How I became the Spanish translator of Eco

“The last time the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote about Río Wang”, I would begin so, with eyes modestly lowered watching for the effect.

But the problem is that the FAZ has not written about Río Wang. At least not with the name and URL.

Thus I begin by saying that in the FAZ literary supplement I came across the review on Umberto Eco’s new German book by Andreas Platthaus entitled “Wissen stinkt nicht” – “Knowledge does not stink.” I began to read it with excitement, as the review started with the title of a book – and dedicated half of the article to it – which caused me several hours of research two years ago when I was translating Eco’s The history of ugliness. It was La polychrésie de la race allemande, “The exaggerated need of defecation of the German race”. In fact, Eco quoted this title with polychesie which means nothing. At that time I came to the result that he had not seen the book, and he erroneously quoted its title from a catalog. The review of the FAZ now reported that the Spanish translator of Eco had encountered this problem, too, and he also went into the matter. I got extremely curious of his results.

Dieser Titel wiederum trieb den spanischen Übersetzer Ecos zu einer aufwendigen Internetrecherche an, weil er seinen Lesern im Gegensatz zu Eco eine Übersetzung des französischen Titels bieten wollte, diesen aber unverständlich fand. Schließlich bekam er Auskunft von einem russischen Kollegen über die richtige Schreibweise, und tatsächlich stieß er sogar noch auf einen weiteren Antiquariatskatalog, in dem die bislang einzige bekannte ausführliche Wiedergabe des Bérillon-Aufsatzes zu finden war: „La polychrésie de la race allemande. Das übertriebene Darmleerungsbedürfnis der deutschen Rasse. Superlienteria germanica. – Extrait des Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société de Médecine de Paris, séance du 25 juin 1915. P., Maloine & fils, 1915. 24 × 16 cm, 20 p. Broché.“ Seitdem, so beklagt der spanische Übersetzer, sei dieser Eintrag aber wieder aus dem Netz verschwunden. Die Geschichte der Suche nach dem in mehrfacher Hinsicht verderbten Titel hätte Umberto Eco gefallen – und mutmaßlich kennt er ihr Ergebnis auch, denn in der gerade erschienenen Übersetzung seiner 2006 auf Italienisch publizierten Textsammlung „La memoria vegetale e altri scritti di bibliofilia“, die im Original noch von „La polychesie“ sprach, steht nun korrekt „La polychrésie“.

This title led also the Spanish translator of Eco to an exhaustive internet search, because he, in contrast to Eco, wanted to offer to his readers a translation of the French title which was incomprehensible to him. Finally he got information from a Russian colleague about the correct spelling, and then he even found another antique catalog including the hitherto only known detailed description of the title of Bérillon’s essay: “La polychrésie de la race allemande. Das übertriebene Darmleerungsbedürfnis der deutschen Rasse. Superlienteria germanica. – Extrait des Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société de Médecine de Paris, séance du 25 juin 1915. P., Maloine & fils, 1915. 24 × 16 cm, 20 p. Broché.” Since then, the Spanish translator complains, even this entry has disappeared from the net. The story of the search for the in many ways corrupt title would have delighted Umberto Eco – and presumably he even knows its result, as the recently published translation of his Italian anthology La memoria vegetale e altri scritti di bibliofilia of 2006 has now the correct “La polychrésie” instead of the original “La polychesie”.

To my greatest surprise I had to realize that this Spanish translator was – me. Platthaus must have been misled by the Spanish title of the blog – Poemas del río Wang – that led him to consider me a Spaniard. So far, so good. However, all the rest of his information is mistaken, too. The “Russian colleague” I found by chance did not know the correct spelling either, he only coined a genial false etymology in support of the wrong one. The catalog entry with the correct polychrésie was suggested to me first by a French linguistic quiz, and then a search for the words “Berillon+race allemande”. All this was written down in my post schwarz auf weiss, citations and live links included.

Platthaus gives the subtitle “Lohnende Internetrecherchen” – “Internet research pays off” to the short summary of my research. However, his article illustrates the fact that superficiality, transmission of half-understood information and hints to his sources without name and reference also pay off. Unwissen stinkt nicht?