Quote:
Originally Posted by SameOldStory
But what do you recommend, Harry? Should we not read a "classic" simply because it was written in a language that we neither speak nor read?
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Not at all. My question was, how do you know how much of the original author you're reading, and how much of the translator? If you read an English translation of "War and Peace" and think it's boring, is it Tolstoi that's boring, or the translator? I find it difficult to see how one can critically judge a book in translation because you don't know what it is that you're reading. Has the translator made a bad book good, a good book bad, a poor book terrible, a mediocre book reasonable, or some other combination? How do you judge?
I'm not taking about reading for pleasure here, but using translations when judging the merit of a book as a work of literature. Can you make an informed jugement of, say, Tolstoi, if you only read his books in translation?