A modern French example of the concept-translation issue issue is Yasmina Reza's work, specifially the play Art. It's a fascinating concept, but a mediocre play.

Buh? I fucking loved it. And K. Todd Freeman was in it.

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

I find myself less and less interested in the Anita series with each book. I've been meaning to pick up Nightseer (her first novel, not Anita or Merry). I'm hoping it will be more like her first several Anita books. Can't remember what it's about at the moment.

I recently read Kelly Armstrong's Dime Store Magic. It was pretty good. I enjoyed reading it but I guess it didn't leave a lasting impression. It's the first in the series and I guess it felt like it didn't go very far. Anyone else read it?

Edit: left out some info

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Buh? I fucking loved it.

YArtMV, in both senses. I should have said that it's widely considered a mediocre play. I found the dialogue and the relationships to be quite clunky, but I loved the concept. If I still read French, I'd try to find the original version and compare.

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Billytea, can I tag?

Hee. Of course.

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Shit. Sorry, didn't mean to kill the thread and sound all didactic and know-it-all.

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Watch Your Mouth, which has a review on the back that calls it an "incest-parody gothic Jewish porn opera" or something similarly over-the-top, and I can't help thinking it can't ever live up to that.

If it helps, that sounds like a pretty accurate description, although "black comedy" probably belongs in there somewhere. It's a very strange book. A blurb that referred to the plot in more detail would sound even more ridiculous, which is probably why they left it vague. I enjoyed it, but I like gratuitous weirdness. I think The Basic Eight is better, but Watch Your Mouth was more interesting to reread since it's much more complicated.

(Oh, and Handler's Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography is also hilarious. Particularly if you're good at anagrams.)

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Random plays-in-translation thoughts:

• IIRC,

Waiting For Godot is in fact an English translation; Beckett wrote a shitload of stuff in French, the English translations of which naturally benefitted hugely from having the actual author also be the translator.

• David Mamet did translations of some Chekhov plays that utterly kick ass (I think someone else did the literal translation from Russian, and then he took that and "theatrified" it, but damn they're good). Sadly, as juliana notes, despite the kick-assness of them, even these have to fight like mad for any audiences.

• I've seen a couple of Vaclav Havel's plays, and he seems to translate very well (though, again, seen; I have no idea what I'd think if I'd read them first).

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I enjoyed it, but I like gratuitous weirdness.

Oh, I do too, and I'm glad to hear that it's actually an accurate description. I'm looking forward to it.

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Reading on decline in America.

A 2002 Census Bureau study shows that only 56.6 of all American adults surveyed read a book of any kind in the previous year, and only 46.7 read literature, defined for the purpose of this study as a novel, short story, or play read without the impetus of a school or work assignment. Decline was most precipitous among the younger demographic groups.

Now that's depressing.

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only 46.7 read literature, defined for the purpose of this study as a novel, short story, or play read without the impetus of a school or work assignment.

And to think that includes the Harry Potter folks. Gosh.

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