I was out on a snow hike last night, imagining that a piece of Danish literature is not unlike a Danish house to which only someone fluent in Danish has a key. As a translator and student of literature I have access to enter that building and experience it in all its facets. I perceive the building elements, the blueprint, the intent behind the construction. And I can reconstruct that house, make a replica, though not an exact twin. Not every screw and nail will be in precisely the same place. It could be that the original wood is not available anymore. But the building will appear and feel the same, inside and out. It will be the American-English neighbor. And the English reader can enter with their key and experience the same mood as inside the original house - experience the same rooms, the dimensions, the decor, the usefulness and the whimsy. It takes an enormous amount of work to replicate literature, of course, not unlike building a house. And not just to build it, but also to find people who will come and enter, and stay for a while.

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