Harold bloom once said that the best opening of American novels in the 20th century is william faulkner's As I Lay Dying. The first paragraph of the original English text is like this:
I came out of the field and filed along the path. Although I was in front of him 15 feet, anyone who looked at us from the cotton shed could see Jewel's tattered straw hat, which was a whole head taller than me.
Mr. Li Wenjun's translation:
Pearl and I came out of the field and walked in a line on the path. Although I was fifteen feet in front of him, everyone who looked at us from the cotton shed could see that Gemstone's shabby straw hat was a head taller than me. (It can be seen that literal translation is the mainstay, concise and to the point)
Mr. Lan Renzhe's Translation:
Jules and I walked up the path on the ground in tandem. I walked about fifteen feet in front of him. If someone looked at us in the cotton shed, they would surely find Jules' shabby straw hat a head taller than mine. (Literal translation plus free translation, although the concession words are blurred, more importantly, Jules and I and Walking in tandem are more in line with the modern Chinese expressions in Chinese-English translation than Mr. Li Wenjun's Walking in a One-way Street and Gems and Me. )
Compared with the original, the retranslated version is more fluent on the basis of being faithful to the original, and its language expression is more in line with the norms of modern Chinese. However, the original text is still indispensable, and its many concise and accurate expressions provide important reference information for the highly faithful and elegant retranslated version.
The following paragraph is Mandel's part of stream of consciousness:
"Maybe I can pull the rope tighter," Dahl said. That's why Pearl and I are in the shed and she is in the carriage, because the horse lives in the stable and I have to keep driving the vulture away.