The Great Gatsby -- in Italian!

I tell myself I should read English and American classics in Italian just for fun, yet I rarely do. I tend to want to read the works written in English in English and the Italian works in Italian. But I stumbled upon the opening line of The Great Gatsby in Italian on Twitter and I must admit I was enchanted!

''Negli anni più vulnerabili della giovinezza, mio padre mi diede un consiglio che non mi è mai più uscito di mente. 'Quando ti viene voglia di criticare qualcuno,' mi disse, 'ricordati che non tutti a questo mondo hanno avuto i vantaggi che hai avuto tu.'"

ORIGINAL:

"In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. 'Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,' he told me, 'just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.'"

(It's interesting to see how other American classics get translated across the pond. For example, Gone With The Wind? In Italian, it's "Via col vento.")

In this case, I am especially mesmerized because I often think of The Great Gatsby as my favorite novel, and it's a book that I sometimes re-read around my birthday as a gift to myself. What's more, it may be the translator's prerogative to consider what's lost in translation (more is gained typically, just to be clear). Here it catches my eye that the phrase 'turning over in my mind' becomes something in Italian more like 'has never left my mind.' I love the frission of this idea continually circulating, re-emerging, in Nick's mind.

One classic I did read in Italian was The Diary of Anne Frank (called simply "Il diario.") That may be a perfect book to read in any language because it's less about prose style than pure feeling.

I am always looking for ways to continue my study of Italian, and also to deepen my study of other languages. It seems quite obvious that I would want to know the opening lines of my favorite novel in any language I come across, much less my beloved second language. 

But life has a way of distracting us, doesn't it?