk about her deceased mother as “the corpse”.
12Another case of incorrect register is the translation of the term “squatters” in the WA wilderness
(Dirt Music: 146) as “okupas”. An odd choice, as okupas necessarily implies an urban context in the
Western culture. The Australian notion of a squatter in the middle of the mostly empty WA coastline
has no relation to the European urban context.
Conclusion
I have shown how a wide range of errors and poor translation decisions can ruin the experience of
discovering a new author. Savory (1968: 76) has explained that the loss that inevitably occurs in the
translation process mars the potential perfection of any translation. In the case of Música de la tierra,
as we have seen, there is far too much loss. This Spanish version of an Australian bestseller does not
do it justice; it has so many translational lacunae and errors that it is not too harsh a judgement to
declare it a failed translation. Música de la tierra lets down Spanish readers badly, and, as Eco (2009:
29) says of the purchase of translations of foreign literary works, readers should demand value for
their money.
References
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University Press.
Ben-Messahel, S. (2006). Mind the Country: Tim Winton’s Fiction. Crawley: University of Western
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Dixon, R. (2005). Tim Winton, Cloudstreet and the field of Australian literature. Westerly, 50 ( 1),
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Jones, D. (1988). Serious Laughter: On defining Australian humour. Journal of Commonwealth
Literature, 23(1), 76-90.
Eco, U. (2009). Decir casi lo mismo, trans. Helena Lozano. Barcelona: Random House Mondadori.
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by-australia-famous-for-foul-mouths-we-take-our-q-from-overseas-20090815-elsb.html
13Salavert, J. (2010). Pitfalls, impossibilities and small victories in translating Australian humour: a case
study on Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet and Dirt Music. In C. Valero (Ed.), Dimensions of Humour.
Explorations in Linguistics, Literature, Cultural Studies and Translation. Valencia: Publicacions
de la Universitat de València.
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St. André, J. (Ed.). (2010). Thinking through Translation with Metaphors. Manchester, UK and
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Torre, E. (2001). Teoría de la traducción literaria. Madrid: Síntesis.
Winton, T. (2001). Dirt Music. Sydney: Pan Macmillan.
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