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Originally Posted by Totenkopf
For some reason I've always contrasted Tolstoy with Dickens: Dicken's stories are very interesting, and fun, and much much more, but somehow they're not entirely believable. War and Peace and Anna Karenina were completely believable: there wasn't an iota of artifice.
Give it an eleventyfirst try.
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I never could 'get' Dickens - you made me want to try reading Tolstoy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Latinandgreek
Yes, there are some translations out there that are very hard to read, and no translation can compete with the original text (IMO). The Iliad and the Odyssey are my favourite works of Greek lit. Book 24 of the Iliad is quite possibly my favourite piece of lit overall - it get me crying every time I read it.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, of course. I have seen many people name many books that I wasn't fond of as their favourites. (I was never crazy about Hemingway, for example, and I felf that Byatt's "Possession" was just O.K. Sometimes things are worth another try, however; perhaps I read Hemingway and Byatt at a time when for some reason or another (exams, a flu, etc.) I couldn't enjoy them as much as I would have at some other time. Perhaps another read would have me viewing them differently.
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Perhaps another book by Byatt? After all, "Possesion" is a romance and slightly out of the way for Byatt. But... I feel Byatt may be too intellectual in a thouroughly modern way for many. I like her a lot, but I've met few who feel they can 'connect' with her writing. It's 'too intellectual' and 'too dry' they say. That is what I like myself - I think.
I have a (supposedly) good modern translation of the Iliad - and you made me want to read it. I'm very much in favour of translations that can convey language in a contemporary way when we deal with ancient works. Often we read 100+ year old translations and they sound - rightly - oldfashioned. But for 1000 year old (or older) texts, I think it's better to look for a translation that work well in the current language.