3 ms·
Can a Translation Be a Masterpiece, Too?
- ggm 8y agoLacking Spanish and French fluency I cannot but read them through translation. Carlos Fuentes work was translated by Margaret Sayers Peden and is a joy to read. Fantastic prose. Proust was mangled by GK Scott Moncrieff but rescued by Terence Gilmartin. Stendhal, Dumas are somewhat florid in English but as period romps not high prose work fine. I am told Cervantes in translation loses its edge. Key linguistic jokes don't survive. Perez Reverte hints at this in some of his writing. About the pseudo battles between the glitterati conducted through jobbing poets. (Perez-Reverte either writes beautifully in E flown or has good translators) Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky? Half the world only know them by translation. Or Rabindreth Tagore. He still won a Nobel prize didn't he?