Volume 22, Number 17 · October 30, 1975
Cracking the Code
By D.S. Carne-Ross
After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation
by George Steiner
Oxford University Press, 507 pp., $17.50
Translation, it might be argued, is something that should be done rather than discussed. 'Is life worth living? Depends on the liver. La vie vaut-elle la peine? Question de foie.' Very neat, but what is there to say here that is not self-evident? Despite the long history of this craft, curiously little of general importance has in fact been said about it—at least in the English-speaking world. But this is not George Steiner's mental world and the strongest element in his much discussed three-ply is German. In Germany translation has been very important indeed. The practice of translation, and the theory, not to say the mystizismus. This may do something to explain Steiner's almost scandalous involvement with his subject.
Review, 2876 words
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