Changing of titles and editing and translation/ Spoilers for Demolished Man

[dumbledore11214]

So this is sort continuation of the thread from Movie about changing of titles from Sorcerer to Philosopher stone, but since this will not be very HP related, I moved it here.

Magpie, as I was saying I would be just as annoyed if the title is changed from American English to British English without dire need for that.

And I would love to know what books titles were changed that way.

I was thinking though about something related - translation. I know you read me writing elsewhere being extremely annoyed about translator deciding to let the character live whom the author died, I felt that translator how to put it nicely? Overstepped her boundaries big time, HUGE.

But I also started thinking about titles and unnecessary change of such in translation.

I mean, we all know that some changes needed to be made and are being made in translation because some things just cannot be mechanically translated from one language to another, but sometimes I just wonder.

One of my all time favorite books as I am sure I mentioned before is "The Demolished Man" by Bester. Seriously, I read new books every time and this book stays on my top five list since I was nine or ten. Obviously when I was nine or ten I read it and loved it in Russian.

When I came here I read it in English and decided that translator did a phenomenal job. Besides giving me every possible detail of the world and the characters, she managed to portray the incredible word plays that Bester does by doing it in Russian. I thought it was very cool.

However, the title in Russian is "The Man without Face". I mean, it is not like the title came out of nowhere, believe me The Man without Face features very prominently in the book as nightmares that hunt one of the lead characters.

The problem is though the original title while may be less catchy reflects what happens with the *character*, not with this nightmare.

And I found the change of title to be incredibly annoying. I mean, it is different because it is translation, but title translates perfectly and I can just see it be the situation where UK Publisher or vice versa decides to switch it and me being just as annoyed.


Another aside, Magpie could you tell me if these days in the editing world small publishing companies decide that it is totally Okay to publish books with little or no editing?

I am talking about m/m romamce genre and straight romance too. OMG sometimes when I read them I want to have a red pen in my hand, very very bad.

Alla