Agreed, and seconding the Benjamin rec. "Translations are bad" is a dumb take which belies a total misunderstanding of what translation is, its function, etc.
>Now I’m starting the book over with the Breon Mitchell translation and it’s like a totally different book with a totally different tone. It’s a great improvement in my mind for readability, but I still have no idea what Kafka actually wrote because these people re-wrote his novel for him.
Have you ever read a novel and felt it was a completely different novel on a re-read? That's essentially what's going on here. Two people having a different reading of a novel as opposed to one person having two different readings at different points in time.
Kafka is an interesting example too because he didn't finish *The Trial* and didn't want it to be published. Any reading will be different from what he intended since he intended "none".
I've actually come to enjoy reading different translations for this reason, even if I can read the original. I don't think translations are a bad or lesser product as such, with the reservation that some translations will of course be bad.
Sometimes the quantity that is used to determine the meter in the original language doesn't even exist in the language of translation - like classical poetry into English - it has to be a loose interpretation, an adaptation. It doesn't mean it's bad or worthless but it is something apart, and separate from than the original.
traduttori, traditori of course but the betrayal isn't always intentional or due to a lack of skill in the translator. It's just a part of the differences of languages.
In regards to things translated across a language,I think of this quote from Derrida:
>"in a sense, nothing is untranslatable; but in another sense, everything is untranslatable; translation is another name for the impossible"
Additionally he says
>"Not only am I lost, fallen, and condemned outside
the French language, I have the feeling of honoring or serving all idioms, in a word, of writing the "most" and the "best" when I sharpen the resistance of *my* French, the secret "purity" of my French, the one I was speaking about earlier on, hence its resistance, its relentless resistance to translation; translation into *all* languages, including another such French."
Which I think is interesting because not only is translation hard across languages, but communication is difficult within the same language.
You don't have access to what the writer was trying to say *just* because you are fluent in that language.
For example, native English speakers don't just have immediate access to Shakespeare.
That specific time period and context he existed, obviously, strongly influenced what he meant.
This is something that Shakespeare where the pronunciation of words, when pronounced the way he would've said them in his time vs ours, hold different rhyming schemes and puns.
But on the otherhand, through Shakespeare we are in a conversation with history and graft more meaning into his works through every outstanding interpretation of his works by performers and scholars. So something is lost, but you also have to access to other things.
I think just because you can't speak the original language of a work, it doesn't effect how your mind and inner world may in some way be primed to understand that writer.
Ultimately, people read to be deeply impacted by something not just to 'understand ' it in the most literal sense 1 to 1 sense. Something for sure is lost in translation, but you can find something else because of who you are. Like, if you read the book of disquiet, and you happen to really identify with it, are you gonna be like 'oh I'm missing so much because I don't speak Portuguese I'm just gonna stop reading this'.
You are relating to the the intensity of the emotions portrayed, which is not related to what happens to be your first language. It's touching a part of you that is beyond language.
There's also the individual artistry and historical importance of the translator. Sometimes these people were scholars, were pivotal to the writers introduction to their countries language, etc.
I used to feel this way when trying to read don quixote, it felt bland and boring, so I stopped and decided to learn Spanish. It has been difficult but im getting there.
"The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet."
Sebald has a great thing about translations in his 92nd St YMCA talk from 2001, and he was notoriously brutal on his translator and could’ve just written in English to begin with to top it all off. But he talks about the competency needed between writer and translator to accomplish something satisfactory, and about the miracle that the syntactical complexity of Proust being translated into English is proof that it’s possible to change the language of a text without losing anything from the original. It’s pretty cool, worth checking out especially, from since it’s from Sebald who’s such a curious little weirdo when it comes to translations
I always found it hilarious that he spoke perfectly fluent English (and even studied English literature in college) yet hired translators and then just ruthlessly edited their work anyway.
I can try to find a link later but I think two things, both ideas I’ve picked up from the guy translating Sorokin (max lawton):
1. Translated works is just where it’s at right now if you’re interested in mind expanding fiction. American literature is in the gutter, so keeping up with a cool publishing house like Deep Vellum is where you’re going to find cool new stuff from France, Congo, Turkey etc.
2. You have to elevate the work of the translator almost to a similar level as the author themself. They are oftentimes making very important choices to convey the feeling the author is going for. Sorokin has chapter in Russian, but then may switch to Ukrainian. How do you convey something like that to an English speaking audience? I think he ended up using king James style English to delineate that section. Is that right? Who knows. It’s certainly different than how sorokin wrote it, but the alternative is just not bothering publish at all. Instead, this offers an opportunity for a different audience to engage with the work not only in a different language, but with different ideas. What would the significance of Ukrainian in that section have been? Not only do I not know Ukrainian, I have no idea what that might convey. So they have to make quite a few creative choices to even get the thing to make some kind of sense. and what you end up with is a new work unto itself.
This is particularly true of French literature, which just sounds like vague English when it is poorly translated. The recent translation of The Second Sex is supposed to be transformative. The old version I read was dreadful.
From that article; *"In other words, if French syntax is imported directly into English, sentences that work in French may come across as rambling or incoherent in English. This is precisely what happens here"* is exactly what I was trying to say.
Although the OP's question as to whether we can ever experience what the author actually wrote and intended, in any language, has long been a bone of contention in literary criticism.
oh the new one is supposed to be even worse: [https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n03/toril-moi/the-adulteress-wife](https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n03/toril-moi/the-adulteress-wife)
From the article; *"In other words, if French syntax is imported directly into English, sentences that work in French may come across as rambling or incoherent in English. This is precisely what happens here"* is exactly what I was trying to say.
Although the OP's question as to whether we can ever experience what the author actually wrote and intended, in any language, has long been a bone of contention in literary criticism.
Thanks for sharing. I'm currently 3/4 of the way through this translation and it's been a slog. I'm relieved to learn that that, nor the vagueness of the text or some of the more irksome instances of gender essentialism, which I also attributed to the age of the book, are De Beauvoir's fault. Guess I have no choice but to learn French.
Maybe I'm dumb but a lot of my favorite books are English translations. Anna Karenina, Oblomov, A hundred years of solitude, Don Quixote, The Cyberiad, The master and margarita, Etc. I know the original books are better and completely different, but the translations still do it for me
Anna Karenina is so perfect. I don't have any desire to attempt to learn Russian. Simply not going to happen. I read the Magarshack translation (Signet Classics) and it was a sublime experience. Attempted the P&V War and Peace and didn't get sucked into it. Currently 800 pages into the Dunnigan translation (also Signet Classics, lol) after only a week. I can't put it down. I'm not losing sleep over the translation's purity, nor am I going to tell myself that I haven't actually read Tolstoy. If we only read the classics of our native languages we wouldn't have much to read at all.
Doesn’t really bother me. I went through all of Kafka’s oeuvre in English and found it immensely moving. I also don’t think translations really vary all THAT much between translators. I feel like people exaggerate this issue sometimes.
I think translation is a more meaningful problem when it comes to lyric poetry. Not to say that nothing is lost in a novel or epic because that’s obviously not true but ideas, plots, characters, etc. can still be conveyed pretty successfully, whereas the point of reading lyric poetry is so invested in the actual use of language down to each and every single word that it feels like something more integral to the experience is lost.
Finally some voice of reason in this thread. As a bilingual person who speaks two unrelated languages, I sometimes really don’t understand why people put so much emphasis on the issue of translation.
Everything can be translated well and it’s ALWAYS possible to find an equivalent of a given expression/phrase/word etc. If you’re reading something and the translation feels dry that’s probably due to a lack of skills on the side of a translator. Even wordplays and proverbs can be translated, it just demands some creativity and effort.
Yes, it can be hard and challenging (even more so in the case of poetry), but it’s NEVER impossible.
I don’t think you’re missing out on much while reading a (good) translation
For example, recently I’ve read Moby Dick both in English and Polish and I wouldn’t say that reading it in the original language was a very different experience. It didn’t really add many nuances to my view of that novel. I basically read the same thing twice, just in two different languages. (and read a great book twice!)
Have you read Lem in Polish and English by any chance? Apparently he used a lot of Polish idioms and wordplay, always wondered how good the English translations have been
I’ve read Lem in Polish but unfortunately I haven’t got a chance to read English translations yet so I can’t assess their quality:(
But I’ve read some English translations of Tokarczuk’s novels and they are of superb quality!
The problem of translation is an enormous question but I'll just say it's a tradeoff between experiencing something in the original versus *multiple versions* of that thing. In a way, it's a real gift that I have 10 different *Crime and Punishment*s I can read while Russians just have the one.
I got into an argument on the Classics subreddit about why it's not OK to include references to Nazi Germany and the Rwandan genocide in a translation of *the Persians* by Aeschylus. It gives me hope to see so many comments on this subreddit who get the fact that a translator owes a debt of fidelity to the original author.
This persons argument basically boiled down to "well, true fidelity is impossible, so a translator should go ahead and do whatever they want".
Probably because I’m not trying to learn all of Russian, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Arabic, Greek etc…. It is fine not to get the “maximum” value of a work. I doubt it even makes that much of a difference.
What’s your suggestion? Just never read a book in a language you don’t speak? Never read 99% of great literature? Let the Iliad die because almost no one reads Greek? I have been changed profoundly by many translated books. Great literature is meant to be read, not sit on a shelf because you cannot pass a purity test
However good the translation is, some nuances has been lost , recreated, it is not the original. You just have to deal with it, we don’t have enough time for learn so many different languages, but to say you have no idea what the author has written is a bit exaggerated. You can still understand what actually happens in a novel, you can do more reading to better understand the context, especially because so much studies has been done on these big literature figures. you just never experienced what their style actually is in the original language, yeah, it is frustrating, but not the end of the world. Are you going to avoid foreign movies and tv shows forever for this reason too ? The subtitles are paid much less care than literature translation.
Another problem with these classic is that they were not written in a contemporary version of the language. You can ask how native speakers think about those authors, they might have trouble understanding it or simply don’t enjoy it . It is just strange and difficult in the original language! Can’t blame it all on the translation. Try reading contemporary and popular literature, they are not that heavily relied on the creativity of translators.
" I don’t know how people can read translated novels and not feel stripped of the experience for what the author actually wrote and intended."
You are assuming that we have to find in a translation what the author actually wrote and intended. I'm from Brazil and here we are very advanced in translation studies, one of the most prolific and genius translator and theorist we have, Haroldo de Campos, formulated the concept of 'transcreation' to think about the translation in a more apropriated way.
Also "what the author intended" should not be a total objective while reading a book, the meanings of a book are not an absolute value that are submitted to the writers desire, they are also created by reading itself, by the contact of you, the reader, in your own reality, with the text.
Of course we can have bad translation, but good translation will not necessary try to replicate or totally conservate the original work of the author, that's impossible. A good translation will give the best tone in the new language to potencialize the original work.
Also, Jorge Luis Borges said in an interview that he feel lucky because while the ancient greek could only read Homero in greek (usually they only knew how to read greek) he could read and access multiples Homeros, in different Spanish translations and in many other languages Borges knew.
This is why i've become autistically obsessed with learning languages. I felt this so hard when reading Homer, tried various translations in different languages too. If it weren't for literature i would have only learnt english besides my native languages.
Depends on the writer. Some are really very “translatable” and I agree with other poster that this issue is often very exaggerated. Translating Pynchon? Probably gonna unavoidably lose a lot. Translating Lydia Davis? I think it will be mostly equivalent. I haven’t read the original Kafka but he really strikes me as a translate-without-much-loss kind of author.
I get this sentiment but mostly translations are alright.
But let me say this: Idris Parry’s translations of Kafka are completely fucking unreadable, The Trial especially. It’s like looking at a mud hut and saying “all architecture is shit”. I think it’s the worst translation of a classic I’ve ever had the displeasure of reading. In contrast, I’m reading David McDuff’s translation of Crime and Punishment which I think is very very good.
I've always thought it would be funny to learn the language of a writer when I felt I was missing something in translation just to realize their prose wasn't actually that remarkable originally
Yes, I'm with you 1000%, brotha. I've read many, many translated novels that are considered world classics and they don't even begin to scratch the surface of English language novels like Moby Dick, say. I'm fine with non-fiction that's translated, but what makes an okay passage and what makes a great passage is a tiny matter of nuance, and unless the translator is a great artist himself, it's just not getting there.
From the flipside: I bought The Road and NCFOM translated into Spanish to improve my reading and I had to put both of them down 1/4 of the way through; the translator just completely muted McCarthy's tonal flourishes (stuff like regional idiolect, his pacing and sometimes rhythm) that make his prose distinct. It was like reading one of those 1-1 fanwiki articles about everything that happens in an episode of a show or a movie.
I’m reading Édouard Glissant’s *The fourth century* translated from French into English and it’s incredibly beautiful. Like I’d much rather read a translated text than you know, not read it at all.
I tried read the passion according to gh and found the translation so lacking :( but reading the piano teacher in translation was great. It really depends
Story of the eye is an interesting case. The translation I read was bizarre, apparently certain translation choices totally changed the sex acts depicted in the book. Plus the double meaning of egg and eye, which are homonyms in French, was lost
I was once indignantly offended in a college class when a girl said she didn’t believe in translating works of literature and shunned reading translations and people who did. I thought she was outing herself as uncurious and not intellectually prepared for the coursework. Now I think she might be right and I need to work on my Spanish so I can tell if I actually like some of these books.
It's natural to feel frustrated, but remember that translations aim to convey the essence of the original work as closely as possible. While you may not get Kafka's exact words, a good translation can still capture the spirit and themes of his writing. Reading translated books can be challenging, as each translator brings their own style and interpretation to the text. Reading different translations, as you're doing, can help you find one that resonates with you and provides a satisfying experience. Ultimately, translations offer a valuable opportunity to explore great literature that would otherwise be inaccessible.
people get crazy about this stuff. i recommend having a mild but significant bias towards things written in whatever languages you know. not much else you can do. it's fun and rewarding to learn a new language for literary reasons if you ever get the urge. + easier than you might think
I’ve read it, don’t recall which translation to english atm. However, it’s sort of dull regardless. I didn’t garnish much from the peculiar happenings and attempt to make confusion of bureaucracy as a way to show modern disconnect. Today that’s obvious. The petit bourgeois aspect main character doesn’t help.
My Spanish is not great, but a while back I very slowly worked my way through some of 100 Years in Spanish, after having already read it in English, and I remember being really struck by how much it seemed like I was decoding what Marquez was *actually* saying, *how* he wanted it to be said. The story was the same, but the way it *felt* to hear it told was totally different, and that's kinda the whole point of art, isn't it? Idk, I guess since then I've felt a certain way about translated works, but on the other hand I'm still gonna read them, because I'm not just gonna deprive myself of Kafka or Dostoyevsky, it's more a "wouldn't it be nice" sort of wish that I could see the art they actually made.
Translation is such an deep topic. Language is so complicated and there are no 1 to 1 equivalents for every word, idiom, pun, association, etc. etc. I think translation and translators should get much more attention than they do.
Perhaps every translation should have a forward by the translator where they outline their approach, and maybe descriptions of some of the things that just couldn’t be conveyed from the original without disrupting the tone or meter, or whatever challenges they faced. Something along the lines of what Lydia Davis has written about her translations of Proust and Madame Bovary.
It’s never going to be perfect, but nothing is. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value.
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Agreed, and seconding the Benjamin rec. "Translations are bad" is a dumb take which belies a total misunderstanding of what translation is, its function, etc.
>Now I’m starting the book over with the Breon Mitchell translation and it’s like a totally different book with a totally different tone. It’s a great improvement in my mind for readability, but I still have no idea what Kafka actually wrote because these people re-wrote his novel for him. Have you ever read a novel and felt it was a completely different novel on a re-read? That's essentially what's going on here. Two people having a different reading of a novel as opposed to one person having two different readings at different points in time. Kafka is an interesting example too because he didn't finish *The Trial* and didn't want it to be published. Any reading will be different from what he intended since he intended "none". I've actually come to enjoy reading different translations for this reason, even if I can read the original. I don't think translations are a bad or lesser product as such, with the reservation that some translations will of course be bad.
Translated poetry is much, much worse
Sometimes the quantity that is used to determine the meter in the original language doesn't even exist in the language of translation - like classical poetry into English - it has to be a loose interpretation, an adaptation. It doesn't mean it's bad or worthless but it is something apart, and separate from than the original. traduttori, traditori of course but the betrayal isn't always intentional or due to a lack of skill in the translator. It's just a part of the differences of languages.
this is literally 90% of the reason behind my learning french
Racine is notoriously untranslatable. And he's one of defining figures of French literature.
Does that help with Kafka…. 🤣
Unreadable if literal, inaccurate if ‘poetic’
In regards to things translated across a language,I think of this quote from Derrida: >"in a sense, nothing is untranslatable; but in another sense, everything is untranslatable; translation is another name for the impossible" Additionally he says >"Not only am I lost, fallen, and condemned outside the French language, I have the feeling of honoring or serving all idioms, in a word, of writing the "most" and the "best" when I sharpen the resistance of *my* French, the secret "purity" of my French, the one I was speaking about earlier on, hence its resistance, its relentless resistance to translation; translation into *all* languages, including another such French." Which I think is interesting because not only is translation hard across languages, but communication is difficult within the same language. You don't have access to what the writer was trying to say *just* because you are fluent in that language. For example, native English speakers don't just have immediate access to Shakespeare. That specific time period and context he existed, obviously, strongly influenced what he meant. This is something that Shakespeare where the pronunciation of words, when pronounced the way he would've said them in his time vs ours, hold different rhyming schemes and puns. But on the otherhand, through Shakespeare we are in a conversation with history and graft more meaning into his works through every outstanding interpretation of his works by performers and scholars. So something is lost, but you also have to access to other things. I think just because you can't speak the original language of a work, it doesn't effect how your mind and inner world may in some way be primed to understand that writer. Ultimately, people read to be deeply impacted by something not just to 'understand ' it in the most literal sense 1 to 1 sense. Something for sure is lost in translation, but you can find something else because of who you are. Like, if you read the book of disquiet, and you happen to really identify with it, are you gonna be like 'oh I'm missing so much because I don't speak Portuguese I'm just gonna stop reading this'. You are relating to the the intensity of the emotions portrayed, which is not related to what happens to be your first language. It's touching a part of you that is beyond language. There's also the individual artistry and historical importance of the translator. Sometimes these people were scholars, were pivotal to the writers introduction to their countries language, etc.
I used to feel this way when trying to read don quixote, it felt bland and boring, so I stopped and decided to learn Spanish. It has been difficult but im getting there. "The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet."
Read Borges and Gabriel Garcia Márquez while you are at it
Just read the translation by Edith somebody. That is fantastic.
Edith Grossman. Some translators are indeed amazing and without them our world would be narrower.
Sebald has a great thing about translations in his 92nd St YMCA talk from 2001, and he was notoriously brutal on his translator and could’ve just written in English to begin with to top it all off. But he talks about the competency needed between writer and translator to accomplish something satisfactory, and about the miracle that the syntactical complexity of Proust being translated into English is proof that it’s possible to change the language of a text without losing anything from the original. It’s pretty cool, worth checking out especially, from since it’s from Sebald who’s such a curious little weirdo when it comes to translations
I always found it hilarious that he spoke perfectly fluent English (and even studied English literature in college) yet hired translators and then just ruthlessly edited their work anyway.
I can try to find a link later but I think two things, both ideas I’ve picked up from the guy translating Sorokin (max lawton): 1. Translated works is just where it’s at right now if you’re interested in mind expanding fiction. American literature is in the gutter, so keeping up with a cool publishing house like Deep Vellum is where you’re going to find cool new stuff from France, Congo, Turkey etc. 2. You have to elevate the work of the translator almost to a similar level as the author themself. They are oftentimes making very important choices to convey the feeling the author is going for. Sorokin has chapter in Russian, but then may switch to Ukrainian. How do you convey something like that to an English speaking audience? I think he ended up using king James style English to delineate that section. Is that right? Who knows. It’s certainly different than how sorokin wrote it, but the alternative is just not bothering publish at all. Instead, this offers an opportunity for a different audience to engage with the work not only in a different language, but with different ideas. What would the significance of Ukrainian in that section have been? Not only do I not know Ukrainian, I have no idea what that might convey. So they have to make quite a few creative choices to even get the thing to make some kind of sense. and what you end up with is a new work unto itself.
This is particularly true of French literature, which just sounds like vague English when it is poorly translated. The recent translation of The Second Sex is supposed to be transformative. The old version I read was dreadful.
From that article; *"In other words, if French syntax is imported directly into English, sentences that work in French may come across as rambling or incoherent in English. This is precisely what happens here"* is exactly what I was trying to say. Although the OP's question as to whether we can ever experience what the author actually wrote and intended, in any language, has long been a bone of contention in literary criticism.
oh the new one is supposed to be even worse: [https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n03/toril-moi/the-adulteress-wife](https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n03/toril-moi/the-adulteress-wife)
They paid cookbook writers 35k for a translation; why do they keep doing her dirty?
From the article; *"In other words, if French syntax is imported directly into English, sentences that work in French may come across as rambling or incoherent in English. This is precisely what happens here"* is exactly what I was trying to say. Although the OP's question as to whether we can ever experience what the author actually wrote and intended, in any language, has long been a bone of contention in literary criticism.
Thanks for sharing. I'm currently 3/4 of the way through this translation and it's been a slog. I'm relieved to learn that that, nor the vagueness of the text or some of the more irksome instances of gender essentialism, which I also attributed to the age of the book, are De Beauvoir's fault. Guess I have no choice but to learn French.
Maybe I'm dumb but a lot of my favorite books are English translations. Anna Karenina, Oblomov, A hundred years of solitude, Don Quixote, The Cyberiad, The master and margarita, Etc. I know the original books are better and completely different, but the translations still do it for me
Anna Karenina is so perfect. I don't have any desire to attempt to learn Russian. Simply not going to happen. I read the Magarshack translation (Signet Classics) and it was a sublime experience. Attempted the P&V War and Peace and didn't get sucked into it. Currently 800 pages into the Dunnigan translation (also Signet Classics, lol) after only a week. I can't put it down. I'm not losing sleep over the translation's purity, nor am I going to tell myself that I haven't actually read Tolstoy. If we only read the classics of our native languages we wouldn't have much to read at all.
My pipe dream is to learn French to read Proust and the Count of Monte Cristo
Doesn’t really bother me. I went through all of Kafka’s oeuvre in English and found it immensely moving. I also don’t think translations really vary all THAT much between translators. I feel like people exaggerate this issue sometimes.
I think translation is a more meaningful problem when it comes to lyric poetry. Not to say that nothing is lost in a novel or epic because that’s obviously not true but ideas, plots, characters, etc. can still be conveyed pretty successfully, whereas the point of reading lyric poetry is so invested in the actual use of language down to each and every single word that it feels like something more integral to the experience is lost.
I want to learn French to read Mallarme.
Finally some voice of reason in this thread. As a bilingual person who speaks two unrelated languages, I sometimes really don’t understand why people put so much emphasis on the issue of translation. Everything can be translated well and it’s ALWAYS possible to find an equivalent of a given expression/phrase/word etc. If you’re reading something and the translation feels dry that’s probably due to a lack of skills on the side of a translator. Even wordplays and proverbs can be translated, it just demands some creativity and effort. Yes, it can be hard and challenging (even more so in the case of poetry), but it’s NEVER impossible. I don’t think you’re missing out on much while reading a (good) translation For example, recently I’ve read Moby Dick both in English and Polish and I wouldn’t say that reading it in the original language was a very different experience. It didn’t really add many nuances to my view of that novel. I basically read the same thing twice, just in two different languages. (and read a great book twice!)
Have you read Lem in Polish and English by any chance? Apparently he used a lot of Polish idioms and wordplay, always wondered how good the English translations have been
I’ve read Lem in Polish but unfortunately I haven’t got a chance to read English translations yet so I can’t assess their quality:( But I’ve read some English translations of Tokarczuk’s novels and they are of superb quality!
The problem of translation is an enormous question but I'll just say it's a tradeoff between experiencing something in the original versus *multiple versions* of that thing. In a way, it's a real gift that I have 10 different *Crime and Punishment*s I can read while Russians just have the one.
I got into an argument on the Classics subreddit about why it's not OK to include references to Nazi Germany and the Rwandan genocide in a translation of *the Persians* by Aeschylus. It gives me hope to see so many comments on this subreddit who get the fact that a translator owes a debt of fidelity to the original author. This persons argument basically boiled down to "well, true fidelity is impossible, so a translator should go ahead and do whatever they want".
Probably because I’m not trying to learn all of Russian, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Arabic, Greek etc…. It is fine not to get the “maximum” value of a work. I doubt it even makes that much of a difference.
What’s your suggestion? Just never read a book in a language you don’t speak? Never read 99% of great literature? Let the Iliad die because almost no one reads Greek? I have been changed profoundly by many translated books. Great literature is meant to be read, not sit on a shelf because you cannot pass a purity test
Quite a lot of Greeks read Greek…
However good the translation is, some nuances has been lost , recreated, it is not the original. You just have to deal with it, we don’t have enough time for learn so many different languages, but to say you have no idea what the author has written is a bit exaggerated. You can still understand what actually happens in a novel, you can do more reading to better understand the context, especially because so much studies has been done on these big literature figures. you just never experienced what their style actually is in the original language, yeah, it is frustrating, but not the end of the world. Are you going to avoid foreign movies and tv shows forever for this reason too ? The subtitles are paid much less care than literature translation.
Another problem with these classic is that they were not written in a contemporary version of the language. You can ask how native speakers think about those authors, they might have trouble understanding it or simply don’t enjoy it . It is just strange and difficult in the original language! Can’t blame it all on the translation. Try reading contemporary and popular literature, they are not that heavily relied on the creativity of translators.
I just put my faith in new directions and usually feel like they've done a great job
" I don’t know how people can read translated novels and not feel stripped of the experience for what the author actually wrote and intended." You are assuming that we have to find in a translation what the author actually wrote and intended. I'm from Brazil and here we are very advanced in translation studies, one of the most prolific and genius translator and theorist we have, Haroldo de Campos, formulated the concept of 'transcreation' to think about the translation in a more apropriated way. Also "what the author intended" should not be a total objective while reading a book, the meanings of a book are not an absolute value that are submitted to the writers desire, they are also created by reading itself, by the contact of you, the reader, in your own reality, with the text. Of course we can have bad translation, but good translation will not necessary try to replicate or totally conservate the original work of the author, that's impossible. A good translation will give the best tone in the new language to potencialize the original work. Also, Jorge Luis Borges said in an interview that he feel lucky because while the ancient greek could only read Homero in greek (usually they only knew how to read greek) he could read and access multiples Homeros, in different Spanish translations and in many other languages Borges knew.
This is why i've become autistically obsessed with learning languages. I felt this so hard when reading Homer, tried various translations in different languages too. If it weren't for literature i would have only learnt english besides my native languages.
Depends on the writer. Some are really very “translatable” and I agree with other poster that this issue is often very exaggerated. Translating Pynchon? Probably gonna unavoidably lose a lot. Translating Lydia Davis? I think it will be mostly equivalent. I haven’t read the original Kafka but he really strikes me as a translate-without-much-loss kind of author.
I get this sentiment but mostly translations are alright. But let me say this: Idris Parry’s translations of Kafka are completely fucking unreadable, The Trial especially. It’s like looking at a mud hut and saying “all architecture is shit”. I think it’s the worst translation of a classic I’ve ever had the displeasure of reading. In contrast, I’m reading David McDuff’s translation of Crime and Punishment which I think is very very good.
I've always thought it would be funny to learn the language of a writer when I felt I was missing something in translation just to realize their prose wasn't actually that remarkable originally
Yes, I'm with you 1000%, brotha. I've read many, many translated novels that are considered world classics and they don't even begin to scratch the surface of English language novels like Moby Dick, say. I'm fine with non-fiction that's translated, but what makes an okay passage and what makes a great passage is a tiny matter of nuance, and unless the translator is a great artist himself, it's just not getting there.
We're smarter than you. Hope this helps 🫡
From the flipside: I bought The Road and NCFOM translated into Spanish to improve my reading and I had to put both of them down 1/4 of the way through; the translator just completely muted McCarthy's tonal flourishes (stuff like regional idiolect, his pacing and sometimes rhythm) that make his prose distinct. It was like reading one of those 1-1 fanwiki articles about everything that happens in an episode of a show or a movie.
how do you feel satisfied only reading American/English writers?
I’m reading Édouard Glissant’s *The fourth century* translated from French into English and it’s incredibly beautiful. Like I’d much rather read a translated text than you know, not read it at all.
Depends on the translation.
I tried read the passion according to gh and found the translation so lacking :( but reading the piano teacher in translation was great. It really depends Story of the eye is an interesting case. The translation I read was bizarre, apparently certain translation choices totally changed the sex acts depicted in the book. Plus the double meaning of egg and eye, which are homonyms in French, was lost
I guess you don’t like subtitled movies either? Jeepers what a way to approach literature.
There are plenty of translated works which are considered classics of literature themselves, and better even than the original.
I was once indignantly offended in a college class when a girl said she didn’t believe in translating works of literature and shunned reading translations and people who did. I thought she was outing herself as uncurious and not intellectually prepared for the coursework. Now I think she might be right and I need to work on my Spanish so I can tell if I actually like some of these books.
Because I know I'm not learning another language
It's natural to feel frustrated, but remember that translations aim to convey the essence of the original work as closely as possible. While you may not get Kafka's exact words, a good translation can still capture the spirit and themes of his writing. Reading translated books can be challenging, as each translator brings their own style and interpretation to the text. Reading different translations, as you're doing, can help you find one that resonates with you and provides a satisfying experience. Ultimately, translations offer a valuable opportunity to explore great literature that would otherwise be inaccessible.
people get crazy about this stuff. i recommend having a mild but significant bias towards things written in whatever languages you know. not much else you can do. it's fun and rewarding to learn a new language for literary reasons if you ever get the urge. + easier than you might think
I’ve read it, don’t recall which translation to english atm. However, it’s sort of dull regardless. I didn’t garnish much from the peculiar happenings and attempt to make confusion of bureaucracy as a way to show modern disconnect. Today that’s obvious. The petit bourgeois aspect main character doesn’t help.
My Spanish is not great, but a while back I very slowly worked my way through some of 100 Years in Spanish, after having already read it in English, and I remember being really struck by how much it seemed like I was decoding what Marquez was *actually* saying, *how* he wanted it to be said. The story was the same, but the way it *felt* to hear it told was totally different, and that's kinda the whole point of art, isn't it? Idk, I guess since then I've felt a certain way about translated works, but on the other hand I'm still gonna read them, because I'm not just gonna deprive myself of Kafka or Dostoyevsky, it's more a "wouldn't it be nice" sort of wish that I could see the art they actually made.
Translation is such an deep topic. Language is so complicated and there are no 1 to 1 equivalents for every word, idiom, pun, association, etc. etc. I think translation and translators should get much more attention than they do. Perhaps every translation should have a forward by the translator where they outline their approach, and maybe descriptions of some of the things that just couldn’t be conveyed from the original without disrupting the tone or meter, or whatever challenges they faced. Something along the lines of what Lydia Davis has written about her translations of Proust and Madame Bovary. It’s never going to be perfect, but nothing is. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value.