/lit/ - Literature

>>15238848
God I hate paperbacks

I don't care how you treat your books. I crack spines and fold pages, and scribble in the margins. I think it's fine, and I think anyone who thinks otherwise is more of a fetishist than anything.


Here's what is actually offensive about that image: Reading a novel in translation.

>>15238919
Is there anything more pleb than reading books in the original language?

>jealous monoglots can only read books in the original language
>patrician polyglots like myself can read the works of Goethe in French, the masterpieces of Proust in the superior Russian, Chinese and Japanese works in the opposite language, etc., opening up new vistas of interpretation and understanding

I tried reading a book in the original language once, just to see what it's like being a pleb, and it was a suffocating and nauseous experience. I pity those for whom there is no other option.

>>15238919
God, "don’t read translations" is such a shit tier opinion. As desirable as it would be to read every worthwhile piece of literature in its original language, this would require learning to understand AT MINIMUM written English, French, German, Spanish, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian, and Traditional Chinese. Possibly also Japanese and Classical Arabic. This is maybe feasible if you’re either born into an aristocratic family and taught all of these from an early age, or otherwise if you’re a giga-topwit who also has literally tens of thousands of hours to dedicate to learning them all, which by the way would still fail to make every single untranslated book you might be interested in accessible. Not that you shouldn’t learn other languages—I think it’s ideal to always be learning a new language—but thinking that it’s some great sin to read a book without learning its original language first is an extremely retarded and discouraging attitude. I guarantee you haven’t mastered even half of the languages I mentioned, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you knew three or fewer.

>>15238848
paperbacks are cheap wads of paper meant to be read, who cares if they get mangled up

>>15238848
no gore on blue boards please

>>15239076
I fundamentally agree. Consider this perspective: The reader should read the literature of her own language deeply, as well as the one or two languages which she manages to learn well over her lifetime, instead of superficially reading world literature (a translated read is necessarily superficial.) One should accept their linguistic limitations and read well in the languages which one knows well.

I'm not opposed to reading the occasional translated work. Translations can be enjoyable. But the idea of reading a book as long and as wieldy as War and Peace provokes nausea in me. Reading something like Mishima, translated from a language so alien as Japanese, seems to me a counterfeit activity. Prose, and not argument, is the most important thing in an author.

>>15239137
You don't know the slightest thing of the importance of one's native languages emotional depth, or how prose can function in translation. You just came on /lit/ and bought into the "translations are for plebs" meme. Few great authors would have ever entertained your myopic idea of literature.

>>15239137
good lord you sound like an awful bore

>>15239137
>one or two languages
Try 5 or 6.

When I set books down spine up they literally never do this. They are never lying flat on the surface, what kind of shit used books are you guys reading? What kind of OCD makes you make sure the book is flat against the surface

>>15238848
I do this to give myself a feeling of accomplishment after I read the book. I want it to be consumed so hard that I have no need for its earthly shell anymore.

>>15238934
How does one go about becoming /lit/ in another language?

I've used duolingo for about a month on Russian, but I still feel like I am only regurgitating rote vocabulary, and not gaining an essence of how the language flows.

Should I just start reading an intermediate difficult book in another language and look things up as I go along?

>>15239282
stop using duolingo. make a vocab list on anki, familiarize yourself with annoying grammar stuff, and read anon.
(also doing what u described is literally what im doing for french lol)

>>15239181
I hadn't posted on /lit/ for years until recently. I just believe that words have a texture and colour of their own and that that is inevitably lost in translation. One always reads a counterfeit in translation, though it can be a very beautiful counterfeit. I prefer to read what the author wrote.

Reading poetry is translation is very obviously ridiculous. I think everyone can agree on that. But I personally give the same respect to prose. Not long ago I picked up Joyce's Ulysses translated into Spanish, read the first page, and realised what a ridiculous practice translation can be.

>>15239282
I would begin reading very simple stories in Russian as soon as you can. Look up graded or "easy" readers. You might also use anki as another user has suggested. Memrise is more user friendly. Duolingo is not very good. Look up grammar only when you have questions about certain things, but don't sit down to study it page-by-page, grammar point by grammar point.

Also, be very patient with yourself and expect it to be years before you can read great Russian literature comfortably. Enjoy the process. Best of luck.

>>15238934
>I tried reading a book in the original language once, just to see what it's like being a pleb, and it was a suffocating and nauseous experience.
ur IQ is low bud, keep coping

>>15238919
>Here's what is actually offensive about that post: Not reading a novel ever and having opinions.

>>15238919
I treat my books well because they're expensive in my shit country.

t. third world

>>15239321
The thing is that I actually kind of agree with this faggot. In theory, every translation is a betrayal of sorts, a butchering of the source text of sorts, and things are bound to be left out either by a failed reading of the translator or the fact that the translator had to make a choice and ultimately leave out an element or two.

However, if you want to read War and Peace today, read it in translation. It is better than not having read it at all. It works. It's not perfect, but it works. If you are limiting yourself to only what you can read in the original, you are unbelievably retarded and have a very narrow point of view.

>>15238848
Good job, you made me scream.

>>15238848
haram

>>15238919
I literally only read translations, even of books in my native language.

I don't think people actually read books if they do not crack the spine.

It’s a Wordsworth so who cares. Worse than shit

>>15239211

try 7

>>15238934
Actually based. I'm a Francophone but prefer reading a lot of French lit in translation.

>>15239321
This man is 100% correct.

>>15239137
>as well as the one or two languages which she manages to learn well over her lifetime
Brainlet. This just makes you sound like you've never actually learned another language, or have only bothered to learn one

>>15240485
Correct. I've learned one to a proficient level over the last 2 years and have recently begun another. I don't think it's feasible for anyone to learn more than two or three languages to a high enough level to read the literature of said language and sustain it.

Do translationfags not realize how much cadence and meaning is lost in translation? Do they not realize that aesthetic is the highest principle of literature as an artform? That different cultures have different concepts and different languages work in different ways, making it comicly easy to mistranslate? Putting the effort in and learning a new language is almost always the best option

>>15240757
>I don't think it's feasible for anyone to learn more than two or three languages to a high enough level to read the literature of said language and sustain it.
You set a low bar for yourself and are now coping. Polygots existed and still do

how do you read a book without cracking its spine? i destroy every book i read