When Dorit and I first read Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cannon, we instantly fell in love with it. We’ve both been ardent fan of Joanna since her first novel, The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, which is why we were so happy to discover that not only has the author from Derbyshire not lost her touch, but that she has refined her technique – in her plot construction, outlining of the characters, to say nothing of her linguistic manipulation and rhetorical sleight of hand. I waited impatiently to translate Elsie so that I could dive into this wonderful text to design a bespoke Hebrew garment to perfectly display its comely features.
At first glance, Elsie doesn’t appear to be a difficult book to translate. It takes place in an assisted-living facility in current-day England as it focuses on the little lives of ordinary people. Consequently, we didn’t have to do any in-depth research or comb through dictionaries of terminology and terms as for other books. For example, the translation of Goats sent Dana Tal, the editor of the translation, and me on a voyage in search of English sweets from the 1970s that led to the addition of a delightfully attractive pictorial dictionary at the end of the book.
At the same time, Joanna Cannon likes to play around and have fun with everyday expressions. Here is one example that makes a smooth transition from English to Hebrew: “Most of the residents were women. Women who had long since lost their men. Although I always thought the word ‘lost’ sounded quite peculiar, as though they had left their husbands on a railway platform by mistake.” In Hebrew, we lose our loved ones to death too and there’s no difficulty here. There were, however, other parts that were a bit more challenging:
“Oh, a coach trip is out of the question,’ Miss Ambrose said. ‘Some of us are still on probation. And it’s far too much red tape.”
Red tape. It was an excuse Miss Bissell used all the time. If anyone were to be listening in, they might think the whole of Cherry Tree was decorated with red tape, like tinsel on a Christmas tree, twisting around the doors and the windows, and keeping us all where we were supposed to be.
Red tape refers to excessive bureaucracy or adherence to tiresome rules. We tried to find an expression in Hebrew that would convey the same idea, along with the association Florence concocts from it. I suggested the Hebrew expression “a story from the movies,” referring to a convoluted and sometimes freaky turn of events. Moran Shin, who edited the translation, went in a different direction and suggested “an obstacle course,” which is how the next paragraph in Hebrew was born:
“No, a trip is out of the question,” said Miss Ambrose. “Some of us are still on probation. And planning a trip is a real obstacle course.”
An obstacle course. It was an excuse Miss Bissell used all the time. If anyone were to be listening in, they might think that Cherry Tree was surrounded by obstacle courses that twisted and turned like tinsel on a Christmas tree, around the doors and the windows, and keeping us all where we were supposed to be.”
But the real challenge in the book lay in a single, seemingly innocent-looking page that recounted how Florence had joined the family of her good friend Elsie.
This is the English source:
Elsie had so many sisters, it confused me right from the outset.
Elsie, Gwen, Beryl and Dot.
It sounded like Elsie’s mother had been working her way through a piano keyboard.
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour.
Perhaps there would have been an F next, but Elsie’s father left for the war and returned as a telegram on the mantelpiece. Her mother was convinced they’d made a mistake, and she would roll her eyes and tut at the telegram, as though it was deliberately trying to trick her into early widowhood.
‘How can they be sure it’s him?’ she said to her sister, and to us, and more often than not to an empty room. ‘How do they know?’
No one had the answer, even though they looked very hard for it in the ceiling and the floor, and in each other’s eyes. No one ever looked straight at Elsie’s mother. It was too dangerous. It was like spinning a wheel and not knowing quite what you were going to get. And all the time, the telegram sat in the letter rack on the mantelpiece and watched. But whether Elsie’s father was dead or not, there would now only ever be four of them and they all had to accept the fact there was never going to be an F. At least, not until Elsie found me on the bus. The first time she brought me home for tea, we all sat around the kitchen table and she shouted, ‘We have an F! We have a Favour!’ Everyone was silent. Even her mother.
‘We’re a keyboard now, don’t you see? Every good boy deserves favour.’ She pointed to each of us in turn.
‘What about me?’ said her mother. ‘Where do I fit in?’
Her name was Isabel.
‘I don’t know,’ Elsie said. Beryl glared across the table. Even Gwen shook her head very slightly.
‘And Charlie. What about your father? What will he say when he hears about all this?’
We all looked at the letter rack in silence. I didn’t dare swallow, because I knew the noise it made would be loud enough to wake the dead. Even her father (if her father was, in fact, actually dead).
Instead, I pushed away the piece of Victoria sponge I was eating, dabbed at my mouth with a napkin and said, ‘Well, Mrs Colecliffe. Charlie is a C, and Middle C is the most important note on a keyboard. Without it, none of the other notes would even exist.’
Her mother beamed across the kitchen table. And from that moment on, everyone was nice to me.
When I tried to reproduce the musical theme in the paragraph, I encountered two problems: 1. When learning music in Hebrew, we call the notes Do, Re, Mi, etc. rather than by the letters of the alphabet. 2. As a result, we don’t have a mnemonic based on letters to remember the notes on the lines of the treble clef. Furthermore, the tower that Cannon builds here is too complicated to explain by means of an explicitation or footnote. That’s why it was clear that we needed to come up with an alternative image that would convey the original message – that although the father had gone off to war and left the women on their own, the tune must go on as it were, as in the well-known British slogan, “Keep calm and carry on.” At first I tried to play around using the names of the sisters as they appeared in the original, but soon realized we would never be able to come up with a Hebrew word with the relevant meaning. I wrote to Joanna and explained the problem. She replied that as far as she was concerned, she had no problem if we changed the names of the sisters or their order as long as Elsie remained first or in the middle and Florence of course the last of the five.
And so like in the game Wheel of Fortune, Moran and I played with all the letters of the alphabet in our search for a word to suit our needs. In perfect coordination, we finally arrived at the Hebrew word for fist – egrof, which conveyed the author’s original message, but from a different direction: a close-knit coterie left on its own that nevertheless radiates strength. After Joanna enthusiastically gave her approval to the change, we set out and recast the excerpt. We replaced the note Do (originally the letter C, the first letter of the father’s name, Charlie) with the Hebrew letter he, the equivalent of the article the, and changed the father’s name to Harry, and our work was done:
Elsie had so many sisters, it confused me right from the outset.
Elsie, Gwen, Rose and Vic[*].
Four daughters, four fingers of a hand, almost as if they were trying to make a fist (egrof).
Perhaps there would have been an F next, but Elsie’s father left for the war and returned as a telegram on the mantelpiece. Her mother was convinced they’d made a mistake, and she would roll her eyes and tut at the telegram, as though it was deliberately trying to trick her into early widowhood.
“How can they be sure it’s him?” she said to her sister, and to us, and more often than not to an empty room. “How do they know?”
No one had the answer, even though they looked very hard for it in the ceiling and the floor, and in each other’s eyes. No one ever looked straight at Elsie’s mother. It was too dangerous. It was like throwing the dice and not knowing quite what you were going to get. And all the time, the telegram sat in the letter rack on the mantelpiece and watched. But whether Elsie’s father was dead or not, there would now only ever be four of them and they all had to accept the fact they were never going to make a fist. At least, not until Elsie found me on the bus. The first time she brought me home for tea, we all sat around the kitchen table and she shouted, “We have an F! We finally have a fist!”
Everyone was silent. Even her mother.
‘We’re the five fingers of the hand now, we make a fist don’t you see? Elsie, Gwen, Rose, Vic, Florence’ E-G-R-O-F She pointed to each of us in turn.
‘What about me?’ said her mother. ‘Where do I fit in?’
Her name was Isabel.
‘I don’t know,’ Elsie said. Rose glared across the table. Even Gwen shook her head very slightly.
‘And Harry. What about your father? What will he say when he hears about all this?’
We all looked at the letter rack in silence. I didn’t dare swallow, because I knew the noise it made would be loud enough to wake the dead. Even her father (if her father was, in fact, actually dead).
Instead, I pushed away the piece of sponge cake I was eating, dabbed at my mouth with a napkin and said, “Well, Mrs Colecliffe. Harry is the word the, and that’s what gives the fist all its strength. Without it, none of the other fingers would even exist.”
Her mother beamed across the kitchen table. And from that moment on, everyone was nice to me.
The late Nili Mirsky, an Israel Prize laureate for translation, compared the art of translation to the music played by a virtuoso. The notes are provided and are clearly prescribed, but it is up to you to choose how to render them and convey the piece of music to its listeners through your interpretation and perspective, bringing something of yourself. The Hebrew egrof – fist – is quite a different image from that of the English treble clef, but both strive to convey the author’s same original idea even if they do so playing the different linguistic instruments each language’s orchestra places as their disposal.
[*] In Hebrew the letter vav serves as both a consonant and a vowel, like the letter y in English.
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