Translated Books

Yesterday I started reading a book which is bothering me very much because of the translation.
It's a book by Paulo Coelho called "Veronika decides to die."
Now, the plot is somehow interesting, but the English in the book is very awkward.
Don't get me wrong, I'm no English expert. My writing is also a bit awkward here and there.
But I'm talking about mistakes like "a Gods" or "transformed into a hell", between other preposition and word choice problems which any High School teacher could immediately point out.

Because I'm Brazilian I can trace the line of thought intended by the translator. But if it were a book translated from Serbian, Japanese, Hindi... (you name it), I would probably get the overall meaning but get confused with some details.
I seriously don't understand how the translation I'm reading managed to get published. But apparently it happens sometimes, and I want to find out if Veronika really dies in the end, so I'm dragging myself through a quagmire of awkward writing.
My guess is that in the case of international classics like Dostoevsky, Guy de Maupassant, between others, translators make sure to do a proper job.
But when it comes to fairly modern,although also renowned, international bestsellers like Paulo Coelho, translators apparently manage to get away with a poor work.

Has anybody else found the same problem with translated books? Is it common?

 

I don't compare the original to the translation simply because I don't know two languages well enough. Sometimes the translator will take liberties to improve flow, rhyme, etc. But it looks like the translator was just sloppy in your case.

 

I hate to say this, but one of the most common problems is that the native language of the translator is the same as original language in which the book is written, and the target language (the language into which the book is being translated) is a second language for the translator. This causes many issues as regards idiomatic engagement of the target language, which may not be well developed in the translator.

Examples:

It's very common for Latinos learning English to have difficulty knowing when to use in vs. on in English, because both words are the same word in Spanish, en. Not a big deal when we're talking about physical location, but it becomes problematic when the words are figurative, such as in any event, or on the other hand.

It's also very, very common for Latinos to have no ear for the difference between is, it's and its. The difference in pronunciation is very subtle, and in the case of it's, Spanish doesn't make use of a dummy subject, ever, so there is a native reinforcement that what's being heard is just is. I get documents all the time from attorneys here in PR, written in English, with things like "Is perfectly fine if the injured party chooses to exercise is right to mediation."

All - the - time.

It's preferable that if the book is being translated from, say, Spanish to English, that the native language of the translator be English, in order to ensure that idiomatic feel.

And then there is the simple fact that being bilingual does not make you a translator. It's a skill. We go to school for this. I have a license. I even have a cool little stamp with my name and FCICE number that set me back a few bucks that I use to stamp documents that need to be certified for federal court.

As for words that don't translate: this is a bit of a fallacy. What's meant when one hears is that the word won't translate into another language with just a single word. In the case of the OP, who is Brazilian, the Portuguese language most famously contains the word saudade, which is often touted as untranslatable, and which is everywhere heard in their wonderful music. It's not true that you cannot translate that word. You're just going to have to use a few words instead of just the one, and in the case of translating a novel, it's about having the skill to do this without ruining the flow and pacing of the work. To know when you can par saudade down to just longing or nostalgia - neither of which do justice to the meaning of the word - for the sake of pace, and when the deeply layered meaning that saudade carries trumps pace and needs to be expounded; else, the work will lose meaningful content.

I would say that the differences you found in War & Peace as regards that flow, or lack thereof, has to do with differing takes on the aforementioned concept. Russian, amongst the Slavic languages, is known for its rather loosie goosie word order that's allowed because of the inflected case system the grammar uses. This makes for some constructions that are poetically very pretty in Russian, but which just cannot be made to happen in the same way in a language like English where word order is key to knowing who did what to whom.

 

Thank you @Wreybies that explains everything.

But in the case of the reader, what would we do to get a good translation of a book?
(Without having to purchase 3 different translations - or more - of the same book of course)
Like in my case, I don't have access to Portuguese books for Paulo Coelho because I'm not in Brazil.
So should I simply give up on reading him every time I find the same translator who worked with the book I'm reading?

 

I think a good translation should feel as if it had been written in the translated language in the first place. Recently, I read a French translation of Girl on the Train and I often had to stop reading and wonder about how the author would have originally written this or that sentence. There is also a discrepancy between Canadian French and French-French. We both use our own Anglicisms. In Canadian writing, I have only seen them used in dialogues. In French writing, they are commonly used in the narrative to name things that have perfectly adequate French equivalents (a people: a celebrity; the dry-cleaner: the pressing )

In an article of that subject, I read that Canadian writers ask more and more to have their books translated by French-Canadian. French editors then complain that these translations are full of Canadianisms (in Canada, a blueberry in a bleuet and in France, it is a myrtille.) If the story happens in Canada, it would be more relevant to use the Canadian nomenclature of things and I'm sure French readers are smart enough to figure out what's what. Canadian translators also have to stand their ground against French editors to be allowed to keep words like stationnement instead of parking and chaise berçante instead of rocking chair.

When I submit my novel to agents or publishers, it won't matter to me if it gets published (hopefully) in Canada or the US. The difference in language and spelling should only make a minor difference, I think. I will do my own translation in French, though, and submit it to French-Canadian publishers only.