To my surprise, I like the older translation better. The newer one feels a bit bland, and over-explainy (e.g. I don't actually need to know the specific phonology of the "Hamburg accent" Mann refers to, and describing that doesn't make much sense when I'm not reading the dialogue in German). I should probably add the other translation as its own book and switch over to it.

Meanwhile, I was very amused yesterday to learn that this story of a man who thinks he's going to a sanatorium for three weeks and ends up there for seven years was originally conceived as a novella, and in the end it took Mann 12 years to write the 750-page doorstopper. Life imitating art imitating life and so on.

@Paranoid-Fish@bookwyrm.social I think I got used to liking newer translations better for really old literature (Beowulf, ancient Greek), because those inherently have to do some updating (translating Homer in Old English isn't really going to help me), so bringing it all the way to modern English seems like it leaves less friction. But this book's only 100 years old, and I routinely read work written in the English of that time, so translating it to the same seems to work better.

@eldang@outside.ofa.dog This is my favourite book. Very interesting what you write about the translations. It's a tall order to translate Thomas Mann and his specific way of writing into other languages.

@Flauschbuch@bookrastinating.com I can imagine! My German is too limited for me to really see for myself whether the translation gets it right, but I can certainly tell you that the older translation feels much more like a distinctive authorial voice. So far that voice is my favourite thing about the book.