The Best CLASSIC novel of ALL TIME!

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by SameOldStory

If I told you a translated Yiddish joke from a pre WWII saccharin party would you even understand the "saccharin party" part? Don't bother looking it up. It's not in a Wiki. And if you never knew any big city east European Jews from that time you would never have heard of a saccharin party.

You're going to leave us in the dark, and not explain a "saccharin party"?

It doesn't take a translation for a book's nuances to be lost to the average reader, even books written in the reader's native language. Topical references and even an immensely changed world view make it hard, if not impossible for the reader to "get" a novel the way a reader from the author's time would understand it.

[Harmon]

LotR is a great story but let's face it, the writing is second rate. Anything by Austen is first rate writing, but her stories are slight. Homer did not write novels. I love Dickens, but he wrote potboilers. (The first chapter of Bleak House, though, is perfection.) Mark Twain blew it when he let Tom Sawyer take over Huckleberry Finn. Middlemarch is a contender but think the prose is dated. In Search of Lost Time is a hell of a read in English & makes me wish I knew French, but it is at the very edge of the novel form and too long for most readers. Ulysses too much of a game. (But the last chapter- wow!) Don Quixote is a worthy nominee, but is too fantastic to be a novel in the sense of having a believable story line. War & Peace is too didactic. Anna Karenina is good but dated. Crime & Punishment is wonderful but is a young person's book. Brothers Karamazov is too weighted down by religious concerns.

I second the nomination of Moby-Dick. It is a ripping yarn, worthy of Conrad, but it is also a very modern book despite its age. (Check out http://damionsearls.com/book9.html for a surprising aspect of this book, involving a kind of reverse abridgment of the book called "; or The Whale.")

To me, a classic book is one which you can read at any age, or every age, with not only enjoyment & entertainment, but intellectual profit. M-D seems to me to require redigestion each time it is read.

In short, M-D has it all: story, writing, moral introspection, appeal to all ages and both (all?) sexes. Plus you can skip the chapters that don't interest you without much damaging the book.

[mahai]

"The Red Badge of Courage" by Stephen Crane

"The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway

"The Winds of War" by Herman Wouk

and so many more...

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

You're going to leave us in the dark, and not explain a "saccharin party"?

It doesn't take a translation for a book's nuances to be lost to the average reader, even books written in the reader's native language. Topical references and even an immensely changed world view make it hard, if not impossible for the reader to "get" a novel the way a reader from the author's time would understand it.

Over lunch I read into a lengthy sample of Boswell's Life of Johnson, in which the editor quotes Johnson's observation that the meanings of the references get lost in about 70 years - i.e., when the last person around at the time the reference has meaning dies, taking into account a sort of half-life of the reference. Sometimes these meanings can be recovered in annotated versions of a book. It also helps to be well read in history, particularly social or literary history.

In the context of translations, what I've found helpful is to read two or more translations of the thing at the same time. But it's tough to sustain the narrative continuity when you read that way. Eventually I settle down to the translation that I enjoy the most...

[Under the Covers]

Originally Posted by lost66615

war and peace is my fav book only one that i have in pback and hardback got about 10 different editions and a first english edition

Me too! For me it was not only a page-turner, but it really expanded my understanding of ... well, war and peace ... and the tides of history, which I believe was Tolstoy's real purpose.

Also in the running are Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck and Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky, both books that made me think deeply and thus grow as a human being.

Of course, with that in mind, there are many others, as well, as I think about it. It's really hard to identify all of the books that have deeply affected me over my lifetime.

[Under the Covers]

Originally Posted by HarryT

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?

All I can do is read the critiques of the various translations, make a choice based on them, and then hope I am reading a fair approximation of the author's words and intent. But even those reading a work in the original language very often have different impressions and understandings of that work.

As in conversation, we are touched by those ideas we are open to receiving, and we then interpret them via our own filters. So the reality is that there is nothing perceived that is not filtered. Yes, a bad translation adds yet another filter, or set of filters (the translator's), but many of the ideas will make themselves apparent anyway -- especially in a long work like War and Peace, which is then followed by his "pounding" in his central points over and over and over again, in various ways, to make sure the reader really got the point (by which time I was yelling at him, "Enough already! I get it!!").

[Metal Mick]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yikes! A school calls a class "language art's"?????

Does nobody know how to use apostrophes any more?

Hi all,

just had to comment on this! The answer to your quiestion, HarryT, is (i's?) "no."

I have seen:

pair of pant's,
shoe's, and most recently,
xma's.

The sole function of an apostrophe nowadays is to warn the reader that an "s" is coming. Or so it would seem.

For me, "classic" need not necessarily be a work that has been in print for a specified time. A classic is one that will be read and enjoyed by generations.

A bit like Paul McCartney's Yesterday - it will be regarded as a classic piece of music in years to come.

I'd accept Herbert's Dune as a classic, though it is the only decent thing of his that I have read.

I like Moby Dick as something that will persist for many years; Time Machine by Wells should perhaps get a mention, though I feel Invisible Man might be somewhat more worthy; T. H. White's The Once and Future King is worth considering.

No doubt though that writers like Dostoyevsky, Hemmingway, Shelly, Conrad, Hugo, and other famous names mentioned already (and will be mentioned further in this thread) are worthy contenders, though some I have yet to read.

LOTR and others that have a similar "hero's journey" storyline will be around for some time because of the extensive appeal of the story structure and perhaps LOTR deserves consideration above other contenders in this context.

War and Peace (Tolstoy) hasn't got a mention yet, but I'm sure it will.

Don't know which I'd go for, but I'd be loathe to knock out Moby Dick. Or Dune. Or...

Cheers,

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Metal Mick

The sole function of an apostrophe nowadays is to warn the reader that an "s" is coming. Or so it would seem.

Well 'said! And hilariou's!

[jeffcobb]

Not sure if it has been mentioned here but Harper Lees To Kill A Mockingbird is a classic for me. But then the Count of Monte Cristo was too.

[LoveReading]

While there are many, I find myself re-reading Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice ;

[crich70]

It's not just the New Testament that is misunderstood in translation either. The Old Testament is also mistranslated in parts. Thou shalt not kill for example in the ten commandments really reads 'Thou shalt not murder' which is completely different. To put it in context if someone comes at you with a knife and your only choice is to shoot them or be killed yourself that's ok but if you shoot someone who you encounter on the street and they weren't a threat to your own life that's murder. The first is allowable but the second isn't, but the translation into English leads one to think that it's never ok to kill the other person even if your own life is in danger. Of course the translators were using other editions of the Bible as a basis of their own work so it's not surprising that the distinction could be lost. In other works I imagine sometimes it's just a matter of not having exactly the right words to use in place of the original text's words as well.

Originally Posted by Fbone

It has been said that the ancient languages are more advanced and developed than modern ones. We've retrogressed. More words isn't necessarily better.

I believe that's one reason why the Bible is easily misunderstood or not understood at all. Low quality translations and supplemental publications.

Ancient Greek has four different words for "love" all with distinct differences.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by crich70

It's not just the New Testament that is misunderstood in translation either. The Old Testament is also mistranslated in parts. Thou shalt not kill for example in the ten commandments really reads 'Thou shalt not murder' which is completely different. To put it in context if someone comes at you with a knife and your only choice is to shoot them or be killed yourself that's ok but if you shoot someone who you encounter on the street and they weren't a threat to your own life that's murder. The first is allowable but the second isn't, but the translation into English leads one to think that it's never ok to kill the other person even if your own life is in danger. Of course the translators were using other editions of the Bible as a basis of their own work so it's not surprising that the distinction could be lost. In other works I imagine sometimes it's just a matter of not having exactly the right words to use in place of the original text's words as well.

Not to mention deliberate alterations to justify personal beliefs.


Post Edit: Based on the karma I've recieved for this comment (thanks, btw), I just wanted people to understand that, even though I feel the Bible, as we have it now, is rife with inaccuracies, both intentional and unintentional, I'm still a born again fundamamentalist Christian (just don't associate me with the hateful, narrowminded, Bible thumpers so prevalent in the news now).

[Teddman]

Originally Posted by spellbanisher

Unfortunately, I've only read the Constance Garnett translation and not the newer and supposedly superior pevear and volokhonsky translations.

I think the top translation of Crime and Punishment is the one done by Sidney Monas. Pevear and Volokhonsky may be the most accurate but it doesn't flow as well.

[Kumabjorn]

The Tale of Genji, by Lady Murasaki Shikibu.

In original:

源氏物語、作者：式部紫

If you don't read the original I would suggest the translation by Edward Seidensticker.

[sweevo]

Originally Posted by crich70

It's not just the New Testament that is misunderstood in translation either. The Old Testament is also mistranslated in parts.

Kind of a stupid move on God's part to fragment language with the Tower of Babel thing requiring translations in the first place, huh?