/lit/ - Literature

>>10466227

I've read a couple translations and they both had shitty writing. No one reads Master and Magarita for its language though.

>>10466235

Really? That’s disappointing. I don’t understand how it could get put into circulation like that. I was expecting this book to be good and I can’t stop noticing the atrocious English.

>>10466227
P&V translations are the most awkward.

Pic related is the most trusted translation. It's probably the best mix of accuracy and fluency.

There are other translations that you can find on the book's Wikipedia page that are more readable but less accurate with regard to 'Russianisms'

It's really hard to translate. If it makes you feel any better, it's great in Russian

>P&V

http://www.thinkaloud.ru/feature/berdy-lan-PandV-e.html
https://readingroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/29/the-art-of-translation/#comment-206
http://languagehat.com/the-translation-wars/
http://languagehat.com/more-translation-wars/
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/06/23/socks-translating-anna-karenina/
http://languagehat.com/janet-malcolm-vs-pv/
https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2013/06/01/why-i-dont-read-pevear-and-volokhonsky-vtranslations/
https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/01/the-pevearvolokhonsky-hype-machine-and-how-it-could-have-been-stopped-or-at-least-slowed-down/

>>10466602
you're such an autist

why do you keep posting this """""""evidence""""""" against P&V whenever they are brought up?

You realize that when it comes to translations, you need to read multiple different ones if you want to inform yourself on the text, right? And that P&V offer a perfectly fine interpretation, right?

It's just embarrassing to constantly see someone prove how little they know about dealing with translations, and how upset they must be to constantly spam this list that uses fucking blogs as references as if it's some sort of authority

>>10466692
>And that P&V offer a perfectly fine interpretation, right?
Not the same anon, but I don't agree. I also read their Master and Margarita and it read like some EFL student's homework. Like OP, it had me wondering if Bulgakov was just a bad writer in Russian (or if perhaps the book had no editing at all).

Whatever else a translation should be, surely it should be in fluent English.

It's probably the translation. The best book translation I've read is of this book, but it's on a language you've never heard of, similar to Russian.

>>10466692
this
>>10466509
also this

PV is fine for tolstoyevsky and chekhov, bad for gogol/bulgakov/etc.

>>10466509
Read this one.
I really liked the Pilate chapters in particular but the book didn't seem to have the same quality of writing as the preceding works of the Russian greats. Don't get why people would number it among them.