The whole end section - the last 45 pages in my edition - are almost completely without punctuation. It's a stream-of-consciousness passage of Molly Bloom, the MC's wife. There are paragraph breaks, but they're rare - these paragraphs go on for pages and pages. It's an amazing, bravura performance by Joyce - how does a man get so deep into a woman's mind? But it's ultimately glorious, and, justifiably, one of the most famous passages in English-language literature.
There's a typo - I meant difficult to me. not different. We learned about Ulysses in high school, but I wasn't so much in literature back then, so I don't recall what we were learning, but I do remember that everybody in the class (including me) widened their eyes when we saw this one non-punctuation paragraph. This seems interesting, a beginner writer might learn something from it. You caught my attention with this question, a complicated human psychology is one of the reasons why I write.
Yes. The only Kafka I've read is the short story "The Hunger Artist." We dealt with that in our short story club here on this forum, back when it was still active.
It's wise to be careful with translations. There are some translators I can from personal experience recommend, but there is a lot of crap out there too.
I was just curious. He's a writer I'm currently exploring. I'm reading Metamorphosis and other short stories. Perhaps that short story is to be found therein.
If it's the collection I'm thinking of then, yes it does. That also has a not-very-good translation of Metamorphosis it must be said.
I had wondered how the whole translation thing was moderated and policed. Who decides that a particular translation is good enough? I of course, would rather see his work in the best possible light.
A translator is offered a book and he can either accept or decline its translation. When it comes to actual translation many publishing houses don't care how good a translation is. The translation's been made, the translator is payed and the story sees the world. That is why also only good books are being translated. The publishers know that if a book is known, the readers will read it, despite the bad translation. That is the case in many countries... Only the best translators can choose what will they translate. For example, Harry Potter and LOTR bith are translated in my country by the best known translator. But he's quite a douche...
@outsider: You have the Penguin collection, right? That translation describes Gregor Samsa as a 'cockroach'. I know enough German to know that the word Kafka actually used translates as 'vermin', and during the course of the story it's very clear Gregor has not been turned into a cockroach anyway. I also don't think that the Penguin translation (I forget who did it) doesn't quite capture the feel of the original German. The Stanley Corngold translation is by far the best that I've seen, you can find it here: http://mrsbuckertsclassblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/the-metamorphosis-text.pdf When it comes to translations I have a theory, because I translate things myself. It should, to be a good translation, capture the spirit, the meaning, style, and feel or the original. If it can't get at least 3 of these 4 right then I don't consider it successful.
Np. ^^ Sorry, I had made a mistake. The key word in the first sentence of the original (I've just checked it) is 'Ungeziefer' which translates as 'vermin' and relates to mud and dirt, Gregor Samsa has clearly been changed into a beetle.
A lot of times there's a consensus among scholars as to what the best translation is. Sometimes, however, the translation preferred by academia is too difficult for the general public, so as far as the casual reader is concerned, accessibility is very important. As an example, consider the Iliad. The Fagles translation seems to be the most popular among the general public, but academia tends to use the Lattimore translation because he tries to imitate the patterns and flow of the original. Then you have the Pope translation, which is probably the best as far as aesthetics are concerned, but it is said that Pope took a ton of liberties. So you don't know whether you're reading Pope or Homer. As far as Kafka is concerned, your best bet would be to compare different translators and select the best one for you. Every translation is going to have its flaws. Maybe you could ask someone who knows German and ask for his/her opinion. Of course, nothing matches the original.
This raises a question: Does anyone know of a translation that actually improved on the original? Has any translator taken a poorly-written piece and made it a masterwork?
I'm not sure about the rest of the story's content (it's been a while since I read it in either language and back then I didn't pay attention to this), but in my opinion, the names of characters and places in LOTR sound much better in Finnish than in English. Then again, Tolkien drew so heavily from the Finnish language that I'm not really surprised many of the names sound like they were made for the Finnish tongue (Aragorn, Mordor, Sauron etc). In the Peter Jackson films, it sounds like the actors and actresses were given some coaching in pronouncing the names, and while some did a better job of it than others, the direction was clear, leaning closer to a Finnish rather than English pronunciation.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez himself mentioned that Rabassa's translation of One Hundred Years of Solitude is better than the original.
Here is an example of a movie that was improved by translation: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/19/iron-lady-margaret-thatcher-russian-version
There is one that I can think of. The 'Argonotica' of Apollonus of Rhodes was greatly improved on when it was translated into Latin. Sorry, I don't remember the name of the translator.
