/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6841094]

is this a good translation?

[Anonymous No.6841437]

>>6841094
I don't know I would assume it isn't simply because penguin.

The Richard Burton translation is the best one and I think it's public domain

[Anonymous No.6841465]

>>6841437
wtf does everybody have with Penguin ?

[Anonymous No.6841473]

Snipped from Amazon:

"A magnificent, unexpurgated edition of the greatest collection of folk tales in the world . . . The Arabian Nights is not a book to be read in a week. It is an ocean of stories to be dipped into over a lifetime. And this new Penguin edition is the one to have."
-The Sunday Times (London)

"The translation . . . ought to become the standard one for the present century."
-The Times Literary Supplement

"These magnificent volumes are the most ambitious and thorough translation into English of The Arabian Nights since the age of Queen Victoria and the British Empire."
-The Guardian

"This new translation of the world's greatest collection of folk stories restores their colour and verve."
-The Sunday Times (London)

So, yeah, probably not terrible.

[Anonymous No.6841477]

>>6841465
Shit paper, poor typeface.

[Anonymous No.6841486]

>>6841477
Is that seriously what you base your purchases on?

[Anonymous No.6841501]

>>6841094

'no'

If a translator is too scared to render a verse translation then you know he is a cake boy and should stick to rendering literal translations of technical manuals or some other useless autistic shit.

[Anonymous No.6841524]

>>6841486
Oxford World's Classics gang or die, pleb.

[Anonymous No.6841543]

>>6841465
They have a reputation for using undergrad tier translations. For english works they are fine, but like this anon said>>6841477 they are cheap.

They're not as bad as some people make them out to be but they have put out some serious train-wrecks translation wise.

[Anonymous No.6841551]

>>6841094
nah

[Anonymous No.6841553]

>>6841477
what
i always buy penguin so all my books match
they are fine to read for me

[Anonymous No.6841564]

>>6841524
That doesn't sound like Everyman lad

[Anonymous No.6841570]

>>6841543
>>6841477
low level meme, the paper thing is for plebs who bent their books and the thing about translations is total bluff
fucking PhDs you are guys

[Anonymous No.6841581]

>>6841543
>For english works they are fine
I should amend that I have heard they released a version of Paradise Lost and changed some words around to a more modern vernacular, butchering Milton's prose. they are a shady publisher, but I have their Steinbeck and it's fine.

[Anonymous No.6841590]

>>6841564
>Everyman
That's for hardcover, fam.

[Anonymous No.6841592]

>>6841501
>If a translator is too scared to render a verse translation
>1001 Nights is almost entirely a prose work
>the few parts that are in verse in the original are translated in verse in that edition of the book
>this guy is trying to look smart by commenting on the quality of a translation when he don't know anything about either the translation or the original

[Anonymous No.6841595]

>>6841465
Penguin is hit and miss for philosophical works, but otherwise they're good, or at least adequate. The hate is because they're the most widespread publisher of classics and, y'know, you gotta hate them if you want to appear to be patrician.

Translations aside, their binding has a reputation for degrading and their spines becoming "cracked," but I have not encountered this problem myself and, honestly, I don't even about this outside of /lit/. Their flexibility, however, is miles ahead of Oxford's, which is ridiculously stiff.

My only general complaint is that if too many of them are put side-by-side, the spines look atrocious and start to form a black hole on my bookshelf. Their covers and spines from '50s are GOAT.

so tl;dr some of /lit/ hates penguin because they want to be cool

[Anonymous No.6841600]

>>6841570
>translations is total bluff
They hired a different translator for each volume of Proust's "In Search of Lost Time" when I was at university my teacher specifically told students to avoid penguin translations and said that all his colleagues in the english department felt the same way, they're not taken seriously in academia.

But if you're happy with them and you don't care about prose I'm sure they''re perfectly functional for you.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2005/dec/15/far-from-prousts-way/

[Anonymous No.6841605]

>translation

[Anonymous No.6841614]

>>6841595
they will call you pleb but this was an honest answer , thanks

[Anonymous No.6841615]

>>6841592

If you think the literal translations of verse are adequate you are a stupid faggot and you might as well just use Google translate to translate poetry.

[Anonymous No.6841621]

>>6841605
>i know every language fluently

[Anonymous No.6841642]

>>6841595
I Would add to this that penguin is hit or miss with all of their translations, when they're good, they produce adequate translations of works, but when they're bad, they are god awful. Just do some research beforehand on a case by case basis and see what's what.

[Anonymous No.6841656]

>>6841642
>Just do some research beforehand on a case by case basis and see what's what.

Yeah, I should have mentioned that. There's no reason not to. I'm even weary of buying books originally in English because publishers like to fuck things around all of the time.

[Anonymous No.6841660]

>>6841553
>i always buy penguin so all my books match

>>>r/books

[Giles M. M. Milk No.6841671]

I bought a Penguin Paradise Lost, and the "translator" (this was an English copy btw) had updated all of Milton's verse to be more readable to modern readers. I especially wouldn't trust them with a medieval text and wouldn't touch a text from a foreign language with them. Absolutely retarded.

[Anonymous No.6841846]

>>6841094
I have this edition and I recommend it. Malcolm Lyons is pretty top notch for translations of classical arabic (see his new Tales of the Marvelous and News of the Strange, which I also recommend). It's less fun than Burton, but closer to the original. The verse is translated as verse, the prose as prose.

I have read it, over the past year+, and the thing to remember that is that it's a compilation. Some of it is good, like the tales of the fisherman, and of the 3 princesses, some of it is shit, like the animal fables, and some is so-so, like the interminable epic of Dau al-makan, which takes up a third of the 1st volume.

As for the book quality, it's not good, but its 3000 pages long (in 3 vols). You want a snazzy edition, expect to pay a lot more. Mine has not fallen apart, but it's less than 2 years old.

Btw, for anyone interested in translations of 1001 nights, Borges's essay on it is essential reading.

[Anonymous No.6842414]

>>6841465
because /lit/ is a retarded hivemind. penguin translations are on par with oxford. norton has the worst by far.

[Anonymous No.6843120]

>>6841094
Yes. You want unexpurgated: it's this or Burton. Get all three volumes.

[Anonymous No.6843126]

>>6842414

[Anonymous No.6843269]

>>6841094
Shitposts aside, what's the best translation of 1001 Nights?

[Anonymous No.6843298]

>>6843269
see>>6843120

[Anonymous No.6843399]

squadala

[Anonymous No.6843406]

>>6841094
I have them and I think they capture the transition of Schehrezad's tales-within-tales quite well

[Anonymous No.6843640]

>>6841600
Like half of my books for lit courses were Penguin classics.

[Anonymous No.6845104]

>>6843640
Penguins are as commonly used as any other press's works in both English departments I work in, and in the ones I attended as a student. lit just likes parroting stuff.
These, however, are strictly for fun.

[Anonymous No.6846220]

>>6843126
and you're a hivemind retard

[Anonymous No.6847186]

>>6843640
what school do you go to?