That Foster Wallace essay is great: when he was good, he was really very good, and that's one of his better pieces. Milan Kundera's Testaments Betrayed is pretty excellent as well; the last chapter (and title) cover Brod not burning Kafka's papers, and then manufacturing tortured genius Kafka instead of sticking with the fairly ridiculous reality (the…
…translation by professional human translators between languages? is it really any better at preserving the intent and sub-text? Kundera has an amazing essay—- “The Sentence”—-in his collection of essays “Testaments Betrayed” on the woes of translation of, yes, a single sentence from Kafka’s “The Castle”. As he (or his translator Linda Asher) say: The sentence “describes the coition of K. and Frieda”. Under the bar too…
His fiction was great, but his non-fiction is astounding. I liked, not loved "The Unbearable Likeness," which probably needs a re-reading at this point. But his masterpiece I think is "Testaments Betrayed," in which he examines the art of the novel. The habit for re-reading novels I picked up because of his explanation of the nature of the novel in this book. This man was a giant of humanities and European…
This reminds me of Milan Kundera's "Testaments Betrayed", which expresses the profound challenge (near impossibility) of translations doing justice to original works.
福斯特·华莱士那篇散文写得太棒了：他状态好的时候，水平那是真没得说，而这就是他写得比较好的文章之一。米兰·昆德拉的《被背叛的遗嘱》也极其精彩；最后一章（连同书名）讲的是布罗德没有烧掉卡夫卡的手稿，随后凭空造出了一个“受尽折磨的天才”卡夫卡，而不是去面对那个相当荒诞的现实（那个……
That Foster Wallace essay is great: when he was good, he was really very good, and that's one of his better pieces. Milan Kundera's Testaments Betrayed is pretty excellent as well; the last chapter (and title) cover Brod not burning Kafka's papers, and then manufacturing tortured genius Kafka instead of sticking with the fairly ridiculous reality (the…
……人类专业译者在不同语言之间进行的翻译？在保留原意和潜台词方面它真的就更好吗？昆德拉在他的散文集《被背叛的遗嘱》里有一篇绝妙的文章叫《一个句子》，讲的就是翻译上的苦恼——没错，仅仅是对卡夫卡《城堡》里单独一句话的翻译。正如他（或是他的英文译者琳达·阿舍尔）所说：那个句子“描写了K.和弗丽达的交合”。甚至还是在吧台底下……
…translation by professional human translators between languages? is it really any better at preserving the intent and sub-text? Kundera has an amazing essay—- “The Sentence”—-in his collection of essays “Testaments Betrayed” on the woes of translation of, yes, a single sentence from Kafka’s “The Castle”. As he (or his translator Linda Asher) say: The sentence “describes the coition of K. and Frieda”. Under the bar too…
他的小说很棒，但他的非虚构作品更是令人叹为观止。《不能承受的生命之轻》我挺喜欢的，但还没到深爱的地步，现在想想可能需要重读一遍。但我认为他的巅峰之作是《被背叛的遗嘱》，他在里面深入剖析了小说艺术。我之所以养成了反复重读小说的习惯，正是因为他在这本书里对小说本质的阐释。这个人堪称人文科学和欧洲……的巨人。
His fiction was great, but his non-fiction is astounding. I liked, not loved "The Unbearable Likeness," which probably needs a re-reading at this point. But his masterpiece I think is "Testaments Betrayed," in which he examines the art of the novel. The habit for re-reading novels I picked up because of his explanation of the nature of the novel in this book. This man was a giant of humanities and European…
这让我想起了米兰·昆德拉的《被背叛的遗嘱》，书里讲到了翻译想要忠实于原作所面临的深刻挑战（甚至近乎不可能）。
This reminds me of Milan Kundera's "Testaments Betrayed", which expresses the profound challenge (near impossibility) of translations doing justice to original works.