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The Falling Girl

Dino Buzzati

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One of the issues with translation is that cultures and its words change meaning as well as there are untransferable idioms. Remember that the people of a different culture in the reading of a given translation may have changed over time as well. Consider what Prof. Lane Dare of ODU has reasoned in terms of the title, The Falling Girl.

· The girl may represent her generation. This loose translation of the German would denote the post WWII generation that takes the hit for the Italian older generation's abdication of their obligations to their own. 

· Perhaps it also implies a fated or destined loss/"fall" in such circumstances .

· The title might be loosely translated as "The Fall Girl" (as opposed to a "fall guy" - the guy that "takes the hit"!

· The form of the gerund in German may impact meaning. Das Fallende Madchen:  fallende is the "falling"  word in English.  It is a verb -ing form used as an adjective - i.e., a participle.  This is English’s "progressive" or "continuous" form.   But in German, the gerund is the SAME form as the INFINITIVE (i.e. "to fall") or indistinguishable in translation.  So in English, the title would simply reflect an act IN PROGRESS.  But in German it PREDICTS the fall.

The Falling Girl, an example of postmodernism, shows the influences of Surrealism, Kafka tendencies, and the theater of the absurd. Buzzati strives to focus on the ordinary person and faults modernism for having separated itself from a wider audience. Initially, a storyteller who attacked Fascism, he then criticized contemporary society with its blatant commercialism and dehumanization, its class distinctions, and insensitivity.

The story is indefinite. Required is the use of the technique called “Willing suspension of disbelief.” This means that the reader knowingly accepts the irrational in order to become involved in the story. From our current standpoint, people do not control the speed with which they fall.

There is a crushing uncomfortableness about the angst of Marta. Her orientation to the world as we know it is shows disconnect. Her behavior reflects society’s often brash separation of people. Marta is separated from what is happening to her. Again, as a reader, one wants to shake her somehow to join the “real world. “

Think of how many nonprofits there are now to do the work that places of worship, family, and neighbors once did. See how the “onlookers” are disengaged except in the most superficial way. And yet there is a critical element: a girl plunges to her death. Does mankind care? Yes, there is the tiresome and sloppy clean up time and cost, but is there concern for her life? But the real world does not care. The falling people are just air flotsam that land with thuds. Curiously, Marta is unlike the others. Did she leave her mental slumber at the last minute? Did she count the cost? Did she see society for what it is?

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