/lit/ - Literature

P&V try to very accurately translate Dostoyevsky's work which results in something accurate but rather dull to read.

>>18818010
get the katz translation from norton critical, will have interesting essays that will contextualize the work

>>18818018
So it's generally accepted that it's not great prose then? Is it better/makes more sense in the Russian?

>>18818025
I will look at it. Contextualize in what way? I see that it's very much centered in contemporary Petersburg and he's sort of responding to other intellectuals at the time.

>>18818010
No I mean, Russian as a language is not so vastly different from English. Same implicit logic, structure, etc. If you want a good example of decent Russian prose (in translation), try Bulgakov or Sorokin.

>>18818010
Read the Constance Garnett translation.
Theres a reason she was the standard for so long, she's an excellent stylist.

>>18818010
>>18818018
>>18818041

OP, trust your instincts. The prose is garbage. Do you really need us to nod our heads?

The Pevear translation covers the garbage style with the fig leaf of necessity “‘tis a fault to be too accurate, sometimes…”
If only they had that!

Google “The pevearsion of literature”, or some such article. It’s a beautiful, concise illustration of their general incompetence.

I’m being flippant here, but honestly that article is the exact answer to your query.

>>18818319
>Students once encountered the great Russian writers as rendered by the magnificent Constance Garnett
this can't be serious

>>18818010
Russian here. Dosto prose is really awful. He repeats same cliches over and over again (really reminds me Rowling and "stretching legs").

>>18818319
>garnett shills really do be like this

>>18818359
that's just a simple fact, most English speakers who read Dosty read him thru Garnett, only in recent times has that changed, and the result has been a waning of Dosty's once-unimpeachable brilliance, now as he's read thru hacks like P+V he's oft considered second-rate

P+V shills like to cope by saying, sure it reads terribly but it's super accurate as if that makes good writing, meanwhile
>...surprisingly often, given that Volokhonsky is a native Russian speaker and Pevear is at least along for the ride, P&V miss basic nuances of how Russian even works.
https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/pevear-and-volokhonsky-are-indeed

>>18818010
His prose isn't that great, and it's not the point of his work. He actually wrote a considerable chunk of his shit by dictation, and he was paid by the word. The quality is in the characters, dramatic scenarios, themes, etc not in the language itself.

>>18818748
Hey look, I can't speak Russian with any fluency but I know Constance Garnett is basically unreadable. Believe me I tried, I really tried with Garnett for the first 150 pages or so of BK and I just couldn't do it, I couldn't handle how awful it was, and I had to switch to P&V to preserve myself.
>Basic nuances of Russian
come on, man, its not as though Russian is an alien language to English! Translating between IE langs is mostly a matter of swapping out syntax and morphology. Of course there is some context lost, but the basic logic holds the same.

>>18818010
This is why you choose the translation by following professional critical discussion, not by reading ad blurbs and praise in places you'd expect as being important marketing departments.

I see the shitposters are as active as usual. The false opposition between bad/good Garnett and good/bad P&V was promoted by publishers because it makes idiots think other translations (some of them competing with P&V on the market) don't exist.

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

>>18818785
>I can't speak Russian with any fluency but I know Constance Garnett is basically unreadable. Believe me I tried
tfw filtered by 19th century English

>>18819137
This precisely. Dosto reads somewhere between a schizo rambler and an old-timey pamphlet writer. He's not a great stylist by any means, although his sloppiness is part of his charm.

But Garnett is victorian shit, and P&V are retard literalists who both ruin his work.

If reading Crime and Punishment, go for the Oliver Ready translation. If Demons, go for Margashack. If BK and the Idiot, go for maybe Avsey or McAndrew, which are sort of ok.
>source: autistically researched and sampled every single translation
Although for Brothers K, I decided to read in my own language even though it's 3x the price, just because the available English translations didn't feel right to me.

>>18819155
>although his sloppiness is part of his charm
the absolute state of dostodrones

>>18819137
can't believe I got conned by a bunch of shills in publishing houses

reading Demons at the moment and I just started part two and have to be honest I cannot be fucked reading so much chatter that builds up to the story.
drudgery even if I enjoy it

>>18819180
You're an idiot. Do I need to say more?

>>18819195
The story is just an outcome of what happens in people's minds.

>>18819180
You are The Idiot. Need I say more?

>>18819137
>>18819155
There's literally nothing wrong with the late 20th century penguins you can pick up on ebay for 3 bucks. The penguin binding was still good at that point, and the translations are perfectly acceptable without the victorianisms of Garnett or the dreadful English of P&V

>>18819203
>>18819329
guess some of that charming sloppiness carries over into the posts of dosto fangirls as well

>>18818010
>Is it just a Rooshian thing or am I being filtered?
Just read the picture you put in your own OP. Yeah, the prose isn't the best, but the themes are deep and stimulate your own thoughts. Dostoyevsky is good where it counts.

>>18819155
Thanks for your autism, I'll get the Avsey translation, he's enough of a mad lad to change the title so I'm interested.

>>18819615
>the themes are deep

>>18819155

Thanks for your autism, I'll get the Avsey translation of Brothers K, he's enough of a mad lad to change the title so I'm interested.

>>18819155
I just started Notes from Underground, got the P+V because im a normie i guess, is it bad? If so, what's best?

>>18818010
Read Garnett or Avsey for Dostoevsky. P&V are industry plants.

monolingual anglos should kill themselves

>>18819155
>But Garnett is victorian shit

Cringe retard.

>this inevitable 'reading translations? Why? I am fluent in every major European language from Portuguese to Russian, as well as Ancient Greek, Latin, Classical Mandarin and Incan quipu, and have no need of such fripperies' post

>>18819706
зaткниcь, тyпaя aмepикaнcкaя шaлaвa

>>18819706
ajd ne seri

>>18819731
>>18819713
Edhe unë, flas rrjedhshëm shumë gjuhë

>>18819713
based

>>18819706
incas don't have literature

>>18819747
>plebs can't read the knotted string
LMAO at you life rite now

>>18818041
Yes, Dostoevsky's prose was shitty. Even Tolstoy thought that. Dostoevsky usually ended up working on a time crunch and I'm pretty sure Crime and Punishment took like 2 months to write.
Constance Garnett herself said she found it difficult to translate him because his style was so chaotic and she constantly wanted to correct it
Dont listen to the fucking retard telling you to read the Moroson article, it sucks

>>18819155
Holy based

You don’t read dosto for the prose in the first place, that’s not why anyone reads him. You also don’t read him for raw aesthetical beauty. People read him for human-like characters and shared sentiment with some of these characters and ideas.

I don't get it. How are you guys judging prose based on translations?

>>18820042
You seem to have made a bit of a mistake in your post. Luckily, the users of 4chan are always willing to help you clear this problem right up! You appear to have used a tripcode when posting, but your identity has nothing at all to do with the conversation! Whoops! You should always remember to stop using your tripcode when the thread it was used for is gone, unless another one is started! Posting with a tripcode when it isn't necessary is poor form. You should always try to post anonymously, unless your identity is absolutely vital to the post that you're making!

Now, there's no need to thank me - I'm just doing my bait to help you get used to the anonymous image-board culture!

>>18820042
Hi there!

You seem to have made a bit of a mistake in your post. Luckily, the users of 4chan are always willing to help you clear this problem right up! You appear to have used a tripcode when posting, but your identity has nothing at all to do with the conversation! Whoops! You should always remember to stop using your tripcode when the thread it was used for is gone, unless another one is started! Posting with a tripcode when it isn't necessary is poor form. You should always try to post anonymously, unless your identity is absolutely vital to the post that you're making!

Now, there's no need to thank me - I'm just doing my bait to help you get used to the anonymous image-board culture!

>>18820042
>human-like characters
bruh

>>18820056
>translations
Плeб

OP here. Thanks for all the responses. I'm surprised none of you pounced upon the fact that I used a Hemingway quote.

>>18818781
>>18819615
>>18820042
>yes the prose is shit but Dosto is great in other ways
This matches what I've thought about the book so far. For a lot of the English lit I've been reading the prose is part of the art, so I guess I was expecting something similar. But something different and still good is always welcome.

>>18818319
>>18818748
>>18819137
>>18819155
>>18819559
>>18819688
>Dosto prose ain't great but P&V is shit
I didn't know there was such an extensive debate about this. I got this edition for my birthday so I didn't look into the background of the translations. Thanks for bringing all this to my attention though, I'll look at the Ready translation.

>>18819691
I read Latin and Greek. eat my dong

≥Dosto's
You can fuck off

Which Dostoyevsky book is the one where the protag is an incel and chad fucks the shit out of the girl he was interested in again?

>>18818018
Would you say the same for the brothers karamazov? Is there a superior translation to it?

>>18819137
Fucking retard includes blog posts in his evidence

>>18818010
McDuff and Katz are the kino translations. I read Katz for TBK and Devils, and McDuff for Idiot and C&P.

>Notes
Garnett, revised by Ralph Matlaw. Accept no substitutes
>C&P
Ready
>TBK
Avsey

>>18818010
This is Dostoevsky's thing. He's all so slanting, crooked, uneven, ugly, muttering. Some say that you can see through the text how he is inhaling a cheap stinking cigarette or drinking tea from a glass with the obligatory grunting and sucking sound. He slowly hypnotizes the reader and then hits him in the head with some abomination. Some of his words become attached to you, even if you want to get them out of your head.
Try to read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobok
it is so disgusting that it should show itself even in translation. You have to be a real shizo to write this.
>>18821909
Recently I analyzed (there was a thread about Babel.) his translation of Babel's "Red Cavalry and Other Stories" (I will not say about Dostoevsky, did not watch his translation). This is no good. He's just dried up into sleek, literary English. Where is "Tzimmes"? This is some kind of oatmeal on the water.
>>18818785
>Translating between IE langs is mostly a matter of swapping out syntax and morphology. Of course there is some context lost, but the basic logic holds the same.
Well, if you rip off the skin and meat and organs, the skeleton will remain, about the same as it was. Prose loses about 30% of its meaning in translation at a time.