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Three Percent #65: Erudition Isn't the Same as Being Intentionally Esoteric

This week’s podcast is the first one Tom and I have recorded in almost a month. So after a bit of catching up, we talked about David Bellos’s new translation of Simenon’s Pietr the Latvian, the difficulties of translating “I love you” and all the swears into Japanese, and this list of “The 20 Best Books in Translation You’ve Never Read.” As necessary, we also talked about the baseball playoffs and this cute flowchart.

Since Tom can’t post here, I just want to have the final word on our discussion of the list of translations that Stephen Sparks and I put together. First off, we didn’t give it this bombastic of a title, but whatever. We did put some time into coming up with twenty books that we love and that readers of international literature may not have heard of. As readers of heaploads of translated books, we had hundreds of titles to choose from. Every list is incomplete and flawed, but Tom’s accusation that this is “intentionally esoteric” is totally off-point. It is a symptom of today’s culture though, where if someone knows more about some topic that someone else, they are dismissed. Not to get all J-Franz about the kids these days and their Twitterversing, but there’s a reason why stupid websites like Flavorwire are popular—they replace genuine knowledge with listicles that make the common reader feel good about themselves. “Hey, I’ve read 20 of the 25 lists on the “Greatest List of Lists Created by Flavorwire” list! I’m gonna tweet this.” Sorry, Tom and whomever, for trying to share a bit of the lifelong research I’ve done on international literature. Next time someone wants to know about translated books, I’ll just search the “translationsIreadinHighSchool” hashtag and call it a day.

This week’s music is Rolling Waves by The Naked and Famous.

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