What’s the best translation of Crime and Punishment?
“Not to have read it is a crime, and reading it is the punishment.”
Review of Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (translated by Constance Garnett)
I was happy with the Garnett translation; not so happy with the Nietzschean philosophy.
What’s the best translation of The Count of Monte Cristo?
So you want to read Alexandre Dumas’ classic adventure, and you don’t read French. There are a host of publishers offering a myriad of paperback and hardcover editions and dozens of digital versions. What’s the difference?
Review of The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore (translated by Surendranath Tagore)
The main character, Bimala, is an Indian woman caught in a love triangle with her mild, loving husband Nikhil and the charismatic, impetuous nationalist Sandip. She has always had a place in the home, but what is her place in the world?
Threelogy Lah by Casey Chen
These books use and teach Singlish dialect and slang expressions. The target audience includes both those who want to see their own dialect used for humorous effect and those who are unfamiliar with Singlish.
Review of Solaris by Stanislaw Lem (translated by Bill Johnston)
This is a haunting book. We can’t understand alien intelligence; we can’t even understand each other. We can’t even understand ourselves!
Does your language control you? Further reading and viewing!
Book: Through the Language Glass · Website: Language Weirdness Index · Movie: Arrival · TED Talk: Lera Boroditsky on Linguistic Relativity · Video: Color Naming Patterns
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in Bulgarian, Serbian, Romanian, and Slovene
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in Bulgarian, Serbian, Romanian, and Slovene.
Review of 1984 by George Orwell
Orwell had it wrong. You don’t have to change or destroy existing records to change the truth. You just have to bury them under a slew of new ones.
Mots D’Heures: Gousses, Rames
This book is mind-blowing! My French teacher had it when I was in high school… 20 years later I was thrilled when I found a copy of my own.