The Indefinite Was Indefinite

Forgive me this little translation detour for the moment. I have some things on my mind.

Titles are a pain to translate. On Tuesday, I wrote about the Imants Ziedonis and Nora Ikstena book, Nenoteiktā bija, which I translated as The Past Indefinite. In the English excerpt from the LLC, the title was translated as The Indefinite Was. I thought this was a strange-sounding title, and went back to the original book to find the context in the hopes it might help me clarify. This is what I found (my translation, emphasis also mine):

You have to learn how to write what you were never a part of. Indirect information, indirect speech. This sense of not being present. The not present sense. That's the one. The indefinite was. Indirect speech.

That didn't make a lot of sense to me. I tried again:

You have to learn how to write what you were never a part of. Indirect information, indirect speech. This sense of not being present. The not present sense. That's the one. The past indefinite. Indirect speech.

I liked "the past indefinite"; it complimented the phrase that follows it, another grammatical term. I thought I was being clever. But I know I have it wrong.

The grammatical term for "the past" tense in Latvian is pagatne, while bija means "(it) was" or "(they) were," making the correct translation "It was the indefinite." But, as a title, I'm not so sure this works. I could opt for Indefinite, It Was, but that makes it sound as if Yoda translated it. That's why I exercised artistic license and chose The Past Indefinite.

But I know I have it wrong.

If you've read this far, you've obviously taken an interest in the topic of Latvian translation (as opposed to those who like to come here to see nice pictures or read bizarre stories about my love for Danish dish brushes), so I'll carry on.

When I read further, I realized how tricky two words can be (again, my speedy and poorly researched translation):

The indefinite was... In his head he has a vision of a barn, not so easily discernible at first. He apparently saw it in a dream, flying over it, everything viewed from above. Just any barn, or a particular barn? A particular barn, the one that once stood in the yard of our house, "Biruta," in Ragaciems, not far from the little herring house that still stands to this day. Supposedly there's a photograph of Peteris Petersons driving out of that barn on a motorcycle with a sidecar.

Here the other translator's interpretation makes more sense; the ellipses give it a more sensical context. Though I could still argue for mine; the past indirective esot is used. All these "apparently"s and "supposedly"s add up to an indefinite past. I could be wrong; I could be flogged for stubbornly airing my ignorance in this translation. The Indefinite Was is probably much better. And I'm back to the beginning.

Molding phrases like this makes my head spin. These are my frustrations. These are my pitfalls, my insecurities. This is why I have yet to call myself by that elusive name: I, Translat*r.

(We'll discuss the atrocity of "herring house" another day.)

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