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A review by versmonesprit
When The Night Agrees To Speak To Me by Ananda Devi
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
0.25
It honestly upsets me to be rating this book so low, both because I expected to love it, and because the author, Ananda Devi, seems to be a wonderful person.
That said, perhaps the worst thing poetry can do to someone is to make them feel nothing, and that was unfortunately my case. This edition does something I love: it includes the originals alongside the translations, which helped me experience the poems as they were intended, and to review the translation too. The French originals rarely resonated with me, and the translations were nothing short of horrendous due to all the errors and the intentional alterations made to the poems.
The translation left me shocked and horrified. The order of the lines was switched at times, certain words were omitted altogether, others were mistranslated (the simplest example being the translation saying ‘the’ where Devi wrote ‘my’, and vice versa), and there were even words added into the translation that were not in the French original! Almost every poem was rewritten, which to me is an unacceptable thing to do!
This edition also includes an email interview with the author, conducted by the translator, and a section written on Devi’s poetry by a scholar from Hyderabad. Unfortunately I did not find these of much more interest either because I did not like Devi’s poetry, at all.
[DRC provided by NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishers India.]
That said, perhaps the worst thing poetry can do to someone is to make them feel nothing, and that was unfortunately my case. This edition does something I love: it includes the originals alongside the translations, which helped me experience the poems as they were intended, and to review the translation too. The French originals rarely resonated with me, and the translations were nothing short of horrendous due to all the errors and the intentional alterations made to the poems.
The translation left me shocked and horrified. The order of the lines was switched at times, certain words were omitted altogether, others were mistranslated (the simplest example being the translation saying ‘the’ where Devi wrote ‘my’, and vice versa), and there were even words added into the translation that were not in the French original! Almost every poem was rewritten, which to me is an unacceptable thing to do!
This edition also includes an email interview with the author, conducted by the translator, and a section written on Devi’s poetry by a scholar from Hyderabad. Unfortunately I did not find these of much more interest either because I did not like Devi’s poetry, at all.
[DRC provided by NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishers India.]