This morning I was reading the newspaper and came across an article on the television show “Ugly Betty.”  Now, I haven’t watched the show and don’t especially care about the show.  But I do like something to read when I’m drinking my coffee, so I read the article.  Apparently the U.S. show is based on a Columbian telenovela called  “Yo soy Betty la fea” and in Columbia, “Ugly Betty” is seen as a pale imitation of the original.

No arguments here since I haven’t seen either show.

But I practically spit out my coffee when I came across this:  “Watching the gringo version [of “Yo soy Betty la fea”] would be like reading “100 YEARS OF SOLITUDE” in English,” says Fabian Sanabria, an anthropologist at the Universidad Nacional who studies television.  “It makes no sense.”

WHAT?

I’ve read the English translation of “100 YEARS OF SOLITUDE” several times.  The book is gorgeous and incredible and I’ve said many, many times that if the book is that gorgeous and incredible in translation, it must be beyond belief in its original Spanish.  I acknowledge that things are lost in translation but the book still made perfect sense to me.  I love that book.  And even though I was once nearly fluent in Spanish, I know I couldn’t read that book in Spanish; the Spanish wouldn’t make enough sense to me and I’d miss too much.

?Yo soy Tracy la loca?