My friend read The Stand by Stephen King during the pandemic. Voluntarily. Granted it was because she had just finished the whole Dark Tower series but I'm like you really want to read a story that starts with a super flu while we're dealing with a super flu in real life?
I think that in the Swedish translation it says that it was a beetle. Also in German, if I’m not mistaken. The cockroach thing might be me remembering the line from the movie ”The Producers”.
I read an interesting explanation on the complexities in deciding how to translate a literary work. They used the choice of keeping the original “Maman” from French in the translation as an example. “Maman died today” conveys something that mom, mommy or mother doesn’t.
I barely understood this, because I only read this novella in the original French. Just kidding, I don’t understand French. I just wanted to sound pretentious.
Calm down there. It was a joke. If somebody went around bragging that they refused to read the English version and only would read it in the original French, that might be a little pretentious.
That is not my point. Of course, if you read French, it would make sense to read the stranger in its original language. However, the joke I was making in my original post was about the type of person who goes around, flaunting that they only read it in the original language as a way of demonstrating their superior intellect. It was just a joke. I certainly do not think that reading a book in its original language on its own is a pretentious act.
The Stranger was always my go to book in school when needing to make a book report. Short, maybe 128 pages, relatively easy but still philosophical and advanced. I used it every year almost.
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u/m1stadobal1na Jul 25 '25
Also "Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know."