Title: make sure you're getting the Stuart Gilbert translation
Review: Alexander Pope's translation (c. 1720) of the Iliad. Now there's a preposterously highblown translation that many would think needed to be redone for the modern age.But Stuart Gilbert's masterful translation of "L'etranger" from 1946 is for me perfect and, heck, still easily available. There was nothing that needed to be reworked about that: pace Laredo and Ward, it's still fresh and relevant.Further, Gilbert's rendering has the kind of spare grace that conveys the flavor of the original much better than Joseph Laredo's, arguably conveying, by means of its overall icy tone, Mersault's remote demeanor much more convincingly. The final phrase, "greet me with howls of execration" is much more chillingly rendered there than here, in Laredo's pedestrian and forgettable "greet me with cries of hatred."
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