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M.J. Fiori

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M.J. is Currently Reading

M.J. Fiori is currently reading

Madame Bovary

by Gustave Flaubert

bookshelves: currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

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Sep 30, 2010 07:14PM

M.J. Fiori is currently reading

Les Misérables

by Victor Hugo

bookshelves: currently-reading, historical-fiction, literary

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M.J. Fiori said: " March 2016: The Julie Rose translation has been available as an e-book for awhile now, so I've returned to this romantic monolith. Now at 21% and (verrrrrry) slowly moving forward ...

June 28, 2014: I had to put down the gripping 'Therese Raquin' when March 2016: The Julie Rose translation has been available as an e-book for awhile now, so I've returned to this romantic monolith. Now at 21% and (verrrrrry) slowly moving forward ...

June 28, 2014: I had to put down the gripping 'Therese Raquin' when I realized that I was reading a scorned, sanitized, possibly abridged 19-century translation (by Edward Viezetelly) and that the new, lauded translation, by Stephen Pastore, is not available on Kindle. But, finally, the Julie Rose translation of 'Les Miserables' is. So here we go again.

Update, January 25, 2012: Julie Rose has been here for about a week (not in the flesh, you understand), but I've made little progress. The size and, even more important, the HEFT of the book are pretty daunting. At least on the Kindle, I had no real idea of just how long, say, War and Peace actually was. And so I merrily and unsuspectingly plodded along, eventually to finish. There are few secrets when it comes to a hardback tome of some 1,300 pages.

But it's not just all in my head. Unfortunately, I have concrete physical limitations (debility of and pain in the fingers, hands and wrists) that make it difficult for me to even lift the book. And so things proceed slowly.

So far, however, I can report that the Julie Rose reads with ease. As soon as I picked up where I left off after switching, I was gratified to see that a certain Rose subsection read 'M. Myriel becomes Monseigneur Bienvenu' not 'M. Myriel becomes M. Welcome' as in the Isabel Hapgood rendering. 'Bienvenu' is one of the beloved character's plural names, and I thought the translator was overstretching in trying to get the double entendre across. 'Bienvenu' is not unknown in English; to actually translate it into 'welcome' seems condescending to the readership and reads awkwardly to boot.

January 8, 2012: Les Miserables is posing even more problems than usual for a book in translation. I acquired what looked to be the most viable electronic version from Amazon, to read on my Kindle. Though this information is scandalously difficult to verify, I was finally able to determine that the translation I'm reading is by Isabel Hapgood. (Right now my blood is boiling, over the easy, deliberate failure by publishers to give attribution to translators. I don't care if the works involved are in the public domain. First, the translator, JUST LIKE the author, should be identified in any case; second, his or her work should be considered equally inviolable. But this is a topic for another day and another forum.)

At any rate, after three or four or so chapters of the Hapgood translation, I'm unsatisfied. Some passages are difficult to follow or even completely inscrutable. I want to switch translations - and once again am faced with the problem of even identifying which translation is which. I click on the link for the one that seems to be by Charles Wilbour (which I would definitely consider, though my first choice would be the new Julie Rose version) - and there, in the comment section as well as the professional reviewers' quotes, I find that no distinction is made between this edition and any other. Some comments claim that "this new version by Julie Rose" is the best; others insist that the original U.S. version, by Wilbour, still stands the test of time. WHY can't Amazon - and Goodreads is equally guilty here - take the time and trouble to distinguish between the various editions by the various translators? The difference between one and another is the difference between night and day.

The prevailing ignorance about the issues of translation - and not in the general public, where it is totally understandable, but among professionals and the publishing industry as a whole - is maddening and shameful.

My problem now is that the Rose translation, which I'd prefer to be reading right now, is not yet available as an e-book. What I think I am going to do is switch to the Wilbour, the Hapgood having proven itself totally unreliable and untenable, until I can get a physical copy of the Julie Rose translation delivered. Much as it galls me to have to read such a long book on paper (my eyes will suffer), there's no way around it. The book already has me under its spell - I can't wait for Julie Rose in ink on paper! ...more "

progress:

(page 256 of 1330)
— Apr 06, 2016 09:37AM

Apr 06, 2016 09:38AM · see review

M.J. Fiori is currently reading

Alexander Hamilton

by Ron Chernow

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Jan 14, 2021 10:06AM

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M.J.’s Notes & Highlights

The Tale of Murasaki by Liza Dalby

4 highlights

And there were times I thought it would have been better, after all, if I had never met Ming-gwok. Yet that was like saying it would be better not to look at cherry blossoms because you feel sad when they fall.

Bill liked this