A Bluestocking Knits

Booking Through Thursday for this week involves translations —

1. Have you ever read a book in a language other than your native language? I tried, once, to read a novel in Norwegian — one of Terje Stigen’s, I think, because I was studying the language at the time and for some reason which I can’t remember now, that particular one was at hand.  (I do have a knitting book that I bought in Norway, packed with lovely new-but-traditionally-minded sweater designs, all in Norwegian, of course….)
2. If so, how would you describe your experience? Well, the novel was rather ambitious of me, as I was (still am) at the beginner level, and it was of course very idiomatic.  I still remember feeling quite triumphant when I read "som sardin i boxen" (like a sardine in the box, referring to a crowded train or bus) and I actually understood it without having to refer to the dictionary!  But I had to give up in the middle of the first chapter.
3. Have you ever read a book translated from another language into your native language? Oh, many times, of course!  I used to have a lot more access to translations when I was working (as a library cataloger), and they would come to me instead of having to search them out myself — things like Gabriel García Márquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold and Humberto Costantini’s The Long Night of Francisco Sanctis.  These are things that I would not have ordinarily chosen from the library shelf, but looked interesting enough for me to take them home.  I also read a memorably madcap French novel and its sequel, the author and titles of which completely escape me, but were sort of a comedy/mystery involving a cat (pictured on the cover of the American edition), a mysterious girl, etc. etc. etc.
4. Why or why not? Well, you can’t get through a World Lit class otherwise, either! 
5. If so, how would you describe your experience? Aside from missing out on a world of great literature, not reading translations shuts a person off from other cultures, other places, other lives.  Not reading translations is like not traveling, and I can’t imagine that for myself.