Príspevky: 121
Jazyk: English
SPX (Zobraziť profil) 6. augusta 2012 2:16:10
patrik:Well, does anyone think that there are books that should NEVER be translated into Esperanto?"As I Lay Dying" by William Faulkner. Truly one of the worst books I've ever read.
patrik (Zobraziť profil) 6. augusta 2012 2:23:23
SPX:Worst in what sense? Literary? Well, I was thinking of other reasons. For instance, should books like Mein Kampf be translated into Esperanto?patrik:Well, does anyone think that there are books that should NEVER be translated into Esperanto?"As I Lay Dying" by William Faulkner. Truly one of the worst books I've ever read.
SPX (Zobraziť profil) 6. augusta 2012 2:41:03
patrik:Well I was more being funny than anything else. But "worst" in the sense that it's just a terribly written book, at least in my opinion. How it came to be regarded as a classic I have no idea. And the fact that it was foisted upon me in high school I consider to be something of a crime.
Worst in what sense? Literary? Well, I was thinking of other reasons. For instance, should books like Mein Kampf be translated into Esperanto?
As for "Mein Kampf," I see no reason why it shouldn't be translated. I don't get down with censorship and so don't support the restriction of unpopular information. I mean, one book that I'd LOVE to see translated into Esperanto is Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason," which is essentially an attack on the historical truth of Christianity. I would understand why it wouldn't be popular with believers, but I certainly wouldn't want them to try to block its publication. Nor would I try to block the publication of Christian works just because I'm not a member of the faith. (In fact, I would like to see C.S. Lewis's "Mere Christianity" translated. It's an interesting book and I admire him as a thinker.)
Vestitor (Zobraziť profil) 6. augusta 2012 11:07:31
1. It's an intensely boring book that only a person dedicated to sharing it further would be likely to undertake as a translation project.
2. I doubt very much that anyone bothering to read Mein Kampf is the sort of person pursuing Esperanto. It's not a certainty, but a likelihood.
In that way it ends up just being filtered away rather than censored. Thinking about it in terms of the lofty ideals of non-censorship is a bit of a diversion; in reality there is always a filter in place, guided by needs, goals, ideas, relevance and resources. There are just too many other interesting and worthwhile books to bother translating Mein Kampf - when was the last English translation?
Hyperboreus (Zobraziť profil) 6. augusta 2012 16:13:36
creedelambard (Zobraziť profil) 6. augusta 2012 16:28:07
But you're right, there are a lot more interesting works out there to translate. Even if we just restricted ourselves to twentieth-century German literature, the Esperanto community would probably be more interested in works from writers like Erich Maria Remarque, Max Frisch, Wolfgang Borchert and Hermann Hesse. I think the first three would especially appeal to what I see as the Esperanto sense of trans-nationality with works like All Quiet On The Western Front and Biedermann and the Firebugs. I don't think Borchert is as well known outside Germany but after World War II he wrote quite a few pieces against war and antimilitarism such as The Drooping Geraniums and Say No! Hesse, well I don't know if he's as cool as he used to be back in the Sixties but he's still worth reading.
rusto (Zobraziť profil) 6. augusta 2012 16:34:16
creedelambard:This all sounds like a job for a peer-rated review service where people can post their reviews of Esperanto texts, similar to the review services on sites like Amazon or Newegg. In fact there may be one and I'm just not aware of it.I was thinking along similar lines. Rate the work by the quality and reading level of its Esperanto, giving the author a rating based upon the average rating of his or her works. It probably wouldn't be horrible to rate the editors as well. Being a fan of Creative Commons, I'd support releasing electronic editions for free under a CC License with dead tree versions at a price.
The chief problem would be one of interest. How many people would be willing to write? How many people would be willing to read and edit? How many people would be comfortable putting something out there for editting? The last bit is my problem. I love writting short stories and spend a modest amount of my free time doing it. But I don't feel comfortable in asking people to review it for me as it feels like pestering them to do work for no reason outside my own petty wants.
creedelambard (Zobraziť profil) 6. augusta 2012 16:44:35
Hyperboreus:Undoubtly the complete works of Bioy Casares and Jorge Luis Borges. In my opinion, two of the best writers I have read so far (and I do quite a lot of reading).+1 for all of these. (I'll take your word on Casares, who I'm not familiar with.) Especially Chomsky. Translating one of his books into Esperanto might show him that Esperanto is indeed a language, in spite of what he has said in the past.
Other authors that come to mind: Isaac Asimov, Terry Pratchett, Noam Chomsky, Arthur C. Clarke, Dante Alighieri, Platon, Cicero, John Milton, to name a few. And surely Humerto Eco.
Edit: And the dude who wrote "A Clockwork Orange". And "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert Heinlein.
+2 for Pratchett. Avinjo Vetervaks por la venko! (Given the deference she gets, translating "Granny" as "Avinjo" could be pretty ironic.) Although there are some things that might be a bit tough to get right, like the sign I ATEN'T DED that she puts on her chest when she's out Borrowing a hive of bees. And it might be tough translating "Mort," since the title character is named "Mort" but the novel is about Death, whose name would logically be translated "Morto." EDIT: Or maybe "La Morto." I'm not sure.
TatuLe (Zobraziť profil) 6. augusta 2012 17:09:11
creedelambard:I have a copy of Lingvo kaj menso by Noam Chomsky, but I don't know if any of his other works have been translated.
+1 for all of these. (I'll take your word on Casares, who I'm not familiar with.) Especially Chomsky. Translating one of his books into Esperanto might show him that Esperanto is indeed a language, in spite of what he has said in the past.
SPX (Zobraziť profil) 6. augusta 2012 17:17:39
Vestitor:I think it's safe to assume that Mein Kampf is not likely to get a translation soon, for two main reasons:Hmm, I'm not sure about that. . .
1. It's an intensely boring book that only a person dedicated to sharing it further would be likely to undertake as a translation project.
2. I doubt very much that anyone bothering to read Mein Kampf is the sort of person pursuing Esperanto. It's not a certainty, but a likelihood.
Regarding your first point, it's one of those works that is a "classic" and people have a desire to preserve it in the same sense that most people in the Western, democratic world think that "The Prince" or "The Communist Manifesto" is a classic and worth preserving.
And your second point relates to my first: I generally think of those pursuing Esperanto as being educated and well-read. As such, "Mein Kampf" strikes me as one of those books that everyone should read eventually just to be familiar with it from a historical perspective.