Glad I read this translation of The Idiot

[Captain Pike]

I'm not a very literary guy. I started reading it because it was mentioned over and over in a book my wife bought me for my birthday, "Last Night in Twisted River" is Updike or Irving, I can't remember who wrote it, sheesh.

Parts of this book were gripping (The Idiot) other times, I slogged along for the sake of self-improvement. I damn near ran aground when I got to thinking about how much Constance Garnett might have woven her own little web in the translation. I actually got a hold of a copy of the book in the original Russian. Talk about slogging through! It got me interested in Russian, and I wasn't very able to corroborate (or refute) any of Ms. Garnett's work.

It's interesting how no sexual innuendo wafted off this work at all. There was that place at the end when Nastasia was said to be on her knees, hugging his legs. I hate to tell you folks, that would be enough for me! Obviously Russian people mate, copiously I'm sure, (it's cold there, right?) And it's certainly not necessary to go into details about this and that. I did sort of wonder though about the princes sexual orientation or his virility, a couple of times.

Actually, I wish I could be more like Muishkin . He reminded me of the character Elwood P. Dodd, portrayed in that play Harvey. A Gandhi like figure, it's appealing. But the fits and all, I wouldn't care for that. I didn't really follow a lot of the interrelationships between many of the characters. One thing, I wasn't aware of the notion of family members having different names. Here in America, most women take the name of their spouse -- apparently that's not what happens in Russia. I imagine my saying this will reveal my ignorance -- well have a good look. Now it's on to Anna Karenina...

[Raibean]

You might be confusing last names with patronyms. Russians don't have middle names; they simply take their father's first name and add evna/ovna if the child is a girl and evitch/ovitch (or sometimes just itch) if the child is a boy. When speaking to someone formally, you address them by their first name and patronym, like "Anna Ivanovitch" or "Dmitri Vadimovitch".

[kiki1982]

In Russia they don't take their spouse's names, no. In Belgium and France they don't either. And believe me, it is a hell of a lot easier to determine who the spouse was if she was a woman, doing genealogical research ;). There is something like a 'family name', but most people are addressed in a fashion between very formal (with family name) and very informal (without anything) with their patronimics attached.

You would call you neighbour Anna Petrovna, for example.

So, you mean there is a lot more blatant stuff of a sexual nature in the Russian, then? That's what I thought. Garnett blatantly edited her translations to suit her Victorian mind (and her audience's of course, although she died way past that era).