10/21 Comments - Samantha

The readings this week were quite interesting since they seemed to be centered more around translation of essays rather than strictly narratives, as far as I could tell at any rate. I think the opening line of the first reading "A Live Dog" was quite interesting. That in order for a translation to be faithful it cannot be very beautiful (well, not necessarily beautiful but 'natural'). I don't necessarily think that this is true in all cases but there are a lot of times that that does seem to be the case based off of the few translations that we've done in class. There are certain parts that I don't fully agree with, such as what is considered 'bad writing' in English. Such as with the use of phrases like "Needless to say" and rhetorical questions, which as far as I gathered the writer was saying were hallmarks of bad writing. Terry wrote, "In this case, it is necessary for the translator to avoid insulting the reader by implying that something not known to the reader is known to everybody else" but I don't really think that this is quite correct. Though perhaps, I am not quite literary enough to really grasp what bad writing even is.