| ▲ | iLemming 2 hours ago | |
Yes! The opening line of Pride and Prejudice alone is already immediately captivating. And then makes you re-read it again, after you finish the book and it suddenly shines differently. I feel enormously fortunate for being fluent in Russian, reading Bulgakov and Tolstoy in original is pure joy, any translation removes subtleties - it's like listening to Bach through the car stereo, you still can enjoy it, but it won't make you want to cry, like listening in symphony hall might. If I had no other reason for learning English but to understand the prose of Austen, it'd still be worth it. And I'm just discovering the simple elegance of G.G. Márquez in Spanish. He does a similar trick in the first line of Cien años. "Había de recordar" is a future seen from the past, and Spanish carries it without strain. English has to choose between "was to remember" and "would remember", and both just miss it. The sentence sets up the whole book's time scheme in five words, and the beauty of it has to be contemplated. Sometimes, reading a single passage from a book, I mean truly, deeply, honestly letting it sink into your subconsciousness makes up for all the insufficiencies in the story. | ||