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It's just stilted and weird and there's not a way to really "correct" for it. Native English speakers/readers just won't have a....linguistic context? Same problem with translating works from Mandarin into English or vice versa. There's only so much you can do.
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Jul 30, 2022 02:31
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my understanding: garnett translated by taking a sheet off of a big stack of pages of russian texts, translating it, and then putting the sheet in the "done" pile. p&v translated by translating directly into english in one go, then having a second person translate the literal translation into more conversational english with to the original text. the ideal translation is, of course, to follow in my father's footstep and graduate from the patrice lumumba people's friendship university in moscow and read it directly in russian and then communicate it in half-remembered english to your offspring
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Jul 30, 2022 06:41
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Any thoughts on the Rebhorn translation for The Decameron? Or the Oxford edition translated by Guido Waldman?
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Jul 30, 2022 20:33
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Idaholy Roller posted:Is there a particular translation one should aim for Brothers K? I read the Ignat Avsey translation first time, then I bought the P&V translation after I had been indoctrinated by mainstream media/bookstores to believe they were the best translation. After researching it a bit, Constance Garnett / Ignat Avsey / David Magarshack seem to be the best translations. Honestly I would do some research as there's been a lot of comparisons posted whether it's reddit or the New Yorker; by checking those out you should be able to decide which version you will get through the best. Idaholy Roller posted:Someone choose my next Dostoyevsky I’m undecided between Brothers K or Demons I was about to pickup Demons for first time even though I bought it a very long time ago even before I had any other Dostovevsky book, but Brothers Karamazov is my favorite novel of all time along with War & Peace. I'll recommend Karamazov to end of time. knox fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Jul 30, 2022 |
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Jul 30, 2022 21:33
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the nefarious mainstream media peddling p&v translations
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Jul 31, 2022 00:50
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i read p&v translations of Demons & Notes From The Underground. I remember both being fine. Altho with notes from the underground, I read their translation notes after and they talk about being particularly proud of their use of the word “profit” in the first bit which stood out to me cuz when I first read thru it I specifically got distracted by that choice. Like - what meaning of profit? And in their notes they seemed to not at all consider…u know…polysemic… may be interpreted ambiguously…etc. Basically didn’t seem to expect any one to be confused in the exact way I was confused. So that kind of made me think - less for me. More recently I was looking into a translation of Leskov to read & at library it was between P&V and Donald Rayfield. From comparisons online, P&V seemed like maybe the worst for leskov’s tone, Altho Rayfield also seems a little too cute in reading. Where, I’m sure, P&V would be a bit inappropriately literal. So, kind of the eternal accuracy Vs abstraction translation question. P&V for whatever faults, seem like they r more or less getting the books across and not totally going off rails. Their process, as mentioned, is straightforward enough and that comes thru in end result. I will say, I read thru a pocket version of Sorrows Of Young Werther+ Goethe writings I got at used book store & I think that translation was specifically bad. By a “Catherine Hutter”, not that anybody is likely to stumble on her but…if u do…reader beware ! Adjacently related, the most needlessly excessive footnoting(not end!) I have ever seen was first half of Norton critical edition of Red and The Black. U really start wondering about the man behind the notes when he starts going off about how “a major theme in the book is walls” when a wall shows up, talks about specific types of tree and Stendhal relationship to trees when a tree is mentioned, etc. it’s kind of cool Pale Fire style but then seems like he had to hit a deadline and rushed thru the second half. Which, to be fair, sort of how the second half of red and the black feels.
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Jul 31, 2022 02:51
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A human heart posted:the nefarious mainstream media peddling p&v translations How would you characterize an Oprah Winfrey endorsement? Don't take my own experience of P&V being the editions shoved down everyone's throat, read the article posted on previous page or any one of the others written. And as someone already eloquently stated on previous page, though the tone of that article may be a little overly harsh, it was written against a "climate of people saying don't read anything but them." I said he should read some of the comparisons of paragraphs in any of the various discussions on Russian novel translations on goodreads or reddit or any of the critical articles doing the same, and make his own decision. knox fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Jul 31, 2022 |
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Jul 31, 2022 03:13
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knox posted:How would you characterize an Oprah Winfrey endorsement? oprah certainly is mainstream but the way you're talking about it is funny
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Aug 1, 2022 04:14
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Hat Thoughts posted:i read p&v translations of Demons & Notes From The Underground. I remember both being fine. I can kinda see the walls thing tbh
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Aug 1, 2022 07:54
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knox posted:How would you characterize an Oprah Winfrey endorsement? the article seemed fine if a little histrionic until the bit where he insists that the joke about a crook riding a crook holding a crook isn't funny because he believes for some reason that the translators didn't get their own joke or realize it was a joke. just bizarre
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Aug 1, 2022 19:03
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Crime and Punishment was good What’s the preferred translation of The Idiot?
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Aug 1, 2022 22:27
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lifg posted:Crime and Punishment was good Haven't had a chance to read it but I've had friends say the McDuff version's pretty good.
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Aug 1, 2022 23:41
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I read the Ignat Avsey version and enjoyed it, but that's the only version I've read so I can't compare it to anything. I read the constance garnett version of crime and punishment and loved that also
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Aug 2, 2022 00:04
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I like the revised Garnett published by Modern Library.
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Aug 5, 2022 01:19
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i got like 3/4 through C&P and haven't finished it  currently going through George Saunders's A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. it's helping me get back into russian lit with short stories. i especially loved The Nose (Gogol)
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Aug 8, 2022 17:59
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Loved A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. I finished the recent Otessa Moshfegh book called Lapvona and can't really recommend it. I liked it well enough but so many aspects of it grated. The dispassionate narration made it tough to connect with any of the characters and the dialogue all felt like it was written in the same voice. Some nice descriptions, and some funny scenes of debauchery (someone rubs a grape on their anus and feeds it to someone) but overall nothing special. Reading a bit of non-fiction as a palate cleanser now, but thinking I might tackle Moby Dick soon. Or Anna Karenina. Hopefully having the ending spoiled won't detract. I do love me some locomotives.
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Aug 9, 2022 00:27
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Finished Mason & Dixon. I think it's better than Gravity's Rainbow. Got a couple of Ishiguro and State and Revolution by Lenin on the pile next and then I have to dive into the full collection of Encyclopedia Britannica great (western) books i got an antique shop. Lots of foundational stuff i've only read excerpts or none of in these motherfuckers
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Aug 9, 2022 06:20
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I am nearing the end of Gravitys Rainbow and I vastly enjoyed Mason & Dixon over it
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Aug 9, 2022 09:50
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M&D is one of Pynchon's better endings. It's sentimental, but still melancholic. Mason visiting Dixon's grave with his estranged son was some of the most emotional moments I've read from Pynchon. Having to fully understand that a person was probably your best friend, but who you kind of antagonized the entire time you were together, not realizing you're pushing away the person that knows you best, only to outlive them and realize the impact their friendship had on you. It's muddier and more complicated than the typical best friend relationships I've read.
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Aug 9, 2022 12:51
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fridge corn posted:I am nearing the end of Gravitys Rainbow and I vastly enjoyed Mason & Dixon over it to be clear gravity's rainbow is also one of my absolute favorite books
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Aug 10, 2022 05:30
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the only pynchon i’ve read was Inherent Vice, loved it. not sure if i have the stamina for the bigger books
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Aug 10, 2022 12:04
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i don't think it is really productive or even possible to evaluate pynchon's books by which is "better". they are setting out to do different things and accomplish them exceedingly in each case. btw would add against the day to this conversation - recently finished my second readthrough and it is on par with gr and m+d.
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Aug 10, 2022 18:03
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a.p. dent posted:the only pynchon i’ve read was Inherent Vice, loved it. not sure if i have the stamina for the bigger books Mason & Dixon and V. are both episodic with relatively self-contained chapters, so there really isn't a hurdle besides "keep reading". M&D is probably his most chill book. There's only one digression in M&D that threw me for a loop, and that's about 3/4 of the way through when the book shifts focus and becomes an erotic thriller with BDSM elements for like two chapters. It's eventually cleared up that some of the kids have snuck off from the main group and are secretly reading chapters of the serial The Ghastly Fop, and the book refocuses. (IV is still my favorite, but I do recommend all of his novels)
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Aug 10, 2022 18:09
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thehoodie posted:i don't think it is really productive or even possible to evaluate pynchon's books by which is "better". they are setting out to do different things and accomplish them exceedingly in each case. btw would add against the day to this conversation - recently finished my second readthrough and it is on par with gr and m+d. i was very interested to see that the phrase "against the day" appears in mason& dixon. pg 683 in my copy, when they finish the line and have just turned back east
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Aug 11, 2022 03:16
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Franchescanado posted:There's only one digression in M&D that threw me for a loop, and that's about 3/4 of the way through when the book shifts focus and becomes an erotic thriller with BDSM elements for like two chapters. It's eventually cleared up that some of the kids have snuck off from the main group and are secretly reading chapters of the serial The Ghastly Fop, and the book refocuses. it's even wilder than that: it happens, but then the characters from the book simply enter the main story afterwards
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Aug 11, 2022 03:17
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thehoodie posted:i don't think it is really productive or even possible to evaluate pynchon's books by which is "better". they are setting out to do different things and accomplish them exceedingly in each case. btw would add against the day to this conversation - recently finished my second readthrough and it is on par with gr and m+d. Agreed on this. M&D is my favorite but I don't think it's nearly the achievement that GR was. ATD meanwhile might just be better than both of them. An absolutely unbelievable oeuvre. Will never see the like of it again.
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Aug 11, 2022 04:39
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Vineland doesn't get enough love.
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Aug 11, 2022 14:45
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Carly Gay Dead Son posted:Vineland doesn't get enough love. When I read it, I found the Darryl Louise "DL" and Takeshi digression, which takes up about a 1/4 of the book, more and more grating. I just wanted to get back to Floyd, Prairie, or Frenesi. I also found the dynamic between Frenesi and Brock Vond hard to gel with. I'm sure I'll appreciate it more on a re-read, knowing all of that stuff, but it was really uneven, and the ending felt rushed. I still don't fully get Frenesi and Brock's enemies-turned-fuckbuddies-but-still-enemies relationship. Made me sad that that's why Prairie doesn't have a mom. Prairie is one of my favorite Pynchon characters, though. And Pynchon writing the 80's is great, of course. It's a good book among a bibliography of great books.
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Aug 11, 2022 15:04
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Franchescanado posted:When I read it, I found the Darryl Louise "DL" and Takeshi digression, which takes up about a 1/4 of the book, more and more grating. I just wanted to get back to Floyd, Prairie, or Frenesi. I also found the dynamic between Frenesi and Brock Vond hard to gel with. For some reason the characters I remember best are Blood and Vato. Their theme song pops in my head all the time.
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Aug 11, 2022 19:20
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finished the first Earthsea book yesterday, and wanted more water and ocean. grabbed the Old Man and the Sea and read it in an afternoon. quite good! this might be my first hemingway. put For Whom the Bell Tolls on my library holds next
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Aug 12, 2022 13:29
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Old Man and the Sea is his best work imo.
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Aug 13, 2022 11:16
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Idaholy Roller posted:Old Man and the Sea is his best work imo. The Sun Also Rises owns
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Aug 13, 2022 16:07
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Sandwolf posted:The Sun Also Rises owns It’s the best one by a long shot. Farewell to Arms is pretty good also
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Aug 14, 2022 02:29
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Besson posted:It’s the best one by a long shot. I never got it. They say it's semi autobiographical, but then how did he type it up then?
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Aug 14, 2022 02:32
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To Have and Have Not kicks rear end.
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Aug 14, 2022 16:59
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anybody like James Baldwin? i loved Giovanni’s Room and thought it was one of the most beautiful books i’ve ever read, but got maybe a third into Another Country and lost steam. might need to give that another go
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Aug 14, 2022 20:34
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a.p. dent posted:anybody like James Baldwin? i loved Giovanni’s Room and thought it was one of the most beautiful books i’ve ever read, but got maybe a third into Another Country and lost steam. might need to give that another go Notes of a Native Son is genius. Non-fiction though.
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Aug 14, 2022 21:52
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Go Tell It On A Mountain is essential reading.
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Aug 14, 2022 23:19
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Another Country is secretly better than Giovanni's Room
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Aug 15, 2022 10:36
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nice, thanks everyone - those are going on my list
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Aug 15, 2022 14:44
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