drakkar wrote:Hi, a belated welcome from me too!
seigezunt wrote:Note: I'm still unclear what the spoiler expectation is here, hence the subject heading. But this is for discussion if you've read the novel.
So I am of course fascinated with how Eli's gender or lack thereof is handled in the text, and I found it --interesting? jarring?-- that the author switches from referring to Eli as "she" to "he."
Swedish differs from English in that you can get away with it without using pronouns. JAL never uses "her" or "him" about Eli in the narrative; he gets away with it because he knows exactly what to do....Is it too difficult to translate the story into English without using pronouns, or did the translator decide to make her own interpretation? I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter!
Sometimes a professor will have a class write a research assignment using nothing but nouns. That's possible (but still hard) because these assignments are always in the third person, and there is little of that. One can write, "This research will" instead of "I will," for example, or "The author stated" rather than "He or she stated."
But in nontechnical and nonformal writing, pronouns are necessary and ubiquitous, and singular third-person pronouns are just about always gender specific. An exception would be
it, but
it can't substitute for
he or
she.
So, in the novel, in Swedish, JAL was able to make a point of avoiding gender-specific pronouns. I like the idea of clipping them! "Went home. Petted cat. Opened WTI forum on computer..."
Comes now the film: No need for pronouns while watching it. But two problems arise. Eli says she's not a girl, but she is, and Lina is. And even Elif Ceylan is, who dubs Eli's voice. Second, how do you write a fan fiction in English without picking between
he and
she? I picked
she for "When I Am With You," and that worked for me. It's just about Eli in the film. Only the names Håkan and Elias (mentioned once) are from the novel. All of the action is what you see on the screen.
But, in case I was missing something, I decided much later to rewrite the story using
he and
him for Eli. It was rather charming at first. I think attraction between two boys or two girls is just as precious as attraction between a boy and a girl. But it soon grew to be not only
not charming, but it became a different story. Instead of a tweener romance between two kids, one of whom is a once-human vampire, gender became a very intrusive element. It became a different story.
And of course, I could no longer get away with only introducing Eli and Oskar's names until after they introduced, which is a nice touch the way I retold the story. Until then, I had used "the boy" and "the girl," with free use of
he and
she. Much had to change when converted sentences came out like, "The boy wondered if the boy would still play with him when he returned from the country." Context would be a clue, but which
he is returning from the country?
In the end, you could be very clever and use some of JAL's tricks to hide gender, but it is considerably more difficult in English. If I tried it, I'm afraid it would make "When I Am With You" even more about gender and less about the tender affection that Oskar and Eli come to have for one another.
But you, seigezunt, are a writer. So, as drakkar wrote, I too would like to hear your thoughts on hiding gender in English. Or in German, for that matter. I see that German uses reflexive pronouns like the Swedish
sig (Edit: and
sin/sitt. Thanks drakkar), but grammar is so tied to gender in German that the same problem could arise.
In re: Eli/Elias. JAL was slick to use Eli. As you say, drakkar, it's mostly neutral (slight shift to male), but Elias is overwhelmingly male. In the U.S., Eli is male, as well. And in the U.K., I guess, which makes it interesting in the play when Eli says her name is EE-lie, as in "lie down."