# Has translation ever improved a book? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 13, 2014, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-translation-ever-improved-a-book/693010 "2014-07-13T19:27:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-translation-ever-improved-a-book/693010/1 "2014-07-13T19:27:15Z")
Sometimes a critic will gripe about an author’s style. Fans of the book will say “Well, that was a bad translation. If you read it in the original Ruritanian, you would love it.” Has a translated book ever gotten better reviews than the original? Was the translator a better writer than the original author? Or was the second market simply more receptive to the book than the original market? ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-translation-ever-improved-a-book/693010/2 "2014-07-13T19:32:31Z")
Famously, Gabriel Garcia Marquez is said to have preferred Gregory Rabassa’s English translation of _100 Years of Solitude_ to the original Spanish. [http://translation.utdallas.edu/Interviews/Rabassaby\_Hoeksema.html](http://translation.utdallas.edu/Interviews/Rabassaby_Hoeksema.html) ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-translation-ever-improved-a-book/693010/3 "2014-07-13T19:43:29Z")
When I was studying philosophy in college, we were told that German philosophy students learned English so that they could read the English translation of Kant, which was supposed to be more comprehensible than the German original. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-translation-ever-improved-a-book/693010/4 "2014-07-13T21:58:01Z")
Heinlein once stated that his wife Virginia learned Russian so she could read Tolstoy in the original form; she reported that the great Russian novels were significantly improved in translation. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-translation-ever-improved-a-book/693010/5 "2014-07-13T22:13:44Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > When I was studying philosophy in college, we were told that German philosophy students learned English so that they could read the English translation of Kant, which was supposed to be more comprehensible than the German original. Interesting. I once heard it claimed that, if you translate the New Testament from Greek to Aramaic, it becomes much easier to read. ---
**Author:** ![Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/arrogance_ex_machina/32/192_2.png) [@Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrogance_Ex_Machina)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-translation-ever-improved-a-book/693010/6 "2014-07-13T23:24:38Z")
I hated Hemingway’s pseudo-Spanish English in “For Whom the Bell Tolls” - I wish I had read a Finnish translation instead. Then there’s “Feersum Endjinn” by Iain M. Banks. Not sure if it has been translated, but I hated the Bascule parts written in phonetic English so much that if there is a Finnish version it most likely is an improvement. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-translation-ever-improved-a-book/693010/7 "2014-07-14T00:06:50Z")
One interesting case is _Darkness at Noon_ by Arthur Koestler. Koestler wrote it in German but apparently only two people read this original German text: Koestler and his girlfriend, Daphne Hardy. Hardy was translating the book into English as Koestler wrote it. The Germans invaded France and Koestler and Hardy had to flee to England. Koestler’s original German manuscript was lost but Hardy was able to hang on to the translated English manuscript. It was this English version which was published and later translated back into German. ---
**Author:** ![DaphneBlack](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daphneblack/32/5389_2.png) [@DaphneBlack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaphneBlack)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-translation-ever-improved-a-book/693010/8 "2014-07-14T00:25:08Z")
I think Nabokov thought that his greatest Russian novel was his translation of Lolita. He may also have said that he preferred the English translations of some of his Russian novels but I’m not sure about that. ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-translation-ever-improved-a-book/693010/9 "2014-07-14T01:54:43Z")
A woman once told James Thurber that his writings always seemed funnier in French translation, to which he replied: “Yes, I suppose they lose something in the original.” ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-translation-ever-improved-a-book/693010/10 "2014-07-14T02:28:07Z")
The English of the King James Version (and similar translations) is often of a higher literary quality than the Greek, and sometimes of the Hebrew. Sources to back this opinion include: _History of the Bible in English_ by F. F. Bruce _The Book of God and Man_ by Rabbi Robert Gordis _Introduction to the New Testament_ by Father Raymond E. Brown _The King James Bible Translators_ by Olga S. Opfell ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-translation-ever-improved-a-book/693010/11 "2014-07-14T03:08:20Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > Famously, Gabriel Garcia Marquez is said to have preferred Gregory Rabassa’s English translation of _100 Years of Solitude_ to the original Spanish. > > [http://translation.utdallas.edu/Interviews/Rabassaby\_Hoeksema.html](http://translation.utdallas.edu/Interviews/Rabassaby_Hoeksema.html) Huh. And here I was of the opinion that 100 years of Solitude must seem so bad because I read a translation. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-translation-ever-improved-a-book/693010/12 "2014-07-14T07:59:17Z")
I have heard (from listening to [In Our Time](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b043xpkd) a few weeks ago) that Edward FitzGerald’s very free English translation of _The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam_ is, in many respects, a better, more interesting, and more cohesive work than the medieval Persian poems of which it is (sort of) a translation. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-translation-ever-improved-a-book/693010/13 "2014-07-14T08:14:45Z")
It is effectively impossible to do a good job of translating Shakespeare into modern English. The amount of nuance, poetry, and verbal music that is inevitably going to be lost is just going to be too obvious and painful to an English speaking audience (let alone the translator him/herself). However, I suspect good translations into a modern vernacular of foreign languages can potentially work better than an English version for a present-day English-speaking audience, given how difficult to understand much of the original English has become. I am not saying a foreign translation can match the quality the original has for those with the knowledge to fully understand it, but a translator into another language will have much more freedom and much less inhibition than a translator into “modern English” wold have, and the expectations would be lower. (And, IIRC Shakespeare has quite a good reputation for working well in translation, particularly in German and Russian, I believe.) ---
**Author:** ![from\_a\_to\_z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5fc32e/32.png) [@from\_a\_to\_z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/from_a_to_z)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-translation-ever-improved-a-book/693010/14 "2014-07-14T09:19:30Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > Heinlein once stated that his wife Virginia learned Russian so she could read Tolstoy in the original form; she reported that the great Russian novels were significantly improved in translation. How well did she read and understand the Russian? > [@Flywheel](#): > > A woman once told James Thurber that his writings always seemed funnier in French translation, to which he replied: “Yes, I suppose they lose something in the original.” Oh, goody. I’d love to see what “The Catbird Seat” gains in translation. Personally, I’ve wondered about writers like Dan Brown, because critics in English can amuse me with their discussions of his writing style. For example, “[The Dan Brown Code](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000844.html)” ten years ago by Geoffrey K. Pullum. I admit that I’ve not read any of Dan Brown beyond what Pullum quotes, but in the article Professor Pullum analyzes Dan Brown’s writing style, starting with the opening of “The Da Vinci Code”: > [@](#): > > Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery. He lunged for the nearest painting he could see, a Caravaggio. Grabbing the gilded frame, the seventy-six-year-old man heaved the masterpiece toward himself until it tore from the wall and Saunière collapsed backward in a heap beneath the canvas. I went to Google Books and found a Spanish translation (didn’t see the translator’s name), with “Pages displayed by permission of Grupo Planeta Spain” [here](http://books.google.com/books?id=5m-I94YvmbsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=C%C3%B3digo+Da+Vinci+Dan+Brown&hl=en&sa=X&ei=v5rDU9yjHNGkyASenYGACg&ved=0CE4Q6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=C%C3%B3digo%20Da%20Vinci%20Dan%20Brown&f=false): > [@](#): > > Jacques Saunière, el célebre conservador del museo avanzó tambaleándose por el abovedado pasaje de la Gran Galería. Una vez allí, arremetió contra el primer cuadro que vio, un Caravaggio. Tras agarrar el dorado marco, Saunière, de setenta y seis años, tiró de la obra maestra hasta separarla de la pared y cayó hacia atrás con el lienzo encima. Now, translating back to English (my transcription, translation, and errors, if any): > [@](#): > > Jacques Saunière, the renowned curator of the museum moved forward staggering through the vaulted passage of the Grand Gallery. Once there, he rushed at the first painting that he saw, a Caravaggio. After grabbing the gilded frame, Saunière, seventy-six years old, pulled at the masterpiece until separating it from the wall and fell backwards with the canvas on top. From the above I conclude that, for me anyway, at least 3 sentences of Dan Brown can read better in Spanish than in English. But maybe that’s because Dan Brown is not (yet) the equal of Shakespeare. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-translation-ever-improved-a-book/693010/15 "2014-07-14T10:56:09Z")
Jorge Luis Borges spoke pretty good English – his grandmother was British, and he studied Old English. He once was asked if he considered translating his stories, essays, or poems from Spanish to English himself (rather than relying on professional translators), but he replied that his English wasn’t quite good enough for that. This doesn’t speak directly to the OP, but I’ll bet that Borges himself preferred some of his works in their English versions. ---
**Author:** ![biqu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@biqu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biqu)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-translation-ever-improved-a-book/693010/16 "2014-07-14T13:30:11Z")
William Butcher’s translation of Jules Verne into English, according to [The Weekly Standard](http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/fantastic-voyage_796380.html?nopager=1#): > [@](#): > > A casual reader, even in English translation, can see that Verne’s prose is rarely more than serviceable and that it gets overheated when he presumes to court eloquence. This Everyman edition of three Verne novels uses some of the first English versions, from the 1870s, and they read well enough. But even the editor acknowledges that William Butcher improved on the earlier translations in his renditions for Oxford World’s Classics in the 1990s. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-translation-ever-improved-a-book/693010/17 "2014-07-14T14:09:42Z")
> [@biqu](#): > > William Butcher’s translation of Jules Verne into English, according to [The Weekly Standard](http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/fantastic-voyage_796380.html?nopager=1#): That may be true (I don’t know enough French to read Verne in the original), but many early translations of Verne pretty much butchered his work. Particularly obnoxious was the work of Merciuer Lewis/Louis Mercier, against whom several Verne scholars have railed. Of course, his is the most widely-circulated of Verne translations, even today. His translation is often the one in those omnibus editions of Verne (“5 Novels by Jules Verne!”), and is the basis of the audiobook edition of _20,000 Leagues_ that I have. As I’ve mentioned frequently on this Board, he’s the guy who gave “the disagreeable country of South Dakota” instead of “the badlands of South Dakota” and similar inanities. He also cut out about a third of the book from _From the Earth to the Moon_, a big chunk of "20,000 Leagues, ruined a long set-up joke that Verne employed in 20,000 Leagues, removed all political references, cut out some crucial technical descriptions, and generally contributed to Verne’s reputation as an author only fit for children. ---
**Author:** ![biqu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@biqu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biqu)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-translation-ever-improved-a-book/693010/18 "2014-07-14T14:27:15Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > That may be true (I don’t know enough French to read Verne in the original), but many early translations of Verne pretty much butchered his work. In that case, the book that’s been improved by a new translation is the original hack job of a translation (e.g., the obnoxious work of Merciuer Lewis/Louis Mercier that you mentioned). ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-translation-ever-improved-a-book/693010/19 "2014-07-14T15:34:58Z")
I can’t say for certain, but I suspect James Fenimore Cooper had some brilliant French and (especially) Russian translators. I say that because he was immensely popular in France and (again, especially) in Russia during the 19th century, even when many American critics, like Mark Twain, were beginning to mock his dense, unreadable prose. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-translation-ever-improved-a-book/693010/20 "2014-07-14T15:42:11Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > It is effectively impossible to do a good job of translating Shakespeare into modern English. Huh? Since when was there such a need? It’s perfectly comprehensible as is. Or did you mean Chaucer? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-translation-ever-improved-a-book/693010.md?page=2)