Great story, decent but not perfect translation
352674
I'd read the fan translation and watched the anime, and I still really enjoyed this story on the third pass. This translation is not perfect, however: a few expressions here and there are rather awkward and a surprising number of grammatical errors have made it past the editor. It's still well worth reading though!
308853
Very much mixed feelings about this book.  Mostly a straight-forward mystery, with an underlying paranormal slant.  The story is good, the character developments are also pretty good.  The translation is what degrades the overall effect of the book.  I felt there was too much trying to pull in idiomatic English.  Perhaps idiomatic French does not come across in English, or perhaps the translator took it upon himself to try to translate in such a way as to grab the English speaking audience.  If there are other books from this author, it would be better to have the translation be better.  I probably would have given this 3.5 stars if we could.
2237683
I always wonder when I read a translation, how much better it would be if I could read the parent language....I have read another translator of Scliar's work which was not nearly as good as this one...The story is unique, and at first a bit baffling as the subject is a little unbelievable, being a centaur, but I like fairy tales and went along with it....then at the end it turns out to be a medical problem, and you can feel the author's career as a physician take hold of the tale....I first tracked the book through an interlibrary loan, and liked it so much, I bought a copy.
2734512
I began my reading of this classic story with considerable misgivings about my ability to follow its plot, but Fagle's translation makes it extremely accessible. I only gave it four stars because my Kindle edition had some formatting issues. None that materially detracted from the story, but they were mildly annoying in some areas. A major publisher like Penguin really should fix this problem.
2900879
I really liked this story, although it was fairly predictable. The character development was really good, and I liked the use of flashbacks that tie into the story, although their significance is not revealed until the end of the story. The story is set in Germany, but the author never explicitly states this, but simply assumes that. This book was translated, and I felt a bit of frustration over that, because of little details. For instance, when talking about a vehicle speed the translator put the speed in miles per hour, vice kilometers per hour.
1814165
I hate not being able to give this book four stars, which it the rating I think it deserves based on the story itself.  The pacing is superb, to the point where I spotted one or two nagging storyline issues and forget them one or two pages later.  I may not have agreed with the choice of Os actions at a few points, but the resolution of those choices was reasonable and satisfying in each case.  Not what I would have done, or think is reasonable, but it worked out.

My issue is with the editing and formatting.  I tried the Kindle version on three different readers and in all cases the text flow didn't work correctly.  In addition, page numbers appeared in the story text, adding to the difficulty I had actually reading the story.  I did spot several issues a good editor would have fixed.

If these issues were addressed, this would be a solid four, possibly a five if the story had a fair chance to draw me in as deeply as Id like.
3229514
This is a great story well told. I often hear people say that this is the greatest novel ever written. Although I like the book, I think that is taking it a bit far. My suspicion is that it was quite unique when it was first published, and that the style has been copied so many times it now seems more ordinary. The only thing I don't like is that the language in parts is so "flowery" that it risks distracting from the story itself, but surely this is a matter of taste. Probably, it now finds its most enthusiastic audience among aspiring writers who want to learn how to spin a great story, and people with general literary interests, but I think most people will find it capturing.
3285620
My perspective is that I have read and enjoyed the Millennium series books, and I also know a bit of Swedish.  Therefore, I know the storyline and very much like to watch Swedish movies with subtitles to practice and learn more of the language.  If you find subtitled movies a chore to watch, then I would skip this and watch the dubbed version - although I have not seen that version and can't comment on it.

Overall, the story stayed pretty close to the book - of course many details from the book were left out, but what made it into the move was largely unchanged.  There were some minor differences in order to make the movie flow - and only one change that I was really disappointed to see near the end.  I won't spoil it for you.

Not sure what else to say - the HD quality is very good and the subtitles seemed to be a pretty good translation although I am no expert.  If you are offended by language or themes of sexual nature, then I'd skip this movie.
3685755
Its a great and interesting story with awesome art to back it up. The only issue i have is how the translation differs from what you may have read online (Boss instead of Husband, bad puns, etc). But those issues don't really have a big impact on the work as a whole.
1829198
Escaping Parker was a great story. There were things I loved, things I hated, and things that were "just okay". The characters were awesome and I really enjoyed Clarrisa's internal struggle, it was written beautifully. However, I did find at times that the dialogue was choppy and unrealistic. Also, there were a number of spelling/punctuation errors throughout that annoyed me to no end. But, all in all, I thought it was a great story; beautifully told, averagely written.
3337708
The Odyssey in and of itself is a great story if you stick with it long enough for something to happen, as it doesn't go in chronological order. However, this translation makes sticking with it a monumental task.

- The book is written in prose, not in verse like most translations. This isn't the real dealbreaker, as there are some very good translations that use prose, but it does make it more difficult to read when text that is supposed to be broken up in lines is crammed into a paragraph.
- Odysseus isn't even called Odysseus. His Romanized name, Ulysses, is used instead. You cannot call a book The Odyssey and not have him called "Odysseus". This is the most glaring error in translation, but other Roman names abound and word choice is not made for a casual epic poem reader.

Even though you may be drawn to the idea that it's free, you're getting what you pay for. Personally I recommend the Stanley Lombardo and Robert Fagles translations, as I've had very good experiences with both, but it would take a lot for a translation to be worse than this one.
4888414
I loved the story very much. It teaches a good life lesson about how to let things go in the past and about nature. The story was beautiful. There is just one thing that concerns me-The kindle fire edition has a few incorrectly spelled words. For example, a big part of the book is about the Girl with the Green-Tinted Hair aging through the seasons, so the word "Aging" is in the story a lot. But, in the kindle fire edition- The word is spelled "Ageing"! It might be correct in a different language, but not in English, but anyway, it was such a beautiful story to read.
710762
A fairly nice job of translation, but there are grammatical errors that are a bit distracting for me as a reader.
765848
I just watched this movie a few nights ago. The characters, the story were captivating. The one negative feature of the movie (as released outside of Taiwan) is the subtitling.  The subtitles are small to begin with- too small- but to top it off their visual placement against backgrounds offering poor contrast resulted in numerous scenes where I had to replay scenes several times, and still couldn't read all of the translated dialogue. The distributors should have used a more technically adept subtitling firm.
4157732
After reading this book, it is almost hard to comprehend that this was a TRANSLATION.  The writing is absolutely brilliant, beautiful. and creates a spellbinding story.  I loved reading this book, and will read it again.  The follow up book, though, was disappointing.
3690227
I like the story pretty well. The pacing was steady. The voice performance was pretty good with distinct voices for different characters.

I had a few issues with many pronunciations by this performer. Enough that I would have to carefully consider whether or not I could tolerate him mispronouncing things in another book.
3343800
Really enjoyed this story, but it needs English and Spanish proofreading. I hope the next books in this series will be better polished/proofread.