Incoherent Scribblings

Lost in Translation

I was going to write about this a couple of days ago, but I thought that it would make a good topic for “Booking Through Thursday” so I decided to wait until today.

1.) Have you ever read a book in a language other than your native language? How would you describe your experience?

Yes I have. That is what brought these questions about.

First off, I have read books in French, but they were for class when I was studying French, so I am not sure if they really count…

However, what I really wanted to brag about in relation to this question was that I just finished my first non-required, full-length German novel!! OK, technically it was required reading when I started language classes again back in August, but once I finished the class it was no longer required reading and I kept reading it anyway!

The book that I read is called Das Parfum by Patrick Süskind. I had never heard of it before, but apparently it is a well-known piece of modern German literature. It takes place in France some years before the Revolution and is about a man who has an extremely heightened sense of smell. He becomes a perfumer and, in his quest for the perfect perfume, a murder.

The story is not for the faint of heart: In my opinion it is very well-written even though everything about it is unappealing and brutal. I found it to be quite descriptive and though I didn’t like the main character I couldn’t help but wonder what he was going to do next. (As an interesting aside, I find more and more that I enjoy reading books where I intensely dislike the main character, but am intrigued by what he or she will do next.)

As I have mentioned before, I studied literature as an undergraduate and it never ceases to amaze me I unconsciously apply all of the things I learned when I read nowadays. What is more, even though I didn’t understand every single word in this book, for the first time I found that I understood enough that I was able to not only read a German novel, but comprehend it on a literary level.

Finally, for me the best thing about this book was that I actually finished it! By that I mean that now that I have finished a full-length German novel, I am confident that I can do it again and as a result am much more interested in doing so.

2.) Do you read books translated from other languages into your native language? Why or why not?

I have read a few books that were translated from other languages into English, even though to be honest, I didn’t know it at the time. The two that come to mind are The Never Ending Story by Michael Ende (original German) and The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (original Italian).

I am not about to deny that there are many, many books written in other languages besides English, but I think native English speakers are spoiled because so much is written in English to start with.

In fact, something that surprised me when I came to Germany was how popular English translations of best-sellers like The Da Vinci Code or the Harry Potter books are here. At the physical bookstore, I never have any problems finding the New York Times bestsellers. Finding them in English is another matter though…