/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.3958992]

Can the writing be judged by translation? If not, then how can you like works of particular authors, since all that's left of them is a story and not how it's told?

[Anonymous No.3959003]

you actually can translate quite a lot of stylistic device without any problems. And also it's important how a story is told and not what the story is about and how it goes - you can translate that completely, too.

anyway, i think most authors are also adored, worshipped and whatsoever because of what they've "written" between the lines. Normally that shouldn't get lost due to translation. it CAN happen, yes, but we all know some translations are simply rubbish.

[Anonymous No.3959031]

>>3959003
I do think that story itself is not that matters, but how it's told is more important. Even a simple story in right hands can be turned to gold and a nice story can become crap because of the way it was written. What I'm asking is - can one judge an author's writing by reading translated version? I got your thought about things that are written between the lines and I agree with you, but what aboud other kinds of works? Like a detective, for example, where the mystery takes the lead and not inner meaning or hidden message to a reader.

[Anonymous No.3959467]

>>3958992
I don't have a straight forward answer. How a story is told is much more than just the individual words; it's also the form, and tone, and various other concepts which transcend most languages and are usually effectively rendered in a good translator.

Not all translations are equal of course, and sometimes the translator's conception of how the story should in their impression be told overrides the author's actual work.

However, translations can help one judge the writing of the original if they are reasonably faithful and the reader has some knowledge of the original language.

For instance, I generally know from a good translation and from the overall tone of the author's work whether a poetic form would have been used in the original language where such a form does not exist in the language the work is translated to, or whether a set phrase or expression would carry more weight or different symbolism if in the original. I am not sure if this is true of all readers, but even in works translated from languages I do not speak, some awareness of incomplete allusion lends me to check the original text and context, and I generally find my suspicions of something more to be garnered from greater background to be well grounded.

I think this is true of all works to a certain extent even without translation; we interpret retellings of myths in English through Western Canon, and, even though many of us would not have conceptualised the myths in Ancient Greek or Latin, are able to understand the story better through the foreknowledge and symbolism that canon grants us.

Having said all this, I still do prefer to read books in their original language. Only knowing eight, however, I'm aware that I will probably never read every book I want to in the original form. I'm okay with missing out on some of the context in the same way I'm okay with not reading all the books ever written.

[Anonymous No.3959566]

>>3959467
>However, translations can help one judge the writing of the original if they are reasonably faithful and the reader has some knowledge of the original language.
And how could one know is translation faithful to the original or not? If by means of reading the original and translation, then why bother reading translation? With knowledge of original's language question about judging writing through translations falls off itself.

[Anonymous No.3959631]

>>3959566
Usually something just seems not right; a phrase doesn't fit, or a word has the sense of being substituted. I can't explain it since it's usually a feeling more than a conscious objection- usually I am most suspicious when the root of the word is from another language in English, while the language it is translated from would also have roots with the same sense but have been stripped of their native connotation in English.
>why bother reading translation?
Firstly, because not all books are available in their original text.
Translations into English/French/German/Spanish are usually easier to find than translations into my native language, and for languages I am not fluent enough to pick up all the subtleties of the text, I would at least like to have some comprehension of. I do enjoy comparing translation between a language I speak fluently and one I do not in both directions.Translations are an aide to comprehension, without them I probably would have never learnt how to understand the basics of the originals before becoming fluent. Most I have read do try to preserve the prose of the original, though there have been some hilariously bad ones.

When I referenced knowledge of the original language, I did not mean exactly fluency, as someone with basic linguistic training in the language can usually pick up on some things which are askew faster than someone who might speak the language conversationally, while the person who speaks conversationally will pick out other things.

[David D. D'Ave Davidson IV(...) No.3959634]

>>3958992
s-sauce on pic?

[Anonymous No.3961852]

Writing is more than just sentence structure.
Since your posted a mango speech bubble: I can for example tell that Index was written by a better author than Sword Art Online, even discounting the difference in language and translator.

[Anonymous No.3962029]

>>3958992
I read the text and see if I like it. I'm not particularly obsessed with the legitimacy of liking a certain author.