Life As Performance Art 171

I have come to believe that it is a myth that a translation of an original work of literature cannot be as good or as effective as the original in its original language. It can be rather hard to get this across to some people because we have many popular myths and beliefs that are held so dear and are so cherished that they are held as popular and personal dogma, and that any light that gets thrown on them or any experience that will challenge them will be viewed as heresy, and thus one can understand a little bit better why witches and heretics used to get burned at the stake. Being fluent in another language, Spanish, I also have experience of reading various authors in both languages, only to find that I find Gabriel García Marquez equally boring in his original Spanish as in English translation, as I find Isabel Allende equally enchanting in both languages. Now, I also own that that is considered heresy not to admire the work of el Don Gabriel Marquez. I actually made that mistake, commenting online just following his death, and the blowback I got from some of his fans! I have never been so viciously, or traumatically, assaulted online in my life. But this is just an example of the power of myth. Marquez might have been an okay writer, but his awards, high visibility, hard work and whatever other stars were aligned to help his success have also impacted the minds and opinions of his reading public. He is great, not just because of his body of work, but even more so because He is Gabriel García Marquez. In my experience, I have read better writers. But this is like criticizing Tolstoy or Margaret Atwood. But I still say I have read better, much as I respect them for their success. I think this notion of the original language being the gold standard is an easy myth cherished by people who have themselves been too lazy to become proficient in another language besides their own mother English. but when you start reading back and forth, as I often do, and translating back and forth which I also have done, you are going to find that a translation could even be an improvement on the original. But this can end up in a lot of useless quibbling, since the reading of literature is also very subjective. My take is that the reader is every bit as much participant in the writing of literature as the author themselves, because the writing always passes through our own individual filtres, and if you believe as many do, that the original language is always superior (I no longer believe this) then that is also going to colour your experience of reading, just as you are going to admire Marquez, not so much because he was a great writer, but because he is Gabriel García Marquez and how dare you such impertinence! Not even the author can always adequately mine the best and purest possible meaning out of their unconscious minds (I am speaking here as a writer) in their bid to write outstanding literature. Every language has its limits, just as every language has its advantages. So, really, it is the work of the reader to extract meaning, and this is going to be abetted or hindered according to the kind of mental filtres we are wearing while we are reading. We all do this, Gentle Reader.