Month: May 2015

Pigs Can Fly: Book Review

Books

Author: Barry Cryer

Pigs Can Fly

Book Blurb:

Throughout his career, Barry Cryer has collaborated with all the greats, such as Max Miller, Tony Hancock, Bob Hope, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, John Cleese, Kenny Everett, Tommy Cooper, Spike Milligan, Morecambe and Wise, and more. He has also collaboratively penned series like Hello Cheeky!, toured with Willie Rushton in their show Two Old Farts in the Night, and is a panellist on I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. This is his collection of completely true apocryphal stories from these 50 years, packed with jokes, fascinating asides, and riveting portraits of the major figures in comedy.jokes, fascinating asides, and riveting portraits of the major figures in comedy.

Review:

Nope. This book just did not do it for me.

I guess to someone who knows Barry Cryer, it could be interesting to read, but for someone like me, who has no clue who this person is…reading about his day to day life felt a bit…you know…draaag…

Quite Honestly, I got this book simply because the name attracted me. It got me wondering if this was indeed as good as the title…And the fact that I got the Hardbound copy of the book for Rs. 10 did make the deal much sweeter!

But all in all..the only thing interesting in the book, was the title. I had a real tough time sweating it till the end.

Power of Language in Literature

Books, Harry Potter

“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of Number four Private Drive where proud to say that they are perfectly normal, thank you very much!”

This one line is enough to grab the attention, it brings to focus the amazingness of J K Rowling’s writing. There are some books that are interesting to read, just because of the way they are written. Since we have already mentioned J. K . Rowling, lets take an example of her work itself. The Causal Vacancy is one big book about a small town. If we look at the core of the story, it really is not really much of a story, but it is the way JKR has written it, her wit, her realistic and humorous sentences, that made it worth a read. But, if someone where to translate it, would the translator manage to capture the essence of her writing. If the translator misses this, the book would automatically loose its charm. Language is a very powerful medium, and each and every language has its own separate essence. While translating works from literature, the job of the translator is to not just change the wordings, but to maintain the core essence of the original. Although not impossible, this job is exceptionally hard. Anybody who knows two languages can change the language, the reason for hiring a professional translator is to maintain the essence. While there is a cost of the literature piece loosing its crux, it is important for it to be translated into multiple languages as well. Since, there are number of languages, and in order to reach the maximum number of people, one would need one’s work to be in maximum number of languages in order to make it more accessible.

Fortunately, there are number of firms that provide intelligent translating services. Nowadays, with cloud computing, there are firms like Smartling that offer such services for authors or literary agents so that the works can be translated in the best possible way.