I’ve been what you might call an obsessive reader my whole life (call me a deranged nut if you want to get a bit nasty, and I can’t really object) --I have seven books right now that I’m in the middle of, and this isn’t unusual: two by my bed (one a boring book, NIXON AND KISSINGER, to help me get to sleep, the other a pleasurable book that I’ve read before), one in the bathroom, another in the other bathroom, one open in my den, one in my car, one in my pool bag.) But I’ve decided to branch out, so I just bought a translation of THE BROTHERS KARAMOZOV, which I’ve never read.
I’ve never read much Russian literature, or much work written in a language other than English. My reasons are twofold: there’s always been so much I’ve wanted to read that was written in English, and I’ve often found translations clunky, even puzzling to read, so I’ve wondered if I’d just gotten hold of a poor translation. (I think I had to read a little Gogol and Dostoyevsky in college–short stories.) But this translation didn’t seem so bad in the bookstore (Pevear and Somebody, whom I’ve read good things about)–mostly, though, I feel obliged to give Dostoyevsky and all foreign writers another try.
Do you share my aversion to foreign language literature, or does it seem like a rationalization to you? It makes sense to me, but I also feel as if I’m losing out by not reading Tolstoy, Proust, Rilke, Cervantes, and other greats just because they lacked the consideration to write their stuff in English.
I neither share your aversion, nor does it seem like a rationalization to me. People have all sorts of reasons for liking/avoiding types of fiction, and I’m not sure any of them are better/worse than others.
I do like to read foreign literature, but decades ago my wife and I were simultaneously reading different translations of Madame Bovary, and found ourselves caught up in comparing how different those translations were. I don’t actually think anything can be perfectly translated (heck, people don’t even perceive works in their own language the same way other people do), but I have some essays by Lydia French (a Proust translator) that convinced me that translators are making good-faith efforts, and to just go along for the ride.
I don’t doubt their good faith, just their competence. I was just mulling over the translation of the title THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV and wondered why it’s never been translated as THE KARAMAZOV BROTHERS which would be the more natural English phrasing. Translations always seem to me rather arch and unnatural.
You need to look for decent translations. I personally don’t care for Russian Literature in the least, but I have read wonderful literature translated from Spanish and French. Not to mention Middle and Old English.
Translation is difficult even if you have access to the author. If the author is unavailable due to either time or circumstance, there’s a ton of guesswork and inference.
Either way, as the reader you’re witnessing a conversation between the author and the translator.
A good translation is a substantial intellectual work in and of itself.
For influential authors, a bit of research will help you find respected translations. Some will be more challenging than others. Some will have different things to say about the author.
All I can tell you is that being a translator / interpreter myself by profession I try to read books in the original. It is more enjoyable, it feels more natural. And when I read a bad translation where the original shines through (i.e.: where the result is stilted or artificial and I can tell at once, knowing the source language, why this is so and how it could have been translated better) my mood darkens.
But of course I also read translated books! If I wouldn’t, I would never have read
The Brothers Karamazov (Russian: Бра́тья Карама́зовы, Brát’ya Karamázovy, pronounced [ˈbratʲjə kərɐˈmazəvɨ]), also translated as The Karamazov Brothers,
(from Wikipedia, so much for your compaining about the title)
or anything by Haruki Murakami, among many others, which would be a pity. I mean, I do understand some languages, but not Russian or Japanese, nor classic Latin or Greek.
There a many, many, many English books. If those are enough for you, fine. But you are missing something.
On the other hand, if people never read translated books, we would get rid of a lot of bad things like religion. Perhaps you are onto something.
Interesting that you bring him up since I almost mentioned him specifically in my post. The audiobook of 1Q84 has an interview with one of the translators and it was an interesting insight into what must have been a deeply challenging job.
I find Russian literature challenging even in Russian (or I did—my Russian is no longer good enough to read literature.) I only really ever read excerpts when I was taking it in grad school, but it’s very difficult to read Russian literature if you don’t know about Russian society at the time the literature was written & Russian naming customs (there is a wide variety of names, from nicknames to patronymics, that have slightly different functions).
In general, I prefer to read things in the original, but I don’t mind translations. I do think there’s a different between translated Great Literature™, where both the work and the translation might be a bit out of step with modern styles, and a translated contemporary novel.
I’ve certainly seen my share of bad translations. I was nearly put off from Homer, by reading whatever the translation was that came with the Brittanica Great Books: It was just so completely over-the-top florid that it was unreadable. But for any great book, there are always good translations out there somewhere.
I’ve never been put off by translations. I’m a huge fan of Jules Verne. The older translations of his work are garbage, with big chunks ripped out of the books, names changed for no good reason, and his politics changed. But the new translations are complete and accurate.
I’ve read Tolstoy in translation - shorter works as well as an unabridged War and Peace
Virtually all the Epic Poetry I’ve read is translated – The Iliad
The Odyssey
The Aeneid
Gilgamesh
Beowulf
El Cid
The Song of Roland
Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight
I came in here to post exactly that! Not only do I love Murakami, I love reading Murakami’s comments about translations of his work.
Assuming one’s literary interests are not extremely narrow, no one will ever run out of excellent books to read. So if the OP wants to eschew books in translation, that’s a legitimate choice. I am sort of the opposite - I enjoy reading books in translation and then reading evaluations of the translation quality! The only second language I speak with any degree of competence is Indonesian, and I am geeky enough to enjoy reading Mochtar Lubis or Pramoedya in English, then I dip into the original Indonesian to see what I think about the translation. (Not that I’m qualified to evaluate, mind you; I am most emphatically nowhere near competent enough in Indonesian to have a valid professional opinion. But just for my own fun.)
Three very different posters with very diverse backgrounds suggest Haruki Murakami in the first ten posts. OP, I think you know what you have to do.
Oh, and Gabriel García Márquez’ One Hundred Years Of Solitude is a must too, IMO.
Anyone interested in the concept of translation might want to check out Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language by Douglas Hofstadter.
In university, I tried to read Eugenie Grandet in the original French and I found I was looking up every second word in the dictionary so I gave up. (I was never very good at the passé simple, which didn’t help.)
Nowadays I have no worries about reading translated classics from Project Gutenberg and I find clunky translations more amusing than annoying (e.g. translating “ballons rouges, à la fine peau de caoutchouc” as “a red air-ball made of fine gutta-percha” instead of “red balloons made of thin rubber”).
One of my favourite authors in translation is Emile Zola. I loved L’Assommoir, L’Oeuvre, Au Bonheur des Dames, and Germinal, for instance.
I don’t read Russian literature any more, because it is so irredeemably Russian: I don’t read tragedy in any language.
But I don’t read German literature because I’ve never found translations I want to read. My theory is that German is too close to English, and the translators can’t break free of the bounds of German: passive voice and very long sentences.
I can only read books in English or French in the original. With just these two languages, I’d have more than enough great works to fill a couple of lifetimes of reading.
And yet, it would be a very sad thing if I didn’t read translated books. No Borges, Calvino, Bulgakov, Gogol, Boccaccio, Homer, Cervantes, Dante, Nietzsche, Kafka, Inoue, Akutagawa or Sophocles? That would be terrible.
Out of 10 books I’d take to the proverbial desert island, half would be ones I read in translation.
Just started Into the Niger Bend, the first half of L’Étonnante Aventure de la Mission Barsac. 1960 translation – don’t know if there are older or newer ones.
In my third-year German class we read Immensee (complete) and Die drei Kameraden (five or six chapters at the beginning). Liked the latter enough that I got the English translation from the library so I could read the whole thing.