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Post by humgoo on Jun 7, 2019 16:44:59 GMT
I imagine you've read Robert Irwin's Arabian Nightmare and his book about the textual history of the Arabian Nights - both fantastic books. Fascinating book indeed, the latter! And Burton is certainly the bête noire in it. Borges was a fan, and Irwin comments: "However, Jorge Luis Borges, in his spirited essay 'The Translators of The 1001 Nights', did champion Burton's translation. Borges provocatively argued that a translation which is limpid or neutral makes no contribution to literature. Burton's prose, on the other hand, should be valued for its cultural weight. [...] Thus, Borges concluded that Burton's is the best of the English translations of the Nights. Not everyone would agree with Borges here, just as not everyone would accept Borges's contention that Robert Louis Stevenson and G.K. Chesterton are two of the greatest writers in English literature."--The Arabian Nights: A Companion
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jun 8, 2019 9:01:12 GMT
Agree about Dickens' shorts. The Signalman is the standout but A Christmas Carol has to be considered too. It's superb. It's just so much part of the cultural backdrop we dismiss it out of hand.
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Post by jamesdoig on Jun 9, 2019 3:37:59 GMT
I imagine you've read Robert Irwin's Arabian Nightmare and his book about the textual history of the Arabian Nights - both fantastic books. Fascinating book indeed, the latter! I'd forgotten all about his textual history - must have been a library book because I don't have it. Arabian Nightmare was a fine novel - I think it was mentioned in Horror: 100 Best Books, which I got a lot out of back in the day, as well as Douglas Winter's Faces of Fear - I first heard about T.ED. Klein, Dennis Etchison, Alan Ryan etc in those books.
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