{"id":561,"date":"2009-09-13T15:15:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-13T20:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/2009\/09\/altering-alter-crumb-the-translator\/"},"modified":"2009-09-13T15:15:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-13T20:15:00","slug":"altering-alter-crumb-translator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/?p=561","title":{"rendered":"Altering Alter: Crumb & the Translator"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As I noted in my Bookforum <\/a>review, one way to appreciate the awe-inspiring craftsmanship of Crumb\u2019s The Book of Genesis Illustrated<\/em> is to pay attention to his handling of the translation. Crumb relied heavily on Robert Alter<\/a>\u2019s 1996 translation<\/a>, a very interesting choice. A major scholar of Hebrew, Alter has been much influenced by Walter Benjamin\u2019s thinking about translation. Benjamin argued that translators should not try to create a false illusion of fluency but rather should try to act as a bridge to the original language, bringing along some of the strangeness of an alien syntax and diction. Following Benjamin\u2019s program, Alter has given us a Genesis<\/em> that sometimes feels very foreign, hardly English at all but rather an English\/ancient Hebrew hybrid. (Parts of the book are available here,<\/a> via Google books).<\/p>\n

Crumb followed Alter not blindly but with care. Occasionally the cartoonist reverted to the more sonorous and familiar language of the King James translation. At other times, he simplified or straightened out Alter\u2019s word. Below some passages from Alter\u2019s translations set next to Crumb\u2019s reworking, along with some notes. I think the comparison will be of interest to many people: Bible buffs, translations junkies, and Crumbites.<\/p>\n

Genesis 7:11<\/p>\n

Alter: \u201cIn the six hundredth year of Noah\u2019s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day, <\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

All the wellsprings of the great deep burst
and the casements of the heavens were opened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crumb: \u201cIn the six-hundredth year of Noah\u2019s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day, all the wellsprings of the great deep burst and the windows of the heavens were opened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWindows\u201d is simpler and more traditional than \u201ccasements\u201d (which seems far too refined for an ancient text). Alter occasionally makes some highly charged passages into poems, whereas Crumb leaves everything as prose.<\/p>\n

Genesis 12:5<\/p>\n

Alter: \u201cAnd Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew and all the goods they had gotten and the folk they had bought in Haran, and they set out on the way to the land of Canaan, and they came to the land of Canaan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crumb: \u201cAnd Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew and all the goods they had gotten and the people they had bought in Haran, and they set out on the way to the land of Canaan, and they came to the land of Canaan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople\u201d is a blunter term for slaves than \u201cfolk.\u201d Visually, Crumb\u2019s slaves look fairly miserable as well. Alter\u2019s comments on slavery occasionally have an unfortunate note of whitewashing apologetics. See in particular his footnote on this very passage: “Slavery was a common institution throughout the ancient Near East. As subsequent stories in Genesis make clear, this was not the sort of chattel slavery later practiced in North America. These slaves had certain limited rights, could be given great responsibility, and were not thought to lose their personhood.” This may well be true, but ancient slavery was still very cruel, as Crumb brings out in his art.<\/p>\n

Genesis 16:5<\/p>\n

Alter: \u201cAnd Sarai said to Abram, \u2018This outrage against me is because of you! I myself put my slavegirl in your embrace and when she saw she had conceived, I became slight in her eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crumb: \u201cAnd Sarai said to Abram, \u2018This outrage against me is because of you! I myself put my handmaiden in your lap and when she saw she had conceived, I\u2019ve become diminished in her eyes!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLap\u201d is more visually suggestive than \u201cembrace\u201d. Throughout, Crumb describes Hagar as a “handmaiden” rather than “slavegirl.” In doing so, he’s following feminist scholar Savina Teubal, who sees Hagar as a major matriarchal figure.<\/p>\n

Genesis 19:14<\/p>\n

Alter: \u201cAnd he seemed to be joking to his sons-in-law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crumb: \u201cAnd he seemed to his sons-in-law as one that mocked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Genesis 19:28<\/p>\n

Alter: \u201cAnd he looked out over Sodom and Gomorrah and over all the land of the plain, and he saw and, look, smoke was rising like the smoke from a kiln.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crumb: \u201cAnd he looked out over Sodom and Gomorrah and over all the land of the plain, and he saw and, behold, smoke was rising like the smoke from a kiln!\u201d<\/p>\n

Crumb is fairly free in his use of exclamation marks.<\/p>\n

Genesis 20:12<\/p>\n

Alter: \u201cAnd, in point of fact, she is my sister, my father\u2019s daughter, though not my mother\u2019s daughter, and she became my wife.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crumb: \u201cAnd, in point of fact, she is my sister, my father\u2019s daughter, though not my mother\u2019s daughter \u2026 and she became my wife.\u201d<\/p>\n

A very minor change: a comma becomes three dots.<\/p>\n

Genesis 25:18<\/p>\n

Alter: \u201cIn defiance of all his brothers he went down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crumb: \u201cIn the face of all his kin he went down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Genesis 25:23<\/p>\n

Alter: \u201cAnd the Lord said to her:
\u2018Two nations \u2013 in your womb,
two peoples from your loins shall issue.
People over people shall prevail,
the elder, the younger\u2019s slave.\u201d <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Crumb: \u201cAnd the Lord said to her\u2026 \u2018Two nations \u2013 in your womb, two peoples from your loins shall issue! One people over the other shall prevail, the elder the younger\u2019s slave.\u201d<\/p>\n

Genesis 26:8<\/p>\n

Alter: \u201cAnd it happened, as his time there drew on, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out the window and saw \u2013 and there was Isaac playing with Rebekah his wife.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crumb: \u201cAnd it came to pass, when he had been there for some time, that Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out the window and saw \u2026 and there was Isaac frolicking with Rebekah, his wife!\u201d<\/p>\n

Genesis 30:2<\/p>\n

Alter: \u201cAm I instead of God, Who has denied you fruit of the womb?\u201d<\/p>\n

Crumb: \u201cSo, then, it\u2019s me, not God, who has denied you fruit of the womb!?\u201d <\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Genesis 33:8<\/p>\n

Alter: \u201cWhat do you mean by all this camp I have met?\u201d<\/p>\n

Crumb: \u201cWhat do you mean by all these droves I met on my way here?\u201d<\/p>\n

Genesis 34:1<\/p>\n

Alter: \u201cAnd Dinah, Leah\u2019s daughter, whom she had born to Jacob, went out to go seeing among the daughters of the land.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crumb: \u201cAnd Dinah, Leah\u2019s daughter, whom she had borne to Jacob, went out to see some of the the daughters of the land.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBorne\u201d seems to be a spelling mistake on the part of Crumb. \u201cWent out to go seeing\u201d is awkward, so Crumb turned it into standard English.<\/p>\n

Genesis 34:3<\/p>\n

Alter: \u201cAnd Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the land, saw her and took her and lay with her and debased her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crumb: \u201cAnd Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the land, saw her and took her and lay with her and defiled her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Genesis 34:7<\/p>\n

Alter: \u201cAnd Jacob\u2019s sons had come in from the field when they heard, and the men were pained and they were very incensed, for he had done a scurrilous thing in Israel by lying with Jacob\u2019s daughter, such as ought not be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crumb: \u201cAnd Jacob\u2019s sons came in from the field as soon as they heard, and the men were pained, and they were highly incensed, for he had done a despicable thing in Israel by lying with Jacob\u2019s daughter, a thing which ought not to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crumb\u2019s word choice of \u201cdespicable\u201d is far superior to Alter\u2019s \u201cscurrilous\u201d which seems a mite too high-toned.<\/p>\n

Genesis 34:24<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Alter: \u201cAnd all who sallied forth from the gate of his town listened to Hamor, and to Shechem his son, and every male was circumcised, all who sallied forth from the gate of his town.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crumb: \u201cAnd all who came from the gate of his town listened to Hamor, and to Shechem his son, and every male was circumcised, all who came out of the gate of his town.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alter\u2019s \u201csallied forth\u201d is again too precious.<\/p>\n

Genesis 34:27 <\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Alter: \u201cJacob\u2019s sons came upon the slain and looted the town, for they had defiled their sister.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crumb: \u201cThe other sons of Jacob came upon the slain and looted the town because their sister had been defiled.\u201d <\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I noted in my Bookforum review, one way to appreciate the awe-inspiring craftsmanship of Crumb\u2019s The Book of Genesis Illustrated is to pay attention to his handling of the translation. Crumb relied heavily on Robert Alter\u2019s 1996 translation, a very interesting choice. A major scholar of Hebrew, Alter has been much influenced by Walter Benjamin\u2019s thinking about translation. Benjamin argued that translators should not try to create a false […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[147,1068,1119,1277,1324,1361],"class_list":["post-561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-book-of-genesis","tag-r-crumb","tag-robert-alter","tag-the-bible","tag-translation","tag-walter-benjamin"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}