The Spanish translation of The catcher in the Rye

Hello all!

I'm presently doing a MA in Translation (Spanish-English) and I'm planning to do a comparative analysis of the novel The catcher in the Rye in which I'll examine both the original and the Spanish translation. I'm basing my analysis on the first translation that was done in 1978 by Carmen Criado. I've heard that there are newer additions by her, but I'm not entirely sure. It would be great if anyone could inform me on that.
The idea to do this for my thesis came about when I started reading the Spanish version, El guardian entre el centeno, and began to notice that the use of language was completely different to that in the original. In my opinion, it's precisly that feature which makes the novel what it is. My main objective to see how much of the novel has been changed and in what ways, that's to say how much of the original has been regarded or discarded in the translation.
Essentially, I'm here writing in this forum because I would love to hear from other people who happen to have read the Spanish translation of the novel.

Any comments would be greatly appreciated

Any comments would be greatly appreciated

Hey Dillon

The catcher in the rye is one of my favorite books since I was a kid. I never liked reading translations, I get very mad at everything that gets left out, the expressions that have to be changed, etc. This was no exception. I could not read more than 20 pages and dropped it. There wasnt a thing I liked about the Spanish version. Did not catch my attention at all.. So, Im sorry that I cannot help, but please let us know how it goes.

J.

Hi
That's how I felt when I read the Spanish version of the book! It made me want to know just how much was lost/altered during the translation process. I can understand how translating this type of language, one which was very much bound to a certain place and time, into a second language must have been a tough process. However I personally think that if you're going to translate a book that uses an unconventional form of language, it's important to look for a variant of the target language which will produce the same effect in the translated version.

Thanks for your comment.

Actually, the translation into Spanish was problematic from scratch. It is very interesting to find out the changes in the translation of the title itself. Literates couldn't even agree on how the title was to be translated. Here's a link that can help you understand it even better. Careful, it's in Spanish:

The Catcher in the Rye - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre