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Title: Strange printing, strange translation, strange book
Review: I've never seen a book printed like this before. It's not good! Spacing often random, words misspelled (or with random symbols instead of letters), punctuation strange. Looks like a job done by a flawed computer program and never reviewed by a human being.The translation is also strange. Done by Thomas Carlye, apparently in the 1820's, so one might expect the English to be a little old-fashioned, but this is extreme to the point of absurdity. Translation is a challenge, it's not surprising that translators such as Constance Garnett are criticized. But she at least produced English that didn't jar with every sentence. Was Goethe's German so stilted, formal, archaic? I can't say, but this book is impossible to read.This book is reputed to be the original bildungsroman. I was looking forward to meeting Goethe in prose. Perhaps there's another option.
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