Summary Of A Disaffection By James Kelman

James Kelman’ s “A Disaffection”, published in 1989, is set in Glasgow and written in the dialect characteristic for the city. The book proves difficult to translate not only because of the setting’s influence on its language, but also the style it was written in. Kelman uses stream of consciousness here, making ‘retelling’ it in Polish a deeply confusing process. The fragment regarded depicts our hero, Patrick Doyle, driving, caught between real life and fantasy. Naturally, one wants to make the translation seem as easily-flowing as the original. With stream of consciousness it is crucial that the reader feels they are actually following the focalizer’s thoughts and so all its sudden pauses and subtle transitions make sense. It is important
The Glasgow dialect here is not too overbearing and mostly does not demand a great deal of special treatment. At one point spelling of “definite” varies as “definate”, which is typical for a lot of Scottish dialects, however the possible slight change in meaning did not seem completely necessary to portray in the translation. Some other representation might be the word “closemouth” which is also characteristic to Scottish and whose definition could only be found in A Scots Dialect Dictionary. However, there are many problems which do not arise from dialect. Right at the beginning of the fragment there is the word “lap” used, later intended to be about “laying in one’s lap” and in Polish there is no perfect equivalent for it. Łono seems to be too odd to use. However, leżeć na czyichś kolanach is a phrase that is rather well-known and hence, the, perhaps not ideal, choice to translate “lap” as kolana. Though not obvious at first, I feel, it makes sense with the later context. Another of these bits missing a Polish counterpart is “MA (HONS)”. The four-year long undergraduate degree is neither licencjat nor magister. It is something in-between. Though licencjat is slightly closer to the original meaning and a passable option if a must, it does not convey the importance that “MA (HONS)”, in this context, is supposed to convey. Here, it is a weighty title and licencjat is simply not that powerful. It is best left alone with a little explanation. A similar issue appears towards the end of the fragment. “Master Patrick Doyle” is probably to sound grand. Pan, here, would definitely not express the same significance. Other options that come to mind, such as, mistrz czy wladca sound somewhat bizarre. Thus “sam Patrick Doyle”, which may not be exact but fits the character at that