Best Book Only Read in L2

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zenmonkey
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Re: Best Book Only Read in L2

Postby zenmonkey » Sun Apr 30, 2017 12:28 pm

French: My ex is the dean of a French Lit department and 18th century lit. specialist so I've read a boatload but my favourite books in French are translations of Arto Paasilinna (anything and everything from Finnish) and Antonio Tabucchi (from Italian and Portuguese), Daniel Pennac (again, everything), Perec... oh, damn it, French just has so many good authors - ask me again tomorrow and I'll say something else.

German: Suprisingly - Arto's - Die Welt zu Retten pops to mind. Maybe Schlink's Der Vorleser/'The Reader' - I bought both the German and English but have only read the German.

I'm going to look up emk's Déchronologue!!
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Re: Best Book Only Read in L2

Postby Jbean » Sun Apr 30, 2017 3:19 pm

Yes, Daniel Pennac. I also like the short essays of Philippe Delorme.
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Re: Best Book Only Read in L2

Postby flabbergasted » Tue May 02, 2017 1:31 pm

That's an awesome topic for a thread!

English: Gravity's Rainbow
French: Les beinveillantes
German: Merlin oder Das wüste Land
Italian: Corporale
Spanish: Los Sorias
Catalan: El Troiacord
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Re: Best Book Only Read in L2

Postby stormj » Sun May 07, 2017 3:02 am

Conversación en la catedral por Mario Vargas Llosa y Cien años de soledad por Gabo.

ספר איוב. / Sefer 'Yob.
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Re: Best Book Only Read in L2

Postby Zegpoddle » Mon May 15, 2017 5:36 am

French: Les enfants terribles [Jean Cocteau]
German: Der Leviathan [Joseph Roth]

They were the "best" not because of their plots, but because of their language. They were so beautifully written that they gave me a peak experience, which is a polite way of saying "literary orgasm." I kept reciting whole paragraphs out loud because the rhythms were so musical. It didn't matter that I was only at a B1-B2 level in the languages in which they were written. In fact, that might have helped.

I don't often have that experience in my native language, perhaps because it's too familiar to me. I remember parts of Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop, Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country, or the closing paragraph of James Joyce's "The Dead" being shiver-inducing in the same way. Each word seems like a cut jewel. You almost forget to pay attention to the story because the prose is so radiant. (I hesitate to say "poetic" because I generally dislike poems.)

I've never read Cocteau or Roth in English, and I don't want to. I picked up an English translation of Les enfant terribles in a bookstore years ago, and I couldn't bear to read more than half a page. All of the magic had been sucked out of it. I know it makes me sound terribly snobbish to say "You've got to read them in the original," but in these two cases, it is absolutely true. It's the difference between the King James Bible and the operating manual for a washing machine.

What books have you read in your L2 that were so beautifully written as to make you think "THAT was worth studying the language for"?
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Re: Best Book Only Read in L2

Postby zenmonkey » Mon May 15, 2017 6:22 am

Zegpoddle wrote:What books have you read in your L2 that were so beautifully written as to make you think "THAT was worth studying the language for"?


Since you are working on French - Aurélian d'Aragon.

Oh, and then there are all of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Monde% ... he_Century
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Re: Best Book Only Read in L2

Postby arthaey » Sun May 21, 2017 6:47 am

Andy Weir's "The Martian", translated into Spanish as "El Marciano".

The translation hits the original tone so spot-on, I was able to translate back into English word-for-word. (My sister with her English copy was rather amazed, and I was pleased with myself, but I think it reflects most positively on the translator. ;))
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Re: Best Book Only Read in L2

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sun May 21, 2017 12:19 pm

Le pouvoir du moment présent - Eckhart Tolle.
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Re: Best Book Only Read in L2

Postby William Camden » Mon May 22, 2017 11:13 am

arthaey wrote:Andy Weir's "The Martian", translated into Spanish as "El Marciano".

The translation hits the original tone so spot-on, I was able to translate back into English word-for-word. (My sister with her English copy was rather amazed, and I was pleased with myself, but I think it reflects most positively on the translator. ;))


For language-learners, if not necessarily for literary connoisseurs, the more literal a translation, the better.
Comparing translations of books, I have encountered a wide range, from close to the original to quite distant, to the point where a witty turn of phrase in the original is clunkily replaced by something quite pedestrian. Once or twice I have suspected that the translator did not fully understand the original language.
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Re: Best Book Only Read in L2

Postby arthaey » Mon May 22, 2017 2:26 pm

William Camden wrote:
arthaey wrote:Andy Weir's "The Martian", translated into Spanish as "El Marciano".

The translation hits the original tone so spot-on, I was able to translate back into English word-for-word. (My sister with her English copy was rather amazed, and I was pleased with myself, but I think it reflects most positively on the translator. ;))


For language-learners, if not necessarily for literary connoisseurs, the more literal a translation, the better.
Comparing translations of books, I have encountered a wide range, from close to the original to quite distant, to the point where a witty turn of phrase in the original is clunkily replaced by something quite pedestrian. Once or twice I have suspected that the translator did not fully understand the original language.

This felt the opposite of clunky. When I back-translated, I usually thought I must be taking great liberties but I wanted to convey the same snarky tone… and then it turned out that my own sense of how to get the point across in English was in fact the original way. I was surprised that I'd ended up back at the original. My impression was that the translator had a very good grasp of the languages.
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