Testaments Betrayed
A brilliant and thought-provoking essay from one of the twentieth century's masters of fiction, Testaments Betrayedis written like a novel: the same characters appear and reappear throughout the nine parts of the book, as do the principal themes that preoccupy the author. Kundera is a passionate defender of the moral rights of the artist and the respect due a work of art and its creator's wishes. The betrayal of both--often by their most passionate proponents--is one of the key ideas that informs this strikingly original and elegant book.
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What Hacker News says
- Yes amusing, since unsolicited polishing, but I sincerely doubt this was forced on our fine humorist. English to English editing or “translation” from snarky to suave is straightforward to understand and fix.
But what about translation by professional human translators between languages? is it really any better at preserving the intent and sub-text?
Kundera has an amazing essay—- “The Sentence”—-in his collection of essays “Testaments Betrayed” on the woes of translation of, yes, a single sentence from Kafka’s “The Castle”.
As he (or his translator Linda Asher) say: The sentence “describes the coition of K. and Frieda”.
Under the bar too ;-) Not a topic I tend to associate with Franz Kafka.
When AI systems can match Milan Kundera (translated from the French) then we will have definitely gotten to Pro level. “Write me a brilliant essay in the style of xxxx, on topic yyyy in French, and translate it into Mandarin for grins. I would be a wreck if I had to translate Kundera.
- His fiction was great, but his non-fiction is astounding. I liked, not loved "The Unbearable Likeness," which probably needs a re-reading at this point. But his masterpiece I think is "Testaments Betrayed," in which he examines the art of the novel. The habit for re-reading novels I picked up because of his explanation of the nature of the novel in this book.
This man was a giant of humanities and European culture embodied. He was a global treasure and a source of some much needed intellectual goodness. Once they go, they don't come back, and we are stuck with monsters and idiots.
- That Foster Wallace essay is great: when he was good, he was really very good, and that's one of his better pieces.
Milan Kundera's Testaments Betrayed is pretty excellent as well; the last chapter (and title) cover Brod not burning Kafka's papers, and then manufacturing tortured genius Kafka instead of sticking with the fairly ridiculous reality (the one that actually matches how his characters behave, as this posted essay describes)
- This reminds me of Milan Kundera's "Testaments Betrayed", which expresses the profound challenge (near impossibility) of translations doing justice to original works.
