趣聊“股票作手回忆录”的翻译。

陈江挺

第14章的第二段的英文原文是这样的：

"It looked to me as though I was in Dutch with destiny. It might have been the plan of Providence to chasten me, but really I had not been filled with such pride as called for a fall. I had not committed any of those speculative sins which a trader must expiate on the debtor side of the account. I was not guilty of a typical sucker play. What I had done, or, rather, what I had left undone, was something for which I would have received praise and not blame north of Forty-second Street. In Wall Street it was absurd and costly. But by far the worst thing about it was the tendency it had to make a man a little less inclined to permit himself human feelings in the ticker district."


其中有一句是 “for which I would have received praise and not blame north of Forty-second Street”。North of forty-second street 怎么译相当有讲究。在纽约的曼哈顿区，也就是华尔街的所在地, 42街之北的地方称中央公园，是全美国最贵的地区，所谓上流社会区。如果不熟悉纽约市，怎么翻译这一段英文就抓瞎了！42街之北是什么东西？


我的翻译是这样的：


"看来，我的命运正处低潮，也或许是上帝有意要我谦卑。但我自己并没犯得意忘形的错误，也没有犯普通投资者常犯的错误，更没有做愚蠢交易。我所作的，或我没有去做的，按上流社会的道德标准都值得赞扬。当然，按华尔街习惯，这类道德标准是荒谬，是昂贵的错误！这导致了最糟糕的结果：必须没有人性才能在华尔街生存."


大家可以查查其它版本的译者怎么处理这一段落。

学习智慧

陈老师译的最佳