Translated Literature

One interesting problem this has lead me to is f.ex. with Murakami, whose work is translated to Norwegian from the English translations! As if the art of translation hasn't already been questionable enough as it is, when it goes through several stages, I can't help but wonder how much disappears along the way.

I do read a lot of translated works, since I'm rather interested in European, but not necessarily Norwegian, Swedish or Danish literature, so I have to read a lot of translations.
Recently the whole theory behind translation of literary works has started interesting me, and thankfully my school also has a department for foreign languages, so they have a nice array of books about this very topic.
Nabokov's "Lolita" is a fine example; I read it in Norwegian, not knowing that it had actually originally been written in English, and the translator made several comments about how certain parts were nearly impossible to translate, because the English language is so much richer than the Norwegian, that some single words would turn into full sentences by themselves, while at the same time Nabokov used some obscure words that he didn't want to translate, because that'd ruin some of the effect of the words.

I think Borges' story about the author of Don Quixote is quite interesting and has some distinct parallels to this.

Admittedly this topic is probably more of a question for you native English speakers, since you have a much larger amount of literature that's originally written in your primary language.
That being said, I do take much notice of where a book was written, as I feel it colors the material within a certain way. Imagine "Things fall apart" written by a New Yorker who's never been outside of his state; wouldn't this change the book for you?

As for publishers being cowards, that's no big surprise. These are people who make their living on releasing books, so they want the surefire hits. Thankfully there's still enough enthusiasts dropping into the business who'll work to get certain novels released domestically.

I think Nabokov is a particularly good example. I read Speak, Memory (which is surprisingly perfect). He wrote it in English, translated it to Russian, and then re-translated it back to English for my version (from what I understand (remember, that is)).

But to get back to the original post, I like reading global literature. I found an old Penguin collection of Islamic prose and it was very interesting, it offers new perspectives. That's the whole point of reading literature, right? I think it's better to pull a Borges and just learn the language with a selected text and dictionary, but unfortunately not all of us are geniuses. So translations are the next best thing.

I do remember reading two different translations of Borges' Library of Babel at one point, and either one was much better than the other or I had just gotten attached to the first one I read. That's the first and only time I actually worried about whether I was getting good translations or not, or wondered how much better they could be.

One of the most interesting translations I've read was Everett Fox's Penteteuch (sp?). Here's the amazon link

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0805211195/qid=1078298292//ref=pd_ka_1/104-6971389-0940736?v=glance&n=507846

It's very poetic and apparently it captures some sort of essence or another.

does anybody have a preference for any of the numerous translations of the red and the black

i have a preference for The Charterhouse of Parma, instead

Hm.

I really enjoyed the Scott Moncrieff/revised by Ann Jefferson version, but I don't have a point of comparison and I do like late-19th/early 20th British translators (so eg Garnett is my favourite for those Russians).

I have a preference for any version that includes the phrase "this savage grot".

yeah I went with the scott moncrieff one xp

I prefer my 19th century french literature to be, well, fuddy!