Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - 1
"Rolls Camel student."
"Y-yes, yesss...! Ro, Rolls Camel! Th-that's me!"
"No need to be so tense. I'm not that impressive."
"N-no, you're not!"
Rolls Camel. The wavy, bob-haired girl student stuttering from nerves was the one whose talents I planned to borrow for my new work.
"Seriously. If anything, I need your help, Rolls Camel student. That's why I set up this meeting."
"R-really...?"
"Yes, yes."
"Heh, hehe... Homerus says he needs my help..."
She looked a bit unhinged, but that wasn't a big deal. A cat's only judged by how well it catches mice, and a writer's only judged by how well they write. In that sense, Rolls Camel was the perfect cat. A seasoned, fierce one that could snag not just mice, but rabbits too.
"Let me get straight to the point. What do you think my novels lack, Rolls Camel student?"
"L-lack?! H-how could I presume to..."
"Be honest."
"...Um, p-play on words? Just a little? Grammar and such... It feels like you focus so much on conveying the 'story' that the sentences themselves take a backseat... Ah! B-but that's just my personal taste! Homerus's novels aren't lacking at all!"
"Heh. Thanks for being honest."
Rolls Camel... was a genius at wordplay. She had a knack for toying with words and grammar. Combining math and syntax to shape language formally, even coining plausible new words when needed. A born prodigy with linguistic intuition. That was Rolls Camel's unique gift.
"Truth is, I think the novel I'm writing this time would be incredible if it incorporated your 'intellectual playfulness,' Rolls Camel student."
"Wh-what an honor!"
"So, do you like fairy tales by any chance?"
No sooner had I finished asking than Rolls Camel's eyes sparkled, her voice rising in pitch.
"Fairy tales are the best! Of Homerus's novels, my second favorite after Don Quixote is The Little Prince! Fairy tales capture children's pure innocence!"
Rolls Camel ranted on about fairy tales without a single stutter. Her praise brimmed with cat-like fervor, laced with that peculiar madness unique to artists.
"—That's why girls are the purest and most beautiful— Ah, a-ah! S-sorry!"
"Keep going. It's interesting."
"N-no!"
It really was interesting. The author of the novel I planned to plagiarize this time had a similar disposition to this stutterer. Maybe there was some correlation between a writer's talent and their human quirks. The thought crossed my mind.
"If you have nothing more to say, that's fine too. The reason I brought up fairy tales is that the novel I'm writing this time will be one."
"H-hek?! Y-yes! Please give me a chance—!"
"I mean we'll write it together..."
"Th-thank you!"
Hmm. Collaborative writing with this student... Would it really be okay...?
In my previous life, I was a translator. A self-proclaimed 'translator-author' with some real skill. The E-books I translated generally got good reviews from readers.
But even I had a few works that were tricky to translate. Not overt avant-garde pieces like Finnegans Wake, which were more annotation than translation anyway. No, the ones I mean were hugely famous and popular. So influential they got cited in humanities, natural sciences, biology, math, logic, economics, you name it.
That it was originally written as a 'fairy tale' hinted at just how... peculiar it was.
The name of that famous fairy tale was—
"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. That's the title of the novel I'm writing this time."
"Y-yes! G-great title! Hehe..."
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
"I usually outline the story first and fill in sentences and details later. So I've got a rough plot written down... I'd love for you to read it with me and help complete the work, Rolls Camel student."
"H-hik! Ho, Homerus's treatment... Hehe..."
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was notoriously hard to translate. More precisely, Lewis Carroll's original text was a nightmare obstacle for translators.
Because Lewis Carroll was a writer who aggressively used wordplay and neologisms. For instance, the line symbolizing the Cheshire Cat—"Was it a cat I saw?"—was a palindrome that read the same backward. Every sentence in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was built on such linguistic games.
So it was inevitably a beast for translators.
"Want to read it first?"
"Y-yesyesyes! Hoo-ha..."
Taking the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland manuscript I'd written, Rolls Camel snorted and flipped through it. She trembled like she was having a seizure. It was a little scary. Is she actually going to have a fit...?
"Haaah... Th-this is the best fairy tale I've ever read... Hehe."
After turning the last page, Rolls Camel melted like a candle. She slid off her chair and plopped onto the floor.
"Th-the scene transitions like dreams captured intact... The paradoxes and puzzles woven everywhere... C-can someone like me really touch a work like this...?"
Rolls Camel's hands shook. As if terrified by an overly grand role. But having seen countless aspiring 'translator-authors,' I could guess the desire sparkling in her eyes now.
"Honestly, you want to rewrite it, right?"
"...H-hik, h-how could I—"
"You want to tear it apart and rebuild it. Don't you?"
"......"
The desire to rework sentences. To localize the work perfectly by rewriting dialogue and descriptions from scratch. The kind any aspiring translator-author would feel.
"...Yes. Honestly, I want to rewrite it in my words..."
It was the desire flickering in Rolls Camel's pupils.
"This pure, dreamlike story... R-rewritten in my sentences, torn apart and rebuilt from the ground up! Leaving not even the original form intact, completely transforming it... It would be utter ecstasy..."
"Rewrite it however you want. As long as you don't change the story."
"......"
Rolls Camel's trembling stopped. She brushed off her bottom, stood from the floor, sat back in her chair, and began rereading the manuscript from the start.
But not sequentially this time. She skipped between pages, pondering and probing. Occasionally jotting notes with her pen. Dolling the publisher would've freaked if she saw— she loved preserving original manuscripts.
"Wr-write, h-here... Ah! Author! Manuscript paper... No, just some blank sheets?"
"Sure."
I pulled a stack of blank paper from the drawer and handed it over. She slashed her pen across it, scribbling furiously. Not pondering, but vomiting every sentence bubbling in her mind onto the page.
She wore out three pens' ink before switching. She produced a massive volume. Five times... no, easily ten times the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland I'd given her.
"He, hehe... Au-author! H-how's this?"
And then. After exhausting the fourth pen and tidying with the fifth.
I read it and couldn't help but marvel.
"The sentences... are incredibly intriguing."
"Hehe! Y-your story was so dreamlike already... I just put it into words!"
She'd exceeded my expectations. A miracle possible only because she was born with that coveted writer's gift: linguistic sense.
Great talent met the great tale of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, birthing a great work.
At this moment, as a fellow translator-author, I was certain.
"It's... magnificent. The kind you want to savor over and over."
"Hehe..."
That no translation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland could surpass this.
"Rolls Camel."
"Y-yes!"
"You're the best."
"He, hehe! Th-thank you!"
I carefully tucked Rolls Camel's completed manuscript into my bag. Looked like tonight would be a long one. Her reborn Alice's Adventures in Wonderland deserved rereading all night.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Author: Homerus, Rolls Camel
"H-hieeek! M-my name, next to Ho, Homerus's! K-kwuuk..."
"Congratulations in advance on becoming a great author, Rolls Camel student."