5 ms·

This is a really interesting idea but the text itself really needs to be adapted by a native English speaker. I really wanted to plunge into the book, but it's

by twp 16y ago

This is a really interesting idea but the text itself really needs to be adapted by a native English speaker. I really wanted to plunge into the book, but it's barely readable. Here are the first two sentences of the second paragraph, a typical example of the book's style: > It was at such a midnight hour that two men moved like gray shadows along the gravelly inner edge of a sickle-shaped gap between two low dunes, and the distance between them was exactly that prescribed by the Field Manual for such occasions. However, contrary to the rules, the one bearing the largest load was not the rear ‘main force’ private, but rather the ‘forward recon’ one, but there were good reasons for that. It's probably brilliant in Russian, but an English speaker has to unravel and reconstruct each sentence. It makes for heavy going. I say this not to negatively criticise, but simply to warn readers hoping to discover a fantastic interpretation of an epic tale. A future translation, I am sure, will make for brilliant reading.

Swizec 16y ago
That reads a lot like a NaNoWriMo novel. Many many word padding and abuse of the 'the'. However, one should not that the original LOTR was written by a linguist. As such it tended to be pretty wordy and often full of horribly complex sentence structures. For example: > That night they heard no noises. But either in his dreams or out of them, he could not tell which, Frodo heard a sweet singing running in his mind: a song that seemed to come like a pale light behind a grey rain-curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to silver and glass, until at last it was rolled back, and a far green country opened before him under a swift sunrise.
- jbri 16y ago
  The difference is that Tolkein's words flow naturally, while the ones here are more forced - the translation appears to mangle the English to fit exactly what is said in the source text, leaving it feeling rather awkward. Tolkein's sentences, regardless of how complex, just "work" in English - A similar "transliteration" of Tolkein into Russian or whatever would likely feel as obtuse as this does.
- georgecmu 16y ago
  Abusing 'the' is a pretty typical Russian error. Russian has no articles, and rules for using them in English are hard to formalize.
  - Swizec 16y ago
    Being a slav I can attest that it's a pretty common slavic error. Took me years to get it somewhat under control and I used to take english writing as a pretty serious hobby. (nowadays I'm just a english nerd more so than a writer)
    - fedd 16y ago
      the true.
- listic 16y ago
  > However, one should not that the original LOTR was written by a linguist. As such it tended to be pretty wordy and often full of horribly complex sentence structures. This is exactly what delighted me in Tolkien (LOTR; Silmarillion was over the top for me) or Maria Semyonova (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/880518.Maria_Semyonova_ http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/880518.Maria_Semyonova_ , translator, Russian fantasy writer, bad film, no English translations that I know of) I was disappointed to discover that many other fantasy and fiction writers don't share the love or skill for such flowery language. It never occured to me that some readers might not enjoy it. When I was reading some of the acclaimed fiction writers e.g. Vernor Vinge's "A Fire Upon The Deep" not once did I think "Heck, I bet I could write better than this!" I have no illusions of my chances of being a writer in English, when I haven't been one in my native Russian yet, but still. I would not think that thought when I was reading Tolkien or Semenova.
  - Swizec 16y ago
    > It never occured to me that some readers might not enjoy it. Well that depends, maybe I just got a bad taste in my mouth having had read the book early in high school as a foreigner. It took me literally 6 months of nearly daily reading to get through. My personal pet peeve was that Tolkien apparently hated the comma, which made sentences particularly difficult for me to parse. But I should admit, having read a lot of Austen and Dickens ... Tolkien was pretty damn unflowery ... but then you compare him to King and you think "What the hell was Tolkien smoking!" Then again, King is known for a very direct style, which results in 500 page books one can read in a week. Being very busy I kind of like that :)
  - eru 16y ago
    Treat yourself to `Lolita', if you want to read some flowery English prose written by a Russian.
  - darren_ 16y ago
    Mervyn Peake writes very nice English prose that I think you might enjoy. See his Gormenghast series (Titus Groan, Gormenghast, Titus Alone). It's sort-of-fantasy but not really (no magic, no non-humans).
georgecmu 16y ago
an English speaker has to unravel and reconstruct each sentence. It makes for heavy going. Although according to Guardian, the translator spent "a few dozen lunch hours" on this, I strongly disagree with your point. I've only looked at the first couple of paragraphs so far, but, especially taking into consideration the miniscule amount of time spent, he did quite an admirable job. The reason you find it 'barely readable' and have 'to unravel and reconstruct each sentence' is that this translation strives to emulate the literary style of a 19th century novel. Whether it does it successfully is another question, however, I'm sure you'd be of different opinion, had you spent more time reading Dickens, Hardy and the like.
- pnathan 16y ago
  Ah, no. Reading that paragraph just doesn't work right. I've read LoTR well upward of 10 times. I've read 1800s literature. I know how good, flowery, verbose English prose goes, and that's not it.
  - listic 16y ago
    While we are at it, please give links to some.
    - pnathan 16y ago
      Let's see here, it's been a while... Sir Walter Scott wrote more than Ivanhoe - his stuff is pretty flowery Lord Dunsany wrote early, early, early fantasy. His stuff is absurdly purple. Tolkein's writings are on the flowery side too. The (Anti-)?Federalist papers also have some fairly involved and technical prose. The characteristic of the above writing is that it flows. Also notable is that they were native English speakers not translating. Most modern writing and reading is locked into a school of thought that elevates concision, smaller words, fewer clauses and smaller sentences. There was some pivot around the time of Hemingway to this form of writing, I haven't looked up what happened. At any rate, the snippet the grandfather posted didn't really work in a language sense. Lunch is over so I can't really spend the time to take it apart. :-)
  - 16y ago

by twp 16y ago

Swizec 16y ago

That reads a lot like a NaNoWriMo novel. Many many word padding and abuse of the 'the'. However, one should not that the original LOTR was written by a linguist. As such it tended to be pretty wordy and often full of horribly complex sentence structures. For example: > That night they heard no noises. But either in his dreams or out of them, he could not tell which, Frodo heard a sweet singing running in his mind: a song that seemed to come like a pale light behind a grey rain-curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to silver and glass, until at last it was rolled back, and a far green country opened before him under a swift sunrise.

jbri 16y ago
The difference is that Tolkein's words flow naturally, while the ones here are more forced - the translation appears to mangle the English to fit exactly what is said in the source text, leaving it feeling rather awkward. Tolkein's sentences, regardless of how complex, just "work" in English - A similar "transliteration" of Tolkein into Russian or whatever would likely feel as obtuse as this does.
georgecmu 16y ago
Abusing 'the' is a pretty typical Russian error. Russian has no articles, and rules for using them in English are hard to formalize.
- Swizec 16y ago
  Being a slav I can attest that it's a pretty common slavic error. Took me years to get it somewhat under control and I used to take english writing as a pretty serious hobby. (nowadays I'm just a english nerd more so than a writer)
  - fedd 16y ago
    the true.
listic 16y ago
> However, one should not that the original LOTR was written by a linguist. As such it tended to be pretty wordy and often full of horribly complex sentence structures. This is exactly what delighted me in Tolkien (LOTR; Silmarillion was over the top for me) or Maria Semyonova (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/880518.Maria_Semyonova_ http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/880518.Maria_Semyonova_ , translator, Russian fantasy writer, bad film, no English translations that I know of) I was disappointed to discover that many other fantasy and fiction writers don't share the love or skill for such flowery language. It never occured to me that some readers might not enjoy it. When I was reading some of the acclaimed fiction writers e.g. Vernor Vinge's "A Fire Upon The Deep" not once did I think "Heck, I bet I could write better than this!" I have no illusions of my chances of being a writer in English, when I haven't been one in my native Russian yet, but still. I would not think that thought when I was reading Tolkien or Semenova.
- Swizec 16y ago
  > It never occured to me that some readers might not enjoy it. Well that depends, maybe I just got a bad taste in my mouth having had read the book early in high school as a foreigner. It took me literally 6 months of nearly daily reading to get through. My personal pet peeve was that Tolkien apparently hated the comma, which made sentences particularly difficult for me to parse. But I should admit, having read a lot of Austen and Dickens ... Tolkien was pretty damn unflowery ... but then you compare him to King and you think "What the hell was Tolkien smoking!" Then again, King is known for a very direct style, which results in 500 page books one can read in a week. Being very busy I kind of like that :)
- eru 16y ago
  Treat yourself to `Lolita', if you want to read some flowery English prose written by a Russian.
- darren_ 16y ago
  Mervyn Peake writes very nice English prose that I think you might enjoy. See his Gormenghast series (Titus Groan, Gormenghast, Titus Alone). It's sort-of-fantasy but not really (no magic, no non-humans).

georgecmu 16y ago

an English speaker has to unravel and reconstruct each sentence. It makes for heavy going. Although according to Guardian, the translator spent "a few dozen lunch hours" on this, I strongly disagree with your point. I've only looked at the first couple of paragraphs so far, but, especially taking into consideration the miniscule amount of time spent, he did quite an admirable job. The reason you find it 'barely readable' and have 'to unravel and reconstruct each sentence' is that this translation strives to emulate the literary style of a 19th century novel. Whether it does it successfully is another question, however, I'm sure you'd be of different opinion, had you spent more time reading Dickens, Hardy and the like.

pnathan 16y ago
Ah, no. Reading that paragraph just doesn't work right. I've read LoTR well upward of 10 times. I've read 1800s literature. I know how good, flowery, verbose English prose goes, and that's not it.
- listic 16y ago
  While we are at it, please give links to some.
  - pnathan 16y ago
    Let's see here, it's been a while... Sir Walter Scott wrote more than Ivanhoe - his stuff is pretty flowery Lord Dunsany wrote early, early, early fantasy. His stuff is absurdly purple. Tolkein's writings are on the flowery side too. The (Anti-)?Federalist papers also have some fairly involved and technical prose. The characteristic of the above writing is that it flows. Also notable is that they were native English speakers not translating. Most modern writing and reading is locked into a school of thought that elevates concision, smaller words, fewer clauses and smaller sentences. There was some pivot around the time of Hemingway to this form of writing, I haven't looked up what happened. At any rate, the snippet the grandfather posted didn't really work in a language sense. Lunch is over so I can't really spend the time to take it apart. :-)
- 16y ago