Dorothy Sayers. Keines Natürlichen Todes Translated by Otto Bayer.

     Dorothy Sayers. Keines Natürlichen Todes Translated by Otto Bayer. I can’t judge the quality of this translation, except indirectly. It looks like Bayer had difficulties with Sayers’ style. It’s allusive, and accurately reproduces the class as well as regional dialects. Difficult to do in German. Most difficult is Wimsey’s constant (and quite self-conscious) shifting of register. To reproduce this in German takes a good ear for this sort of thing in both languages. Bayer struggles, but succeeds only intermittently. What this translation shows is that Sayers was above all a great stylist. I also found it tough sledding to read German, perhaps because Bayer’s colloquialisms are German and not Austrian. Oddly enough, the brief bio and commentary in the afterword was easier to read, more academic, therefore more impersonal. ** (2007)