Memoirs of an Ass | Hacker News Reader

Memoirs of an Ass

theparisreview.org

165 pointsdiodorus24 comments

Part II of this essay is also great: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/03/14/memoirs-of-an...

This review reminded me of "How to Read a Book", specifically the getting more out of it with each reading. It might be hard to fathom with most of today's mediocre fiction, but there's a reason some books are classics and end up on lists of what books someone would take to a desert island.

Great book! Adler really changed my perspective quickly in that short read and addressed many problems I've encountered. Imo, it was rather lacking in the techniques for reading fiction, and Nabokov has some excellent insight in this domain in his "Lectures on Literature" series (which I have admittedly only yet read small portions of).

There's an algorithm[0] I stumbled upon that I refer to often that was derived from Adler's book, might as well share it.

0: https://pastebin.com/wGFMM1pZ

this opus should be included in https://standardebooks.org/

Sold. There's an English translation on Project Gutenberg, under the name The Golden Asse. I'm going to give it a look.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1666

That's the version from 1566. It's readable, but requires some extra effort to parse due to style, antiquated words and antiquated spelling.

Indeed, it's on par with Shakespeare, being from the same era. Modern editions of Shakespeare usually have had their spelling adjusted to modern taste, and this hasn't.

Here's a sample:

> I lighted off my horse, and wiping the sweat from every part of his body, I unbrideled him, and walked him softly in my hand, to the end he might pisse, and ease himself of his weariness and travell: and while he went grazing freshly in the field (casting his head sometimes aside, as a token of rejoycing and gladnesse) I perceived a little before me two companions riding, and so I overtaking them made a third.

It's pretty easy going. (Unlike, say, Chaucer, which is definitely a struggle.)

Is there a known best translation? TFA didn't specify one.

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/03/14/memoirs-of-an...

From travisluis' post includes a list of translations and the author's opinions on each.

Oooh, Robert Graves did a translation. I may have to dig that up if I get tired of the 1556 version.

I've read the Graves translation, and it's excellent.

years ago I started comparing translations: http://jnanam.net/golden-ass/apu-ed.html

I can really recommend the book. It's a lot of fun. Arguably one of the first picaresque novels.

I have some trouble understanding so much effort given to reading 8 different translations, and not giving the original text a try. Latin isn't so hard, really.

What do you mean when you say a natural language isn't that hard? Surely it depends on which languages you know already.

I suppose they know English, which carries many, many words with Latin roots. Sure it's easier if you know Italian, or Spanish or French. Anyway, reading the original text side by side with the translation gives you excellent insights on the meaning and structure, seeing how long a phrase is, what form it is, this sort of things.

Recognizing the meaning of individual Latin words does not allow you in general to understand the meaning of a phrase! None of the languages you mentioned have explicit case markings, and mostly rely on word order and prepositions to signal whether nouns are subjects/objects/indirect/etc objects. Latin is starkly not like that, don't you agree? Even if people are coming from a language background with explicit case markings (i.e. German) they're still going to have to know what the endings actually mean, and get used to a different case system.

Anyway it sounds like you're recognizing that you benefit from having a parallel translation into a language in which you are fluent in order to make sense of the meaning... Which is 100% the point of having a translation, of course.

You casually read literature written in Latin?

You don't need to casually read it. Reading it side by side with the translation, however, definitely gives you a much deeper comprehension of the original and its subtleties. I read bilingual texts (particularly latin, or poetry) as much as possible for languages I can't read casually.

Mhmm, sure thing pal.

I studied Latin for five years before I read the Golden Ass. It's not a straightforward text.

Well if that's not a humblebrag then I don't know what is. Learning any natural language (especially an ancient, complicated, and dead one) takes tremendous effort. It's not some trivial thing to do like going to med school or climbing Mt. Everest or something.

oops. one of the homepage links points to their dev site http://theparisreview.tierradev.com/interviews/6806/the-art-...

Memoirs of an Arse sounds better. :D

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