Translations -- validity Re: Great Works

I am reading Dostoevsky's "The Idiot". I am really enjoying reading this old book published by Random House under their "THE MODERN LIBRARY", collection.
It says the book was translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett. The book reads well and I assumed that Random House would employ only the best of translators.
I came across an expression that I wasn't sure of (a little embarrassed here) it's meaning: Rira bien qui rira le dernier. The phrase was printed in italics in my book, and, my eyes being less than adequate these days, I thought the verb was spelled, "riva", my eyesight mistaking the italicized r for a v. Of course, this didn't have any meaning, even on the Internet.

I became more interested.
I did what I often do, in times of agitation and doubtfulness (apparently, not a word) went to The Literature Network, online-literature.com. I was astounded to find the translation was markedly different, in fact, the famous French expression does not even appear at all in the online text version!

My head swam! Could Constance Garnett have decided to use this French expression meaning: "he laughs best who laughs last", to convey some meaning set down by Dostoevsky??!! I imagined, Dostoevsky quoted the French expression directly in his work, right?
All throughout his work here, and other works I have read, idiomatic expressions in other languages are used to convey meanings.
An example of this, was his earlier use of the Italian, "se non e vero...", which I did understand actually, an expression meaning, "if it isn't true...", where the implication is, "if it isn't true, it ought to be", kind of thing.

I don't even dare to go look that one up. MY POINT IS: do translators have this level of license? Would they purport to know when to use some foreign language idiom, ALL ON THEIR OWN??

I don't mind telling you that one of the reasons I'm reading this great classic is for the very reason that it is a great classic. Must, or should I learn Russian and suffer through the original work in order to grasp Dostoevsky's real secret?

I don't suppose this means the sky is falling or anything, it just kind of let the air out of my balloon a little. Any thoughts?

Translation is one of those sticky little topics that becomes an issue for just those reasons that you stated. As a comparatist, my advice to you is to learn Russian and read the book in its original language. As a person, I would advise you against it unless you just happen to have a great deal of time and untapped energy on your hands.

To translate something, a person can take one of two approaches. The first is an exact translation of the words. The second is to translate the meaning, or the authorial intention, of the words. The thing is, it is quite difficult to convey idiomatic language in translation unless one opts for the latter means of translation. In that case, Random House may have employed the French in order to give the reader the sense of the character's sophistication or to draw attention to that character's well-traveled mind. Or, as may be equally likely, Dostoevsky truly did use the French in the original. The only way to know would be to find a Russian copy and, as you said, learn some Russian before diving into it.

Personally, I am a bit of a fan of anime, and while of course anime is incomparable with great literature, the method of translation is.

Anime is originally made in Japanese, which is a culture that has it's own idioms and expressions sometimes beyond the different than the values of the average american... and anime dubbed in english reflects this, while subtitled anime is generally more true to the japanese original. A prime example of this is one anime I watched that had a scene where a girl was comforting a young boy. In the dubbed version, she said "There there, don't cry", to the boy, while in the subtitled version she said "You don't have to cry, you're a boy!". It was obvious that the translator/american dubbing studio felt that the latter translation was too alien for most of it's american viewers, and so skipped this little lesson on Japanese views on masculinity in the dubbed version.

My point, which I am getting to in a roundabout way, is that the translator may have felt that Dostoevsky's expression was too alien for the average American to understand (though the french quip was untranslated, it was an expression that many Americans are probably familiar with. Since Random House is a large publishing company that caters to the average American, my recommendation would be to find a different publisher, perhaps one that largely specializes in translations of Russian literature, and e-mail them asking how close their Russian to English translations are before ordering the book from them.

but I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill. The Constance Garnedtt translations were the standard Russian-to-English translations used for years, even for the Dostoevsky novels published by the prestigious Limited Editions Club. Garnett was living in Russia with her diplomat husband at the time of the translations, and she was nearly a contemporary of Dostoevsky. If it wasn't for her, the novels would have been delayed being put into English for a number of years.

I have read all four of the great Dostoevsky novels in the Garnett translations: the Brothers Karamazov, The Possessed, The Idiot, and Crime and Punishment. Where you are probably missing the flavor of Dostoevsky is not in the translation, but not reading the novels illustrated with the great Fritz Eichenberg wood cuts. Raskolnikov waiting behind Lizaveta's door, axe in hand, perhaps will give some idea of the illustrations flavor.

It depends...

I don't think it is making a mountain out of a mole-hill. A translation should be right.

I am now translating Kafka's Das Schloss.The Castle and with all those German 'Ja's and 'gar's and what-nots, it is hard to express the thought of that. Therefore I choose to put them in somehow and not to leave them out. Maybe I will, reading over the text again, tae some 'after all's out or so, but most of them will stay there.

Authorial intent, I think, is difficult, because, if you yourself haven't spoken to the author it is impossible to translate the authorial intent as you don't know what it is. One can read a lot of papers on the author, but nothing says that those papers are right either. What I try to do, is to determine whether there is a chance that the word was meant as something ambiguous or not. That is important, as, as a translater, you have to keep the thing open for interpretation.

All too often, ambiguous meaning is taken away by the translator because he doesn't realise it is there and the text ends up 'flat'. I had a discussion on here about a thesis student about Monte Cristo. And there was a word had been translated wrongly (clearly) which changed the whole meaning of the book even!

About idioms: I try to keep the idiom as far as possible. If it is about a hand, I will not want to change it into something about feet or noses. I will try to stay with the hand somehow. If it is not possible at all, I try to find something that suits the context or that has possibilties to go furher with (in metaphor for example). Mostly, the iiom in that form is there for a reason; Taking the idiom or part of it away, is a mistake as it is a part of the chain. If you take that part away, the chain falls into two pieces.

I don't know if the French idiom in Dostoyevski's work was used by the translator, or by Dostoyevski himself. It is possible that he himself used it. Tolstoy's War and Peace starts with an entire speech in French because the aristocracy spoke French. The English translation I saw had translated the French into English as well which also destroys the elitist and 'apart' nature of the Russian aristocracy to some extent and changes them somehow into English ones that do not stand so far from their 'serfs' as the Russians were. The detached way of living, the ivory tower which we know how it is going to end up in a dramaticly ironic way, is no more. Maybe Dostoyevski did use the French to show either the 'removed' nature of himself, or of his character, maybe Raskolnikov's 'superiority'. Who will say?

I always find that a translation cannot, under no circumstances, change either the wording, nor the cultural intention. It doesn't mean it should not be readable, but some translators go too far and change the text so much, one cannot recognise it. A translation should be as meticulous as possible, preferably retaining every possible nuance there could be.

I had a look in the Russian text of it. Indeed, it says 'Rira bien qui rira le dernier!'.

In my mind, the translator should not translate that, but should put a footnote to tell the meaning of the words/the idiom.

http://az.lib.ru/d/dostoewskij_f_m/text_0070.shtml

ЧАСТЬ ПЕРВАЯ. (first part)

(chapter) XI

do control f on your keyboard to find it automatically.

I just realised I made a mistake adressing Raskolnikov... :redface: That is not The Idiot, is it? :willy_nilly:

Alan Myers' translation in Oxford World Classics also uses this phrase, as do McDuff in Penguin, and Pevear & V in Everyman. My guess would be that Dostoevsky used it in the original, these other translators, surely, have too much self-respect to steal Garnett's French! To be certain you'll need to do more digging. I found the other translators by searching for the phrase in Amazon, so you might start there (Google Books would be another good place to search...) Oxford and Penguin usually have good introductions, and might explain what is going on here.

By the way, I wouldn't be embarrassed about not knowing the meaning of the phrase! I certainly didn't.

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Originally Posted by kiki1982

A translation should be right.

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And this is where we run into a trouble. The thing is that no matter HOW you translate, you're going to do it wrong, at least according to some. It is impossible to create a translation that will please everyone, or necessarily even most of people. Only a word-for-word copy of the original work would be "truly and completely faithful", but the problem is that then it's not a translation, but the original work itself. You cannot transfer it into another language (or media, for that matter) without doing some changes, so translation is always some kind of adaptation and someone's interpretation of the original work.

There's no consensus about what a "perfect" translation would be like even among those doing research in the field of translation studies. Some defend domestication, others think foreignization is the only way to go, many people say both are needed depending on the situation.

Also the translation is always targeted FOR certain audience BY someone BECAUSE of some reason, which invariably affects the translation process.

One could say translation is a really unrewarding job - no matter what you do, someone is going to be unhappy with the final result and will point out to you exactly why your translation sucks. Still there are always us fools who are willing to do the work :lol:

Alas, what a humbling experience it has been digging into this. I find it strangely fascinating, exploring other languages and translations. You were right on Glover

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The only way to know would be to find a Russian copy and, as you said, learn some Russian before diving into it.

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So that's just what I did -- I found a copy of, "The Idiot", in the original Russian -- but who knows, is it? It is Russian, and, fooling around with it using some online translators, what I have here seems to be this great work, in Russian:
http://ilibrary.ru/text/94/p.11/index.html

But then you wonder, how this material, this content as we say these days, made it into a whirling hard drive somewhere, long after poor Fodor's demise. I guess at some point we have to trust these anonymous servants.

And, I am rather reassured to find that indeed, as verified by Kiki1982 (thank you) this French idiom is written as such (written in French) in the Russian document I found. I could only imagine that a learned fellow like Dostoevsky would be well-traveled and probably well-versed in several languages and would, in my opinion appropriately, pen his meanings in the languages that said them best.

And maybe it's best that here at the literature network, the translation we have includes the same saying, only written in English -- TRANSLATED. Sticking strictly to the meaning of the word, a "translation", for use by students, should indeed be a translation -- a complete translation.

I was also amazed by the apparent power of the Internet. I was able to do all this research, idly, while listening to some music and maybe even streaming a movie and replying to a few e-mails. I discovered a site whose sole purpose is to provide pronunciations for words all over the world. The site is of course:
http://www.forvo.com

This site is one of these peer produced and peer validated informational systems much like Wikipedia (which I loathe). It is an amazing thing, these kind of self fulfilling/self ratifying tumors of data on the Internet. It's amazing how they grow. Somehow it's begun then people sign up and begin voluntarily adding content. And since "verified" users are able to judge and rate the entry of their compatriots, the whole system moves to a dynamic averaging of contributors knowledge -- or does it?
There's something very 1984 about this: we assume the software is designed to do what the site purports. There must be checks and balances in there somewhere, but nobody actually knows anyone else. Doesn't it seem like someone should be, "in charge", a body of knowledge? That's why they have names for encyclopedias. Is Britannica better than Merriam-Webster? Isn't there some federal agency that oversees the meaning of words -- I hope not, right? Of course I'm joking... but, there is something about Wikipedia that really scares me.
Shouldn't research be grueling and unappealing? I don't know, I bookmarked all these sites which do this magic stuff for free -- it makes for a fun rainy afternoon.

I'll confess that I don't read many translated works for the exact worries you expressed. Have you found one publisher that you trust to have it correct?

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Originally Posted by mkhockenberry

I'll confess that I don't read many translated works for the exact worries you expressed. Have you found one publisher that you trust to have it correct?

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I still stand by my statement that a translation can never be "correct". It can be good, excellent even, it can be adequate, bad or horrible, but those are always subjective opinions. For a translation to be "correct" there would have to be the concept of a "perfect" trasnlation, meaning just one right answer to the question how should a certain work be translated, and that's just impossible.

Everyone has their own opinion as to whether a certain translation is a good one or not and what they are generally speaking looking for when they're searching for a good translation. For example, some look for word-for-word accuracy, others want a fluent read. If source and target languages differ from each other greatly, either one or the other has to be sacrificed almost always. This doesn't mean that it's impossible to create a good translation, merely that there are always people who disagree about the quality of the product.

Perhaps a publisher with a widely accepted translation would be a better request :) I realize that no translation will ever be truly correct. Not only are the languages being changed, but often the time in which the document is translated is quite removed from the time it was written. I do try to look for the oldest translation into English that I can find if I'm reading a translation, but that is my own rule of thumb.

A translation cannot be 'correct' absolutely, but at least one can try. All too often certain things are abandoned just because it is easier. One translation of War and Peace was mentioned on this forum where the comparison of Napoleon with a horse was abandoned. That is not only forgetting a mere small tiny detail, but a major judgment on Napoleon, important to Russian culture, not to mention the fact that the meaning of that whole section was changed. The same as the translation of Dumas's Monte Cristo I was talking about. Changing the whole meaning of the book in this case, is beyond your job as a translator. Or maybe the readers could conclude that the translator actually did not fully understand the work... Worst thing was that this translation was being used for analysis for a master's thesis. Had he taken his translatin for true, the poster had misinterpreted the whole book.

It is impossible to ever 'domesticate' a work simply because it is not at home in another culture than the one its author came from. Wanting to domesticate it is futile. Just try to make it readable, not necessarily word for word, but maybe better idea by idea, feeling by feeling. Use italic for stress, use additional adverbs for feelings, use inversion, by all means.

Wherever there is possibility that a word has an ambiguous meaning, its ambiguity should be retained, otherwise, one possibly makes a flat work. The same goes for expressions: French is important in Russian culture as it expresses the noble class and their removed nature (as I said Tolstoy starts War and Peace in French). Not retaining the French, is domesticating the Russian aristocrats into English ones, but after all, we do not, under no circumstances, change St Petersburg into Peterborough, do we, or Bath or something? The story plays in Russia, so Russian culture should be retained ANything else is doing the work short or possibly even violating it.

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Originally Posted by kiki1982

A translation cannot be 'correct' absolutely, but at least one can try. All too often certain things are abandoned just because it is easier. One translation of War and Peace was mentioned on this forum where the comparison of Napoleon with a horse was abandoned. That is not only forgetting a mere small tiny detail, but a major judgment on Napoleon, important to Russian culture, not to mention the fact that the meaning of that whole section was changed. The same as the translation of Dumas's Monte Cristo I was talking about. Changing the whole meaning of the book in this case, is beyond your job as a translator. Or maybe the readers could conclude that the translator actually did not fully understand the work... Worst thing was that this translation was being used for analysis for a master's thesis. Had he taken his translatin for true, the poster had misinterpreted the whole book.

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Of course it's sad when that happens, especially if the reader thinks they are getting a loyal and unabridged translation. For example in Finland it used to be common to make abridged translations especially for young readers without ever mentioning the fact that they were abridged. A great portion of L. M. Montgomery's books that have been translated into Finnish are shorter and in some cases even cencored versions, which is a pity.

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Originally Posted by kiki1982

It is impossible to ever 'domesticate' a work simply because it is not at home in another culture than the one its author came from. Wanting to domesticate it is futile. Just try to make it readable, not necessarily word for word, but maybe better idea by idea, feeling by feeling. Use italic for stress, use additional adverbs for feelings, use inversion, by all means.

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It's not impossible, and it is constantly done with chilren's books. Especially picture books are often almost completely domesticated. With adult literature, however, the domestication is usually more subtle, but it is very rare to find a book without any domestication in it.

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Originally Posted by kiki1982

Wherever there is possibility that a word has an ambiguous meaning, its ambiguity should be retained, otherwise, one possibly makes a flat work. The same goes for expressions: French is important in Russian culture as it expresses the noble class and their removed nature (as I said Tolstoy starts War and Peace in French). Not retaining the French, is domesticating the Russian aristocrats into English ones, but after all, we do not, under no circumstances, change St Petersburg into Peterborough, do we, or Bath or something? The story plays in Russia, so Russian culture should be retained ANything else is doing the work short or possibly even violating it.

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In domestication it's all about where to draw the line. Yes, in literature targeted for grown-up audience Russia and St. Petersburgh are Russia and St. Petersbourgh, but in case of a children's book it's not at all unheard of Russia becoming Britain and St. Petersbourgh Liverpool or something.

But the Russian culture is a more difficult part. One can say, for example, that a certain manner of speaking and addressing people is very characteristic for Russians, but maintaining that particular style that works in Russian might end up being something rather incomprehensible, clumsy and far from fluent in English or some other language. So it's all about balancing between the original style and fluency in another language, because making a very unfluent translation that is hard to read would hardly do justice to the original work which is fluent in its original language.

Translation is indeed a very tough job. I write for instance in two languages at the same time -English and Nepali. I cannot translate what I write in Nepali into English for there are some feelings that are indigenously Nepali and if I follow the idea of translating word by word I will be misled. Therefore I do not want to republish my Nepali writings for the English audience and I write in English originally keeping the English audience in mind. I want to perfect both languages at the same time