snugglekitty (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
snugglekitty) wrote2008-03-27 08:11 am
snugglekitty) wrote2008-03-27 08:11 am
book question from bossym
Do you enjoy reading translated books? Does the experience differ depending on the original language, or on other factors? If you read other languages, do you enjoy reading books in their original languages?
Okay, I'm getting back on the question wagon. Hopefully I can finish the ones I like by the end of the month.
I think I do enjoy reading translated books, especially those from French. I believe that this is because French is the only language that I speak other than English. When I am reading a book from the French, I sometimes get a sense of the nuances that are behind certain phrases that I imagine the average English-speaking reader doesn't see. (Currently, my favorite French writer is Fred Vargas.) This also happens with some subtitled French movies. Alas, my French was never quite good enough to read novels on my own - newspapers were as far as I got.
I do also enjoy reading books that were originally written in languages that I don't speak. There's a different quality of expression I notice with them sometimes, and I'm curious about what's behind it - I can't just see it and have the sense of it like I do with French. Out Stealing Horses is the non-French translated book I've read most recently, and it definitely had that quality of difference.
Another thing I think this speaks to is books that are situated somewhere other than the US that have a strong sense of place. I love getting the sense that you understand something, even if not everything, about what it's like to live somewhere you've never been. A few books I love in this category are The Bone People by Keri Hulme and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. I would also include The #1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith.
The first translated books that I started reading in quantity were South American magical realism books - Esquivel, Allendes, Marquez. That genre has a dreamlike, poetical quality that I just love. Now that more books are being written in the genre in English, though, I don't spend so much time reading the translations. Maybe that's a shame.
Okay, I'm getting back on the question wagon. Hopefully I can finish the ones I like by the end of the month.
I think I do enjoy reading translated books, especially those from French. I believe that this is because French is the only language that I speak other than English. When I am reading a book from the French, I sometimes get a sense of the nuances that are behind certain phrases that I imagine the average English-speaking reader doesn't see. (Currently, my favorite French writer is Fred Vargas.) This also happens with some subtitled French movies. Alas, my French was never quite good enough to read novels on my own - newspapers were as far as I got.
I do also enjoy reading books that were originally written in languages that I don't speak. There's a different quality of expression I notice with them sometimes, and I'm curious about what's behind it - I can't just see it and have the sense of it like I do with French. Out Stealing Horses is the non-French translated book I've read most recently, and it definitely had that quality of difference.
Another thing I think this speaks to is books that are situated somewhere other than the US that have a strong sense of place. I love getting the sense that you understand something, even if not everything, about what it's like to live somewhere you've never been. A few books I love in this category are The Bone People by Keri Hulme and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. I would also include The #1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith.
The first translated books that I started reading in quantity were South American magical realism books - Esquivel, Allendes, Marquez. That genre has a dreamlike, poetical quality that I just love. Now that more books are being written in the genre in English, though, I don't spend so much time reading the translations. Maybe that's a shame.