Doing something I've never done before: changing horses mid-stream, and switching to the 1995 Tiina Nunnally translation.
I'm revisiting a book that I read (and loved) almost 40 years ago, and I was enjoying it again, but increasingly conscious that the text seemed curiously stilted, and sometimes downright hard to follow, indulging in so many flourishes and convoluted phrasing. I wasn't sure whether this was down to Undset, or the translators, but a bit of research answered that: supposedly, the translators insisted on a cod-medieval style, ignored some of Undset's more interesting stylistic choices, and generally "improved" it.
That settled it (that, and the fact that the Nunnally translation is available on Kindle, and I was beginning to suffer serious eye-and wrist strain from a massive volume, with very tiny print): I'm going with Nunnally, which I have sampled, and it's a much clearer, crisper translation.
I'm revisiting a book that I read (and loved) almost 40 years ago, and I was enjoying it again, but increasingly conscious that the text seemed curiously stilted, and sometimes downright hard to follow, indulging in so many flourishes and convoluted phrasing. I wasn't sure whether this was down to Undset, or the translators, but a bit of research answered that: supposedly, the translators insisted on a cod-medieval style, ignored some of Undset's more interesting stylistic choices, and generally "improved" it.
That settled it (that, and the fact that the Nunnally translation is available on Kindle, and I was beginning to suffer serious eye-and wrist strain from a massive volume, with very tiny print): I'm going with Nunnally, which I have sampled, and it's a much clearer, crisper translation.
