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A review by f18
Sacred And Terrible Air by Robert Kurvitz

challenging dark reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Is memory created by perceiving reality? Or is reality created with our perceptions and rememberances?

This is not a thriller nor a mystery, though it centers around one. Do not read it if you want concrete solutions and satisfying endings. 

I have never played Disco Elysium and in fact I knew nothing about it when starting the book (and I still know barely anything). I was interested in how a person with no previous contact with the world would get on with this novel.

I read the Truri translation ( https://gofile.io/d/XR6BKy ) with the Group Ibex ( https://suricrasia.online/elysium/?dark#ftnt_ref63 ) open alongside to occassionally compare and so that I'd have access to both sets of footnotes. Apologies to my book club, but I have to say both of these
are kind of bad translations. Plenty of awkward word choices for prepositions, articles, and idioms. There were also issues converting third person pronouns from neutral estonian to gendered english which contributed to an overall difficulty attributing dialogue to the correct person in some places. 

I've seen people say Ibex (machine translated and then edited by humans) is superior for phrases that shouldn't be literally translated, but I encountered different examples of this in each as well as mistranslations (from what I can tell, as I don't speak estonian) in both of them. 

examples (emphases mine):
Truri
Traffic reflects from the windows of buildings and closed shops until a motorway rises above the sidewalks. The passing city flashes through the cracks of the stone edges, and a little boy waves to Machejek from the window of a passing car.

Ibex
Traffic is reflected in the windows of houses and closed shops, until the motorway rises above the footpaths. The passing city flashes through the cracks in the stone traffic barrier, and a small boy waves to Machejek from the window of a passing motor carriage.

Truri
Drops of water sparkle on the glass, the hermetic cap hisses open, and a small, vaporous stream of carbon dioxide rise from the bottle’s mouth. The apple cider foams and bubbles, the froth accumulating around the bubbles.

The girls’ mouths water, but little Maj looks confused and sips her lemonade with bits of lemon floating in it.

Ibex
Drops of water shimmer on the glass, the hermetic cap hisses open and a small vapour of carbon dioxide rises from the mouth of the bottle. The apple cider fizzes and foams from the bubbles.

The girls’ mouths are on fire; only little Maj looks confused and drinks her lemonade with pieces of lemon.

Truri
“So, is it buzzing?” he asks Jesper. “It’s buzzing for me.”

Jesper is buzzing a little, but not much.

“It’s good, the point of courage is not to get hammered. Just the edges need to be sanded down,” Tereesz pontificates.

Ibex
“Well, how is it, you buzzed?” he asks Jesper. “I’m buzzed.”

Jesper is buzzed, but not much.

“It’s good that way, the idea is to get some confidence, not to get knocked down. It’s just to take the edge off.” Tereesz tries to sound smart. 

Ibex for the most part has a more "readable" flow, though I've been told the original text is quite dense so that may not be ideal. It also has occassional awkward word choices that don't seen to fit tonally (ex: "fiddy" vs "fifty"). There was one instance where "he" was used instead of "she," causing it to sound like the incorrect character was speaking. The Truri translation sometimes misses DE terminology or translates it in different ways (ex: both "car" and "motor carriage" are used), whereas Ibex had a translation guide for these terms so they are consistent both internally and with the game (according to the translation group). I also noticed a couple of formatting mistakes in the Truri version. 

This is a novel that shoves you headfirst into the details of the world without any indication of if they will be important, and then later on refers back to them without fanfare. It assumes you are paying close attention.  Nothing is steady. You are jumping back and forth between POVs and timelines with little indication. And yet, those are important choices rather than flaws, keeping you off-balance as the world of the characters figuratively and literally falls apart. 

I think I liked it. It took me about 75% to really get invested, though, which I'm not sure whether to attribute to the writing or the translation. I would like to read it again if an official translation is ever released.
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