Constance Garnett Translation

[Zeruiah]

How do you feel about this translation? It's from the Victorian age, so it may have several archaic phrases, but I find it to be sufficient. Of course, I haven't read any other versions, nor do I dare to due to the fact that The Brothers Karamazov is a very long piece of literature and I don't want to waste $10+ more on another massive book to take up space on my shelf. Given my abstinence from reading other translations, I'm naive as to how Garnett's translation ranks amongst much more recent editions.

Discuss, please.

[Etienne]

Garnett is very much criticized and I don't like her.

[Logos]

By the efforts of Constance Clara Garnett (1861–1946) readers in North America, Europe, etc. were finally able to access Russian literature. She was educated at Cambridge, obtained first class, and qualified for a BA; but as was the Victorian more at the time regarding women not awarded a degree.

She was a distinguished librarian, taught, and was friends with many literary types of the day including Y. B. Yeats, D. H. Lawrence, and Joseph Conrad. She was also friends with Russian journalist Felix Volkhovsky, in exile in England at the time. He was the one who taught her Russian and assisted her in her first translations. She also met many other Russian revolutionary figures and writers and travelled to Russia a few times.

Her first translations appeared in 1894. She also translated Tolstoy, Goncharov, Chekhov, Gogol, Turgenev, Rudin etc. It was her work on Dostoyevsky, published first in 1912, that brought her much acclaim.

From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

http://www.oxforddnb.com/

"Constance Garnett's requirements for a good translation were sympathy for the author and a love of words and their meanings. She herself had faults: her dialogues are sometimes stiff; her transliteration of Russian names is illogical and inconsistent; she makes many errors. But the speed at which she worked, which was partly to blame for these, allowed her to maintain stylistic unity. Her descriptive passages are often exquisitely done and she eschews linguistic fads or slang. Conrad, for whom Turgenev was Constance Garnett, compared her to a great musician interpreting a great composer. For Katherine Mansfield, Constance Garnett transformed the lives of younger authors by revealing a new world. Without her translations, H. E. Bates believed, modern English literature itself could not have been what it is (Bates, 120)."

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So, yes, her works have been heavily criticised *since*, but she was a remarkable figure in her devotion to Russian culture and literature, and the first person to translate many works we now have access to today--many of which are still the English standard--most still in print.

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[Janine]

Logos, thanks very much for posting this information, about Constance Garnett. It was quite informative. I knew nothing about her and this satisfied my own curiosity. I was particularly interested, since I recently read her version of "Fathers and Sons" by Turgenev. I thought it was beautifully translated. We had a small debate about her translations and others, early on in the "Fathers and Son's" thread. I read the last few paragraphs by another translator and preferred the Garnett version. The last line, in particular, had more impact.

[Logos]

ah no problem Janine this thread actually prompted me to look into comparing different translations of various works, maybe I'll blog about it if/when I find the time, lol.

[Janine]

That would be great, Logos. Your blog is always so interesting; one of the best on this forum, I think.
I often wonder about various translations. I was starting to read "Les Miserables" and my library had it in one single book, did not say abridged; then my friend told me she owned a set of 5 books. I was amazed at the difference. I don't know who the translator was now, but the books were well worth reading and beautifully translated, in my humble opinion.

[Cosmic]

It goes without saying that the best thing is to read in the original language. Some things do not translate well literally, and not every thought occurs in every culture. The eskimos have more than a dozen different words for snow (dry powdery snow, heavy wet snow, swirling snow, etc.) but each of those would translate into English simply as "snow," thereby losing the richness of the original text.

But if a translation must be read, then the stylistic questions need to be asked and answered. Should the translation be as literal as possible? Should it be stylistically faithful as possible? Should it try to capture the spirit and meaning in contemporary equivalents to best convey the meaning?

The Brothers Karamazov has long been my favorite novel, and I have tackled it in the original Russian as well as reading half a dozen different translations. Although no translation can compare with the original novel in the original language, I am glad that Logos posted the complimentary information on Constance Garnett because, despite the limitations of the Garnett translation, it is still my favorite because it is the most faithful to Dostoevsky's original Russian. And it is also most characteristic of the era.

But style has a subtle effect, and if you love Brothers Karamazov, why not read it over and over in various translations? The novel is so powerful and so rich, you will inevitably see something new with each reading and with each translation.

And if God is smiling on you, you will be able to "Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. Therein you will perceive the divine mystery in things."

[andave_ya]

AH, wow wow wow. I didn't know all that -- I've read the Constance Garnett translation and really enjoyed it, although I don't know how to compare it because I haven't read other translations. Yet. I'm definitely planning to.

[AJ12754]

Logos, thanks very much for posting this information, about Constance Garnett. It was quite informative. I knew nothing about her and this satisfied my own curiosity. I was particularly interested, since I recently read her version of "Fathers and Sons" by Turgenev. I thought it was beautifully translated. We had a small debate about her translations and others, early on in the "Fathers and Son's" thread. I read the last few paragraphs by another translator and preferred the Garnett version. The last line, in particular, had more impact.

I agree -- her last line in Chekhov's Three Years has more impact than the P/V trnalstion in my view.

I am a great admirer of the Garnett translations even knowing all the criticism that has been directed at her. She herself was critical of the Turgenev she did (she began them after spending one summer learning Russian to pass the time during her pregnancy) and later wished she had waited on them until she had greater facility with the language. She found Tolstoy the easiest and Dostoyevsky the most difficult as she had to "make the English as vague, imprecise in meaning and rambling as the original." (quoting her son). My favorite is her Chekhov but that may be because he, along with Turgenev, were her two favorites. And of course .. it's Chekhov.