| Re: Book Hauls!
I need to eventually get the various Penguin editions of Hoffmann; I have only a very small handful of his work, including the Dover Best of E. T. A. Hoffmann, and some of the more modern translations are, I hear, more accurate as well as occasionally simply more aesthetically pleasing... and, of course, there's a lot of material in those volume I don't have at all....
Nomadman... yes, getting hold of Ewers is rather difficult (I would still dearly love to have a copy of Vampire from that set of the trilogy published in the earlier twentieth century, especially as I did manage to get Alraune and The Sorcerer's Apprentice), though not quite what it used to be. The problem is that the most recent translation (or what I've read of it when it was being posted on the 'net) simply lacked the verbal magic of older versions I've seen. I believe (though I'm not certain on this) that they are more accurate literally, but -- as I know from reading a few translations of his work done by Ewers himself -- an important aspect of Ewers is his precision in language. He is a descendant of the Decadents, and is every bit as attentive to the mot juste as were they.... |