A query on translation

[Cyrus]

P. Chevalier wrote:

> Had this experience with "On the Road" a couple of years ago... after 
> having read "Sur la Route"...
> Two different books, eventhough the translation was the best 
> available. In the French version, Sal paradise was a teenage drop-out 
> who started to cry for his mom as soon as he had turned the corner of 
> the street; it sounded so artificial, so "acted"; in the original 
> version, words were flowing so easily, it wasn't complain and despair 
> anymore, but something far more lyrical, enthousiastic, nervous... And 
> it was a pure translation though; you could recognize any single 
> word... Just the melody had changed and someone else was telling the 
> story.
> I would be tempted to say the opposite; the translation left the text 
> on the periphery, and the original text, even with entire parts that 
> remained obscure for my french-thinking brain, brought me a lot closer 
> to the "truth" of the book...
>
> But I guess it depends a lot on the author. 


Thank you all for your replies so far. It looks like I'm the only one 
who thinks a (good) translation may have an advantage over the original 
text in that it speaks the reader's mother tongue. It seems I may have 
to look into a few more cases and think it through.

Cyrus