Russian literature

[Tsuyoiko]

Dostoevsky and Tolstoi lose something essential in English. Can judge, for I'm from Russia.
Annensky said - we were tortured by Dostoevsky. And his "anguish" doesn't surge in translation.

I often wondered if that was the case. I've read most of Dostoevsky, but was most aware of his anguish in Notes from Underground. I wonder if that was down to the translator, or if this work shows his anguish more than the others?

I want to pick up a copy of "Family Happiness" but I cannot find it anywhere. I realize it is on the internet but I absolutely cannot sit at my computer and read something like that.

I would definitely recommend it. I read it in a Penguin Classics edition, bound with The Cossacks and The Death of Ivan Ilyich. It's quite short, so you might consider printing out an e-book edition. It's a particularly appropriate read for a 17-year-old I think. In this book, and in Anna Karenina, I was particularly struck by Tolstoy's ability to convincingly depict the feelings of women.

[Tyler Self]

^^If those three come in one book together I will be a happy man. I bought a penguin classic on Thoreau. It had Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, and many more.

[shud-shee]

in Notes from Underground D has crystallized his "philosophy of tragedy" - that's the point

[Justxxxne]

Ok i'm new to this forum so this is officially my first post

I was listening to an interview of the musician Regina Spektor and she mentioned a whole heap of famous russian writers and I jotted down all the names except one because she said it so quickly and I didn't know how to spell it either. Russian names are hard to pronounce and spell for someone who only speaks English!

SO it sounded like this: "preykoffi vichenkovski"

Has anybody out there heard of this author and knows how to spell the name correctly? I'd really love to find out who it is as I've suddenly developed an interest in Russian literature.

I would very much appreciate your help!

Thanks in advance

[mal4mac]

I recently read Tolstoy's shorter novels, which are at least as amazing as the two big books. I can't get "The Cossacks" out of my mind, and certainly don't want to! It's a wonderful dream of love & adventure.

[dfloyd]

novelists such as Tolstoy, Pushkin, Turgenev, and Pasternak etc.
When I was in my twenties, they were tough reads. But now that i'm older they are fairly easy to read. It's like many other things in life, they get easier as time goes by. I have read Doctor Zhivago twice, the first time with a paperback published right after he won the Nobel prize. The last time, I read Zhivago in a nice edition published by the Folio Society in about 2000. Of course, Pasternak is a 20th century novelist so all translations are fairly recent. It might help if you viewed the movie first, one of my favorites with Omar Sharrif (sp?), Julie Christie, Rod Steiger etc.

I don't think you can go wrong with the Constance Garnett translations of the Russian 19th century novelists. She was almost contemporary with Dostoevsky, and she lived in Russia. Modern translations might be easier for a novice to read, but you will lose much of the flavor of the author. Nice editions are avaiable in the used book market: published by the Folio Society, the Easton Press, and the Heritage Press. The Heritage and Easton Press editions are illustrated with woodcuts by Fritz Eichenberg which add considerable impact. I realize some editions are beyond the means of college students, but they can be a lifetime investment. Just this year, I purchased a two volume edition of The Brothers Karamazov in the Limitedi Edtions Club version. It was published in 1950 and I consider myself fortunate to find this copy in nearly mint condition for $250. This next time will be my third time through the Brothers.

[mal4mac]

I don't think you can go wrong with the Constance Garnett translations of the Russian 19th century novelists. She was almost contemporary with Dostoevsky, and she lived in Russia. Modern translations might be easier for a novice to read, but you will lose much of the flavor of the author.

I think Garnett is easier to read than several modern translators! There's a growing tendency to try and maintain the Riussian sentence structure, instead of translating the structure into English as well . I don't like this. If you are going to translate, why not go the whole hog!

So Garnett has been accused by "strict types" that she has "smoothed" Dostoevsky. But she has admitted this herself. Her excuse is that we would struggle otherwise. I'm not complaining. And according to Middleton Murray her BK is the greatest translation in the English language. Those needing a strictly literal translation, though, may need to look elsewhere.

Then again, I've seen literal translators slammed for mistranslating sentences that Garnett got right! So Garnett might even be the best, overall, literal translator.

I read the shorter novels of Tolstoy and War & Peace in the Maude translations. They were translating at the same time as Garnett, and Tolstoy approved their translations in glowing terms, saying that no other translators would ever be needed. I read Anna Karenina in the Garnett translation and it was pretty good. But I'd just give Maudes the nod for Tolstoy.

The Maudes liked Garnett's translations and tried to get her involved with their translations of Tolstoy. But she liked to fly solo.

[Three Sparrows]

Interesting. So you would recommend Garnett? I always heard Pevear/Volokonsky was the best. I am looking to buy Pushkin soon, and have no idea what translation is best, so everyone feel free to recommend your favorite translators into English. Sometimes I feel like I am drowning in translators, there are to many to choose from!

[Inderjit Sanghe]

Nabokov, problably the most qualified commentator on translating Russian into English, despised Garnett, as did another seminal writer of both Russian and English literature, Joseph Brodsky.

[mal4mac]

Nabokov, problably the most qualified commentator on translating Russian into English, despised Garnett, as did another seminal writer of both Russian and English literature, Joseph Brodsky.

Bloom points out how "petulant and unpleasant" Nabokov could be about the competition.

The critics in the Oxford Guide to Literature in Translation generally give Garnett a good press, and haven't succumbed to the Pevear/Volokonsky hype, for instance saying "their English translation sometimes seems distinctly odd". And, "... literalism means that the dialogue is sometimes impossibly odd "... foreignizing fidelity makes for difficult reading."

Modern translators do get some positive comments, e.g. for maintaining the humour that Garnett and Maude might lose in places.

When there are several generally admired translators, from Garnett onwards, it makes choosing a translator very difficult. I generally just take what they have in the library, or on the discount shelf.

[mal4mac]

The Oxford Guide to Literature in Translation says there are 11 translations of Eugene Onegin! Actually, that's until 1995 and so doesn't include the Wordsworth Classics translation, which looks interesting as well as inexpensive. They say the "most remarkable" is the first one by Spalding in 1881. Another example of old is best?

"The ones which preceded Nabakov by no means deserved the withering scorn which he poured upon them."

So it wasn't just Garnett he disliked then. Has anyone read a biography of Nabakov? He sounds like a nasty piece of work...

Nabakov's(1965) version has "deadly accuracy vitiated by quirky English prose with a vague iambic plod." But it gets the recommendation for literal accuracy, and detailed commentary, so that more modern translators now "never make mistakes" (!)

Oxford give the same version of a verse from three translators. I compared it to "Wordsworth Classics" and think I prefer that version. If you like user-friendly prose translations of poetic epics it's definitely worth a look. Wordsworth seem to be moving away from using old, bad translators and are now hiring good, modern translators - their Faust is also worth a look...

P.S. "The Oxford Guide..." is a must buy.

[mal4mac]

Dostoevsky and Tolstoi lose something essential in English. Can judge, for I'm from Russia.
Annensky said - we were tortured by Dostoevsky. And his "anguish" doesn't surge in translation.

I am tortured by Dostoevsky translations, at least as much as by existential texts in English (William Burroughs, "Junky", say.) Many great English critics say the same - Harold Bloom for instance.

Why would Dostoevsky and Tolstoy be considered the greatest novelists by so many English readers unless much of their essence did translate?

As you are a native Russian I would say you were least able to judge their impact in English. As you have already read them in Russian then reading them in English is bound to have much less impact than your original reading, because: 1) The translation will obviously not be as good as the original 2) Your English will not be as good as your Russian.

[five-trey]

I've read Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and I'm almost done with The Brothers Karamazov; and so far, I love Dostoevsky's work.

I was born in Eastern Europe and my first language was Bulgarian(fairly close to Russian) but I am a more fluent writer and speaker in English. So I feel very comfortable with English translations because many literal translations, which seem inelegant to a native English speaker, make perfect sense to me when I translate them. Perhaps that is why I find Dostoevsky's writing so enticing.

[Inderjit Sanghe]

Bloom points out how "petulant and unpleasant" Nabokov could be about the competition

Nabokov never regarded Garnett, as 'competition' (for what exactly?, Nabokov was a writer first, and a translator second, and he never attempted to translate the same books as Garnett), I doubt that Nabokov would have even envisaged Garnett as being in any way, shape or form his literary equal, Nabokov was unconcerned by 'competition' in the proper sense of the word, he would have regarded it as a banal and glib gauge of his own and other writers literary merits, and the writers who he admired who he was coterminous with, such as Mandelstam, Bunin and Khodasevich, he praised, as he appreciated artists on their own individual level.

Nabokov was not a 'nasty piece of work'-it is completely arbitrary to judge a human being on the basis of two sentences based on his aesthetic preferences. Nabokov was a kind, sensitive, generous and gentle person, I have read several of his biographies, the main themes in his books are about human cruelty and pain. Yes Nabokov was stringent in his criticsms of other authors and translators, but that was because of his exacting aesthetic standards, and yes, a good degree of personal arrogance.

[kiki1982]

Why would Dostoevsky and Tolstoy be considered the greatest novelists by so many English readers unless much of their essence did translate?

As you are a native Russian I would say you were least able to judge their impact in English. As you have already read them in Russian then reading them in English is bound to have much less impact than your original reading, because: 1) The translation will obviously not be as good as the original 2) Your English will not be as good as your Russian.

As a native Dutch-speaker I have to disagre with this strongly. It is not totally impossible to judge on a neutral basis whether something is as good in the one language or the other.

I definitely find that English and French works lack in both Dutch and German translations. Dutch is absolutely abominable mostly (bad translators or bad language? I go for the second as I have had a go myself. Not so much vocabulary that can convey the feelings which words arouse). Characters either speak too stiffly or become too informal for their time. It is a problem. Descrptions are totally ridiculous. German is more lyrical and goes well in descriptions, but loses it as soon as people start talking in novels. Characters become too German and not English or French enough.

Dostoevsky and Tolstoy can still be deemed brilliant writers, although their works miss something in translation. If a work is brilliant, it will stay brilliant, only a little less. Gold is still gold, even if it has lost its true shine.

Now, on topic for the Russians here:

I have had the crazy idea after reading Pushkin that I will put my shoulders under the Russian language and read in Russian some day.

So far it is going well, but can you recommend authors to start with after I have gone through the obligatory newspapers, magazines and children's books? Who is easy?