Greetings and welcome to my weblog! I should first of all explain the above heading. It is based on the title of World War 1 fighter ace Julius Buckler’s memoir Malaula! Der Kampfruf meiner Staffel. I prepared an English translation of this text, which was published by Grub Street (in London) under the title Malaula! The Battle Cry of Jasta 17 in June of 2007. This book includes annotations by editor Norman Franks (and one by myself on pages 118-119), as well as an "Introduction to this New Edition" Norman wrote and a "Translator’s Preface," which I of course provided.
As Norman states in his introduction, he is "an air historian of long standing (too long some might say!)" who for quite some time considered publishing an English edition of Buckler’s memoir with much-needed commentary to fill in gaps and correct errors. By chance a photocopy of a translation I wrote in 1985 - with little more than a high school background in German - made its way across "the Pond" to him. He contacted me and asked whether it would be all right for him to publish it with his annotations. I was glad he asked, but all too aware of the deficiencies of my first major translation effort, I proposed instead that I create a new translation. Norman writes that I "enthused over the project," but my actual reaction was one of mild desperation in preventing the publication of something of dubious quality with my name on it.
And so we come to the reason why I have started this weblog. The translation and preface which appear in the English edition of Buckler’s memoirs have undergone quite a bit of revision at the hands of the editor - in my opinion, greatly to their detriment. This "battle cry," as it were, is one in defense of my reputation as a writer and as a translator. I have no desire to embarrass anyone. In listing the editor’s mistakes I am only trying to set the record straight - for anyone who might by chance be interested - regarding the great number of errors appearing in the book which not only in their quantity, but also in their nature, could leave one with a mistaken impression regarding my competence. [Note: The link to the 18-page list of mistakes originally included in this blog has been lost, as has the document file. Due to my work on other projects, I have no time to re-create the list presently. Hopefully I will eventually be able to restore the list.]
I would like to point out as well that this commentary is in no way meant to detract from Norman’s positive contribution to the work. Without his initiative, the English edition of Malaula! would not even exist. Without his diligent efforts in providing supplementary material, the historical value of the work would be so much the poorer. Nonetheless, that does not undo the damage he inflicted on my own work.
As a final word to this introduction, I would like to say that in creating this weblog I hope to do more than just provide an errata listing. I would like to use it as a forum for discussion not only of Buckler’s memoir, but also my past, current, and future projects as well as any number of other relevant topics.
Kommentar auf deutsch ist natürlich auch ganz willkommen!
Malaula!
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