David Connolly's 2015 annual lecture of the UK Society for Modern Greek StudiesFootnote ¹ presented such a bleak account of the lot of the translator of modern Greek literature into English that the assembled Neohellenists may have feared for his perseverance with that thankless pursuit. The appearance of the volume under review is therefore doubly a cause for celebration, the second reason being C.'s felicitous choice of text with which to resume the unprofitable fray. Well may Roïdes' Η Πάπισσα Ἰωάννα rank among the most translated of modern Greek novels and boast five English renderings or adaptations since 1886, with one version (by Lawrence Durrell) regularly reissued by major presses since 1954; but C.'s task was an overdue salvage mission. Nowhere, it is true, does he make that claim; on the contrary, in his 2015 lecture he bemoaned (inter multa alia) the commercial underperformance of modern Greek fiction in English translation, while making no mention of the vandalism wrought upon its classics by prominent publishers and celebrity translators who achieved greater visibility. Other egregious cases, apart from Durrell's ‘adaptation’, include Kazantzakis’ Zorba the Greek (recently rescued by Peter BienFootnote ²) and Papadiamandis’ The Murderess (redeemed by Liadain SherrardFootnote ³).

In what follows, C.'s laudably accurate translation will be repeatedly contrasted with Durrell's cavalier ‘adaptation’, proclaimed on the cover of the 1971 André Deutsch edition as ‘a brilliant re-creation rather than a translation'Footnote ⁴. Accordingly, the dustcover of that edition emblazons ‘Pope Joan Lawrence Durrell’ on its spine, earning the usurper the title of the Lord Elgin of translatorsFootnote ⁵. The hijacking, compounded by accusations of plagiarism of earlier translations, still rankles with Greek commentators, to judge by periodic postings on the email-list of the International Lawrence Durrell Society (https://lists.uvic.ca/pipermail/ilds/) and the back cover of a recent graphic novel of Ἡ Πάπισσα Ιωάννα whose English translation by Peter Mackridge is announced on the back cover, to redress the ‘injustice’ of the pretence that the work is Durrell's creationFootnote ⁶.

The Durrell brand and publishing networks did at least raise awareness of the novel Pope Joan across the Anglosphere, as far afield as the antipodes, where another adaptor, the Melbourne artist Emily Hope, ‘chose to write a story […] with all the best of Emmanuel Royidis [sic], I hope, but without his insensitivity'Footnote ⁷. Her debt to Durrell is clear from her use of his idiosyncratic version of the Greek author's name, and she turned the allegedly insensitive tale into ‘a celebration of womankind’, as the poet Judith Rodriguez noted in a foreword, amplifying the anti-patriarchal dimension of ‘an idea people will not let die […] despite official church history’ (ibid.vii f.). Pope Joan went on to become something of a cult figure in Melbourne, and not just among feminists: there is an all-day cafe named for her in the city's central business district, her appeal having doubtless been boosted by the numerous other spin-offs of the legend in film, in print and on stage (C.'s introduction lists several, 8 fn.3), and amidst a groundswell of local outrage at the contemporary effluvia from what Roïdes termed ‘the ecclesiastical mire’ (31)Footnote ⁸.

In his introduction C. diplomatically styles Durrell's adaptation ‘rather free and racy’ (10), but implicitly pays it a backhanded compliment in avoiding its phraseology even where the latter's jaunty appropriation of Roïdes’ text veers towards something resembling translation. Convergences are rare, as in the hapax legomenon ‘pontifical palanquin’ (147, denoting the medieval precursor to today's Popemobile). Indeed juxtaposition of these two English versions repeatedly shows up the failure of the fig-leaf ‘adaptation’ to cover up an inadequate grasp of Greek syntax and vocabulary on the part of Durrell (and/or the versions he allegedly plagiarized). Compounded by lapses of attention, this deficiency results in the wrong characters scurrying from a room, Semele becoming Selene, pilgrimages shrinking into mere genuflections (twice), a baggage-carrier (ἀχθοφόρος) morphing into a door-keeper (presumably via ‘porter')… — the list of gaffes is endless. Remarkably they seem to have eluded Durrell's erudite proofreader Theodore D. Stephanides, whose assurance that ‘we capture Royidis a bit’ seems to have emboldened the translator's heedless self-indulgenceFootnote ⁹.

By contrast, C. proves equal to the many challenges posed by Roïdes’ novel and its paratextualia. A small example of his finesse as a translator is his firm-handed and relatively user-friendly treatment of the great profusion of abstruse toponyms and proper names, whereas Durrell, having havered even between ‘Joan’ and ‘Joanna’ in his Preface, lurches in the narrative from ‘Albis’ to ‘Elbe’ and back again, among many more confusing inconsistencies. Connolly also sticks closely to the original Greek where Durrell is inspired to spare the English reader some of Roïdes’ tedious divagations from a preferably brisk romp through the Middle Ages. In retaining even the most laborious of Roïdes’ stilted witticisms and similes (e.g. ‘Her cheeks became hollow like the ships of the Achaeans’, 131), Connolly makes fully available to the English reader the not insignificant persona of the narrator and his compulsive desire ‘to season that most unpalatable of all foods: medieval ecclesiastical history’ (30). C.'s restorations also reveal some tendentious uncluttering on Durrell's part, such as the elimination of Roïdes’ parenthetical swipe at the hypocrisy of the English abolitionists’ ‘adding to their tea sugar and rum, the sweat and blood of the blacks’ (138), a jibe that would not sit well with Durrell's cooption of the Greek author as ‘naturally an Anglophile'. Conversely C. has wisely ignored Durrell's otiose insertions into the text, such as the expanded inventory of the ‘furniture of the medieval Hell’ in Part Four and the pointless expatiation on St Vitus’ Dance in his chaotic medley of endnotes. In handling the paratextualia, C. consistently differentiates the author's notes from his own translator's notes and makes judicious selections from Roïdes’ copious annotations and supplementary matter. Typically C. adverts to Roïdes’ modification of a quotation from Euripides (181 fn.1), whereas Durrell tacitly ‘corrects’ it. He also goes to the trouble of following through a reference in one of the author's footnotes into an endnote on myths of immaculate conception (218 fn.28). Alas, neither annotator elucidates Roïdes’ reference to Simonides and the Berliners (39), nor to Kriezotis and the bear (48 — Durrell refers vaguely to Modern Greek folklore).

Only rarely might heeding Durrell's version more closely have paid off for C.: the dry sticks were to light [not heat] the supper (40) and Joan closed her father's eye [singular] (52). Again on one of the rare occasions where Roïdes himself appears to nod, attributing Louis’ sons to Charles, Durrell corrects him while C. doesn't (119). Elsewhere both translators intrude to clarify another possible oversight on Roïdes’ part in the reference to Odysseus’ encounter with the Sirens (165). Perhaps sensibly, neither Durrell nor C. engages with Roïdes’ parenthetic allusion to intralinguistic Greek issues where he offers the archaist reader the form βήξ as an alternative to βήχας (171), or with the pun on ἐπίσκοτος / ἐπίσκοπος to denote an imminently benighted bishop (156); a translator's note on both would have been handy, particularly as C. addresses the implications of modern Greek diglossia for the translator's choice of register (12). However, C. does neatly render the pun παρθενοτροφεῖα / παρθενοφθορεῖα as ‘nunneries / sinneries’ (128). As for the challenge posed by the neologism παπίδιον applied by Roïdes to the she-pope's offspring, C. translates ‘the popess and pope-spawn’ (229 f.), where Durrell merely transliterates ‘the poor Papissa and her Papidion'.

In his 2015 lecture C. reserved his sternest strictures for those nitpicking reviewers who deprive the translator of the unassailable satisfaction of a job well done (often at great personal cost) and, if they are Hellenists, uncollegially undermine the common cause of promoting Modern Greek literature. Here, to complete the set of Shakespearean chestnuts garnishing that lecture, Connolly ‘doth protest too much, methinks'. Unburdened by the obligation to proselytize (this being a specialist journal) and declining the role of reviewer as mere gift-wrapper, I shall conclude by offering in good faith a modest list of suggestions for an even better second edition: for ‘Charlemagne's brothers’ (60) read ‘sisters'; ‘With her arms around the chest of the goodly Frumentius for support’ (92) read ‘With the arms of the goodly Frumentius around her and his chest for support'; ‘black as coal’ (129) read ‘with hair as black as coal'; ‘a small spit’ (163) read ‘long'; ‘generously exuded’ (166) read ‘inhaled insatiably'; ‘sausages’ (170) read ‘sauerkraut'; ‘whenever this happens’ (172) read ‘whenever it prospers'; ‘he dined’ (178) read ‘breakfasted'; ‘painters on the isle of Syros’ (194) read ‘dyers'; ‘draught’ (212) read ‘drought'; finally, the French accentuation of the quotation from Musset (67) needs correction. Overall a meagre haul, given the length and complexity of the text; its paucity attests to a triumph of the translator's art.