ITT: Untranslatable authors

[Anonymous No.17765853]

[Anonymous No.17765867]

Translatable authors?

[Anonymous No.17765871]

>>17765867
You can’t translate Joyce

[Anonymous No.17765881]

>>17765871
But who can you translate?

[Anonymous No.17765892]

There are no "untranslatable authors"

[Anonymous No.17765894]

>>17765892
James Joyce comes to mind

[Anonymous No.17765898]

>>17765894
He comes and goes

[Anonymous No.17765901]

>>17765892
I wouldn't go so far as to say that you can't translate Joyce, but Finnegan's Wake is untranslatable. It's not even intelligible

[Anonymous No.17765960]

>>17765894
>>17765901
The thing is that no translation is the same as an original work, there is always a distance (hence why so many translations exist of old works). When confronted with difficult works, such as Joyce, translators will often explain their choices in an introduction and point to the most tricky parts with a translator's note. A translation is a new work of its own right (if you can read English and French, I recommend you read de Quincey's Confessions and the translation by de Musset). Of course what I said is pretty much obvious, but I just wanted to point that I find the word "untranslatable" a bit absurd. There is also the question of the languages. For instance, pre-socratic texts are probably harder to translate than Joyce (see the work of Heidegger and others on Heraclitus for instance).

[Anonymous No.17765966]

>>17765881
Not joyce

[Anonymous No.17765970]

>>17765960
there's a world of difference between translating a novel like something by Zola from French into English and translating Finnegans Wake into... any language. the entire thing would be lost.

[Anonymous No.17765984]

[Anonymous No.17766006]

No religious work (eg Bible and Koran) can be translated decently. With these every single letter carries a lot of meaning.
Us translating these languages, or forgetting former connotations and meanings leads to... Well see for yourself

[Anonymous No.17766040]

>>17765970
Obviously there’s a difference. But is really the entire thing lost? No. The translator has to do radical choices that’s all, and a new work of art is born.

[Anonymous No.17766068]

>>17766040
May I ask which languages you speak? Eg translating English to German is way easier and more "pure" than English to Turkish. Connotations are different and many words are absent.
Even the way the Tukish say "good luck" carres different thoughts than the Englishs

[Anonymous No.17766087]

>>17766006
Add to this that there is no original work to translate from. The oldest version of the Bible in Hebrew is from the 9th century.

[Anonymous No.17766091]

>>17765853
Dostoevsky

[Anonymous No.17766103]

This

[Anonymous No.17766122]

>>17765853
I'm Italian and Finnegans Wake is unironically better in my language

[Anonymous No.17766133]

>>17765853
you can translate dubliners and all but a few parts of portrait though

[Anonymous No.17766147]

translations are interesting in their own right. the idea of trying to represent the essence of a book through another language is so cool and has so many angles. people who just don't read them are missing out on a neat part of literature

[Anonymous No.17766152]

>>17766068
I’m French.
That’s pretty much the point I made in my first post. I just think that a translation becomes a new work of art, even with close languages because there is effectively no way to translate accurately almost anything. I think here the translation of “simple” works that embodies perfectly the spirit of a language is a good example. I’m pretty sure any translation of Moliere cannot render it accurately despite the text being simple, because it’s extremely “French” in it’s conversational spirit and Moliere not being a virtuoso of language like Joyce. Does that mean that a translation is pointless (like the word untranslatable implies)? I don’t think so.

[Anonymous No.17766153]

inb4 the ">translation" fags.

[Anonymous No.17766156]

>>17766068
maybe a good translator could use their understanding of both cultures and languages to convey the same meaning

[Anonymous No.17766157]

>>17766147
This is true desu.

[Anonymous No.17766169]

>>17765853
This lil camel nosed fuck.

[Anonymous No.17766173]

Joyce is actually very well translated into Russian. Also, slavs and irish have a similiar mentality.

[Anonymous No.17766190]

i'm really interested in what i've heard about the chinese translation of finnegans wake

[Anonymous No.17766191]

>>17766173
>Also, slavs and irish have a similiar mentality.
non white countries often share a mentality

[Anonymous No.17766194]

>>17765970
>translating Finnegans Wake into... any language. the entire thing would be lost
I repeat that Finnegans Wake is unironically better in other languages. I have read it both in English and in the Italian translation and the latter is actually better. I know that they're probably two different books, but still, I feel like I've gained more from the translation.

[Anonymous No.17766203]

>>17766191
pretty much

[Anonymous No.17766207]

>>17766194
>I feel like I've gained more from the translation.
are you sure this isn't just you having a better understanding of italian ?

[Anonymous No.17766217]

Dictionaries are untranslatable.

[Anonymous No.17766251]

[Anonymous No.17766253]

>>17766207
If that is the case, what's the matter? The same amount of neologisms that are in the original text was re-created for the Italian version, and that's a great thing for me. The complexity and richness of the book was not lost, it was just... in a different language. The only thing you can't experience is the Irish rhytmic flow, and for that I'm glad I've read the original.

[Anonymous No.17766258]

>>17765853
if it can't be translated, IT DOESN'T EXIST

[Anonymous No.17766283]

>>17766258
I beg to differ

[Anonymous No.17766415]

[Anonymous No.17766464]

[Anonymous No.17766495]

>>17766464
no creo

[Anonymous No.17767564]

>>17766464
>>17766251
>>17766103
Some based posters ITT

[Anonymous No.17768861]

>>17766173
Was gonna say this, my mom's friends have read portrait at least