Translator Slapfight!

If you feel grossed out by the recent contretemps concerning “selfies,” Genius, or that guy in the Observer who… something, I don’t know — or if you in fact feel grossed out for engaging in or promoting engagement of discussions about “selfies,” Genius, or whatever the hell it was that guy in the Observer… do you think they even edited that or do you think they were just like, “It doesn’t matter, media Twitter is going to take it and run with it for us either way” — then perhaps you might find this debate over literary translation to be something of a gross-out eraser. There is a bit of background reading that you might have to do but it’s a small price to pay for feeling like you’ve involved yourself in something other than “selfies,” Genius, or God, I don’t fucking know, it seems like you’d have to exert a phenomenal amount of effort to be simultaneously as imperial and impenetrable as that guy in the Observer was and yet you come away with the impression that it all came impossibly easy to him, right? I mean, what the hell even was that?