Chapter 364 Entrainment of private goods (seeking a monthly ticket)
Hannah quickly contacted Stephen and learned that Stephen had also accepted the manuscript and started working overtime on the translation. She immediately thanked him profusely, and then she immediately went to the editor-in-chief's office to inform the news.
Editor-in-chief Leonard confirmed this fact via email and immediately applauded: "Yes, Hannah, I want to commend you. The entire content of "The Three-Body Problem" is here, but we still have to follow the agreement.
A good contract will divide "The Three-Body Problem" into three parts for publication. Of course, the complete collection of "The Three-Body Problem" should also be included in the printing process..."
Leonard was very happy. The first part of "Three-Body Problem 2", "The Wallfacer", suddenly increased the performance of Habers Publishing House several times.
The first reason is naturally because "The Three-Body Problem" won the Hugo Award for Best Feature and became famous. The second reason is that the content of "The Wall Facer" is even more amazing. After all, the protagonist Luo Ji of the second part is also
It has an eye-catching appearance and is deeply loved by readers. It can be said that the "Three-Body" series has the right time, place and right people to achieve today's achievements.
Hannah was also very happy: "Stephen told me that every 10,000 words translated will be sent to us immediately."
"This is good."
Leonard smiled and said: "Let the corrector start now and be on call 24 hours a day."
Hannah agreed immediately.
No matter how accurate Stephen's translation is, there will inevitably be omissions, so the presence of text correctors is needed at this time. Harpers Press itself employs such employees to check the language errors and spelling of words before publication.
For a best-selling masterpiece like "The Three-Body Problem", a whole team was arranged to check and correct it to ensure that there would be no errors or omissions as big as sesame seeds.
After arranging things, Hannah returned to her office. From now on, except for going to the bathroom, she would not leave her computer desktop for even half a step.
After staring for a whole day, she heard the computer ding. Hannah immediately reacted and clicked on the file.
"Three-body, middle part: mantra, 20,000 words."
Seeing this line of title, Hannah was so excited that the hairs on her body almost stood up.
At this moment, the phone rang, and Hannah answered it immediately. She heard Stephen on the other side say: "Hi, Hannah, I have translated part of "The Three-Body Problem" and sent it to your email."
Hannah quickly said: "Thank you, Mr. Stephen, I have seen it."
"Well, the story of "The Three-Body Problem" is magnificent, especially the second part, and the imagination is even more whimsical. However, from a Chinese perspective, the writing style of "The Three-Body Problem" is actually very average. In order to ensure the original flavor, I tried not to
Add any modifiers, but the translations between Chinese and English are very different, so I also added some of my understanding." Stephen said apologetically.
Hannah suddenly panicked: "Mr. Stephen, you don't have to explain to me, I completely believe in your ability. You know, "The Three-Body Problem" can win the Hugo Award for Best Feature. The original author certainly takes the biggest credit, but your
Your translation ability also plays an important role. We all know that it is your translation that can make this novel more brilliant. Even Mr. Zheng has personally admitted this."
"Haha, thank you for your understanding."
Stephen thought of Zheng Qian standing on the Hugo Award podium and thanking himself first as soon as he opened his mouth. He immediately felt gratified in his heart, and it was not in vain that he had been translating these Chinese at a faster pace all day long.
In fact, Stephen is also very knowledgeable about "The Three-Body Problem". When translating "The Three-Body Problem", Stephen clearly felt that compared to the exquisiteness of the previous part, this second part had many omissions.
.
In terms of the content of "Three-Body 2", Stephen clearly felt that Zheng Qian had been very slack on dividing it into chapters.
The overall structure of the novel is poorly managed, for example, it is roughly divided into three major chapters: upper, middle and lower.
This resulted in various contents being completely mixed together, and the reading experience brought to Stephen was not very good.
Even because he is proficient in Chinese, when Stephen read the "Spell" part of "The Three-Body Problem", he obviously felt that it was nothing. It has to be said that Zheng Qian's writing style is of great significance to non-science fiction fans.
resistance.
However, as a science fiction translator, Stephen was dissatisfied with Zheng Qian's writing style.
But I still admire him for his majestic imagination.
Therefore, Stephen will slightly modify the writing when translating, but will maintain the original content. In this way, readers who read the English version will be able to read it more seriously and carefully.
This is the role of Stephen as translator.
But Stephen also admitted that sometimes, Zheng Qian's writing style would rise inexplicably and strangely.
Stephen was fascinated by his descriptions of some mysterious starry skies, physics, and cosmology.
After thinking about it, he felt that this was probably the reason why Zheng Qian had been immersed in the writing atmosphere of planetary science fiction for a long time.
This makes Zheng Qian's writing particularly obvious when describing his love for the vast and lonely image of the starry sky and universe.
He also often writes some sentences with quite artistic conception.
For example, when Luo Ji was talking to Ye Wenjie in front of Yang Dong's tomb, Zheng Qian described the starry sky like this:
"The blue void reveals a vast blankness, like the eyelids of a marble statue without pupils. Now although there are very few stars, this huge empty eye has pupils, so the void has content, and the universe has vision.
."
Similarly, the timeline of the Three-Body story unfolds over the span of two centuries. Zheng Qian's expression of time is often accompanied by a sense of vicissitudes of a thousand years, which often makes Stephen deeply moved.
For example, at the first meeting of the Chinese Space Force hosted by Chang Weisi, it was mentioned that the real war would not happen until more than ten generations later, and the soldiers fell into a long silence. Zheng Qian wrote:
"The lead-colored road of time slowly unfolded in front of them, disappearing into the vast fog of the future during the long stretch. They could not see the end of this long road, but they could see the flames and blood shining there. Life is too short.
This reality has never tortured them as much as it does now. Their hearts have flown across the vault of time and thrown into the blood and fire in the cold space with their descendants. That is where the souls of all soldiers gather."
Just reading the surface of this passage makes me feel very beautiful. When I think deeply about its content, I feel it is even more profound.
When reading this passage, Stephen also thought of the context.
The follow-up plot that he could vaguely guess and look forward to made Stephen tearful and inexplicably excited.
Stephen admired this description and also praised Zheng Qian's description of time understanding.
Among the passages he just discovered, one of them made Stephen feel his pores standing on end, and his whole person felt like he was enlightened.
In that paragraph of text, Zheng Qian directly expressed his lament that time is constant and eternal:
"The only thing that is unstoppable is time. It is like a sharp blade, cutting through everything hard and soft silently. It is constantly pushing forward, and nothing can cause the slightest bump in its progress, but it changes everything.
"
Hannah didn't know much about it. She couldn't understand the original version and couldn't read Zheng Qian's writing. But like most readers, she was very excited and satisfied with Stephen's translation.
So after hanging up the phone, she immediately tried to read.
A total of 20,000 words, enough for Hannah to read for a long time.
She asked her assistant to close the door of the office and declined visitors. Then she was alone, holding a cup of coffee and reading the translated text on the computer, reading with enjoyment...
The 20,000 words describe the appearance of the Wall-Breakers. The Wall-Breakers will deal a fatal blow to the four wall-facers, causing their psychology to collapse and their beliefs to collapse. However, the other three wall-facers will end up miserable, except for the careless Luo Ji.
, became the final truth.
Time passes gradually.
When the coffee cooled down, Hannah didn't even take a sip.
Because she was completely immersed in these words and this majestic imagination. In addition to the main plot, Stephen's translation of the original work and some of the words gave Hannah a deafening illusion.
"First, survival is the first need of civilization; second, civilization continues to grow and expand, but the total amount of matter in the universe remains unchanged."
"The city is the forest, every man is a hunter, every woman is a trap."
"I have a dream. Maybe one day, the bright sunshine can shine into the dark forest."
"In this way, the boundless space nurtures a dark new human being in its dark embrace."
"The universe was once bright. Shortly after the Big Bang, all matter existed in the form of light. Later, the universe turned into burned ashes, and then heavy elements precipitated in the darkness and formed planets and life. Therefore,
Darkness is the mother of life and civilization."
"Hiding yourself by faithfully mapping the universe is the only way to merge with eternity."
"Haha, ignoring is the greatest contempt."
"The Wallfacers will undertake the most difficult mission in human history. They are true loners and will completely close their hearts to the whole world and even the entire universe. What they can talk and communicate with is spiritually
The only people they can rely on are themselves. They will shoulder this great mission and walk alone for a long time."
"The truth always collects dust."
"It won't matter, Mr. Taylor, the Lord doesn't care whether the Earth fleet is in a collapsed state or a quantum state, whether the human space warriors are alive or quantum ghosts."
"Weapons? Money? No, no, that thing is more precious than these. The reason why the organization exists is not because of a grand goal like Seldon. You can't make a sane person believe in that and devote himself to it. The existence of the organization is
Because with that thing, he is the air and blood of the organization. Without him, the organization will die immediately."
"what is that?"
"Hate."
"Luo Ji, the wall-facer, I am your wall-breaker."
When Hannah came back to her senses, she found that it was already late at night, and the lights in the office lobby outside the blinds had darkened. However, Hannah could only feel that her whole body was counting down, and what she was thinking about in her ears was the words that made her blood boil.
"Luo Ji, the wall-facer, I am your wall-breaker."
She assumed Luo Ji's identity and had a stronger sense of belonging, so when the Wall Breaker appeared, Hannah felt her whole body stiffen with tension.
but……
"Gone?"
After reading the translation of 20,000 words, Hannah looked confused at first, and then finally realized what she was saying, feeling a sense of loss.
Then he looked at the blank document behind the sentence "Luo Ji, the Wall Facer, I am your wall breaker" and laughed at himself: "It's unbelievable that Mr. Stephen is also a broken dog."
Hannah couldn't help it anymore. Even though "The Three-Body Problem 2" was all finished, she still had to wait for the translation process, so she ordered a takeaway, then reopened the computer document, opened the electronic translator, and translated these Chinese characters.
One-to-one translation into English.
Although it is difficult to read, you can generally get some insights into the plot.
So after filling her stomach, Hannah continued to sit in the office, translating large chunks of text, and then read awkward words to fill her brain, and began to imagine those amazing scenes.
Through her own understanding and the expression of these sentences, Hannah suddenly discovered that Zheng Qian, deep down in his heart, may have a calm and rational attitude towards the world.
He doesn't seem to be interested in tenderness.
It’s just that the essence of belief in the world is to compete for survival.
As written in the article, it is beautiful for a beast to eat its prey, and there is no good or bad thing.
Good and evil are not in the world, they are just the self-identification of the human heart.
"What a beautiful language!" Hannah said with emotion.
That night, also staying up late was Leonard, the editor-in-chief of Stephen & Harpers Publishing House.
Leonard also received Stephen's manuscript, and after reading it, he felt sad at first, and then did the same thing as Hannah, opened the computer translator, and translated it word for word, although it looked awkward.
But once I get used to it, I can actually rehearse these words into the sentences I want.
This made Leonard very comfortable.
After Stephen finished translating 20,000 words, he finally couldn't bear it anymore and began to read the remaining 200,000 words directly in Chinese.
He is eager to know the plot behind it, which can also help him understand the sentences in the context and translate them accurately.
So he saw Zhang Beihai reporting to Chang Weisi the defeatist ideological problems in the military at the Space Force work meeting.
"The ideological root of defeatism is mainly the blind worship of technology, which despises or ignores the role of the human spirit and subjective initiative in war. It is the continuation and development of ideological trends such as the theory of technological victory and weapons only theory in the Space Force. This kind of
The trend of thought is particularly prominent among highly educated officers."
When Stephen saw Zhang Beihai, the description behind the sudden glimpse passed through his mind.
"This Zhang Beihai, on the surface, is a staunch supporter of triumphalism and firmly believes that he can defeat the Trisolarans. But at the end, when faced with a small drop of water, he was the first to turn around and run away..."
The more Stephen watched, the more frightened he became. Finally, he couldn't bear the pain in his back, so he lay down on the bed with his notebook in hand and continued to watch the rest of the episode.
As the plot progressed, Stephen saw the astonishing scene of "two thousand firecrackers during the Spring Festival", and his scalp was numb with shock.
After the Water Drop War, at the Second Citizens' Meeting on Starship Earth, he saw Zhang Beihai say: "Survival alone cannot guarantee survival. Development is the best guarantee of survival."
Isn’t this China’s socialist ideology?
"Can you still write it like this?"
After Stephen murmured to himself, he suddenly smiled bitterly: "Zheng Qian, Zheng Qian, if you include private goods in such a literary masterpiece, the judges of the Western World Literature Award will no longer favor you."