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/lit/ - Literature

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20067642 No.20067642 [Reply] [Original]

I recently picked up The Brothers Karamazov and Crime & Punishment only to find there's a lot of contention around these particular translations. Would I be soiling my experience with these texts if I stuck with Garnett?

>> No.20067651

Who cares. Just read the one that you find most comfy. If you find your experience 'soiled' for whatever reason just reread with another translation.

>> No.20067654
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20067654

>>20067642
1. Don't read Dostoevsky.
2. If you read Dostoevsky, read Maude or Garnett.
3. Ignore the retards that will assure you very passionately that P&V is great and Garnett is awful. "When you're reading a Garnett translation you're just reading Garnett," they'll say, among other such unique lines of argumentation which have been decisively dealt with over the course of many threads. Yet still they come creeping back into every new one hoping the same crowd that BTFO them last time isn't here this time. This time is their time. Or so they thought. But I'm here to save you from their false gospel.
5. Don't read Dostoevsky.

>> No.20067657

never listen to thotposters

>> No.20067676

Never listen to thot disrespecters

>> No.20067678

>>20067642
Read P&V. I only have experience with Crime and Punishment but I own both translations. Garnett is unreadable compared to P in V. Garnett posters ARE memeing and they might be esl to boot.

>> No.20067683

>>20067651
You're right. I'll give them a shot, I suppose! Thank you.

>> No.20067684

I don't know, but the only translation of Notes from the Underground that I liked was Garnett's one. You'd be best off looking at a comparison of translations online and picking out the one you like the best, because they all have their own pros and cons. Your instincts will be the best judge

>> No.20067691

>>20067678
Here they come. Post big words it'll confuse them and they'll eat their own tail.

PHOSPHORESCENCE.

>> No.20067951

>>20067691
I learned the word pecuniary from Garnett and for that I'm grateful

>> No.20067953

>>20067642
Just get the norton critical edition for everything dostoevsky, they’re good

>> No.20067969

The people who hail Dosto and Tolstoy as relevant all read the Garnett editions from 1920-2000. Now people who read the P&V versions insist that because their version is more modern, it is therefore superior.

>Pevear and Volokhonsky, who are married, work in an unusual fashion. She, a native Russian speaker, renders each book into entirely literal English. He, who knows insufficient Russian, then works on the rendering with the intention of keeping the language as close to the original as possible. What results from this attempt at unprecedented fidelity is a word-for-word and syntax-for-syntax version that sacrifices tone and misconstrues overall sense.

>Students once encountered the great Russian writers as rendered by the magnificent Constance Garnett, a Victorian who taught herself the language and then proceeded to introduce almost the entire corpus of Russian literature to the English language over the space of 40 years, from the 1890s to the 1930s. Her greatest virtues were her profound and sympathetic understanding of the works themselves and a literary artist’s feel for the English language.

https://www.commentary.org/articles/gary-morson/the-pevearsion-of-russian-literature/

>> No.20068099

>>20067654
>Dostoevsky
>Maude
Ask me how I know you're an idiot.

>> No.20068100

>>20067642
Don't read P&V, stick to Garnett
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

>> No.20068117

>>20067953
Seems like they're using Katz. I already read in Garnett's but Katz looks pretty good too, might give it a reread to see what his translation is like

>> No.20068303

Recently picked up a 1960's copy of Poor Folk and The Gambler translated by C. J. Hogarth.
Worth reading or should I stick with Garnett?

>> No.20068415

Read Garnett.

t. read every D book in multiple translations.

>> No.20068866

>>20068415
Does Garnett translate the French?

>> No.20068910

Garnett makes me want suck dicks for breakfast, baka

>> No.20068967

I've heard good things about McDuff's translations. Should I give those a shot?

>> No.20069691

>>20068967
Yes but he doesn't have good editions of books you're stuck with penguin