Tattoos, Titles, and Translations

I just finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I had high expectations for this novel, having seen it prominently featured for months on Amazon and other places. I erroneously assumed this meant it was ridiculously good. Silly Annie. It means the publisher has a great marketing department.

But hey, it was translated from Swedish, and I assume a book has to jump through some serious hoops before that happens, right?

37% into the book (my Kindle tells me my exact progress), I had an idea for a subtitle. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: The Exposition that Would Not Die (a horror novel). You keep thinking that it’s over, and then BAM! He hits you with another round of dry-as-dust prose. God help us.

I’ve since learned that the author was a journalist. YES. That makes sense. The story actually is interesting, but it’s not really my genre (Where are the elves and unicorns? Spaceships? Scary monsters from another dimension? Wait, why am I reading this again?). The lack of appealing content combined with the writing style made this a very long read for me.

I also cannot help but wonder what part the translator played in making it difficult to read (This link indicates the English editor is to blame). The prose is so matter-of-fact, you can’t help but feel that someone ran portions of it through Google Translate. Nuances were (I will assume, for the sake of honoring the author’s memory) lost in the process.

I learned after finishing the book that its title in Swedish is Men Who Hate Women. This is by far a more accurate description of the book’s contents. I certainly remember wondering when this tattooed girl was going to make an appearance. She’s not the main protagonist.

I’m not saying that the English title is bad or wrong, but I spent a significant chunk of reading this book waiting for The Girl and looking forward to learning more about The Girl than I would have (I think) had it retained its original title. Then again, I might not have wrestled with it long enough to get to The Girl had she not been in the title. Maybe that was the publisher’s trick. If so, bravo.

I don’t understand why titles should be so dramatically different from one country to another, though I vividly remember when I learned of this phenomenon.

I’m a huge Stephen King fan (scary monsters from another dimension, you’ll recall), and on a trip to Graz, Austria, I found his books in a store. I was struck by the titles of the Dark Tower books. For some reason they were all one word in their German incarnations. This was horribly confusing because the 2nd book is titled Three (shortened from The Drawing of the Three). For someone who just learned German numbers, this was a really nasty trick to play.

Even in English I think this title would be a strange choice, though.

Imagine, if you will, you’re going to buy the 2nd book in a series from Barnes and Nobles:

You: “I need the 2nd Dark Tower book, please.”
Clerk: “Let’s see…ah, here it is, Three.”
You: “No, I need the 2nd book.”
Clerk: “Yes, Three.”
You: “No, two.”
Clerk: “Three is two.
You: *head explodes*

Oh, you’re a robot in this scenario. Did I forget to mention that?

The title that really bothered me, though, was the first one. The Gunslinger had been changed to Black. If you’re a fan of the series, you’re aware that the first line of the book is “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” King talks about how much he loves that line, and it takes on even greater significance by the end of the series.

Given the importance of this first sentence, the choice to change the title from The Gunslinger to Black seems like a monumental shift to me. Two characters are introduced in the that sentence. The German reader will identify that the title refers to the “man in black,” who is the antagonist. An American reader will identify it with the protagonist. I can’t help but think that would affect your perception of a book.

Perhaps it’s a clever marketing ploy that reflects cultural currents that I didn’t pick up on in my 6 weeks in Austria. Perhaps Austrians want to read about the darker side, the Sturm und Drang, and Americans want to read about the hero cowboy. Of course the Gunslinger has plenty of Sturm und Drang to spare, but you can’t get that from the title. Unless you change the title to something more descriptive, like “The Antisocial Gunslinger with Mommy Issues.” But I don’t think anyone would buy that, no matter what language it’s written in.

Perhaps part of the reasoning was that “Gunslinger” in German becomes “Revolvermann.” That translates literally to “Revolver Man” in English. It’s not quite a sexy-sounding as “one who slings guns.” Still, I don’t think that justifies changing the titular character.

I wonder how much, if any, control an author has over the title and translation of his/her books. I considered writing to Mr. King and alerting him to this huge mistake in the translator’s judgment. Of course I didn’t, and perhaps it wasn’t a mistake at all. Maybe it’s that kind of translating, with cultural nuances in mind, that would have made The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo a tad more readable.

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