Michael Orthofer: belief

Transcript context

…My friend Ben Casnocha — he’s always talking to me about this idea of life hacks, like advice where you can live your life or learn things more efficiently. Let’s say I was approaching foreign-language literature in translation as an economist, and the following life hack occurred to me. I’m going to lay it out, and you tell me why it’s wrong. There’s always more to read, always more wonderful things to read in all of the major languages. But if you can read a language fluently, usually you’ll enjoy the fiction or poetry in that language much more. You’re not going to run out of things to read in the languages you can read in. Therefore, in translated literature, you should read the very most famous works. If you don’t read Russian, yes, read Brothers Karamazov and War and Peace and a few things, and then stop. And if you read, say, English, Spanish, and French, then just read in those languages. Translated literature — at the margin, put it aside; never look at it again. That’s not what you do, but what’s wrong with that argument? I think you’re really missing so much, because the problem is finding what is of value, what is important. And I mean, we have these established books like War and Peace or Crime and Punishment, but Russian literature goes so much deeper, for example, to take just an example of a big language. It also changes with time so rapidly. I think that in every 10‑year period, you could select a new set of a dozen recent — relatively recent, of the past quarter-century from that culture — works which would give you a completely different view and provide you with a completely different experience. And the bigger problem I see, of course, is that you’re missing out on so much literature from elsewhere, that there really is — for a lot of cultures and languages, there isn’t that standout that you know. You know, Russia, Tolstoy, got it. But if you want to read something from the Philippines, you’re unlikely to be able to find that one author. There are so many other languages and cultures. There is so much being written now which it really is worthwhile keeping up with. Would you agree, then, that it’s a good life hack, say, for poetry? If I try to read poetry originally written in Russian — I don’t speak Russian. I understand some of it. I know enough to get that I’m not getting it when I read it in English. It just doesn’t come through, no matter how great the poet, and I don’t enjoy it that much. So in this case I followed the life hack. I just don’t read poetry in Russian, and I feel that’s efficient. Do you agree with that when it comes to poetry? But I do read poetry in the languages I read well.…

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