As English-speakers, we are eminently familiar with the figures of British, American, Irish, and Canadian literature. Some of the world’s finest writers wrote in English; from William Shakespeare to Mark Twain, from James Joyce to Margaret Atwood, there are too many titans of British and American literature to name. But that still doesn’t account for Miguel de Cervantes, Victor Hugo, Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and so many other writers who did not write in English but whose works have been translated into the English language.
But what gets lost in translation, as the saying goes? English is expansive, expressive, and full of nuances, but it cannot always capture certain particularities and idioms in, for instance, Russian, a language quite far removed from English. We should be grateful for the work of translators in bringing world literature into the Anglosphere, but we must be mindful of some of these disadvantages of reading translated books.
Translations Are Products of Their Time
The most important thing to remember when you’re reading translated literature is that you’re reading not only the original author but also the translator, who represents a moment in time just as much as the author. Without access to the work in its original language, you cannot accurately gauge how many liberties the translator took, which were possibly due to when the translation was written. Was a level of censorship involved? Have translators since developed a better understanding of the foreign language? Might the translation better reflect the styles and mores of, for example, Victorian England than those of the original author?
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Some translations may go too far in trying to make a book feel contemporary for its readers. For example, the King James Version of the Bible, first published in 1611, is written in a form of English that may feel alien to 21st-century readers. However, translations of the Bible from the original Greek and Hebrew to modern English can go too far in the other direction, sacrificing beauty of prose for sheer readability, significantly diminishing the gravity of the work, and reducing Scripture to a trade paperback level of breeziness. In such a case, it’s best to stick with the classics.
Idioms
A well-meaning attempt to perform a word-for-word translation can prove treacherous. Most languages don’t share the idioms of the English language, which can mean either a turn of phrase that makes no sense to the English reader or a substitution that compromises the integrity of the original work. Perhaps the greatest of the disadvantages of reading translated books is that you cannot experience the true voice of the author. If you really want to read Les Misérables as it was intended to be read, you may just have to teach yourself French.
