In response to the Schleiermacher reading, he essentially believes in two discrete systems of translation. The first, and his preferred method of "bringing the reader to the author" calls for the translator to translate the work in a way such that it might resemble the author's original text, had it been written in the target language. The advantages of this method is to immerse the reader in the cultural and historical contexts of the work, and thus convey much more substance than simply the contents of the work. This would assume some interest and education in the reader regarding the original language. The second method is to "bring the author to the reader," which he describes to be "imitations" of the original work, and should only be used to "whet the appetite" of a demographic ignorant to the original language, so that they may be able to appreciate when a superior translation is made available. He also asserts that there is no viable alternative, and that any attempt to let the author and reader meet half way should result in abject failure. I think his views come from his personal experiences as a theologian and translator of Latin to German. At the time, and to a lesser degree, even now, Latin is viewed as a language for intellectuals, and those who write in Latin are viewed as the zenith of philosophy. Even beyond that, Latin was seen as the sacred language. German, on the other hand, was the common language spoken by peasants, serfs, and in general, the common man. As such, it should not be surprising to see him place Roman writers on such a pedestal to the point that he is seemingly in disdain of bringing Latin literature to the common German man. Personally, I agree that translated works should serve as a gateway for readers to develop interest in a foreign culture. Although, to the extent that literature as an artform has developed a much more independent and universal appeal, I disagree that there is no middle ground between the author and the reader. However, I do admit it is infinitely harder to find that middle ground than it is to use either of these methods.
Deutscher's reading was much more conceptually captivating. Although I do find the idea of an academic snakesoil salesman being responsible for devasting the intellectual landscape of an entire field of study to be absurdly hilarious, I can appreciate the public sentiment and support for the original assertions made by Whorf. Humans are always trying to define what makes them special, and I can see that moving beyond race, gender, sexuality, (and hack fields like astrology and Myers-Briggs personality tests) to mother tongues might have been the natural progression. To give Whorf some credit, though a charlatan, he did seem to give it his all when developing his hack theory, so we can really only blame the public for subscribing to a chemical engineer's hypotheses about linguistics. But beyond that, Deutscher does present several interesting points about the effects one's mother tongue has on their point of view. Personally, I was always interested in why in Japanese, the word for blue was 青 (ao), whereas in Chinese, that same kanji 青 (qing) meant either a light shade of green or a light shade of blue. On the other hand, the kanji 绿 (lv/midori) meant green in both language, and the Chinese kanji for blue, 蓝（lan）was simply absent from Japanese. Now I'm slightly more motivated to do some research about that in the future.
