Translating Irish

Over the last few weeks I have been perusing Seamus Heaney's volume of poetry, Death of a Naturalist. Until now, the only Heaney I have read was his translation of Beowulf, which is, incidentally, a marvelous translation--in terms of translations, it is on the level of the Hollanders' Dante, Fagles' Homer/Virgil and Pevear/Volokhonsky's Dostoevsky (and presumably Tolstoy--reading their Tolstoy translations is on my list of books to read).

The present volume was really quite good. I had no expectations going in. He reminds me a lot of Robert Frost--transplant Frost to Ireland, add a half-century, and I think this is the sort of thing you would get; in fact, so great is the similarity, that I would be rather shocked if that comparison hasn't been made hundreds of times before. His verse is good; it reads well and you aren't tripping on unnatural lines. What he does best is evoke a scene--after reading this, it isn't hard to imagine that there is some charm in growing up on an Irish potato farm.

Well, not too much charm--I don't think I would enjoy living on an Irish potato farm, because a) I don't really want to live in Ireland, and b) I don't really want to live on a farm. Though, come to think of it again, the home in which I do live and which I enjoy living in a tremendous amount, is growing more and more farm-like all the time. Today, in an odd coincidence, Janet is off to Boston to go to a giant Agricultural convention where she will spend the next three days talking to people about growing plants, which is somewhat farm-like. So, maybe the farm thing wouldn't be so bad. I suppose I should work on my Irish accent, now, to see if I would like the Ireland bit too.

And by the way, when I talk in an Irish accent, it really annoys Lily and Clara. Especially when I do so in public. Of course, I don't really have an Irish accent, and I suspect nobody who heard it would ever think I was Irish--they might think I was a bit strange, but I doubt they would think I was Irish. But, as I try to tell Lily and Clara--how would a complete stranger know, really know, that that wasn't the way I always talked? If you heard someone with some odd accent, would you automatically assume, he must be someone who grew up in California talking in some oddly accented voice because it amuses him to do so? Imagine being a Californian and thus growing up without an accent--wouldn't you like to try one out every now and then?