When I translate a book, I would prefer "ordinary" readers, although the term is hard to define, to read my translation. I would like it to lie alongside other books in an ordinary bookshop, and have a page on Amazon, and so on, so people can buy or borrow it.
Although sales of the translation would be enhanced if a class of eight students all bought the novel (now a set book), this does imply that the book is now going to be analysed. Eager students are going to fold over the corners of key pages, underline masses of "good bits" adding exclmation marks here and there, write term papers on it, and maybe even answer a question on the book in a key exam.
But hold on! Why should the universities be the only ones to take note of my translation? Weren't books originally written to be read, even, God forbid, for enjoyment? Once the pressure of essays and exams falls upon the reader, he or she always has at the back of their mind "I've got to write something about this book". So they scour the internet for other people's essays they can semi-plagiarise. And they focus on things such as narrative point of view, pianic foregrounding, pleonasms, fictitionalised phrase midwifery, and other things you find in all the lit crit textbooks.
I'm still thinking: wouldn't it be nice if an ordinary reader wrote me (or the author if still alive) an e-mail simply expressing appreciation, rather than offering analysis?
Although sales of the translation would be enhanced if a class of eight students all bought the novel (now a set book), this does imply that the book is now going to be analysed. Eager students are going to fold over the corners of key pages, underline masses of "good bits" adding exclmation marks here and there, write term papers on it, and maybe even answer a question on the book in a key exam.
But hold on! Why should the universities be the only ones to take note of my translation? Weren't books originally written to be read, even, God forbid, for enjoyment? Once the pressure of essays and exams falls upon the reader, he or she always has at the back of their mind "I've got to write something about this book". So they scour the internet for other people's essays they can semi-plagiarise. And they focus on things such as narrative point of view, pianic foregrounding, pleonasms, fictitionalised phrase midwifery, and other things you find in all the lit crit textbooks.
I'm still thinking: wouldn't it be nice if an ordinary reader wrote me (or the author if still alive) an e-mail simply expressing appreciation, rather than offering analysis?