Readers, Reading and Reception of Translated Fiction in Chinese

Translated fiction has largely been under-theorized, if not altogether ignored, in literary studies. Though widely consumed, translated novels are still considered secondary versions of foreign masterpieces. Readers, Reading and Reception of Translated Fiction in Chinese recognizes that translated novels are distinct from non-translated novels, just as they are distinct from the originals from which they are derived, but they are neither secondary nor inferior. They provide different models of reality; they are split apart by two languages, two cultures and two literary systems; and they are characterized by cultural hybridity, double voicing and multiple intertextualities. With the continued popularity of translated fiction, questions related to its reading and reception take on increasing significance. Chan draws on insights from textual and narratological studies to unravel the processes through which readers interact with translated fiction. Moving from individual readings to collective reception, he considers how lay Chinese readers, as a community, 'received' translated British fiction at specific historical moments during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Case studies discussed include translations of stream-of-consciousness novels, fantasy fiction and postmodern works. In addition to lay readers, two further kinds of reader with bilingual facility are examined: the way critics and historians approach translated fiction is investigated from structuralist and poststrcuturalist perspectives. A range of novels by well-known British authors constitute the core of the study, including novels by Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, John Fowles, Helen Fielding and J.K. Rowling.

Leo Tak-hung Chan is Professor and Head of the Department of Translation at Lingnan University, China.

Introduction Textualist and Narratological Studies Response, Reception and Criticism Readers in Their Many Guises PART I:INTERACTNG WITH TEXTS: THE TARGET READER 1. The Reading of Difference in Translated Fiction: Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse Difference: Self vs. Other Pleasurable Texts and Reading Pleasure Foreignness and Footnotes "Lily Briscoe's Chinese Eyes" Reading and Border-Crossing 2. Textual Hybridity and Textural Cohesion: Reading D. H. Lawrence in Chinese, with Special Reference to The Rainbow Perspectives on Translational Hybridity Buddhist Terms and Lawrence in Chinese Translation Naturalization and Textual Impurity Problems of Textural Cohesion Issues of Acceptability Examples of Hybrid Non-translated Fiction 3. Intertextuality and Interpretation or, How to Read Wang Dahong's Tradaptation of Dorian Gray Theorizing the Adaptive Mode Differences as Equivalences Reading Du Liankui Queerly Reading Intertextually Coherence in a Tradaptation PART II: HISTORIES OF RECEPTION: THE GENERAL READER 4. The Elusiveness of the General Reader and a History of Mediated Reception Reception: Translator, Author, or Reader? Four British Novelists The "Galsworthy Model" and Official Ideology Popularity and the Publishers Academics and the Modernist Canon A History of General Reader Reception 5. Reader Reception at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century: The "Popularity" of Youlixisi and the New Reader of the Harry Potter in Translation Reader Responses to Translated Fiction in the 1980s Ulysses: Untranslatability and the Commodification of a Classic Harry Potter and the Emergence of the Reader-Critic The Reader-Translator in the Internet Age Old and New Readers PART III: CRITICAL AND DESCRIPTIVIST READINGS: THE SPECIAL READER 6. Source-Based Critique of Translated Fiction (I) The Narratological Approach The Narrator in Omniscient Reporting The Narrator in Free Indirect Discourse The Narrator in First-Person Storytelling The Reader and the Narrator 7. Source-Based Critique of Translated Fiction (II) From Traditional to Post-Babelian Approaches The Linguistic Approach: Looking for Mistakes The Literary-Critical Approach: Reading Thematically The Poststructuralist Approach in the Chinese Context The Descriptive Approach and the Translation Critic 8. The Historian-Describer and Comparative Reading in Practice and Theory Synchronic Readings: Regional Styles Diachronic Readings: Period Styles Retranslation Theory Polysystems Theory Translation Histories and Describers