Here's a secret. Many novelists, if they are pressed and if they are being honest, will admit that the finished book is a rather rough translation of the book they'd intended to write.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I don't know who said that novelists read the novels of others only to figure out how they are written. I believe it's true. We aren't satisfied with the secrets exposed on the surface of the page: we turn the book around to find the seams.
I encourage the translators of my books to take as much license as they feel that they need. This is not quite the heroic gesture it might seem, because I've learned, from working with translators over the years, that the original novel is, in a way, a translation itself.
I think a lot of writers are unrealistic about having their books translated into film.
As a writer, you write the book, you give it to your editor, it's copy edited, it's published, it's thrown out there, and then there's a response.
The writer's job is to let the books speak for themselves eventually.
Often something comes in from which you can see that the person is good, the book may not be perfect as it is, and the person doesn't want to do a re-write. That's something we do almost nothing of.
I don't think most books can be justifiably translated on screen. The film versions can't convey the right emotion, fuel your imagination or allow you to visualise every line the way books do.
Just why I sent it to the publishers would be hard to say, but when I had finished it I felt that it was literature, because it is real and because it was well written. And I know that the world wants such things.
I mean, the wonderful thing about writing a book is that you're getting a finished product at the end of the day. You're communicating directly with the reader.
Writing a novel is an intense and lonely business, but you have the reward at the end of a very direct dialogue between you and the reader.
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