Originally Posted by
dfloyd
Your first sentence was all I was replying to. Your retort lost me. I am not a scholar. I have never taken a course in literature, and it is too late in life for me to read literary criticism even if I wanted to. I accept the fact you know much more than I do about literary history. I read strictly for pleasure, and when you said the above about 'most modern translation' it struck a nerve. Everything in your retort may be absolutely true, but I know what I like when I read a translated book, and it generally isn't a modern translation. When I started reading Dostoevsky in the 1950s, Constance Garnett was what everybody read. So even if she is out of style for you, she is not for me. And I don't intend to reread all of Dostoevsky to find out if you are right.