Translation

I am thinking about translation, and about Richard Pevear's accent. I am wondering how Tolstoy can be both delightfully wry and a supreme drag in the same sentence, and about what makes the difference. I wonder what Radiolab would sound like in Spanish, and what it would feel like to see a New York street through your tongue. I am wondering at the fact that the first story in Putas Asesinas, the first story I am reading in my adoptive language, has sent me back to India, and whether Bolaño can telescope me through the imaginative possibilities of another language back to a native truth. I am curious about what would happen if I were to photocopy 'El Ojo Silva' and begin to translate it for myself, elbows deep in the wet clay of Spanish, into overbearing English. I wonder if there exist Hindi subtitles for Chico y Rita, and how you might caption the subtleties of Chak De! India for Mexico.