Gótico: 06/23/24

Gótico by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Alexander Páez García (Translator) (2021) is the Spanish translation of Mexican Gothic. I re-read it in translation, curious to see how the translation worked for or against the story.

First and foremost I love how the title is just Gótico. Unfortunately the title with the absence of Mexicano gives certain expectations of a Mexican flavored Spanish translation. Latin American Spanish is very different from the Spanish dialects used in Spain.

The Spanish language translation, though, is done by a Spanish translator. It's a perfectly adequate rendition of the original English text but the story comes off somewhat bland, somewhat overly formal, even for a novel about a woman going to an English mansion in the middle of an old silver mining town in rural Mexico.

The book could have been so much better if Mexican Spanish were used especially in Noemi's dialog and descriptions of things if the third person POV is to be influenced from her perception of things.

At the introduction of the Doyle family, Noemi is told that the family doesn't speak a word of Spanish, yet their now translated dialog is rendered in as precise and grammatically correct language as Noemi's. It would have been hilarious if the stuffy English family, especially the oldest ones, had their dialog either left in the original English or translated into the poor attempt at Spanish some wealthy tourists use. Better yet, I'd give the poor locals better Spanish than the Doyles but heavily influenced by the local indigenous words (as Mexican Spanish is actually spoken). Noemi's should have the more formal but Aztec influenced Spanish of Mexico City. These choices would have made Gótico authentically Mexican in a way that this translation isn't.

As far as the rating goes, I'm leaving the original five stars as I don't want to penalize the author of a translation she probably didn't have much or any control over.

Five stars

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