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Originally Posted by WT Sharpe
I've been reading that one interspaced with Dante's Divine Comedy. I don't normally do a lot of re-reading, but this is my third time through the Comedy, although they were all by different translators. The first was by The Rev. H.F. Cary, M.A. (The Harvard Classics edition), the second was the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow translation, and the one I'm reading now was translated by Anthony S. Kline. This is by far my favorite, as it is a prose translation that is much easier to understand. I've had the book on my TBR list since at least 2010, but after Longfellow and Cary I felt like taking a break from the tale for a few years.
I should mention that Tony Kline has made his version free to download for non-commercial use at his website, Poetry in Translation, along with many other works he has translated including Ovid's Metamorphoses as well as some of his own poetry. This fellow really seems imbued with the spirit of the late Michael S. Hart, to whom he has dedicated at least a portion of his output.
As for The Nightlife of the Gods by Thorne Smith, well, I read this several years ago and it still cracks me up. My wife was wondering why I kept bursting out in laughter at things Thorne wrote. Comedy is a rapidly changing field. What was hilarious to one generation often barely brings a smile to the lips of the next. It is a testament to Smith's comedic genius that his work remains sidesplittingly funny a full 85 years after it's composition. |
I've read a few of Thorne Smiths novels. Aside from everything else I also found his comedy to be a bit subversive -- especially given the times in which he was writing.