/lit/ - Literature

Please stop treating translations as if they're a reproduction of some other work, because they're really not.

>>2656427
u high, bro?

>>2656442
Whether or not if*

>>2656427
I'm not. I'm asking whether or not it different translations can produce a more palatable version.

bump

Well tbh I haven't had much experience with translations (tried reading Brothers Karamazov and found it cipherous, nigh-impenetrable, and uninteresting) but some guy on here was saying that they always go with penguin classics b/c their translations are reliably good, so im guessing that it does make a noticable diff. You can always preview the diff. Translations on amazon and compare. Let us know what you find

Yes translations can change the way a book reads. Translations can vary in style and quality. If the translation is bothering you then try another one.

>>2656423
Well, of course. Some things in certain languages are either culturally or just plain linguistically impossible in other languages, so translators have to skew the meaning quite a bit. It's not their fault though, you know. Full translations are just not possible and I can imagine it must be a damn frustrating job if they're perfectionists or whatever.

I haven't read any of P&V's but I keep hearing good things about them, so just give it a try.

>>2656427
They are though. Most translations at least reproduce the sense and good ones will also try to find equivalents for the formal qualities of the original work.

I think of a translation in the same way that you would a reasonably faithful movie adaptation.

I'd definitely recommend giving the P&V version a try. Of course it could be that the story doesn't do much for you, so what translation you have won't matter if that's the case.

I was kind of in the same boat where I read a copy of C&P (not sure which translator, B&N classic version) and I was thoroughly unimpressed by the end and it just seemed kind of dry overall.

After reading the P&V version I was still a little 'meh' about the whole thing but the experience was a little better. It's possible of course that the better experience could be attributed to the rereading or me getting older rather than the translation of course but P&V do some excellent work imo.

For comparison:

(B&N Classic):
On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. bridge

(P&V)
At the beginning of July, during an extremely hot spell, towards evening, a young man left the closet he rented from tenants in S___y Lane, walked out to the street, and slowly, as if indecisively, headed for the K____n Bridge.

You get a little more with the P&V.

On a side note, I thought P&V Anna Karenina was excellent.

Pro-tip OP: Dostoevsky was an awful novelist, that's why you don't like what you've read of C&P.

Now, that's not to say that Dostoevsky wasn't a great ideas man, didn't write about complex themes and issues - he did. But the guy should have written treatises rather than fiction.

I don't believe reading P&V will help you. Reading Garnett's version might but that's because she butchers Dostoevsky's style into some more readable but less "accurate."

>>2657027
Wow the B&N one is shitty.

I find that translations often don't harm the book too much. That said, I'm talking about books that were originally in German and French here, and then translated into English, with reputable translations. Last couple of books I've read that were not written in English initially were; Steppenwolf, The Immoralist and Le Grand Meaulnes. I didn't feel the texts were harmed by translation.

>>2657027
Those are so drastically different that it makes me never want to bother with reading a translation of Russian.

>>2656993

But the end result is never something that could honestly be called a 'reproduction'.

You could try to retranscribe 1984 using different language and it wouldn't be a reproduction of 1984, it would be something similar but different.

How does anyone KNOW if the awful or if the author's writing is just fuck?

>>2657880
>>2657911

you niggas better be trolling. the difference between the two versions is negligible

>>2658338
Big D's generally clunky so it's probably his prose rather than the translator that's impacting your groove. You get the same issue with Proust and that translation is widely acclaimed