Åke Ohlmarks

Åke Ohlmarks (1911--1984) was a Swedish scholar and author. He wrote several books, mostly about Norse culture and religion, and also translated the Edda, Shakespeare, the Qur'an, The Divine Comedy, and Nostradamus into Swedish.

He is mostly known, though, for his Blind Idiot Translation of The Lord of the Rings. How is it that an experienced translator like Ohlmarks can fail so badly?

Reasons why:

 * (In 1959, most people were.) Given that a work is more than the sum of its words, understanding the genre is fundamental to a successful translation.
 * He complained about it to the publisher, calling it childish and boring. You probably can't do justice to a work if you don't appreciate it.
 * He didn't bother to read ahead or keep good track of names and concepts, and also didn't go back to fix errors later. This resulted in premature translations ("Lord Denethor" became "King Denethor" before it was made clear that Gondor had no king) and inconsistencies ("The Entwash" was first translated as "Loopy Creek", then as "Muddy River", and finally as "Entstream" when he had learned about Ents). No translator should work like this on a novel-sized work (of course, given a really inflated novel and a very tight deadline, it still happens; Ohlmarks seems to have had ample time, though).
 * No, really (he was better in other languages). He often mixed up simple words and was apparently unfamiliar with many common idioms. Given that Tolkien's text often goes beyond the simple and common, using carefully selected words and phrases to convey the nuances of culture and history, it's no wonder Ohlmarks was stumped. His lack of command of the language led to a number of jarring homophone errors such as "lair" being translated as "thigh" ("lår" in Swedish). It goes without saying that a translator needs to have sufficient knowledge of both the source and target languages to be able to translate well.

Another problem, unrelated to the Blind Idiot-ness of the translation, was the total clash of style. Whereas Tolkien wrote in a sparse and unaffected style, meant to emulate Norse epics, Ohlmarks felt the need to spice up the text with Purple Prose to make it look more exciting and readable. Ohlmarks' contributions, in all fairness, were usually of quite high quality... but the fact remains that they are in Ohlmark's style, not Tolkien's.

Here are a few examples of the errors, which are intended to show how even very small mistakes can transform a text's meaning completely: this is the very essence of Blind Idiot Translation. His text has been back-translated to English as faithfully as possible, and we are indebted to Martin Andersson for his compilation of translation errors (in Swedish), from which we picked the following pearls (see also (in English) where he makes more or less the same points as in this article).

Say what?
"'You forget to whom you speak,' said Aragorn sternly, and his eyes glinted." Aragorn continues: "'Did I not openly proclaim my title before the doors of Edoras? What do you fear that I should say to him?'" In Ohlmarks' translation, it's "'What do you fear that I should say to him? That I have an insubordinate rascal of a dwarf here, and would like to trade him for an obliging orc?'" It was "creativity" like this that made Swedish fans really loathe Ohlmarks and his translation. This example is especially glaring as it combines omission with Ohlmarks inserting his own inferior material, and derails Aragorn's character in the process -- ...except that it doesn't. Ohlmarks worked with the less well-known first edition of LoTR, where Aragorn actually says this: "'What do you fear that I should say: that I had a rascal of a rebel dwarf here that I would gladly exchange for a serviceable orc?'". When Swedish fans wanted to have a look at the original English text, they typically read the second edition (1966, quoted above) and didn't realize that the text had been "softened" in several places. While most of the problems with Ohlmarks' translation really are his own fault, in cases like this the perceived false note actually is true to the original.

Tolkien's reaction
JRR Tolkien was able to read Swedish with the help of a dictionary, and following the disappointing first (Dutch) translation he had asked the Swedish publisher for a list of translated names. He was unhappy with Ohlmarks' work and tried to reason with him, but Ohlmarks wouldn't budge. To avoid similar problems in the future, Tolkien wrote a translation guide which later translations to other languages profited from. When The Silmarillion was published, Christopher Tolkien specifically asked for another translator, and the Tolkien estate and the Swedish Tolkien fandom carried on a low-key feud with Ohlmarks until his death. One of the lowlights of this was a screed Ohlmarks wrote wherein he accused Swedish Tolkien fans of being Satanists under the control of the Tolkien estate in Oxford. In 2004 a new translation of the books was finally made. Swedish LotR fans now need to decide whether to be relieved that the errors are, at long last, corrected or to feel that They Changed It, Now It Sucks.