08-30-2019, 01:23 AM
(08-27-2019, 01:59 PM)bigcat1969 Wrote: Rocketh on in ye olde English Lit Master program! Grateths! Sorry too many Ren Faires.
We have a permanent Ren Faire that runs July through Sept.; I go every year! I've been going since I was probably four.
(08-29-2019, 12:46 AM)Mattias Westlund Wrote: I actually tried reading [the Swedish translation of] Titus Groan somewhere around the time I discovered Tolkien. So I guess I was twelwe or thereabouts, already hooked on p&p role-playing games. I never finished it because it was too weird for my pre-teen brain. It had the trappings of a fantasy novel, but none of that heroic adventuring stuff I expected and longed for.
I should really give it another shot, and in English this time. You native English speakers are lucky in not having to deal with the translation crap most of the time. Well, some books are bad no matter what they're translated from and into, but there's a certain disturbing clunkiness that comes from bad translations that you learn to pick up on if you're at least somewhat versed in the original language. And it can ruin a book for sure.
That's the tricky thing. If you want to be well versed in literature you can't really avoid translations. Sometimes they are themselves a work of art; but other times, yeah, they are clunky and don't seem to deliver on the promises made by the original.
I actually couldn't get into a number of graduate level Lit programs because I don't have even a reading knowledge of a language other than English.
