What's /lit/'s consensus on reading translations?

>>9801860
>should

>>9801860
>Given the impossibility of preserving meaning across languages, should one only read books written in their original language?
If you assume that you can't preserve meaning in translation, of course you shouldn't read a translation.
But that assumption is complete bullshit.

>>9801860
Dont read translated poetry. Prose might be harmed. Fiction is fine.

Imagine never having read Brother Karamazov because you shied away from fiction. How impovershered your mind would be.

>>9801860
If a book isn't written in a language you speak, read a translation of your preferred language.

Also Lot 49 is dope.

>>9801860
I suppose you chose Lot 49 for the tie to "the impossibility of preserving meaning across languages" but (You) should and probably have extrapolated that out to the impossibility of communicating meaning in general, and thought about how meaning isn't manifest in the text, or in the authorial intent, or the original language or anywhere besides your own brain. So it really shouldn't matter to you if a text is in translation, it should only matter whether or not you're able to create sufficient meaning from reading the text to make it worthwhile, which in translated texts it obviously isn't.

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9KB, 285x300px

>should
>mfw plebeians who can't speak at least six languages think what they do or don't matters at all

>>9802657
so reading something like The Divine Comedy in English is essentially worthless?