Fyodor Dostoevsky

[Anonymous No.21888288]

Which English translations are good?

[Anonymous No.21888316]

any of them are serviceable, but i'd avoid katz and recommend p&v.

[Yusuf Reis !!WJh3Qmu5nf/ No.21888318]

P&V is the best English translation of pretty much every Russian work they have done with the exception of Anna Karenina, which is not good, Schwartz is preferable there

I made a thread about why P&V are superior especially for Dostoevsky, here is a quote starting with Nabokov’s critique of Dostoevsky

>Nabokov couldn’t distinguish between uncanny and melodramatic, which Kafka could, that’s why Kafka loved Dostoevsky and drew heavily for them. Dostoevsky’s uncanny style is very well captured by the P&V translations (compare with the revised and new Schocken translation of The Trial, very similar style) which is exactly why they filter some people who don’t know what uncanny writing is.

>This scene is an example of uncanny style
https://youtu.be/FcsNhIozEPo

>Someone like Nabokov would complain it was sentimental and melodramatic and so miss the point entirely

>When taken to the extreme the uncanny becomes surreal
https://youtu.be/nzp_qv3-FkA

>The main basis for these expressions is to convey points in your life when reality and society feel alien, to capture and express that sensation. I would like to get into Kierkegaard and Heidegger on the uncanny but no one will read the OP then because it would be too long

Here I specifically address P&V

a clearly uncanny passage, here is P&V from C&P

>So, sir, here is my opinion: I feel no deep sympathy for the gentleman who gave a whipping to the German woman, because it's really...well, what is there to sympathize with? But all the same I cannot help declaring that one sometimes runs across such provoking 'German women' that I don't think there's a single progressivist who could vouch for himself entirely. At the time no one looked at the subject from that point, and yet that point is the truly humane one, it really is, sir!

Here is Garnett who tries to realism it and make it more about a contempt of Germans being told dryly when the original context revolves around beating women, not just German women. Here the impression should be that certain types of women just provoke a beating and well that is that, German women are one. Progressive is in contrast to beating women. And the tone should sound actually sincere, not wry, even though the character is droll here his sincerity is meant to be unnerving


>Well, as for the gentleman who thrashed the German, I feel no sympathy with him, because after all what need is there for sympathy? But I must say that there are sometimes such provoking ‘Germans’ that I don’t believe there is a progressive who could quite answer for himself. No one looked at the subject from that point of view then, but that’s the truly humane point of view, I assure you.

[Yusuf Reis !!WJh3Qmu5nf/ No.21888329]

>>21888318
His mother was frightened by his look. A strong feeling, to the point of suffering, shone in his eyes, but at the same time there was in them something fixed, even as if mad.

This definitely reflects Dostoevsky more than other translators, especially Garnett who tries to translate the passage realistic rather than uncanny and consequently butchers it

> His mother was alarmed by his expression. It revealed an emotion agonisingly poignant, and at the same time something immovable, almost insane.

The P&V captures the weird description of using “suffering” to describe Raskolnikov’s gaze while contrasting it with “mad”, this unsettled us because melodramatic literary convention makes us think of a look full of suffering as a pitiable puppy dog, and madness as something ferocious and dangerous. Garnett was acutely aware of this bizarre impression hence she renders suffering as agonizing poignancy, and fixed as immovable, though being obsessively crazy conveys being fixed wildeyed, but to her that is totally at odds with the pathetic look of suffering, so it becomes a look of being grimly determined. But the expression on his face is supposed to be distorted by suffering and having wide and mad eyes, and this in a realistic reader’s mind is not just melodramatic but almost bizarre, which is the intention. That’s uncanny, it makes you feel uncomfortable and alienated, it makes so you can understand and empathize with the characters but there is a barrier making you feel like you are an alien world. This is a device in Russian literature called “defamiliarization”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamiliarization

Dostoevsky uses uncanny approach in order to achieve it

[Yusuf Reis !!WJh3Qmu5nf/ No.21888336]

>>21888329
For those not familiar with Heidegger, here is an article about his concept of the uncanny (unheimlich): “Uncanny is the fundamental groundlessness of our existence, this profoundly felt sense of not-being-at-home, wherever one would be.”

http://www.samvriti.com/2013/05/10/heidegger-the-unheimlich/

I use the term the way Nietzsche and Heidegger do, not Freud

[Anonymous No.21888348]

>>21888336
>Uncanny is the fundamental groundlessness of our existence, this profoundly felt sense of not-being-at-home, wherever one would be.”
Sounds pretty gay desu.

[Yusuf Reis !!WJh3Qmu5nf/ No.21888368]

>>21888348
It’s not a comfortable feeling, it is the suspension of your sense of autopilot and everydayness; suddenly everything familiar and normal and not requiring serious thought seem strange and nonsense, and this predicates Angst which is a requisite for “authenticity” (Eigentlichkeit) since before you can own your own self you must have it alienated in some sense from everyone else and no longer in your natural “herd” mode. Men experience this much more often than women which is partially why they produce far more fringe minds from Van Gogh to Hitler

[Anonymous No.21888402]

>>21888288
The Oxford World's Classics ones are probably good.

[Anonymous No.21888433]

>>21888288
The books arent good by themselves

[Anonymous No.21888524]

>>21888316
Recently bought Demons translated by Katz any reason why I should've avoided it?

[Anonymous No.21888543]

>>21888524
the issue i take with it is its overly simplistic sentence structure and abuse of the semi-colon. the author's intention is, as he's stated, to be the lasting translation of dostoevsky for the next hundred years, and to that affect i think he has deliberately ruined the richness of his writing to do so.

[Yusuf Reis !!WJh3Qmu5nf/ No.21888560]

>>21888543
Especially an issue since Dostoevsky stylistically uses a slight ramble and translating him into simple sentence structure is not quite as bad as but still as senseless as putting Tristram Shandy into simple sentence structure

[Anonymous No.21888579]

>>21888318
Garnett may be shoddy but her familiarity with western literature (particularly Dickens) helped to bring out the stylistics of Dostoevsky in a way that P&V don't accomplish, specifically regarding scandal and polyphony, which are both central to Dostoevsky. P&V comes off rather wooden at points, and doesn't accurately render the variance between humor and tragedy in a way that's as recognizable as with other translations. Not to mention their translation of "злoй" as "wicked" in Notes and "cтpacть" as "strain" in BK can be entirely misleading. "Wicked" is more accurately "spiteful", which Garnett and Katz use, and "strain" accurately connects "cтpacть" with "cтpaдaниe" (suffering), sure, but it's unidiomatic, and completely muddles the reference to the Christian idea of Passion. Their editions of C&P and maybe The Idiot are passable, but Katz or a revised Garnett edition are going to be on the whole much more accurate, even if certain passages for Garnett don't match exactly. At the very least avoid P&V for Notes and Demons, since those two are probably the ones they butcher the most.
Gary Saul Morson (prominent scholar for Tolstoy and Bakhtin) has a good article that goes into more depth about the issues with the P&V methodology as well.
https://web.archive.org/web/20221220095107/https://www.commentary.org/articles/gary-morson/the-pevearsion-of-russian-literature/

>>21888433
Untrue but it wouldn't be a bad idea to have some essays by Ivanov / Bakhtin to accompany.

[Anonymous No.21888638]

>>21888288
sup retard,
just use chatgpt to get excerpt paragraphs and comparisons of whatever translations or books you are interested in, read them yourself and ask what was the style/intention behind this or that translator to it and which among em stays more true to the original,
dont ask braindead folks here for translation help, most of them are mentally ill freaks who spend more time consuming the internet than reading and will suggest you some braindead antiquated shit like garnett to flex,
ignore them.

[Anonymous No.21888685]

>>21888579
>>21888524
>>21888316

shut yo ass braindead cunts,
muh garnett, muh p&v,
ive wasted my time reading em,
straight up garbage,

OP and anyone else reading this would have better luck blindly picking up literally any penguin / oxford classics translations over what these mentally ill wheelchair freaks would say,
enjoy the books OP

[Yusuf Reis !!WJh3Qmu5nf/ No.21888701]

>>21888579
P&V are familiar with western literature, Pevear translates French literature in fact

Wicked is more appropriate than spiteful in this context as the Underground man aspires to be evil but says he is too much of a nothing to be properly evil. His nature is not just resentful of others but slovenly and debauched as he goes on to detail, hence wicked.

The word “strain” here is entirely appropriate because the sense it is being used in is in.

>The word “strain,” just uttered by Madame Khokhlakov, made him almost jump, because precisely that night, half-awake at dawn, probably in response to a dream, he had suddenly said: “Strain, strain!” He had been dreaming all night about yesterday’s scene at Katerina Ivanovna’s. Now suddenly the direct and persistent assurance of Madame Khokhlakov that Katerina Ivanovna loved his brother Ivan, and deliberately, out of some kind of play, out of “strain,”

How on earth would it make sense there?
Garnett does not even use “strain” but “lacerations”. The word can refer to a strained muscle and does not meaning suffering per se unless you are seriously suggesting it should be translated as “suffer” here. and Garnett’s translation of laceration would at least be more accurate since it refers as well to Alyosha’s bit finger, but here is is from the dream as well (and the repetition of the word in a dreamlike state makes much more as it is supposed to be cryptic and halting, not “suffer” or “laceration”); their straining are not intended to be likened to the Passion. You are misunderstanding it and I believe you are just parroting that article and not thinking for yourself

Here is a better one

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/11/07/the-translation-wars