I think the other reason plays don't come over, pursuant to what Juliana is saying, is that if they're not performed, they're very hard to put across in a non-performance context. I've read plays in English that were originally, say, Swahili, and although the translation was expert, I didn't have the slightest clue what was going on in the play, because stage directions just aren't enough to put across subtext without a body interpreting them. The whole class came in the next day after reading it and was like, "What the hell happened, and why?"

Therefore, in my own crackpot theorizing, I think that novels are much more likely to be successful in translation than [unperformed] plays.

I like Racine, but I read him in French for a class, and I can see how the best parts of the language wouldn't translate: it was very like Alexander Pope, all these perfect couplets that snap tight on sound and meaning.

I don't know why the plots and themes wouldn't, though; I mean, Phédre is Phaedra is 2,000 years old and counting.

I wonder if attempting to reread those plays in French would work as more than an exercise in masochism proving yes, my brain cells have deteroriated.

Well, he's twentieth-century and it's not original, but Rice did Jean Anouilh's version of Antigone a couple years ago. It was pretty amazing.

Oh yes! I saw that too -- my highschool did it, and it was awesome. Actually, I think it is the only French play I have seen (in translation). Notably, it was in very modern prose, instead of rhymed couplets as I presume is the case with Racine.

Certainly, French films are popular in the US (or anyway, exported to the US more than films in any other European language). So I imagine that if there were a recent film of a Racine play, then the chances of someone teaching Racine in a class would go up. Especially if everyone drops trou, as seems always to happen in French films about the Renaissance (for that matter, any historical period).

What about Sartre? No Exit is a play, isn't it?

t suddenly doubting own brain

t takes the doubt away from Dana's brain and applies it to self

What about Sartre? No Exit is a play, isn't it?

Yep. Rice did that too, though I didn't see it.

Well, at least LKH has finally accepted where her true market/leanings/interests lay. "None of that silly plot, now, just write sex."

Snacky: The Great Brain books remind me of the Alvin Fernald books. Did anyone else ever read them? Am I showing my age again?

I have a vague memory of thinking that Alvin Fernald and the Great Brain should have met up and made a buddy movie, but I think that was mostly because Eric Shea from the Poseidon Adventure played Alvin. I can't remember titles or author, though, so I'm showing my age here, too.

Moorcock is one of those authors I love, but I find him either completely insane, incomprehensibly brilliant or both.

Read all of the Cornelius books and was blown away. From there to Elric (which suffered in comparison to Cornelius in my opinion) and from Elric to...the other...guy. Another Eternal Champion incarnation...hold on. Google, here I come...Corum! Yeah! (Obviously left a hell of an impression on me. Neh.)

Also completely in love with his 1969 novella "Behold the Man". If you ever run across it in an anthology or somewhere, dudes and dudettes...read. It. Good stuff.