MB Book Club Discussion: Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

ando here · 04-03-2021, 07:03 AM

Minor quibble: Despite the valiant effort I think we're missing something in the translation. MM, you say (in your spoiler), quite rightly, that the novel is evocative and I agree but English tends to flatten the ornamental nature of Italian. I wish I had a dual language edition of Cities. Sometimes I feel the Weaver translation drops the ball in situations where I just know Calvino means to make a graceful play.

adidasss · 04-03-2021, 09:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ando here

Minor quibble: Despite the valiant effort I think we're missing something in the translation. MM, you say (in your spoiler), quite rightly, that the novel is evocative and I agree but English tends to flatten the ornamental nature of Italian. I wish I had a dual language edition of Cities. Sometimes I feel the Weaver translation drops the ball in situations where I just know Calvino means to make a graceful play.

I found an Italian text online so you can do a comparison. I think it's virtually impossible to make a 100% correct translation but from what I gathered from my copy, the translation is quite good. The serbo-croatian one took some liberties that maybe captured the meaning better but who knows what the meaning is! I certainly didn't.

04-03-2021, 07:03 AM	#1 (permalink)
ando here Music Addict Join Date: Sep 2020 Location: NY, NY Posts: 1,802	Minor quibble: Despite the valiant effort I think we're missing something in the translation. MM, you say (in your spoiler), quite rightly, that the novel is evocative and I agree but English tends to flatten the ornamental nature of Italian. I wish I had a dual language edition of Cities. Sometimes I feel the Weaver translation drops the ball in situations where I just know Calvino means to make a graceful play. __________________ "A musician plays music. Other people name it." - Artie Shaw