Journal of Language and Literature Volume 2 Number 1 2003 ISSN 1478 - 9116

In Body, Inc., Pamela Banting identifies three types of translation: intra-linguistic, a translation in which the target and source language are the same; interlinguistic, a translation between two different languages; and intersemiotic, a translation between two different types of media (Banting, 1995: 11). It is the third of these that I wish to consider here, in reference to Michael Ondaatje's Coming Through Slaughter. Ondaatje's writing deals at some length with linguistic translation, but an examination of his dealings with intersemiotic translation opens particularly interesting possibilities for the reading of several of his works. Perhaps the best starting point in such an examination is the use of the photograph of Buddy Bolden's band in Coming Through Slaughter. The photograph is included in the title page of the book, but crucially never appears in the text. The only other image in the book is a series of sonographs of dolphin sounds in the epigraph, yet the book is arguably the one in Ondaatje's works which is most concerned with the movement between media, and with intersemiotic translation.

The initial appearance of the photograph of Bolden's band offers the reader a store of clues as to the rest of the book, regarding possible setting, characters, and themes. These are, however, clues without context. The information imparted in the photograph is largely useless on the initial viewing because it lacks that context, an addition without which a photograph, as Barthes argues, "tells us, literally, nothing" (Barthes, 1972: 101). Nonetheless, the photograph on the title page is, I would argue, of paramount importance to the project of the work, and operates in partnership with the written material. James Agee's assertion in the preface to Let Us Now Praise Famous Men - that "the photographs are not illustrative. They, and the text, are coequal, mutually dependent, and fully collaborative" (Agee, 1988: xlvii) - seems apt for the context of Ondaatje's work as well, albeit in a slightly different sense. The photograph here is not an integral part of the work in the same way as Evans' photographs are to Agee's text, but rather constitutes a starting point from which the text begins its narrative, as well as, to mix metaphors, an original to which it speaks back. Victor Burgin notes that: "[a]s a free and familiar coinage of meaning, largely unremarked by those amongst whom it circulates, photography shares an attribute of language" (Burgin, 1982: 143). While Coming Through Slaughter engages with media other than photography and language (music, for example), this photograph, and the text which relates to it, operate as just such a coin of meaning which circulates through the text.

The act of translation is also an act of transgression. It crosses boundaries of genre, language, or medium, moving from a source into a target. In some instances, this can be an act of colonial aggression and/or cultural appropriation. In others, it can be an enriching way of sharing stories and ideas, and a way of interacting with and making relevant a cultural object, as well as a means of reading. Benjamin, in his essay "The Task of the Translator", notes that the "essential quality" of a work of art "is not statement or the imparting of information. Yet any translation which intends to perform a transmitting function cannot transmit anything but information - hence, something inessential. This is the hallmark of bad translations" (Benjamin, 1992: 70). If a bad translation transmits only information, then a good one, according to Benjamin, must convey the art of the work as well, but in a different manner, since, "while content and language form a certain unity in the original, like a fruit and its skin, the language of the translation envelops its content like a royal robe with ample folds" (Ibid.: 76). Mieke Bal expands considerably upon Benjamin's essay in her book Travelling Concepts, claiming that "the issue is nothing like purity, but rather an openness owing to the liberation of language from the confinements imposed on it by conceptions of translation as 'true', in the sense of 'faithful', 'literal'" (Bal, 2002: 86-7). The act of translation on Bal's terms involves a conversation between the original and the translation, and between the two makers of the texts. What "defines its effect", writes Bal, "can properly be called 'pathetic', or for my purposes here, moving. In the proper sense of that word, as defined by Schaeffer (1977), then, it is the site of the 'aesthetic'. This sense of 'moving' is integral" (Ibid.: 70). It involves, to use Ondaatje's terms, "the leap from one imagination to the other [that] can hardly be made" (Ondaatje, 1983: 81), but which is nonetheless absolutely necessary. "Translation", Bal argues, "can no longer be traced as a one-directional passage from source to destination. It mediates in both directions" (Bal, 2002: 89). A good translation engages with the work it begins from, enriching it with conversational interplay. The important aspect of the relationship between translation and source text is the way in which they speak to each other, and each one is capable of offering commentary upon, and enriching the reader's understanding of, the other. A poor translation transmits only Benjamin's "something inessential".

The opening photograph of Coming Through Slaughter has a direct linguistic translation in the text. Ondaatje notes that:

There is only one photograph that exists today of Bolden and the band. This is what you see.
Jimmy Johnson Bolden on bass	Willy Cornish on valve trombone	Willy Warner on clarinet
Brock Mumford on guitar		Frank Lewis on clarinet

The passage is, in an obvious sense, a literal translation of the image. Precisely what that phrase implies, however, requires further consideration. The textual representation of the photograph is, on one level, an extreme example of Benjamin's idea of bad translation, providing merely information, and sketchy amounts at that. Ondaatje follows the translation with the statement that, "As a photograph, it is not good or precise, partly because the print was found after the fire. The picture, waterlogged by climbing hoses, stayed in the possession of Willy Cornish for several years" (Ondaatje, 1998: 63). The description of the original photograph could equally well apply to the linguistic representation it follows. As a photograph, it is neither good nor precise. As a translation in conversation with the original image, however, it has much to say.

The linguistic representation changes the way we look at the original image, and offers an interesting comment upon it. Perhaps the most obvious difference between the two is the layout. While the linguistic version places the subjects in a manner corresponding to their positions in the photo, the sense of composition, in all but its most basic structure, is radically altered. The two neat lines of text in the translation, and their positioning on the page, reads in a manner opposite to that of the photograph, in that the reader's eye first encounters not the subjects in the foreground of the photograph, but those in the back row. The words on the page acting both as signifiers and signifieds in this manner is an important addition of the translation, which reverses the prominence of the figures, making Bolden one of the most important elements of the translation: in the photograph, he is positioned directly behind Brock Mumford, but here he is placed above Mumford, suggesting a hierarchical relationship, and imparting a significance which the photograph does not provide. The even print of the translation performs a similar function, in giving all the members of the band the same stark black-on-white presence. It gives the words which signify their presence an equality that the faded grey tones of the photograph do not provide - Bolden, in the photograph, seems in danger of fading into the background. Carol Shloss argues that "what is dispersed in life … photographs gather together and transport into a recontextualised present that is represented to us by the physical structure of the book itself. It is a resettlement of images" (Shloss, 1996: 148). In the same way, Ondaatje's translation of the photograph resettles the images of the men in the band. In the recontextualised present of the story's telling, it operates to produce two simultaneous meanings. If one views the layout as analogous to the two-dimensional space of the photograph, it keeps Bolden in the position he occupies in the original photograph. If read as text on the page, however, it reverses that position to reflect the more prominent position he occupies in the book.

Another alteration which the translation offers is the spacing of the subjects. All are uniformly spread across the page, and unconnected to the others. The photograph implies a sense of personal interaction between the men it pictures: Mumford and Lewis, distanced on the printed page, are almost touching in the photograph, while Bolden and Johnson seem to lean away from each other. The image also brings a sense of personality which the translation suppresses: Warner stands almost casually, his weight on his right leg, while Lewis sits stiff and formal, his back rail-straight.

The difference is an interesting one in relation to the book, particularly given the positioning in the narrative of Ondaatje's translation. It occurs on page 63, following a description of Bolden's stay with the Brewitts, a married couple from Shell Beach, outside of New Orleans. The time Bolden spends with the Brewitts marks his withdrawal from the jazz world in New Orleans, his break with the band, and his movement towards introspection and social withdrawal which will ultimately result in his incarceration. Appearing at a point in the narrative when Bolden is becoming increasingly socially isolated, then, the translation of the photograph visually reinforces Bolden's social isolation as presented in the narrative that precedes and follows it. By framing the translation, the narrative in which it is placed provides a context for interpretation - a context which the original photograph crucially lacks. That context is the set of anecdotes, stories, and myths which the narrative relates and which help the reader to understand Bolden as a character rather than a black-and-white image.

In altering the photographic layout and removing much of the information regarding personal relationships that the photograph conveys, the linguistic translation nonetheless provides an important insight into those relationships. The translation adds to and converses with the original, for, as Bal asserts, "it is here that structural, formal aspects of the object become meaningful, dynamic, and culturally operative: through the time-bound, changing effect of the culture that frames them" (Bal, 2002: 39). The linguistic translation of the photograph is framed by the surrounding narrative, and is given meaning and dynamism through the context which the narrative provides.

Perhaps the most obvious difference between the photograph and the linguistic translation is the absence of Bolden's coronet. In the photograph, the instrument is partially hidden behind Brock Mumford's head, and partially obscured by the fading of the print. Its total disappearance in Ondaatje's translation, however, is another matter. In the translation, the instruments they play are the only defining characteristics of the subjects, and Bolden stands out by not being similarly identified. The horn is thereby noticeable through its absence, but, in not including Bolden in this form of identification, Ondaatje not only further isolates him from the other band members, he also disassociates him from his music, and the instrument which eventually destroys him. Bolden, in the story, describes his return to New Orleans in bleak terms: "Then later Webb came and pulled me out of the other depth and there was nothing on me. I was glinting and sharp and cold from the lack of light. I had turned to metal at the mouth" (Ondaatje, 1998: 112). His return to the city is also his return to playing music, the combination which precipitates his slide into insanity, and this passage describes him in terms of his instrument: glinting, sharp, and cold. He is undergoing a physical transformation ("metal at the mouth") into the instrument which corresponds to the alteration in both his public and private persona. Privately, he is being pushed into the identity of musician which he had previously shed, and publicly he has become his horn, the other aspects of his life, including family, employment, and friends, falling away as his musical reputation spreads.

Given these facts, Ondaatje's translation of the photograph may be read as an act of empathy in which Bolden is allowed to stand alone as a man, separated from the defining and destructive element of his life: his instrument. In this way, too, the translation enters a conversation with the photograph by allowing Bolden an existence independent of his music. This breaking of the link between Bolden and his music both allows the character a richer personal background and individuality than would be possible if it were obscured by the persona of his musicality, and also hints at a meta-narrative possibility that Bolden's name is in fact all there is to him, and that the narrative is still an imposition of a persona upon him by the author.

Such readings of the relationship between the translation and the photograph are made possible by the relationship between the translation and the rest of the text. While the photograph, positioned without context, has narrative potential, the fact that the translation is framed by the narrative gives it an entirely different set of possibilities for interpretation, and places it in relation to the original.

This idea of framing is of interest as a way of looking at the work on a wider scale as well. The way in which the translation of the photograph reflects the relationship between the characters in the book, and in a sense places it in the context of the story, is only one aspect of this. The book itself, like Running in the Family, which Ondaatje wrote later but published first, is written in a fragmentary format which also reflects the photograph as starting point for the narrative, and places the work as a whole in the relation of a translation of the photograph in Bal's sense. "Meaning", she argues, "cannot be atomized; nor is it simply accumulative. Hence, putting one word after another may have the semblance of linearity, but producing meaning does not" (Bal, 2002: 90). The fragmentary and non-linear format of Coming Through Slaughter may be seen as a way of creating narrative meaning from the photograph, which itself has a temporally and spatially fragmentary and nonlinear form. The book is, in large part, a gathering together of artefacts and information; Ondaatje, like Bolden in the book, "took all the thick facts and dropped them into his pail of sub-history" (Ondaatje, 1998: 18). Moreover, the character descriptions and anecdotes operate like a series of photographic snapshots of the characters. In collecting the fragments of narrative in the book, Ondaatje may be seen as engaging in an act of translation from the photograph by attempting to re-tell the decontextualised potential story it contains and "seeking to liberate the language imprisoned in a work in his recreation of that work" (Benjamin, 1992: 80). The narrative framing of the translation allows it to speak to the reader, to the narrative, and to the original photograph.

In addition, the narrative is framed "through the time-bound, changing effect of the culture" (Bal, 2002: 39) as well. The opening of the first chapter announces "[h]is geography", and invites the reader to "[f]loat by in a car today and see the corner shops" (Ondaatje, 1998: 2), then provides a description of Bolden's neighbourhood as it appears at the time of the research for the book. It notes "[t]he signs of owners obliterated by brand names. Tassin's Food Store which he lived opposite for a time surrounded by DRINK COCA COLA IN BOTTLES, BARG'S, or LAURA LEE'S TAVERN, the signs speckled in the sun TOM MOORE, YELLOWSTONE, JAX, COCA COLA, COCA COLA, primary yellows and reds muted now against the white horizontal sheet wood walls" (Ibid.). That the colours are described as "muted now" implies their brightness at a time in the past, while the "white horizontal sheet wood walls" upon which the signs are fixed hint towards the transformation of the scene into horizontal lines of text on the page which it becomes in the book. From this opening scene, it moves quickly into anecdotal "tales" (Ibid.) of the area, moving the narrative back through time in the setting of the story. The end of the book performs the operation again; having brought the muted colours of the street to vivid narrative life, the book returns to Ondaatje's research trip:

The sunlight comes down flat and white on Gravier, on Phillip Street, on Liberty. The paint on the wood walls has crumpled under the heat, you can brush it off with your hand. This is where he lived seventy years ago … There is so little noise that I can easily hear the click of my camera as I take fast bad photographs into the sun aiming at the barber shop he probably worked in. The street is fifteen yards wide. I walk around watched by three men farther up the street under a Coca Cola sign. They have not heard of him here. The sun has bleached everything. The Coke signs almost pink. The paint that remains the colour of old grass … When he went mad he was the same age as I am now. The photograph moves and becomes a mirror. (Ibid.: 134)

Both the beginning and the end of the book note the faded colours of the street. The opening, however, moves towards an emphasis on the primary colours which play an important part in the narrative - Bolden's red shirt, for example. In the closing passage, as we move out of the narrative which has temporarily restored the vivid colours of the past, "[t]he sun has swallowed the colour of the street. It is a black and white photograph, part of a history book" (Ibid.: 136). In the opening of Running in the Family, Ondaatje considers "those relations from my parents' generation who stood in my memory like frozen opera", and how he "wanted to touch them into words" (Ondaatje, 1983: 22). Here, he begins not with a memory, but a black-and-white photograph that the narrative pulls into colour and motion, and then, importantly, releases back into frozen black and white. The end of the book also adds historical documents into the text with increasing frequency, gradually moving away from the narrative and into archival documentation which recalls the historicity of the opening photograph.

The end of the book does not quite reiterate the opening, however. The idea that "the photograph moves and becomes a mirror" (Ondaatje, 1998: 134) is a key shift in the way the book is constructed, and hints at the changed relationships between the book and its cultural frames as well as the relationship between the author and main character. The narrative, framed by Ondaatje's consciousness (in both the sense that Bal uses the term and the constructive sense), becomes a form of conversation between the character and the author. Moreover, the statement that the photograph becomes a mirror implies that the original photograph and the linguistic translation, as well as the narrative which frames it, are involved in an act of mutually beneficial co-definition. This is perhaps the crucial aspect of the way in which translation functions in the book. Rather than what Benjamin refers to as "bad translation", a reiteration of information, Ondaatje's translation of the photograph and contextualisation of that translation through the narrative open the possibility of both works engaging each other in conversation and mutual illumination.

About the Author

Jeffrey Orr is a Ph.D student at the School of English, University of Leeds. His research deals with the interaction between visual and written material in the books of Michael Ondaatje and W.G. Sebald.

References

Agee, James and Evans, Walker (1988) Let Us Now Praise Famous Men Boston: Houghton Mifflin

Bal, Meike (2002) Travelling Concepts in the Humanities: A Rough Guide London: University of Toronto

Banting, Pamela (1995) Body, Inc. Winnipeg: Turnstone

Barthes, Roland (1972) "The Great Family of Man", in Mythologies New York: Noonday

Benjamin, Walter (1992) "The Task of the Translator", in Illuminations London: Harper-Collins

Burgin, Victor (1982) "Looking at Photographs", in Burgin, Victor (Ed.) Thinking Photography London: Macmillan

Ondaatje, Michael (1983) Running in the Family London: Picador

Ondaatje, Michael (1998) Coming Through Slaughter Toronto: Vintage

Shloss, Carol (1996) "Double-Crossing Frontiers: Literature, Photography, and the Politics of Displacement", in Bryant, Marsha (Ed.) Photo-Textualities: Reading Photographs and Literature London: Associated University