A Dürrenmatt sentence / Dürrenmatt übersetzen

Sasha Volokh had a query about the meaning of a Dürrenmatt sentence, or rather part of one, yesterday (the Ed. of Blawgreview alerted me to it) – I’ve indicated the problem part in bold:

[A]uch ich habe eine Kunsttheorie, was macht einem nicht alles Spaß, doch halte ich sie als meine private Meinung zurück (ich müßte mich sonst gar nach ihr richten) und gelte lieber als ein etwas verwirrter Naturbursche mit mangelndem Formwillen.

It looks as if Sasha suspected the correct meaning, which was different from a published translation. I think the exchange is a good example of the difficulty of talking about language and translation. Some people seem to have no awareness of how slight their grasp of grammar is, though.

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