Los Angeles Literary Highlights

It is a truth universally acknowledged (and recently addressed in Barclay Bram Shoekmaker‘s Millions review of Mo Yan‘s Frog) that literary translation is an imperfect art, and this list of mistranslated “literary moments” only offers more evidence for the claim. But for every serious blunder there’s also a truly ridiculous one (or more). For example, the French translated the title of Animal Farm as Animals Everywhere!, which sounds a lot like a charming children’s book and not at all like Orwell.

Shhdontellsteve is a Twitter account devoted to “Steve,” the roommate of the unnamed narrator.  Kind of like The Truman Show for Twitter.  (As I write this, it occurs to me that this may constitute “telling Steve.”  Apologies if that’s the case.)

“American literature in the 19th century speaks in the 21st in terms we have not yet abandoned – for all our technology, globalism, and panache.” (via Arts and Letters Daily)

This month the Cleveland International Film Festival will show Dear Mr. Watterson, a film exploring “how … a simple comic strip became so meaningful to such a massive and diverse group of people.” Yet despite the subject matter, the actual author of the Calvin and Hobbes series will almost certainly be absent from the screenings. Over at Full Stop, Liv Combe looks at the ways Bill Watterson is “keeping the idea of the private public figure alive.”