Absurd Creativity, Brilliant Performance: Postscript to the Translation of “Shark vs. Train”

 
 
Have you ever heard of a shark vs. a train? How is it fought? Ping-pong, pok­er, high div­ing, slam dunk con­tests, piano play­ing, burp­ing… It sounds like a com­plete mess, even more chaot­ic than the crosstalk sto­ry of “Guan Gong vs. Qin Qiong.” But there real­ly is a pic­ture book called “Shark vs. Train,” which made the New York Times best­seller list and has been a hit across the Unit­ed States.20Such absurd yet amus­ing things can only hap­pen in the world of chil­dren’s books.

Open this seem­ing­ly bois­ter­ous book, and don’t rush to the title page. Instead, look at the sto­ry already begun in the end­pa­pers. Then, wan­der­ing through the illus­tra­tions until you reach the final pages, you’ll dis­cov­er: Oh, this is actu­al­ly a sto­ry that makes per­fect sense. Two boys in the book grab their favorite toys—a shark and a train—from a pile of toys. One pre­tends to be a shark, the oth­er a train, and they engage in a fierce, imag­i­nary bat­tle. The com­pe­ti­tion esca­lates, and the atmos­phere heats up—until… lunchtime arrives, and the shark and train return to their toy box. It turns out that the book’s end­less stream of seem­ing­ly intense yet absurd bat­tles are noth­ing more than the prod­uct of a child’s imag­i­na­tion.

But this is just my adult inter­pre­ta­tion. Read­ing this book with chil­dren, espe­cial­ly those who love trains, cars, weapons, and men­ac­ing dolls, will sure­ly be a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ence. They might take it seri­ous­ly, immers­ing them­selves in the sto­ry with great enthu­si­asm. They might even build on the exist­ing sit­u­a­tion and cre­ate even more thrilling sce­nar­ios, unfold­ing a more excit­ing sto­ry. This reminds me of the mock war games I often played as a child: chess pieces and mil­i­tary flags were placed on the bed, divid­ed into “our army” and “the ene­my army.” Pil­lows and quilts were used to sim­u­late the ter­rain, and var­i­ous sta­tionery items were used to sim­u­late for­ti­fi­ca­tions and weapons. Despite the rudi­ments of the con­di­tions, after each bat­tle, the pride of “our army” when they suc­cess­ful­ly anni­hi­lat­ed the stub­born resis­tance of the “ene­my” was no less than that of the gen­er­al who orches­trat­ed the bat­tle.

Per­haps every gen­er­a­tion has played this kind of “bor­ing” game. When Chris Bar­ton was a child, he played “Big Jim”, which is an Amer­i­can70back,80The lit­tle action fig­ures that our chil­dren once loved were essen­tial­ly the mus­cu­lar men from action car­toons, punch­ing and kick­ing, fight­ing off evil (per­haps even vil­lains), look­ing very sexy and inde­struc­tible. Boys, in par­tic­u­lar, loved to play­ful­ly fight with these fig­ures. Mr. Bar­ton now has two sons, each fas­ci­nat­ed by sharks and trains. While the objects are dif­fer­ent, the tra­di­tion of pre­tend fight­ing in their imag­i­nary worlds has endured, and as a result, their fights have become the sto­ries in their father’s pic­ture books.

I believe both Chris Bar­ton and illus­tra­tor Tom Licht­en­hold have a deep under­stand­ing of this tra­di­tion, not least because it’s part of their child­hood mem­o­ries. Tom said in an inter­view, “I believe it’s cru­cial for chil­dren to under­stand that their imag­i­na­tions are not only nov­el and fun, but also pos­sess real val­ue.” In fact, long ago, Lu Xun also lament­ed the val­ue of this imag­i­na­tion: “Chil­dren are wor­thy of respect!” There­fore, cre­at­ing books for chil­dren is no easy task; it requires under­stand­ing and respect, while also pro­vid­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for their imag­i­na­tions to flour­ish freely.

Tom has a mas­ter­ful knack for cap­tur­ing chil­dren’s imag­i­na­tions. His illus­tra­tions for “Good­night, Work­shop Trucks” blend beloved trucks with heart­warm­ing good­night sto­ries. Mean­while, “Train Dreams” trans­forms chil­dren’s imag­i­na­tive play with train toys and var­i­ous dolls into a bed­time sto­ry that’s both absurd and riotous, yet also evokes a sense of dream­like won­der. These hilar­i­ous scenes recall the work of Dr. Seuss, while the won­drous inter­play between the imag­i­nary and the real worlds evokes the won­ders of Mar­garet Wise Brown’s “Two Lit­tle Trains.” In short, the absurd imag­i­na­tive play devel­oped by Chris and his sons is per­fect­ly matched by Tom’s exag­ger­at­ed yet pre­cise draw­ings.

While trans­lat­ing this book, I was con­stant­ly search­ing for the tone the author was try­ing to con­vey. I believe that “seri­ous­ness” is key to under­stand­ing its under­ly­ing tone. The pro­tag­o­nists, Shark and Train, are seri­ous. They aren’t sim­ply there to enter­tain the audi­ence and then leave the stage. They’re gen­uine­ly com­pet­ing with each oth­er, intent on destroy­ing each oth­er. There­fore, the “harsh words” they utter from time to time are always vicious, con­vey­ing the feel­ing of want­i­ng to kill each oth­er. Some adults may con­sid­er such lan­guage bor­der­ing on vul­gar­i­ty and try to get chil­dren to avoid it, but this is com­plete­ly unnec­es­sary. Chil­dren under­stand when to use them appro­pri­ate­ly, and when tru­ly impul­sive, their harsh words may be even more extreme and heat­ed, but every­one knows that they should­n’t be tak­en seri­ous­ly at that point. On the con­trary, allow­ing chil­dren to fre­quent­ly utter harsh words, while know­ing that they are play­ing a humor­ous and play­ful game, can be a good way to relieve stress.

Fur­ther­more, I’ve been putting quo­ta­tion marks around the author’s use of the word “seri­ous­ly” because I believe this demon­strates the author’s accu­rate grasp of chil­dren’s psy­chol­o­gy. The dia­logue between the shark and the train in the book actu­al­ly comes from the mouths of two lit­tle boys. Appar­ent­ly, in this kind of imag­i­na­tive play, the more “seri­ous­ly” you take it, the more fun it is. But even chil­dren tire of play­ing. After play­ing this game for who knows how long, even the chil­dren them­selves grow tired. When the log­ic of the game becomes so absurd that even they them­selves find it unbear­able, it’s a sign of fatigue. Final­ly, the two boys, speak­ing their own voic­es (not the shark’s and the train’s), say, “This is get­ting ridicu­lous,” “I think it’s time for a break,” mark­ing the end of the game. A deli­cious meal at this point is nat­u­ral­ly the most sat­is­fy­ing way to enjoy it! This demon­strates the author’s pre­cise grasp of chil­dren’s psy­chol­o­gy and the rhythm of the sto­ry.

There’s anoth­er detail that I find par­tic­u­lar­ly note­wor­thy. Ear­ly in the book, two boys rush to their toy box, search­ing fer­vent­ly until they final­ly find the shark and the train. The oth­er toys are scat­tered across the floor, and the two boys’ ini­tial fight seems rather fer­al. But near the end of the sto­ry, when some­one calls out, “Lunch time!” the boys’ expres­sions calm down con­sid­er­ably. And, sur­pris­ing­ly, the oth­er toys, pre­vi­ous­ly scat­tered across the floor, are now neat­ly arranged. It turns out they also form the back­drop and props for the sto­ry.

I think the author and the artist are try­ing to con­vey this under­stand­ing: chil­dren’s imag­i­na­tive play is not only fun and intel­lec­tu­al­ly stim­u­lat­ing, but also helps reg­u­late emo­tions and uncon­scious­ly estab­lish a nec­es­sary sense of order. Of course, at least that’s how I see it.
 

Ajia …
Writ­ten on2014Year9moon14Bei­jing