The first reading talked about the usual trade off between being faithful to the author or creating a pleasurable reading experience for the reader. He put this in terms of either drawing the reader closer to him or author closer to him, which in my opinion a pretty good metaphor for it. Personally, I'd aim for something in between but realistically, that might be too hard and you could end up with a translation that's all over the place. The reason I say in between is because I think the point of the reader reading a translated book is to gain a new perspective, and somewhat explore a different culture but if you put it in the reader's comfort zone, they might as well go read a book in their original language. But at the same time, the book does have to be easily readable and omissions will most definitely necessary, so Ideally a mix would be best but probably hardest to pull off.
For the second reading, I liked the ideas it explored and agree with most of the points made. I believe the language you learn greatly influences your perspective and viewpoints, such as people not really using "you" in japanese, or saying "watashi wa" too much. But if you were translating to english, you have to add the subject which is something small in practice, but a difference non the less. The most interesting part for me was the Matses man for sure, I kind of understand that type of uncertainty, it's kind of like when you put 8 or 9 out of ten on a survey, when realistically you would probably be a 10. It's the little bit of uncertainty that makes you say "what if" but taken to an extreme level and I'd say it would definitely influence your perspective quite significantly. It would be interesting to ask the Matses man the same question in 5 years and see if the answer's the same because in English, I think most people within five minutes would answer "I have five wives" but in five years grow uncertain, changing the answer.
Jon
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