Classical Narratology As A Guidance In Fiction Translation

Famous for her description of American middle-class. American contemporary novelist Anne Tyler is considered as a woman writer capable of depicting every aspect of American families and marriages. Her new work A Spool of Blue Thread, set in Baltimore, Maryland, is about a four-generation story of the Whitshanks. The translator translated Section 9 of this book. In Section 9, the narrative discourses in different styles reflect the cultural backgrounds, social classes and specific personalities of the characters, while the changing narrative perspectives serve as a mirror of their psychological activities, emotions and ways of thinking. In translation, for different characters, various narrative discourses shall be used; and from different perspectives, the translator reveals different amounts of information to readers. Therefore, both of them pose difficulties for translation.In his work Narrative Discourse. Gerard Genette, a representative classical narratologists, elaborates the three aspects of narrative discourses, narrative focalizations and narrative times, all of which constitute important theoretical references for tackling the aforementioned difficulties. Available literature of translation studies from the perspective of narratology is abundant. However, less importance has been attached to the role of narrative discourses in depicting characters and to the changing of narrative focalizations. Besides, the research into narrative times remains insufficient.A Spool of Blue Thread features natural narrative discourses, flexible narrative focalizations and delicately arranged narrative times. On the basis of summarizing Genette’s classical narratology theories, the translator analyzes the importance of narrative discourses in revealing characters’ personalities, the necessity of precisely recognizing the transference of narrative focalizations and the need to abide by the narrative times arrangements of the original text. Relevant translation techniques are then summarized. With the guidance of narratology, the translator purports to find ways to better convey the aesthetic beauty of the novel.