The Mystery, Crime, and Thriller Group discussion

On another thread there was a discussion of mysteries (crime, thrillers) which were not in English. A number of books were recommended. I went to the library and came home with a pile. I couldn't read them. I never got as far as to appreciate the plot. I was put off by the ham-handed writing. Stale phrases such as "off her rocker" and "razor sharp", stilted exposition, perfunctory characterizations such as "messy desk, ordered mind" and "kick upstairs", ignorance of the difference between "rise" and "raise", silly impossibilities such as "burned on his retina", a 19th century fantasy -- etc. I'm reluctant to name names for fear of encouraging any discussion to stray off into the particulars of individual writers -- what I want to know is how much of this is due to sloppy translation. Does anyone here know enough Swedish or Italian, or Chinese (for example) to say for sure? I myself have not found any egregiously bad contemporary French translations, but I've not been systematic. We commonly, in this genre, ignore the translator. Critics like Barzun may gripe at the intrusion of literary authors into detective stories (disdain for Gadda is a particular personal grievance) but you would never catch Gadda or his translator William Weaver at such elementary bumbling. Is anyone else put off by this? Does anyone know whether, if it's true, it's contemporary, maybe a product of a rush to print? Do we have any translators here?

Hi Charles,
I tried to read Anne Perry's Detective Monk series in German, but gave up after the first few pages. I am German but rather read good books in the language in which they have been written. Also, and here it gets funny, I wrote a novel in english instead of german. Thing is, there are phrases and words that simply don't exist in both languages and then trying to explain-translate (transplain? for the lack of a better word) will inevitably make it stubbly to read.
I dont even want to have to translate my own novel from english to german and I can only sympathise with translators who really try hard to keep the orginal feel of the book but must fail because some words have no counterparts in the other language.
To answer the last part of your post: I noticed that the same book can have a poorly translated edition and a good one, which must be a result of limited time or money in the process.

Charles wrote: "On another thread there was a discussion of mysteries (crime, thrillers) which were not in English. A number of books were recommended. I went to the library and came home with a pile. I couldn't r..."

What thread, Charles?

Ham-handedness may be a translater's nemesis. Consider this from a review of The Aenead translated by Princeton's Fagles:

Occasionally Fagles does introduce a modern idiom that is trite or jarring. For instance, when the sea-nymph speeds Aeneas's ship on its way in Book 10, she does so skillfully ("haud ignara modi") because she "knows the ropes".