Greetings /lit/, italianfag here.
Name me all the best English/American books that you think should be read in their original language by non-native English speakers.
Please, don't recommend anything that could be too complex or difficult to understand for me (i.e James Joyce). My English skills are quite good, but not enough.
Jude the Obscure
For Whom the Bell Tolls
A Christmas Carol
Blood Meridian
Lolita
American Pastoral
The Waste Land by Eliot
The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner
Probably Orwell and Huxley
Romeo and Juliet/Othello/Hamlet
Frankenstein
Moby Dick
Scarlet Letter
Heart of Darkness
Kim
Lord of the Flies
In Cold Blood
The Catcher in the Rye
The Bell Jar
The Poems of Emily Dickinson
Churchill's History of the English Speaking People
No particular order and off the top of my head
In my opinion most of the works that absolutely must be read in english are the most difficult to understand. Shakespeare is lauded as having some of the absolute best use of sound, but his writing is archaic and uses some very advanced vocabulary. You mentioned Joyce, who is the same way.
On the other hand you have writers like Hemingway or McCarthy who write very well and could most likely be understood by you, but probably don't lose too much in translation either. Those two would be good authors to work through for you though. Add some Vonnegut too -- he gets shit on for being simplistic and high school-tier, but he tells some good stories and writes in a unique way that might not translate well. I find his short story collections better than his novels for the most part.
Have you ever read shakespeare? If you don't mind keeping a dictionary nearby you might be able to handle him, and it'd be very worth it.
>>7843058
Also forgot to mention Moby Dick. One of the best works ever written in English. Melville uses some large words but 1) the actual outline of the story isn't nearly as confusing as something like Joyce and 2) many of the stranger words are specific nautical terms that modern english speakers wouldn't understand without looking them up either.
I agree with most of these (especially McCarthy and Hemmingway). If you canread them you could easily read Joyce's first two books.
>>7843065
This is true. The hardest thing about MD for a non native speaker should actually be the sentence structure I'd think. So many Clauses.
>>7843065
>obstreperous
>a normal word
Alright there m0
>>7842930
>Name me all the best English/American books that you think should be read in their original language by non-native English speakers
all of them. your english is clearly decent so just start simple and work your way up. don't ruin joyce with a translation when you are so close to being able to read him.
You can read Hemingway like fareware to arms it take place in Italy, so it might interested you.
>>7842962
>Romeo and Juliet/Othello/Hamlet
>nothing too difficult
>Shakespeare
>>7843058
This. The most complex works are usually the ones that should be read untranslated, because they tend to experiment with the language. However, if you want to read these, start simple and work your way up. Good ones to start with would be things like Tarzan, a pretty mindless series that is decent enough to be engaging without being complicated or hard to understand.
>>7844058
romeo and juliet is babby tier shakey tho
>>7842930
Now I ask you, my friend. I'm learning Italian and what are some good books that I can read to gain a better understanding of the language.
Recommend children books if necessary.
>>7845643
I'm not OP but I'm in the same situation.
The problem with italian is that the "classics" use an archaich dictionary. And many stories are boring dramas about society. I recommend you to read books written after 1930. I don't really know which one tho'
>>7845685
I picked through Dante with my intermediate Italian and didn't find it too bad; some g's are c's, there's some obscure vocab, and there's a verb conjugation or two that aren't used in modern Italian, but it still felt far closer than say Shakespeare to modern English.
How's i promessi sposi's italian?
>>7845690
well, if you read Dante without too many problems you should definitely try Promessi Sposi. It's easier (I mean it's still "strange" in respect to current italian) and it's actually interesting.
Keep in mind that you can find the book for free on the internet (legally speaking)
http://www.classicitaliani.it/index064.htm
this is an example, but not well formatted.
>>7845608
Meh...not exactly...
Yes, it belongs in the Teen Romance section of bookstores...but it's Shakespeare doing Teen Romance, so...
>>7846888
I read Romeo and Juliet in 9th grade, Mr. Italian "Actively seeking to improve his knowledge of English literature through intensive reading and study" can definitely handle it.
