[cryptonector]

> For some cultural reason that I'm not qualified to explain, the Spanish literary world is much more stilted than the English one. When I first read the Odyssey about 20 years ago, I found it more pleasant to read in English than in my native Spanish because all Spanish translations were full of intrincate poetic language and obscure words, while English ones where much more down-to-earth.

This is a common theme in Romance language writing, but it's especially so in Spanish. Lots of elliptical sentences longer than most paragraphs in English, requiring extensive effort to parse. Lots of flowery language. A bit of a word game, but usually just dreadful.

> (PS, since the post talks about Borges: he's an exception. He sounds like an Anglo-Saxon writer writing in Spanish).

He learned to read English before Spanish while living in Switzerland as a child. In a way he very much was an English language author writing in Spanish. The result is that his writing is very accessible in the original Spanish and very translatable to English, and his writings have a very unique flavor.