3. The Reception of the Hungarian Translations

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But do these changes affect the reception of the works? A simple way of checking readers’ opinions of a book is consulting the website Moly.hu, the best-known Hungarian place to get advice on specific books. Readers can rate books, leave comments, have conversations, and cite their favourite quotes similarly to Goodreads.com. As of August 2022, the website has more than 320.000 members, over 10 million reads, 4 million ratings, and 14.5 million comments on the over 500.000 books listed (Moly.hu). All of Camilleri’s books have their own page, including the two taken into consideration in this paper. Il cane di terracotta has only one comment regarding the translations, and it says “I love the style, you can’t put the book down, the situations are good and life-like, the jokes are good – (and they work even in Hungarian thanks to the translator)” (Moly.hu – Az agyagkutya). When looking at the pages of the other three books translated by Lukácsi, among the comments are several ones that are general statements. Some of them, for example, express opinions about the names translated,1 but there are some interesting opinions regarding the use of dialectal words.

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Many comments touch on the use of csimota [child]: “[The language is] very old style, it didn’t capture me. Plus the translator uses interesting words. The ‘csomita’ [sic] was just the icing on the cake. I guessed what it was, but I still had to look it up. Well, it hasn’t been used here in Hungary in the last 20-30 years (or ever?)”; “For a light summer read it’s flawless, but I wish they would not keep repeating the word csimota all the time. I think I’ll move over to the film”. One person on the other hand wrote: “I don’t know what the other readers’ problem with the word csimota is, we still use it today” (Moly.hu – A hegedű hangja). As csimota is a dialectal word not much in use, it’s easy to recognize why the majority of the readers would find it harder to understand. There was one comment regarding the language of Catarella: “The Italian names were a bit of a mind-bender, I couldn’t easily remember who was who, which made it difficult to read, and also how interestingly it was translated. The characters communicate in dialect, especially my favourite policeman, who is a bit of an idiot and is only trusted to take phone messages at the station. Well, I died at his first utterance: ‘Hello, boss? Is that you, boss, personally in person on the phone?’” (Moly.hu – A hegedű hangja).

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

While these remarks on the translation are enclosed in general comments, there is a much longer one that deals in more detail with the language use and the translation:
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

[…] Because the translation… well, I’m increasingly sure that the odd use of words (which will really peak in the fourth novel) is meant to represent the Sicilian dialect, but it’s not clear why it needs to be used in the non-dialogue parts, for example? […] nowhere does [the translator] add any explanation, although perhaps a good translator’s footnote would have been in order, if only because [s]he is trying to recreate this Italian dialect using mostly old or vernacular words which I’m not sure all Hungarian readers will understand… but otherwise, the characters speak in a completely average “Hungarian”, only occasionally appear some little-known, old-fashioned words… In particular because among the characters Catarella, a character in the series (but sometimes other minor characters) speaks like an uneducated jerk. It’s strange because in Hungarian it’s so non-existent that it grates me to see it in writing, when he’s using the suffix -suk/sük2, uses naccsága,3 bites off suffixes, which we don’t associate with a plain dialect, but with someone who can’t express themselves at all, that he’s so uneducated that he speaks so INCORRECTLY (not being a grammar nazi, just an impression). And then the fact that she translated the names (Rooster, Capon, Dove) is also weird. These three because they are such birdy names that I was constantly thinking if they are speaking names, or maybe nicknames, or does it have a sense and importance why they are birds. It does not. And the fact that the man who appears at the end of the episode is called Pear is just ridiculous. I understand that it may have been like that in Italian, but I don’t know how it sounds in Italian, whether it sounds more natural. If not, then it’s the writer’s fault, of course, for giving it a surname like that but does not confirm for a moment that it’s for a joke […] If it does sound more natural, then it's about as bad to translate it as it is to translate the bird flock, because it doesn’t make any sense, it’s just confusing (the translator of the first part didn’t do it, by the way!)
[…]
Overall, I would say that the second part is the best: the story is great, the translation is by this translator but it’s not too distracting yet. And then the first one is not bad either, which was translated by someone else, and you can see what the translated names were in the original (because he didn’t translate them, as he left the Sicilian dialect to our imagination). The story of the third and fourth part is a tie, but these two have the most annoying translation (but since the fourth one even has the word kamara [chamber] instead of szoba [room], I vote it the worst of the four) […] (Moly.hu – Az uzsonnatolvaj).
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

As we can see, readers are not especially content with the use of dialectal words for various reasons: they either cannot understand them or think they are distracting or old-style. Still, the translation is overall considered good.

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

The translation of La forma dell’acqua also motivated readers to express their opinions: “Why I gave fewer stars is the terrible slobby/unconcentrated work of the editor or proofreader… I was glad to see the new names in the translation, maybe it was necessary(?) to include the language of everyday life(?) and to reflect it well and faithfully(?) – and maybe I would have expected more because of that(?) I can’t tell because I don’t know whose fault is the many errors in the novel” (Moly.hu – A víz alakja). Another comment also reflects on the typos, errors, and editing in the book: “Unfortunately, the translation also detracts from the value of the book. Spelling mistakes abound, and on page 74 it says that Montalbano’s body has been found. It is very disturbing that the paragraphs are not as they should be. The rules of word-processing say that the first lines of paragraphs should be indented, but unfortunately, this has not been done here” (Moly.hu – A víz alakja), but it is worth noting that this person was already biased because they saw the films first and read the novel later. What could be considered positive feedback on the translation is this: “[Montalbano] always chooses his words and his manner of speaking according to his current interlocutor” (Moly.hu – A víz alakja)., so even in translation the use of register is perceptible. In conclusion, one person expresses what many readers must be thinking about reading Camilleri in translation: “Even if the translation is good, Camilleri is not the same as in Italian” (Moly.hu – Az uzsonnatolvaj).
1 “I just noticed the names of the cops: Capon, Rooster, Dove ϑ and then one of the secret service guys: Pear” (Moly.hu – Az uzsonnatolvaj); “There was only one thing disturbing me in this volume, namely that many characters had Hungarian names, e.g. Rooster, Capon, Dove. I couldn’t really identify them [based on the tv series]” (Moly.hu – A hegedű hangja).
2 A phenomenon usually considered to be a grammatical error. It refers to when the positive of the definite verbal conjugation ending in -t is formed with the forms corresponding to the imperative mode in the same way as verbs not ending in -t, e.g. meglátjuk > meglássuk [we will see].
3 The uneducated greeting form for someone of higher ranking (correct form: nagysága [madam]).
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