Favole al telefono (1962)/Telephone Tales (1965)

From a macro-structural point of view, Telephone Tales translated by Patrick Creagh in 1965 is a collection of 44 short stories, 16 fewer than the original book. This choice may be related to a publishing strategy aimed at promoting the work of Gianni Rodari in his first appearance on the British book market for children. At this stage Rodari was well-known in Italy because he had won the European Prize “Città di Caorle” in 1962 for Favole al telefono, but his international fame was to arrive only eight years later with the Hans Christian Andersen Award. Telephone Tales was marketed for a public of young children, with adults acting as mediators in reading tales aloud, as was discussed in the paratextual analysis of this book in 3.1.1, where reviews on Telephone Tales make explicit reference to the aural character of these stories as one of the book’s most notable features.

The idea of a voice telling stories aloud in Telephone Tales, is exemplified in the opening page. Mr. Bianchi from Varese is a travelling salesman, so he spends a large portion of his working time travelling around Italy. He has a young daughter at home, and to make sure that she can hear his voice every evening as though he was there with her, he calls her on the phone to tell a story. This fictitious framework suggests that the original medium for these stories was oral and that they were written later on. This needs to be taken into consideration when analysing the linguistic elements characterising the

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voice of the narrator and his relationship with the narratee throughout the stories. In the introduction to the book the voice of Rodari as implied author addresses the implied reader directly:

IT EN

[…] Vedrete che sono tutte un po’ corte […]. Mi hanno detto che quando il signor Bianchi chiamava Varese le signorine del centralino sospendevano tutte le telefonate per ascoltare le sue storie. Sfido: alcune sono proprio belline. (GR 2010: 11)

[…] You will notice that they are all on the short side. […] I have heard that it was no good trying to make a phone-call in Varese at seven o’clock in the evening, because all the telephonists were listening in to one of Mr Bianchi’s stories. I can well believe it. There are 44 of them in this book. Turn the page and begin. (PC 1965: 5)

Rodari declares that the book is a collection of stories told by “ragionier Bianchi”, and the implied author lures the reader to the narration by giving his personal appreciation “alcune sono proprio belline”²²⁰. Creagh’s voice as translator superimposes that of Rodari in this introduction and informs the reader about the number of stories in the book, an amplification that was not present in the original text because a table of contents was provided. The Italian setting for the stories is maintained in translation with the original name of Mr Bianchi and also the name of Varese. The direct address to the reader is discernible in the first sentence of the translation with “you will find” and “You will notice”, the voice of the author enters the dialogue with “I have heard”. The exclamation “Sfido” in Italian is diffused through a paraphrase: “I can well believe it”, but the appreciative remark has been omitted in translation. Finally, Rodari concludes the introduction with a sentence that carries the pragmatic function of an implicit invitation to readers to like the stories just as the implied author did; Creagh mediated this with a direct reference to the physical book the readers have in hand, “turn the page”

220 “some are very good indeed.” (my translation)

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and start reading, thus directly addressing the real reader. The dichotomy between implied author and narrator is blurred in the paratextual material, because the receiving public (real reader) is invited to write to Harrap if they liked the stories (not to Mr Bianchi). Moreover, the implied author directly addresses the implied readers in some of the story endings as will become evident in the section below.

A) Trajections adopted for the translation of proper names

Proper names in children’s literature are a challenging feature in translation²²¹, especially when they communicate a specific characteristic of the characters that becomes immediately recognisable by readers. Proper names are the first element that the reader notices as familiar (or unfamiliar, if they have been maintained the same as in the source text), a memorable element especially if a story is meant to be read aloud.

The examples below offer an overview of the trajections detectable in Creagh’s translation for the main characters in Telephone Tales, with an abbreviation on the right-hand column of the linguistic trajections adopted in each case (with reference to Malone’s categories presented in 4.2):

No. IT EN Trajec.

1 TT Giovannino Perdigiorno Johnnie Wanderer SUB

2 TT Giuseppe Joe SUB

3 TT Alice Cascherina Tina Tumbleover SUB

4 TT Martino Little Bob SUB

5 TT signor Delio Mr Perbacco SUB

6 TT ragionier Gamberoni Mr Prawn SUB

7 TT Martino

Martino Testadura

Little Bob Obstinate Bob

SUB

221 Various scholars have dealt with the translation of names in children’s literature from the point of view of read-aloud qualities (Dollerup, 2003), a functional perspective categorizing the various strategies adopted by translators (Van Coillie, [2006] 2014), and cultural context adaptation (O’Sullivan, 2005a).

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8 TT Claudio Michael SUB

9 TT Giacomo James SUB

10 TT Romoletto Peter SUB

11 TT Pulcinella Colombina Arlecchino

Punchinello Columbine Harlequin

SUB

12 TT Vincenzo Di Giacomo Vincent SUB

13 TT Gennaro Billy SUB

14 TT Tibolla Tibolla EQU

15 TT Gino Chris SUB

16 TT Stragenerale Bombone Sparone Pestafracassone

Super-General Bombalot Shellfire SUB

17 TT Mortesciallo Von Bombonen Sparonen Pestafrakasson

Field Martian Mortabomb Von Howitzer

SUB

Creagh translates almost all the names and nicknames into English through Substitutions. Of the only two names that retain their Italian flavour, one (Mr Perbacco, 5 TT) substitutes the original Italian “signor Delio”, whereas the other is an Equation of the family name “Tibolla” (14 TT). Particularly interesting is the Substitution of “Alice Cascherina” with “Tina Tumbleover” (3 TT): this nickname characterises the young Tina as a girl who “has been falling into things all her life” (Rodari, tr. Creagh, 1965:

22). Creagh preserved the descriptive element of the nickname but also added the rhyming initial sound /t/ to make it memorable for readers, even though this substitution fails to explore the intertextual reference to Alice as a well-known name from Alice in Wonderland for the British public. In the last two proper names (16 TT and 17 TT) the aural element is particularly important both in English and in Italian, as is the case of names reflecting the characteristics of the two military men starring in The War of the Bells. Creagh also maintained the interlinguistic influence with German in “Von Howitzer” already present in the original Italian with “Pestafrakasson”. The predominant trajection adopted by Creagh in the translation of proper names in

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Telephone Tales is Substitution, a domesticating strategy for the voice of the original narrator that in English translation resulted as memorable as it was in the source text for young readers for the book.

B) Trajections adopted for the translation of geographical references

Boero (2010: 13) recognised the descriptive ability of environments and the constant reference to Italian geography as one of the main characteristics of Rodari’s writing.

This geography covers all of Italy, and in Favole al telefono the choice is justified in the foreword by the implied author because Mr. Bianchi, as a travelling salesman, has the chance to visit the whole peninsula. Since all of Rodari’s works have some sort of relation with the real world as he wished to make children believe that everything around them can ignite their fantasy, the aspect of geography is important to discover how this specific aspect of his voice and experience as a writer shifted in translation.

The examples below show the geographical references present in the original and translated text. In longer narrative extracts (26-29 TT) emphasis has been added in the text to facilitate the identification of each strategy as abbreviated in the right-hand column.

No. IT EN Trajec.

18 TT Bologna Bologna EQU

19 TT Roma Rome EQU

20 TT Modena Modena EQU

21 TT Gavirate Gavirate EQU

22 TT Piombino Piombino EQU

23 TT Torino Torino EQU

24 TT Cremona Clapham SUB

25 TT Cesenatico Cesenatico EQU

In Telephone Tales Creagh partially maintained the Italian setting of some of the stories, as evident by his choice to use Equation in the name of cities around Italy. The

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only exception is Cremona, which has been substituted with Clapham, an area of Greater London, at the end of the story The famous rainstorm of Piombino in order to introduce a familiar element for English-speaking readers and involve them in the fantastic story (for a fuller presentation, see 29 TT below).

No. La coperta del soldato The Soldier’s Blanket Trajec.

26 TT Gennaro riempiva pagine e pagine col nome di ANCONA, o con quello di PESARO, […]

(GR 2010: 145)

Billy filled up his book with the names of this town and that, […]

(PC 1965: 91)

CONV

Case e palazzi Building Buildings

27 TT "L'America, eh? Ci sono stato anch'io, tanti anni fa, chissà quanti. Sono stato a Nuova York, a Buenos Aires, a San Paulo, a Montevideo. Sempre a fare case e palazzi e a piantare bandiere sui tetti. E in Australia ci sei stato?"

(GR 2010: 149)

"America, eh? I was there too, many years ago. I went to New York, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Montevideo, and so on. There was a lot of building going on in those days.

Have you ever been to Australia?"

(PC 1965: 103)

EQU

28 TT "[…] Bei palazzi, che facevamo, belle case robuste. Chissà se sono ancora in piedi. E ad Algeri ci sei stato? Ci sei stato al Cairo, in Egitto?"

(GR 2010: 149)

"[…] We built a lot of fine houses there. I wonder whether they're still standing. And what about North Africa? Have you been to Algeria or to Egypt?"

(PC 1965: 103)

SUB DIV EQU

In 26 TT there is a case of Convergence which simplifies the text into the more colloquial expression “this town and that”, therefore avoiding any mention of specific Italian city references. 27 TT shows examples of North and South American cities well known to the English-speaking public, where Creagh adopts an Equation trajection that does not deviate from the source text. In the same example, Creagh translates the foreign

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names of world capitals using the correct English spelling, coherently with the narrator in Rodari’s original text who uses the standard spelling of foreign cities as it was used in the 1960s: “Nuova York” and “San Paulo”. This shows Creagh’s tendency to normalise the target text in view of the target norms of correct spelling in English as expected in a book aimed at young readers. From the same story Building Buildings, in 28 TT the person who is speaking travelled the world as a builder and mentions the cities he visited. In the first question Creagh substitutes the original “Algeri” with the geographical area of North Africa, to compensate “Algeria” in the subsequent question together with the Equation for Egypt (the most natural equivalent for “Egitto” in Italian) for greater coherence in the text moving from general (country) to specific (states).

Favole al telefono is a collection of tales marked by the everyday reality that children experience, interspersed with real geographical references and situations that they can find in every corner of the world, narrated “come se fossero visti in uno specchio leggermente deformante, che imprime loro un sapore particolarmente comico.”²²² (Zagni, 1975: 59) This aspect has been retained in translation, especially when the Italian city is the setting of the whole story. Substitution in 29 TT may be described as an accessory strategy to communicate shared knowledge with the reader:

No. La famosa pioggia di Piombino The Famous Rainstorm of Piombino Trajec.

29 TT

Anche adesso molta gente aspetta che dal cielo piovano confetti, ma quella nuvola non è passata più né da Piombino né da Torino, e forse non passerà mai nemmeno da Cremona.

(Rodari 2010: 43)

People are still waiting for that cloud to come back and bring a shower of sweets, but it has never happened again at Piombino, or even at Torino, and perhaps it will never happen even in Clapham. (Creagh 1965: 30)

EQU SUB

222 “[…] as though reflected by a slightly deforming mirror, which gives them a particularly comical flavour” (my translation)

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In the extract above, the Substitution of “Cremona” with “Clapham” provides a well-known reference to the English-speaking public in the UK, as though the narrator wished to give a wider perspective to the possibility that a shower of sweets is not something that can only happen in Italy but also in the place where the receiving public lives. This shows the ability of Creagh to expand the far reaching message provided by Rodari in the first place, as he wanted to communicate with his readers through familiar places and everyday situations as explicitated by Zagni (1975). This is the end of the story, and the importance of this narrative part as well as the translation strategies brought into play by Creagh will be discussed in the section dedicated to communicating the voice of the narrator in Telephone Tales.

The trajections adopted by Creagh in the translation of geographical references are mainly Substitution and Equation, where the preference for the latter shows a tendency towards foreignisation.

C) Trajections adopted for the translation of food

Food is indicated by Klingberg (1986) as the most commonly transformed category in cultural context adaptation. The voice of the narrator in Favole al telefono is characterised by a rich culinary vocabulary that includes the most typical foods around Italy as a distinctive element of the book (Boero, 2010: 30-31). The examples that follow are investigated to show to what extent this distinctive element has been retained in English translation, and which of Malone’s strategies prevail.

No. Il cacciatore sfortunato The Unlucky Hunter Trajec.

30 TT

- Prendi il fucile, Giuseppe, prendi il fucile e vai a caccia, - disse una mattina al suo figliolo quella donna. – Domani tua sorella si sposa e vuol mangiare polenta e lepre. (GR 2010: 13)

“Take your gun and go out hunting, Joe,” said the old woman to her son one morning. “Your sister’s getting married tomorrow, and she wants me to cook hare stew and dumplings.”

(PC 1965: 6)

SUB

192 31

TT

– Hai fatto buona caccia, Giuseppe? – gli domandò la mamma, al ritorno.

- Sì, mamma. Ho preso tre arrabbiature belle grasse. Chissà come saranno buone, con la polenta. (GR 2010: 15)

“Have you got anything, Joe?” his mother asked when he arrived home.

“Yes, mother,” he said. “The biggest, thundering great temper you ever saw!”

“Now then,” said his mother severely.

“There’s no need to get into such a stew about it.”

“Same to you!” said Joe. “With dumplings!” (PC 1965: 8)

SUB

In The Unlucky Hunter, the reader is introduced to Joe who has to go hunting for food for his sister’s “wedding breakfast”. The dish suggested is “polenta e lepre”

{polenta and hare} (30 TT), which Creagh substitutes with a more familiar food for the English-speaking public, “hare stew and dumplings”. This choice can be justified in view of the full text of the story, as shown in 31 TT. Joe and his mother conclude the story with a repartee and Creagh is consistent in substituting food in English: polenta in Italy recalls a very nutritious food that often substitutes bread in rural areas; in English it is transformed into “dumplings”, small balls of dough. However, the two specialties are similar to one another as they can both be served with meat and become a single course meal. The translator, through Subsitution, is able to find a cultural equivalent for the English speaking community and convey the same image of the food in the source text, evoking an equivalent effect in the target readers. In the source text there is also a play on food words²²³ that is translated by Creagh with a fixed expression in English involving food (“into such a stew”). This is a typical expression in English, and is certainly well known to the adult public, maybe less familiar to children. Nevertheless, given the intended target public for this text that involves adults playing a mediating role as readers of these stories, they may resolve the play on words for their young listeners.

223 A characteristic of Rodari’s writing, discussed in the peritextual material for Telephone Tales in 3.1.1.

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No. Il paese senza punta The Country Without a Point Trajec.

32 TT

[…] che con quel sorriso avrebbe potuto benissimo essere l'omino di burro che portava Pinocchio al Paese dei Balocchi.(GR 2010: 25)

[…] said the policeman, with a smile like a strawberry milkshake.

(PC 1965: 14)

SUB RED

33 TT

[…] rispose la guardia, con tanta gentilezza che le sue parole si dovrebbero scrivere tutte con la lettera maiuscola. (GR 2010: 25)

[…] said the policeman in a voice like peaches and cream.

(PC 1965: 14)

COND

34 TT

Giovannino spalancò la bocca come se dovesse inghiottire una torta intera. (GR 2010: 26)

Johnnie's mouth opened so wide he could have swallowed a whole Christmas pudding. (PC 1065: 14)

DIV

In the examples above, Creagh resorts to Substitution as the preferred strategy, with Reduction of an intertextual reference to the man of butter in Pinocchio’s story (32 TT). The Reduction is not compensated for anywhere in ex. 32 TT, where the policeman shows a “strawberry milkshake” smile that does not appear in the source text. The sweet image of the policeman is emphasised in 33 TT, where his voice is described with a Repackaging trajection that condenses into a food-related binomial expression in English (“like peaches and cream”) the figurative meaning expressed by the long Italian sentence “con tanta gentilezza che le sue parole si dovrebbero scrivere tutte con la lettera maiuscola” {with such kindness that all his [the policeman] words should all be written in capital letters}. It may well be that Creagh opted for a more economical figure of speech consistent with the previous description of the policeman’s smile, with the objective of eliminating redundant narrative passages through Reduction and Condensation in favour of fluent reading aloud. 34 TT shows a case of situational divergence (Malone, 1988: 29) where Creagh adopts a hyponym of the superordinate

“torta” {cake} used by the original narrator of the story. The translator adopts a domesticating strategy to give readers an idea of Johnnie’s open mouth, using a dessert familiar to the English-speaking public.

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No. A inventare i numeri Making up Numbers Trajec.

35 TT

tre per uno Trento e Belluno tre per due bistecca di bue tre per tre latte e caffè tre per quattro cioccolato tre per cinque malelingue tre per sei patrizi e plebei tre per sette torta a fette tre per otto piselli e risotto tre per nove scarpe nuove tre per dieci pasta e ceci.

"Quanto costa questa pasta?"

(GR 2010: 35)

Three times one, a hot cross bun.

Three times two, a monkey at the zoo.

Three times three, a pot of tea.

Three times four, cakes galore.

Three times five, honey in a hive.

Three times six, a box of tricks.

Three times seven, pennies from heaven.

Three times eight, an empty plate.

Three times nine, prickles on a porcupine.

Three times ten, start again.

"How much does this cake cost?"

(PC 1965: 18)

SUB

35 TT is a nursery rhyme following a pattern of two juxtaposed sentences in a sequence meant to be read aloud. The aural characteristics of this text take precedence over meaning (in Malone’s terms, the Cenematic component of phonology is preferred), therefore Creagh adopts Substitution to invent a series of rhyming elements within sentences: one-bun, two-zoo, three-tea, and so on. The references to food are scattered throughout the text and they are ancillary to the spoken features of the nursery rhyme.

Creagh prefers elements that are familiar to the receiving public such as “hot cross bun”,

“tea”, “pennies”, and the general term “cake” to substitute local Italian food, the cities of

“Trento e Belluno”, “bistecca di bue” {fillet steak}, “piselli e risotto” {peas and risotto},

“pasta e ceci” {pasta with chickpea sauce}. Creagh uses his own narrative voice in translation through domestication, showing a high degree of creativity that focuses on the original narrator’s intention: namely, to invent a nonsense nursery rhyme to

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remember numbers and entertain adults as well children in their reader-listener interaction.

No. IT EN Trajec.

36 TT

servizi da caffè (GR 2010: 21) Teacups (PC 1965: 35) SUB

37 TT

- ti piace di più il parmigiano o il groviera? (GR 2010: 50)

“do you prefer plain cheese, or gorgonzola?” (PC 1965: 31)

SUB

38 TT

- [...] Somiglia al parmigiano o al gorgonzola? (GR 2010: 100)

“[...] Is it like cheese?”

(PC 1965: 69)

SUB

36-38 TT come from different examples all sharing the same Substitution trajection aimed at introducing limited foreign references, with “gorgonzola” being the only Italian cheese in 37 TT. This cheese is not retained in 38 TT because Creagh simplified the direct speech using the hypernym “cheese” instead of the specific Italian cheeses that are parmigiano and gorgonzola because this specification was probably deemed redundant in the narration. The all-present tea is mentioned as “teacups” in substitution of coffee cups in the original Italian to present once again a familiar environment to English-speaking readers.

Creagh uses different trajections when translating cheese and pasta in the The Comet Seller story where the most fantastic machines to make food are mentioned:

No. Il mago delle comete The Comet Seller Trajec.

39 TT […] una macchina per tagliare il brodo […]

(GR 2010: 91)

[…] an ordinary coffee-grinder […]

(PC 1965: 44)

SUB

40 TT […] una macchina al mercato, per fare gli spaghetti più fini […] (GR 2010: 91)

[…] whether it is a machine for making longer spaghetti […]

(PC 1965: 45)

EQU

41 TT caciottella Toscana (GR 2010: 92)

Cheddar cheese (PC 1965: 45)

DIV

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Substitution in 39 TT has the effect of simplifying the food vocabulary of the original story, and the “macchina per tagliare il brodo” {broth-cutting machine}

becomes a “coffee-grinder”. Spaghetti appears as in the original Italian in 40 TT, giving a foreign flavour to the target text to vary the food described in the story. Divergence in 41 TT lends a typically English voice to the original narrator, with reference to a well-known type of cheese in the UK which is also functionally equivalent to the choice of the sweet cheese typical of Tuscany in the original.

Further examples of Substitution occur in idiomatic similes involving food:

No. The Giant’s Hair I capelli del gigante Trajec.

42 TT […] li legò come salami […]

(GR 2010: 68)

He trussed them all up like chickens […] (PC 1965: 47)

SUB

43 TT […] ma i tre furbi fratellini se ne stettero buoni buoni al loro posto […] (GR 2010: 68)

But the three little brothers lay in the guard's van as helpless as puddings, […] (PC 1965: 48)

DIF

Il re che doveva morire The King who was going to Die 44 TT […] altri somigliavano al re come

un'arancia somiglia a un'altra nella cassetta del fruttivendolo, […]

(GR 2010: 89)

Others were as like the king as two peas in a pod […] (PC 1965: 59)

SUB

42 TT is a substitution of a simile due to cultural constraints: in Italian the expression “legare come un salame” {to be tied up like a salami} can only be understood if the reader knows how the cured meat called “salame” is produced. In the context of the story, the translator conveys the image of people tied up through a Substitution that retains in English both the image and the reference to food. 43 TT adopts Diffusion of the idiomatic expression, not involving food in Italian, “buoni buoni” {very quiet}.

Creagh adopts a food-related expression involving another well known recipe for the English-speaking reader “as helpless as puddings”, a familiar image that conveys a slightly different effect in the target text, more humorous than the original.

Nel documento UNIVERSITA’ CATTOLICA DEL SACRO CUORE (pagine 186-200)