Perhaps all translations are Frankenstein’s monsters.The main question then becomes:is the creature alive?
We know that translations, like the monster, are a grab bag of other organs and skin, stolen from the graveyards of other traditions whose sensibilities are not always our own, grafted together into something that approximates a whole. But has the translator provided the lightning rod, gathered the electricity? In the end, does it breathe?
Poem by Arseny Tarkovsky
