Emma's Reviews > The Showings of Julian of Norwich

Since the late 1970s, thanks to the series Classics of Western Spirituality, English readers have had access to an excellent text in modern English of the Book of Revelations by Julian of Norwich, both in its short and long versions. Mirabai Starr thought time had come for a much more daring translation, theologically speaking, of the mystic’s sixteen visions (in its long version). She states doing so on the basis of what she thinks are Julian’s ideas. This leads her to move quite far away from the literal text in some cases, under the pretext of providing a more accessible text to the reader. Nevertheless, one can often wonder about the merits of such a choice, even if it is true that translating is always a matter of interpretation, but to what extent? The textual expression "those who will be saved" for example, was translated as "all beings." To move away from the usual consensus can sometimes create more confusion than clarity for the reader. Thus, automatically replacing the uses of the word "sin" in Julian’s text by "missing the mark" seems to lead readers too far away from Julian’s perspective. Especially if they ignore the Greek etymology of this word, they will not even be able to identify the true meaning of the expression used. In a similar desire for clarification, the translator has divided each vision in several paragraphs, each introduced by a title of her own. Finally, a printing defect makes the reading very painful: there is often a small vertical sign added to certain letters