This is so true. I saw a lot of reviews by critics who would use phrases like "ably translated" when I knew they hadn't read the original. In general I wouldn't let them use phrases like that if they hadn't, but you see it a lot of other places.

Agree that those you mention travel well. I may not have given enough context for that Updike quote. He said it had stopped traveling well and I believe was talking about the nouvelle romain era and, say, Natalie Sarraute and others I forget, whose heyday may have come after that of Camus etc. But I may be botching that, too, so I'd better quit.