I own and read from the same edition of Borges you show here. It's a great translation. Borges is bottomless, I never get all of it, I keep going back to the stories and they seem new each time. For such a quiet, shy and scholarly man, he wrote with incredible understand of humanity in all its violent and manipulative forms. The Laurus book interests me. Name of the Rose is incredible. I read Foucault's Pendulum twice, and left unsatisfied with it each time. Hard to say why. I'm reading Moby Dick, and though Hawthorne's language is pre-modern and odd at times, the metaphysical essence of it is very deep and modern. I may skip some of the whaling chapters, as I did before.
If you liked Name of the Rose there's a decent chance you'll like Laurus. It is very much a Russian Name of the Rose, but it is also very Russian (in a good way, in my opinion). I suppose I've never really been able to give in to the modern idea that brevity and economy are the most important factors in prose. I pull Borges off the shelf and read a story at random now and then. He had an interesting interview in The Paris Review eons ago. He seems to come alive when you give him some room to open up about his passions.
Curious... As you read "The Brothers Karamazov" in translation, i'm assuming you don't speak (or read) Russian. How then, if you're unable to compare any translation with the original, are you able to judge any translation as being "better" than any other, let alone be opinionated enough about one of them to declare you loathe it?
I don't speak chinese, but if I read two translations of The Art of War and one was garbage and the other read well, then I'd assume the first translator did a poor job rather than assume the latter brilliantly rewrote a poor piece of literature that somehow survived generations.
I may have to put The Name of the Rose higher up my reading list. I’m in the midst of re-reading Kristin Lavransdatter at the moment, a book made much better by having read it through once already… but it’s making me crave other well-executed medievalist pieces.
I own and read from the same edition of Borges you show here. It's a great translation. Borges is bottomless, I never get all of it, I keep going back to the stories and they seem new each time. For such a quiet, shy and scholarly man, he wrote with incredible understand of humanity in all its violent and manipulative forms. The Laurus book interests me. Name of the Rose is incredible. I read Foucault's Pendulum twice, and left unsatisfied with it each time. Hard to say why. I'm reading Moby Dick, and though Hawthorne's language is pre-modern and odd at times, the metaphysical essence of it is very deep and modern. I may skip some of the whaling chapters, as I did before.
If you liked Name of the Rose there's a decent chance you'll like Laurus. It is very much a Russian Name of the Rose, but it is also very Russian (in a good way, in my opinion). I suppose I've never really been able to give in to the modern idea that brevity and economy are the most important factors in prose. I pull Borges off the shelf and read a story at random now and then. He had an interesting interview in The Paris Review eons ago. He seems to come alive when you give him some room to open up about his passions.
Is it from the Faus-Dolos' translation effort of Ibn Fadlan's Viking report?
Indeed it is! ⭐
Great! My research skills still work. I was just skimming over the Faus-Dolos report; it is pretty neat to learn how life was so long ago!
Curious... As you read "The Brothers Karamazov" in translation, i'm assuming you don't speak (or read) Russian. How then, if you're unable to compare any translation with the original, are you able to judge any translation as being "better" than any other, let alone be opinionated enough about one of them to declare you loathe it?
I don't speak chinese, but if I read two translations of The Art of War and one was garbage and the other read well, then I'd assume the first translator did a poor job rather than assume the latter brilliantly rewrote a poor piece of literature that somehow survived generations.
I may have to put The Name of the Rose higher up my reading list. I’m in the midst of re-reading Kristin Lavransdatter at the moment, a book made much better by having read it through once already… but it’s making me crave other well-executed medievalist pieces.