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readingrealgood's review against another edition
2.0
Interesting concept but I didn't love the source material
jason461's review against another edition
5.0
This is just about the most interesting thing I've ever read. So many different languages.
joshhornbeck's review against another edition
5.0
The 42nd issue of McSweeney's Quarterly Concern is a fascinating experiment in the art of translation. Taking twelve pieces of short fiction and sending them through various translations (English to French to English to Chinese to English again - for one example) shows how much art and license must be taken for a translation to be faithful, not just to the meaning of a story, but to the effect on its readers. Really outstanding issue.
mattquann's review
3.0
Perhaps the most pretentious thing I've read all year.
This year I endeavored to read more books from international authors, excluding books from the UK, Canada, and US. There’s a good TED talk that touches on our tendencies to stock our shelves full of Western authors and how that can limit our view of world literature. In any case, my personal challenge has been going rather well. I’ve read books this year from Jamaica, China, the Czech Republic, Finland, and Colombia this year and each has been a drastically different reading experience from what I’m used to with my usual reading.
But I’d never given much thought to the act of translation itself. Is the translator’s duty to neither add nor subtract from the author’s text? Or perhaps it is more important to capture the essence of the story, to translate the message at the expense of the author’s original words. So, McSweeney’s #42 gave me a good excuse to delve deeper into these thoughts with it’s fairly pretentious, kind-of-gimmicky concept.
McSweeney’s #42 collects a series of 12 stories written in languages other than English, subsequently translated by authors you’ve probably read. Rather than stopping at a single translation, the initial translations are subsequently translated into another foreign language before being re-translated from the second foreign language back into English.
So, the cover, depicting different generations of phones, each layer of the cover not flush with the last, makes a bit more sense. That is, this book is a giant literary game of telephone.
A Brief Aside on the Pretentious Employment of the Cover
The cover is pretty eye-catching at first, but actually makes for a bit of an uncomfortable book to hold. It strikes me as the type of book that one might buy and leave on a coffee table laying in wait. One day, when esteemed guests join them for wine, cheese, and feigned pleasantries, they will take note of the book. They’ll first be drawn in by its complex physical structure, then been impressed and daunted by its concept. They’ll conclude that this person is extremely well read and will perhaps make comment to the owner on their challenging reading choices. The owner will then simulate having read the book, and strike a delicate balance between insult and nonchalance as he asks in a voice of condescension, “Why, haven’t you read it?” End Aside
But, the question you are likely asking is, well is it any good? Certainly a three-star rating could go either way. I won’t lie to you fellow goodreadians: I did not read multiple versions of every story in this book. The concept, at first appealing, became monotonous after the first two stories. The variations were minor, and though it is a pretty neat/overly pretentious concept, I never felt as if the stories took a drastic turn from the other version I had just read. So, instead, I treated this book like I would any short story collection and just read one version of each story. For the most part, I read the authors with whom I was familiar when possible, and tried out new authors when I knew no name on the list.
Interestingly, this book makes for a pretty good short story collection if you were to just cut out the literary masturbation that is the act of perpetual translation. I got to read stories from Russia, Italy, and many other countries whose authors I had never read. The perspective, tone, and style that each story was able to convey made for a unique reading experience with every tale. Some of the stories are quite short, while others go on for pages. I didn’t love each one, but I loved the unique flavor that each offered.
All the same, I would have been just as happy for the book to have a few more stories from different parts of the world instead of all the translations.
In Transition
This morning I dropped off the book at a local coffee shop that doubles as a community library. There are stacks of books in a makeshift library that are all free, and the owners ask only that when you wish to divest yourself of books, you drop them off at their shop. It seemed only fitting that a book so consumed with translation from the writers’ side could add a layer of transition from the readers’ end. In one of the flaps of that ostentatious cover, I’ve left a note for the next reader.
Put simply: take from this book only the stories, leave nothing but writing and food-related stains, and once you are done, leave the book for someone you’ve never met to find.
I’ve been bemoaning the pretentious nature of the book throughout the entire review, but this act of meta-telephone is perhaps the most pretentious of all.
This year I endeavored to read more books from international authors, excluding books from the UK, Canada, and US. There’s a good TED talk that touches on our tendencies to stock our shelves full of Western authors and how that can limit our view of world literature. In any case, my personal challenge has been going rather well. I’ve read books this year from Jamaica, China, the Czech Republic, Finland, and Colombia this year and each has been a drastically different reading experience from what I’m used to with my usual reading.
But I’d never given much thought to the act of translation itself. Is the translator’s duty to neither add nor subtract from the author’s text? Or perhaps it is more important to capture the essence of the story, to translate the message at the expense of the author’s original words. So, McSweeney’s #42 gave me a good excuse to delve deeper into these thoughts with it’s fairly pretentious, kind-of-gimmicky concept.
McSweeney’s #42 collects a series of 12 stories written in languages other than English, subsequently translated by authors you’ve probably read. Rather than stopping at a single translation, the initial translations are subsequently translated into another foreign language before being re-translated from the second foreign language back into English.
So, the cover, depicting different generations of phones, each layer of the cover not flush with the last, makes a bit more sense. That is, this book is a giant literary game of telephone.
A Brief Aside on the Pretentious Employment of the Cover
The cover is pretty eye-catching at first, but actually makes for a bit of an uncomfortable book to hold. It strikes me as the type of book that one might buy and leave on a coffee table laying in wait. One day, when esteemed guests join them for wine, cheese, and feigned pleasantries, they will take note of the book. They’ll first be drawn in by its complex physical structure, then been impressed and daunted by its concept. They’ll conclude that this person is extremely well read and will perhaps make comment to the owner on their challenging reading choices. The owner will then simulate having read the book, and strike a delicate balance between insult and nonchalance as he asks in a voice of condescension, “Why, haven’t you read it?” End Aside
But, the question you are likely asking is, well is it any good? Certainly a three-star rating could go either way. I won’t lie to you fellow goodreadians: I did not read multiple versions of every story in this book. The concept, at first appealing, became monotonous after the first two stories. The variations were minor, and though it is a pretty neat/overly pretentious concept, I never felt as if the stories took a drastic turn from the other version I had just read. So, instead, I treated this book like I would any short story collection and just read one version of each story. For the most part, I read the authors with whom I was familiar when possible, and tried out new authors when I knew no name on the list.
Interestingly, this book makes for a pretty good short story collection if you were to just cut out the literary masturbation that is the act of perpetual translation. I got to read stories from Russia, Italy, and many other countries whose authors I had never read. The perspective, tone, and style that each story was able to convey made for a unique reading experience with every tale. Some of the stories are quite short, while others go on for pages. I didn’t love each one, but I loved the unique flavor that each offered.
All the same, I would have been just as happy for the book to have a few more stories from different parts of the world instead of all the translations.
In Transition
This morning I dropped off the book at a local coffee shop that doubles as a community library. There are stacks of books in a makeshift library that are all free, and the owners ask only that when you wish to divest yourself of books, you drop them off at their shop. It seemed only fitting that a book so consumed with translation from the writers’ side could add a layer of transition from the readers’ end. In one of the flaps of that ostentatious cover, I’ve left a note for the next reader.
Put simply: take from this book only the stories, leave nothing but writing and food-related stains, and once you are done, leave the book for someone you’ve never met to find.
I’ve been bemoaning the pretentious nature of the book throughout the entire review, but this act of meta-telephone is perhaps the most pretentious of all.
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