Felix the Cat
11-26-2005, 11:22 PM
Cartoon hero takes a swipe at a world superpower (http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/features/2005/11/08/9f96c0af-f66d-436c-9690-f7e4fb1187e3.lpf)
FORGET Michael Moore - it seems George Bush has a new enemy, in the unlikely form of comic strip hero Asterix.
After years of bashing the occupying Roman army, the indomitable Gauls have turned their attentions to the stars in their latest adventure, Asterix And The Falling Sky.
But it doesn't take much reading between the lines to realise that the story is actually a none-too-subtle attack on the current American administration and its intervention in Iraq.
In the book, the 33rd in the bestselling series, the diminutive warrior and his brave chums find themselves facing alien invaders from the planet Tadsylwien - an anagram of that unassailable US icon, Walt Disney.
The ruler of the alien world is called Hubs - I'll leave you to work that particular puzzler out for yourself - and, according to one invader with more than a passing resemblance to Mickey Mouse, Hubs has sent them to Earth in a futile search for the Gauls' "stockpile of lethal weapons".
This righteous anger on the part of of writer/illustrator Albert Uderzo - who has been producing the Asterix stories single-handed since the death of writer René Goscinny in 1977 - certainly seems to be paying dividends: The controversy surrounding the sudden "politicisation" of this global icon has helped Asterix And The Falling Sky to shift more than 200,000 copies a day since its release last month.
But for one Cambridge woman, this venture into geopolitics has another advantage - it saves on the translating.
For the past 40 years, Anthea Bell, from Histon, has faithfully adapted every Asterix book from French into English - and created many of our favourite jokes along the way. But the likes of George Bush and Walt Disney are universal icons that came to her fully formed.
"It was obvious when I read the original that Tadsylwien was a pun of something, but I couldn't work out what," says Anthea.
"So I phoned up and asked but the publishers weren't allowed to tell me - apparently only four people in the world knew the plot of the book."
Anthea has been adapting the Asterix stories into English for more almost 40 years. The series presents a peculiar challenge for a translator, as much of the books' appeal lies in their use of clever puns and wordplay.
For example, the original French name for the village bard is Assurancetourix, which is a pun on the phrase assurance tous risques (comprehensive insurance) - hilarious in French, possibly, but it does tend to lose something in translation.
It is the job of Anthea, and her long-time collaborator Derek Hockridge, to dream up the English alternative - in this case, Cacofonix. Anthea and Derek are also responsible for such childhood favourites as Chief Vitalstatistix, the village elder, faithful hound Dogmatix and Getafix the druid.
"It's a little trick of the mind, to make it sound like it was originally written in that language," said Anthea, who says her role on the Asterix books is "more adaptation than translation".
"When you get something like Asterix, there's a lot of wordplay and puns and that has to be very free. That's half the fun."
Anthea says the task is a little like compiling a cryptic crossword. And she should know - her father, Suffolk writer Adrian Bell, was the first ever compiler of The Times crossword, and went on compiling at least a couple a month for more than 50 years.
These days, Asterix is a multi-million pound industry (there is even a theme park near Paris) and Albert Uderzo is very protective of the character's reputation - including the quality of the translations.
"When René Goscinny was alive he passed the English translations because his English was extremely good," said Anthea.
"Now Albert Uderzo, who speaks no English at all but has a whole set of people working with him, gets every translation in every language checked before it's allowed to be published."
Anthea's working relationship with Goscinny and Uderzo stretches back several decades.
"Asterix the Gaul has been a great friend of mine over the years," said Anthea.
"It's terrific fun - one gets lovely letters from kids. I'm particularly pleased when I get letters from girls because a lot of people think of it as a boys' thing, but a lot of girls read it too."
Anthea, who was born in Suffolk and moved to Cambridge 23 years ago, has been translating books from French and German since the late 1960s, specialising in novels, but also taking in some art history and musicology.
Her particular passion is children's literature and, as well as the new Asterix, she has recently updated her translations of another René Goscinny series about the adventures of a schoolboy called Nicholas.
"A while ago, René Goscinny 's daughter discovered about 80 unpublished Nicholas stories and she published them," said Anthea.
Her publisher then re-issued translations of four original Nicholas books from the 1970s, the first of which has just been published.
FORGET Michael Moore - it seems George Bush has a new enemy, in the unlikely form of comic strip hero Asterix.
After years of bashing the occupying Roman army, the indomitable Gauls have turned their attentions to the stars in their latest adventure, Asterix And The Falling Sky.
But it doesn't take much reading between the lines to realise that the story is actually a none-too-subtle attack on the current American administration and its intervention in Iraq.
In the book, the 33rd in the bestselling series, the diminutive warrior and his brave chums find themselves facing alien invaders from the planet Tadsylwien - an anagram of that unassailable US icon, Walt Disney.
The ruler of the alien world is called Hubs - I'll leave you to work that particular puzzler out for yourself - and, according to one invader with more than a passing resemblance to Mickey Mouse, Hubs has sent them to Earth in a futile search for the Gauls' "stockpile of lethal weapons".
This righteous anger on the part of of writer/illustrator Albert Uderzo - who has been producing the Asterix stories single-handed since the death of writer René Goscinny in 1977 - certainly seems to be paying dividends: The controversy surrounding the sudden "politicisation" of this global icon has helped Asterix And The Falling Sky to shift more than 200,000 copies a day since its release last month.
But for one Cambridge woman, this venture into geopolitics has another advantage - it saves on the translating.
For the past 40 years, Anthea Bell, from Histon, has faithfully adapted every Asterix book from French into English - and created many of our favourite jokes along the way. But the likes of George Bush and Walt Disney are universal icons that came to her fully formed.
"It was obvious when I read the original that Tadsylwien was a pun of something, but I couldn't work out what," says Anthea.
"So I phoned up and asked but the publishers weren't allowed to tell me - apparently only four people in the world knew the plot of the book."
Anthea has been adapting the Asterix stories into English for more almost 40 years. The series presents a peculiar challenge for a translator, as much of the books' appeal lies in their use of clever puns and wordplay.
For example, the original French name for the village bard is Assurancetourix, which is a pun on the phrase assurance tous risques (comprehensive insurance) - hilarious in French, possibly, but it does tend to lose something in translation.
It is the job of Anthea, and her long-time collaborator Derek Hockridge, to dream up the English alternative - in this case, Cacofonix. Anthea and Derek are also responsible for such childhood favourites as Chief Vitalstatistix, the village elder, faithful hound Dogmatix and Getafix the druid.
"It's a little trick of the mind, to make it sound like it was originally written in that language," said Anthea, who says her role on the Asterix books is "more adaptation than translation".
"When you get something like Asterix, there's a lot of wordplay and puns and that has to be very free. That's half the fun."
Anthea says the task is a little like compiling a cryptic crossword. And she should know - her father, Suffolk writer Adrian Bell, was the first ever compiler of The Times crossword, and went on compiling at least a couple a month for more than 50 years.
These days, Asterix is a multi-million pound industry (there is even a theme park near Paris) and Albert Uderzo is very protective of the character's reputation - including the quality of the translations.
"When René Goscinny was alive he passed the English translations because his English was extremely good," said Anthea.
"Now Albert Uderzo, who speaks no English at all but has a whole set of people working with him, gets every translation in every language checked before it's allowed to be published."
Anthea's working relationship with Goscinny and Uderzo stretches back several decades.
"Asterix the Gaul has been a great friend of mine over the years," said Anthea.
"It's terrific fun - one gets lovely letters from kids. I'm particularly pleased when I get letters from girls because a lot of people think of it as a boys' thing, but a lot of girls read it too."
Anthea, who was born in Suffolk and moved to Cambridge 23 years ago, has been translating books from French and German since the late 1960s, specialising in novels, but also taking in some art history and musicology.
Her particular passion is children's literature and, as well as the new Asterix, she has recently updated her translations of another René Goscinny series about the adventures of a schoolboy called Nicholas.
"A while ago, René Goscinny 's daughter discovered about 80 unpublished Nicholas stories and she published them," said Anthea.
Her publisher then re-issued translations of four original Nicholas books from the 1970s, the first of which has just been published.