/lit/ - Literature

just want to express my hatred for michael r katz
fuck that guy. don't read his translations

>>18088281
luv Garnett, luv Maude, luv McDuff.
'ate P&V.

>>18088281
I can read Russian pretty well at this point, and I think I could make decent enough comparisons and recommendations, but I'm too lazy, desu. That's the contradiction, if you don't know the language, you need the translation, but cannot truly judge it; and if you do know the language, you can judge the translation, but there's little use in reading it in the first place.
Actually, I can give one rec - avoid Nabokov's translations, or read them only when you have some knowledge of the text on your own.
Also, how come Derzhavin is in that pic?

Someone tell me a short story that you do not know of having been translated into Russian and I will translate it.

A bunch of people who don't speak Russian will tell you the P&V versions suck because someone told them to believe that.

A bunch of people who don't speak Russian will tell you the P&V versions are great because Oprah told them to believe that.

>>18088597
Which one are you? The one that doesn't speak Russian but thinks it's good because you were told to or think it's bad because you were told to?

>>18088281
pevear and volokhonsky whenever possible. top notch annotations in their translations. none of that censorship or brushing off whenever dostoevsky references jews for example. whoever says their translations are bad is either gatekeeping or fell for gatekeeping and has no good arguments except for "wicked" which at a first glance seems like a good argument but is really terrible.

>>18088662
they're prose is stiff and awkward. looks google-translated.

>>18088707
they are what?

>>18088717
shitty translators

>>18088719
how so

>>18088634
I am the one who knows Russian, compared the texts, and found that P&V, though their approach isn't without merits that other translations lack, commit outright comical mistakes and can be stylistically cumbersome even when the original is not cumbersome at all.

What’s the best translation for notes from the underground?

>>18088724
prose is stiff and awkward. looks google-translated. not properly rendered.

>>18088734
Why are you reading translations if you speak Russian? Faggot

>>18088753
retard

>>18088753
Because fucking everyone talks about P&V here, and I compared them, not read P&V's texts all the way through, you illiterate cunt.

>>18088745
ok prose is stiff and awkward, can you back up your statement with one example?

>>18088741
I read the P&V version and found it to be very good. I've reread it several times

>>18088741
Best translation is Garnett. P&V got BTFO here: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/gary-morson/the-pevearsion-of-russian-literature/

>>18088792
see>>18088662

>>18088909
wicked is not the only argument, tastelet.

>>18088909
>>18088792
I’m confused now

i cant take people who post this article without adding anything of their own seriously

More like you can't refute the article.

>>18088281
So a bunch of people who don’t know the language are going to compare translations I see

>>18088968

>>18088411
>>18088734

theres no point in arguing about the stupid article. it has been posted and discussed on lit a million times. i cant do this again, i refuse to argue about the same article over and over and over - if you want to read discussion about this article check the archives.

You must be the faggot who got BTFO by the Ukranian guy last year. Sad!

I don't why people on this board get so elitist over translations. If you can't really read the original language, comparing english translations of classics is really just arguing over aesthetics. (I should note the first Russian classic I read was the P & V translation of crime and punishment which put me on to dostoevsky so maybe I'm biased.)

>>18088745
Dostoevsky's Russian isn't exactly famous for how good it sounds

>>18090043
they haven't only translated Dostoyevksy...

This is a stupid discussion that has no answer. Each have their own strengths and weaknesses. I’ve read W&P 3 times with the big 3 Tolstoy translators and it was a good book regardless and someone who read one translation could discuss the book with someone who read another. Read what you like. There is only one translator of a certain Russian giant that I would straight up avoid. I’ve though their work passable with other authors though.

>>18090133
say their name

>>18090145
It will just create more pointless bickering, but fine Garnett’s Dostoyevsky.

>>18090043
This really gets on my nerves, I see this claim thrown around all the time on /lit/, and I'm sure that every person that repeats it only read Dosto in translation. And even in translation, the obsessive energy of his style is usually retained. No, he does not write exquisitely meandering sentences like Proust or has the wordplay and linguistic abundance of Joyce, but he absolutely does have a characteristic and enticing style (not "stiff", in fact it's vivid like no other realist's style), which does require some work to retain in a different language.

>>18090572
Yea, but P&V not only translate Dosto yet all their translations have awkward bits.

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-pevearsion-of-russian-literature/
http://www.thinkaloud.ru/feature/berdy-lan-PandV-e.html
https://www.librarything.com/topic/260074
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/
https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/pevear-and-volokhonsky-are-indeed

>>/lit/?task=search&ghost=&search_text=pevearsion

>>18091172
mental illness

>>18091409
cope

>>18091172
the advantage of literal translations is that the translator doesn't need to be an artist in his own right. I can use my imagination and good faith to get a feeling of what might be there in the original even if it's clunky and awkward in english. and that way, you don't have to rely on the translator being independently brilliant. that's not to "excuse" p&v and other literalists for being mediocre, but rather to force higher scrutiny on the more filtered translations.

>>18088281
I recently read Gogol's short story "Diary of a madman", it was great, I highly recommend it.

>>18091172
I'm going to take the opinion of James E. Woods over all these blogs, sorry.