The Mandelbaum Translation Is Way Better than the Fagles
By Allen Mandelbaum
Oct. 19, 2013
Translation is a dead art. No one would deny that. But it’s one thing to let a dead art stay dead, and it’s another thing to keep stabbing a dead art repeatedly, as if to kill it again. That’s exactly what Fagles does with his translation, which mercilessly tarnishes the music of the original text and strays considerably from the subtleties of the author’s philosophy. Typically, translators have debated between preserving style and preserving meaning, but Fagles fails at preserving either. There’s simply no excuse for anyone, whether a scholar or a lay reader, to read anything but the Mandelbaum.
I was just talking to someone in my epistemology class the other day who was unsure about which translation he should buy. I couldn’t believe he was so ignorant.Of course, I had an obligation to correct him, and I did, extolling the innumerable virtues of the Mandelbaum: its clarity, its rhythm, and its self-assurance in the face of a sophisticated scholastic tradition.
“There’s simply no other option for an educated reader in this day and age,” I told him. “It’s the Mandelbaum, stupid.”
He mentioned some other preposterous translations, such as the Bloom, the Pevear, and even the Rabassa, for Christ’s sake. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again. No other translation — especially not the fucking Rabassa — is anywhere near interesting, accurate, or well-researched enough to compete with the Mandelbaum. All the critics say so, and they’re right. In fact, the only translation about which the translators have been sadly mistaken is the Fagles, which doesn’t deserve a tenth of the critical acclaim it’s received.
The world is just a sad place to live when there’s this much confusion over a shoddy translation like the Fagles, especially when the Mandelbaum is and always has been the obvious front-runner. We can only pray that in time the translation community will come to see the error of its ways and offer some kind of prestigious award to me. To Mandelbaum.
