Translating Ecce Homo

Duncan Large's new translation of Ecce Homo for the Oxford World Classics series is excellent. It lends an entirely different flavor to the German, exactly what a new translation should do. Though Roger Hollingdale's version is the most solid, in my view, and Walter Kaufmann's the most forceful, this translation seems to get at the precariousness, the grotesqueness of the German, and particularly the tension it establishes with the tradition of autobiography.
The biggest change Large adopted was to use the second person singular pronoun much more for the German "Man." Thus, for "Wie man wird, was man ist," the famous subtitle of the little volume, we do not get the more traditional translation with the impersonal "one," as in Hollingdale's rendition "How One Becomes What One Is," but the much more interesting and simple "How To Become What You Are."
The effect is remarkable when it is dispersed across the entire book. It is an entirely different--and I think more interesting--experience of reading. Take, for example, the following on curing oneself when ill with ressentiment, in first the German and then in Hollingdale's rendition:

Wenn irgend Etwas überhaupt gegen Kranksein, gegen Schwachsein geltend gemacht werden muss, so ist es, dass in ihm der eigentliche Heilinstinkt, das ist der Wehr- und Waffen-Instinkt im Menschen mürbe wird. Man weiss von Nichts loszukommen, man weiss mit Nichts fertig zu werden, man weiss Nichts zurückzustossen,—Alles verletzt. Mensch und Ding kommen zudringlich nahe, die Erlebnisse treffen zu tief, die Erinnerung ist eine eiternde Wunde. [...] Hiergegen hat der Kranke nur Ein grosses Heilmittel— [...] Weil man zu schnell sich verbrauchen würde, wenn man überhaupt reagirte, reagirt man gar nicht mehr: dies ist die Logik. Und mit Nichts brennt man rascher ab, als mit den Ressentiments-Affekten. Der Ärger, die krankhafte Verletzlichkeit, die Ohnmacht zur Rache, die Lust, der Durst nach der Rache, das Giftmischen in jedem Sinne—das ist für Erschöpfte sicherlich die nachtheiligste Art zu reagiren: ein rapider Verbrauch von Nervenkraft, eine krankhafte Steigerung schädlicher Ausleerungen, zum Beispiel der Galle in den Magen, ist damit bedingt. Das Ressentiment ist das Verbotene an sich für den Kranken—sein Böses: leider auch sein natürlichster Hang.
-"Warum Ich So Weise Bin," 6

Its a long quote, but I think with it you can get some of the sense of what its like to read Large's translation. Here is Hollingdale:

If anything whatever has to be admitted against being sick, being weak, it is that in these conditions the actual curative instinct, that is to say the defensive and offensive instinct in man becomes soft. One does not know how to get free of anything, one does not know how to have done with anything, one does not know how to thrust back—everything hurts. Men and things come importunately close, events strike too deep, the memory is a festering wound. [...] Against this the invalid has only one great means of cure— [...] Because one would use oneself up too quickly if one reacted at all, one no longer reacts: this is the logic. And nothing burns one up quicker than the affects of ressentiment. Vexation, morbid suceptibility, incapacity for revenge, the desire, the thirst for revenge, poison-brewing in any sense—for one who is exhausted this is certainly the most disadvantageous kind of reaction: it causes a rapid expenditure of energy, an morbid accretion of excretions, for example of gall into the stomach. Ressentiment is the forbidden in itself for the invalid—his evil: unfortunately also his most natural inclination.
-"Why I Am So Wise," 6, Hollingdale's translation.

Now look at Duncan Large's rendering:

If anything at all needs to be counted against being ill, being weak, then it is the fact that in that state the true healing instinct, in other words the instinct for defence and weapons in man, is worn down. You cannot get rid of anything, you cannot cope with anything, you cannot fend anything off—everything hurts you. People and things get intrusively close, experiences affect you too deply, memory is a festering wound. [...] The invalid has only one great remedy for it— [...] Since you would exhaust yourself too quickly if you reacted at all, you no longer react in any way: such is the logic. And nothing burns you up faster then the emotions of resentment. Anger, sickly vulnerability, powerlessness to take revenge, the lust, the thirst for revenge, every kind of poisonous troublemaking—for the exhausted this is certainly the most detrimental way of reacting: it brings on a rapid consumption of nervous strength, a sickly intensification of harmful excretions, for example of bile in the somach. For the invalid, resentment is the absolute forbidden—his evil: unfortunately his most natural inclination, too.
"Why I Am So Wise," 6, Large's translation.

Though some crucial things are lost (the forbidden "an sich," though of course it could mean "absolute," I think is preserved better by Hollingdale's "in itself"), Large's translation, I think, benefits in the end for being so very bold. Hollingdale saves some key words better perhaps than Large, who interprets them more, it could be said--and precisely by going back to the roots of the German words, which should not in itself be seen as an act of fidelity to the source text's meaning, as is so often taken to be the case in philosophical translations of German. But it should be noted that Large is often more close to the sentence structure than Hollingdale, which, in Nietzsche, as well as in most German and French, is often more crucial than we think it is (just pick up Barbara Harlow's unbelievably horrible rendering of Derrida's Spurs, which absolutely decimates this fact about Derrida's text, if you want a good example of what this produces: a translation that is nearly unreadable). Usually, though, any of these deviations with respect to the accepted translation as represented by Kaufmann and Hollingdale is done with a lot of thought on Large's part--it is only thus that it could be so bold in the first place. Take, for example, his refusal to leave Nietzsche's "Ressentiment" in the French--that is, translate it by "resentment:" at its first appearance he appends a note, saying

The standard English translation "ressentiment," characterizes it as a loan-word from the French, but Nietzsche spells it with an initial capital [this is true in fact always, mj], stressing that he considers it to have been successfully adopted into the German language (which gives all nouns initial capitals)--by contrast with "décadence," [another frequent word that is French in origin], for instance.
-Ecce Homo, Note to page 13, 101.

Few would have the guts, I think, to do this to such a well known and oft quoted concept (even though I thoroughly agree with Large here, out of habit I myself used the French when referring to it above), but Large both does it and shows that it is right.
The fundamental boldness of this translation, though, lies in that basic gesture I am circling around above, which uses "you" instead of "one." Why this is so bold is that it fundamentally increases the danger of intimacy, of the cancellation of distance--which anyone who knows Nietzsche will tell you is absolutely crucial to him (cf. the famous passages on the "pathos of distance" in the Genealogy). Not only does it increase the danger for us, but also for Nietzsche himself: if it is true that this book is Nietzsche telling himself his life--the various "you's" in the text, which can be interpreted as Nietzsche somewhat referring to himself, show how constantly the pressure is there to maintain some coherence, to will the relation of himself into some economy, some shape, and yet at the same time not have it collapse into self-identification. Giving us some sense of this danger might, by itself, be Large's translation's greatest triumph.