Joyce’s Ulysses in Macedonian: Workshop in Progress

Abstract

Translating James Joyce’s Ulysses is not an easy task in any language. From my personal experience (I have much, much to learn) it proved that translating it into Macedonian and in Cyrillic was (and still is both now and ever) quite a challenge. Oftentimes the texts of Ulysses seem unreadable and difficult to interpret, since every episode changes in technique, perspective, style, and register. Joyce does not put the reader at ease, let alone his translators. As a first-time reader, you can never be quite sure where do Stephen’s or Bloom’s inner thoughts begin or end or simply interrupt the narrator’s story. To read and reread it aloud, to translate and metamorphosize Ulysses in your own language is surely an enjoyable, exciting, and gratifying experience. Yet, make no mistake, paradoxically, it is never a comfortable adventure. It needs perseverance. “There is nothing that cannot be translated,” Joyce assures (qtd. in Ellmann, James Joyce 632). If translation is a never-ending process, it is by Joyce himself that we are willed to revamp our versions again and again to ensure Bloom’s blooming Immortelles. Thus, this article gives a brief glimpse at life with Joyce and Ulysses beneath the blueglancing immortality of his crozier and pen.