Translations: Dirty Snow (1948) by Georges Simenon

How does a reader approach a translated work? Does the fact that it is a translation subtly affect the readers perceptions? Don't expect answers here but it is an issue that I'll keep in mind as I read translated works.

I talked with a Cuban film maker about subtitles and leaned that there are different approaches:
1. Literal.
2. Translation to convey the intent or meaning or feeling from the original language to the new language.

Obviously films have time and space limitation for displaying subtitles but I think similar issues must affect novels. A literal translation may not convey the atmosphere from the original language.

Unfortunately I don't have a French edition of Dirty Snow to compare but my local university library as two translations of Simenon's Dirty Snow:

The Snow Was Black (the French title is La Neige ètait sale which translates to The Snow Was Dirty)
by Georges Simenon, translated from the French by Louise Varèse
1950, Prentice–Hall

Dirty Snow
by Georges Simenon, translated from the French by Marc Romano and Louise Varèse

2003 New York Review Books edition

1951, 2003 translation Marc Romano and Louise Varèse

I can't tell if Romano and Varèse were active, contemporary collaborators or if Romano started with the Varèse translation.

Beginning with the title, you get the feeling that the Romano/Varèse translation will tend toward leaner prose. I'm certain I would have enjoyed the book as much if I only read the 1950 Varèse translation but for me the Romano/Varèse translation has a more modern, flowing feel and is less stilted in choice of wording.

Here are some examples.

1.
first paragraph:
1950 Varèse
If it had not been for a chance encounter, Frank Friedmaier's gesture that night would not have had much significance. Frank had naturally not foreseen that his neighbor, Gerhardt Holst would come along the street. But even so Frank accepted that, and all that was to grow out of it.

1951, 2003 Romano/Varèse
If not for a chance event, what Frank Friedmaier did that night wouldn't have had much meaning. Obviously Frank couldn't have foreseen that his neighbor, Gerhardt Holst, would pass him in the street. But Holst did pass by, and he recognized him too, which changed everything. And yet that, and all that later followed, Frank accepted.

Romano/Varèse adds a sentence which furthers the narrative and aids reader understanding.

2.
1950 Varèse, p.6
Losing his virginity (the real one) had not meant very much to Frank. The atmosphere he lived in had been propitious. To others it was often a monstrous affair that they still talked about years later, adding a lot of flourishes like Kromer on the subject of the strangled girl in the barn.

1951, 2003 Romano/Varèse p.8
Losing his virginity, his actual virginity, hadn't meant very much to Frank. He had been in the right place. Others made it a story they still talked about years later, adding flourishes like Kromer did with the girl he strangled in the barn.

I like the leaner prose of Romano/Varèse translation

The atmosphere he lived in had been propitious.
vs
He had been in the right place.

To others it was often a monstrous affair
vs
Others made it a story

3.
1950 Varèse, p239
It was funny! He had spent the greatest part of his life — O, how much the greatest — hating Destiny with an almost personal hatred, to the point of searching for her in every corner to defy her, to come to grips with her.

1951, 2003 Romano//Varèse p.237
It was funny. He had spent the greatest part of his life—it wasn't an exaggeration—hating destiny with an almost personal hatred, to the point of looking for it everywhere, wanting to defy it, to wrestle with it.