French book publishers suck

[Fake Boris]

It's just completely ridiculous that many French classics (literature, philosophy, humanities) cost less in their English translations than in their original French version. Cartel, anyone?

And this is nothing compared to my gripe with Gallimard. They suck balls big time. It seems that their field of expertise is to make crappy translations of German classics and buy exclusive rights on them so that no one else can make a better translation. What they did with Nietzsche is a mess, and don't even mention Heidegger - it's a ****ing joke.
Oh, and did I mention they have the rights to LF Céline's original manuscripts but won't publish them, because "it's not in the inheriters' interest?"

GF usually does a much better job, but they only publish in pocket format, and only authors whose works are not protected anymore. Which means that if you need an author's complete works, you bring your supermarket cart to the library.

[Fake Boris]

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[LordShiva]

French news reporters rock

[Spiffor]

I once heard that Heidegger was so obscure in German, that his German students chose to read the French translations. Apparently, the translators managed to make sense out of the original, which is an amazing feat

[Zkribbler]

German version: What Heidegger said.
French version: What Heidegger meant to say.

I think God created humanity to serve as a source of constant amusement.

[BeBMan]

Re the mess with Nietzsche, I never understood why he was so admired for his style - I always hated the stuff I read from him. And otoh all complain(ed) about Kant's heavy style, which I rather like, because it forces you really to think about it.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by BeBro
Re the mess with Nietzsche, I never understood why he was so admired for his style - I always hated the stuff I read from him. And otoh all complain(ed) about Kant's heavy style, which I rather like, because it forces you really to think about it.

Dont know about the admiration for FN's style from German readers, but I suspect a lot of the FN love among USAians has to do with the translations and commentaries by Walter Kaufmann.

[Nostromo]

Re: French book publishers suck

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
It's just completely ridiculous that many French classics (literature, philosophy, humanities) cost less in their English translations than in their original French version. Cartel, anyone?

I don't know. Classics are fairly cheap in French. I just bought "Le rouge et le noir" by Stendhal for 8.25$ cdn and "Les liaisons dangereuses" by Laclos for 9.75$ cdn. About the same price as the cheap english versions.

And this is nothing compared to my gripe with Gallimard. They suck balls big time. It seems that their field of expertise is to make crappy translations of German classics and buy exclusive rights on them so that no one else can make a better translation. What they did with Nietzsche is a mess, and don't even mention Heidegger - it's a ****ing joke.

According to one of my teachers, there's a French conspiracy to screw german-speaking philosophers. For example, the Klossowski translations of Wittgenstein are poor (although I hear there are better ones that came out recently). Heidegger is another matter. I heard that his prose style is too German, hence very, very hard to translate. That's why his French translators (even the good ones) have to invent all those weird words to translate him. I had a course on Heidegger and our teacher told us to use a bootleg translation of Being and time. IIRC, it was full of weird expressions like "Être-sous-la-main"