ah, i love the smell of MISOGENY in the morning
You guys. YOU GUYS. (I have got to stop beginning entries like this, you guys.) I am literally EXHAUSTED with HATRED after finishing Love in the Time of Cholera. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, ladies and gentlemen. After years of dipping into the most salacious and borderline criminal pornography ever written - after braving Melvin Burgess not once, but
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Love of Cholera, in the original Spanish, has some of the most beautiful prose ever written. While the translation is not BAD, per say...The issue in translation is far more cultural in nature. In Spanish writing, the preferred style leads to very run on sentences. Writing a sentence that spans a page or more is praiseworthy, as opposed to English, where economy of language is prized. Also, Marquez, stylistically, uses very little dialogue. It is a trademark of his.
I'm not saying I disagree about the book in English, and I KNOW Oprah did not read it in Spanish, so she would have no idea of these things haha.
Also, I think Marqeuz was Fucking Crazy. But in Spanish, the man can WRITE. I almost forgot how crazy he was while I was reading. It was like, the Tim Burton effect.
Anyway, just wanted to share a little bit of my culture to shed some insight on the WAY it was written. No comment on the content itself haha.
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And I was amused by your capslock of rage.
BUT, what I do think is that there is more than words to translation. There is a general feeling evoked, and cultural significances that are often not noticeable to a foreign audience. So what I was trying to say is that, some of the issues you had, such as character motivations and etcetera, may have some cultural bias to them? It's kind of like how outraged I get when I read Bronte? Although it is timeperiod and not culture which is the issue there...
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I'm willing to admit that cultural bias could be the root of the problem. For one thing, not knowing anything about the history of South America, I had no place to root myself. Who was the Liberator? What was the prevailing attitude towards marriage, respectability, etc? What constituted upper class versus lower class? In a Regency era English novel, I can grasp these things easily, even though they're not the modern way of life. I think you may be on to something.
I'm curious: what is it that outrages you about the Brontes? I've only read four novels by them, and they're kind of slapdash and depressing - but they certainly didn't summon the outrage that Love did. ;D
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I could not see any motivations behind the characters actions. Catherine Earnshaw(Let's call her Cathy I) seemed aimless and indecisive at the same time as being stubborn and headstrong. I couldn't reconcile these traits.
And honestly? The moment Heathcliff KILLED ISABELLAS DOG AND GAVE IT TO HER AS A WEDDING PRESENT, and she was like "OKAY THAT'S COOL MARRIAGE TIME" I threw the book across the room in rage.
I can't decide if the Brontes were beaten too much as children, or if they weren't beaten nearly enough.
So yes, they summon rage. Oh Charlotte and Emily, WHY?
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*laughs* As I understand, they DID have a pretty weird upbringing - totally isolated, worshipped their brother like a god, all died young of consumption. Etc. If their books are laden with tragedy, I can see why.
I don't remember the dog part! Funny. What stuck with me was that it was all told in flashback to some sick dude who never had any impact on the plot at ALL, so I kept thinking 'lol edit him out plz.'
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