<story><title>Gabriel García Márquez’s Archive Freely Available Online</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/11/arts/gabriel-garcia-marquez-archive-online.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>osense</author><text>I have been wondering about this — how much more enjoyable is it to read a book in it&amp;#x27;s original language, as opposed to just reading someone&amp;#x27;s translation? Or is it just the thought that you&amp;#x27;re able to read the original, as author intended — possibly after spending time to learn a language just to be able to do this — that makes it count?</text></item><item><author>forinti</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s worth it to learn Spanish just to read his books.</text></item><item><author>spodek</author><text>Two of the greatest opening lines to books:&lt;p&gt;“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant day when his father took him to discover ice.” – One Hundred Years of Solitude&lt;p&gt;“It was inevitable. The scent of bitter almonds always reminded Dr. Juvenal Urbino of the fate of unrequited love.” – Love in the Time of Cholera&lt;p&gt;Each is almost a story in itself, a pleasure to read, and an even greater pleasure to unpack and understand.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lmkg</author><text>A currently-popular literary theory (strongly espoused by Jorge Luis Borges, whose translation of Kafka&amp;#x27;s &lt;i&gt;Metamorphosis&lt;/i&gt; was highly influential to Marques) is that the translation of a literary work is, in fact, a brand new literary work authored by the translator. The fact that languages don&amp;#x27;t line up one-to-one, and the fact that language (and literature) is deeply entwined with culture, means that the translator has to make a lot of creative decisions when translating, and that the final product can never be a &amp;#x27;perfect&amp;#x27; reproduction of the original text.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not necessarily about enjoyment, as it is about reading what the author wrote as opposed to what the translator wrote. But this also means that sometimes, the translated work is a good work in its own right and worth reading (Borges once said &amp;quot;The original is not faithful to the translation&amp;quot;). So, it really depends on a lot of things. But for Marques in particular, his works are very tied to Spanish culture so even as an outsider, learning Spanish and reading the originals still isn&amp;#x27;t quite the same as reading them as a Spaniard.</text></comment>
<story><title>Gabriel García Márquez’s Archive Freely Available Online</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/11/arts/gabriel-garcia-marquez-archive-online.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>osense</author><text>I have been wondering about this — how much more enjoyable is it to read a book in it&amp;#x27;s original language, as opposed to just reading someone&amp;#x27;s translation? Or is it just the thought that you&amp;#x27;re able to read the original, as author intended — possibly after spending time to learn a language just to be able to do this — that makes it count?</text></item><item><author>forinti</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s worth it to learn Spanish just to read his books.</text></item><item><author>spodek</author><text>Two of the greatest opening lines to books:&lt;p&gt;“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant day when his father took him to discover ice.” – One Hundred Years of Solitude&lt;p&gt;“It was inevitable. The scent of bitter almonds always reminded Dr. Juvenal Urbino of the fate of unrequited love.” – Love in the Time of Cholera&lt;p&gt;Each is almost a story in itself, a pleasure to read, and an even greater pleasure to unpack and understand.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>watwut</author><text>How well you speak that other language? Unless you speak really well, it is likely you get more from translation.</text></comment>