/lit/ - Literature

>>7518223
Hold the fuck up, that picture I saw of an anon here posting that copy of Ulysses ISN'T him drawing the fucking letters on?!

Someone got FUCKING PAID to make those pieces of shit?

I want to preface by saying I do not want to sound inflammatory with this question, but the nature of it is probably going to offend some people.

Why do people spend great amounts of time studying certain cultures, or religions, or schools of thought, entirely in translation? The state of translation even today for many religions, especially nearly everything in the Orient, is absolutely appalling. A very small percentage of any given culture is ever translated, texts favored by westerners that may not be the most important to the actual culture themselves. If it is a translation of something philosophical or religious it is incredibly hard to ever find a translation that does justice to the original without footnotes everywhere, and even then the author places faith in the reader that they will know how to study further from the footnotes because if they need to be referenced then there is a clear lack of study that is impeding understanding in the first place. Even on the guides posted on this board they are almost always accompanied with more textbooks than source material, but even then only 5-10 books are listed when some of these traditions encompass THOUSANDS of works.

It reminds me of an embarrassing post I saw on a forum where someone said they had memorized the entire Quran over 5 years, in English. Everyone spent a great deal of time explaining why this was silly and the person eventually left feeling extremely distraught from their error.

y u do dis?