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No writer understood loneliness better than Chekhov
- mikekhusid 6y agoPevear and Volokhonsky are unreadable. Choose any other translation for your Russian lit.
- slothtrop 6y agoThey're the best.
- dbtc 6y agoI have read their translations of War and Peace, The Idiot, and Brothers Karamazov. I don't know how accurate the translations are because I don't know Russian, but the English was readable and pleasurable to read.
- rdtsc 6y agoThe article mentions that at the end in a way > And that is why one should never read any translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. They translate literary masterpieces word by word, with no appreciation of what the author is trying to accomplish or what makes a great work extraordinary.
- richiebful1 6y agoP&V end up with a very readable and accessible translation for English speakers. For someone like myself who can read Russian newspapers, but struggles to finish older literature, it's not ideal, because I can look at the original text and see the lost poetry. If you're interested in Pevear and Volokhonsky's translation methodology, check this out: http://columbiajournal.org/translation-lecture-richard-pevear-and-larissa-volokhonsky/ http://columbiajournal.org/translation-lecture-richard-pevea... > Pevear explained that they first began translating when they happened to both be reading Crime and Punishment at the same time – Pevear in English, Volokhonsky in Russian – and they compared sentences and saw how radically different they were. Since then, they have developed a system: Volokhonsky makes the first draft, trying to translate as literally as possible [...], explaining any clichés or colloquialisms. Then Pevear looks at the “scribble” (as Volokhonsky calls it), and he “puts it into English” (Pevear said, sighing). Pevear asks Volokhonsky questions, and, in the creating of the third draft, she answers them. Finally, before sending anything off to their editor, Pevear reads the English version out loud while Volokhonsky follows along in the original Russian text.
- kinghtown 6y agoI hate their translation of The Master and Margarita. It’s ugly.
- dagw 6y agoHere's an interesting blog post about P&Vs translation of War and Peace: https://www.tolstoytherapy.com/on-war-peace-my-problems-with-pevear_17/ https://www.tolstoytherapy.com/on-war-peace-my-problems-with... I contains a couple of passages comparing P&V to the more 'readable' translation by Anthony Briggs. If nothing else it will give you a good example of their style and let you decide for yourself if they're something for you.
- tropdrop 6y agoOn the contrary – I have read Crime and Punishment in both Russian and English. Where other translators eschew nuances for readability and "story," Pevear and Volokhonsky really try to somehow carry that nuance over across the cultural divide and preserve as much hidden meaning from the original as they can. Other English translations felt like books converted to be child's literature. Perhaps your problem is less these translators, and more sufficiently complicated literature that needs some time to digest...
- unholythree 6y agoMan I haven’t successfully read his short story “Misery” without tearing up. The Grief and loneliness of the protagonist is always super poignant to me.
- acabal 6y agoYou can download his entire short story corpus for free at Standard Ebooks: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/anton-chekhov/short-fiction/constance-garnett https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/anton-chekhov/short-fictio... The translator is Constance Garnett, who is fairly well regarded. The collection is huge but there are a lot of gems in there!
- TylerE 6y agoConstance Garnett was well regarded 80 years ago, very much less so now. She was not rigorous, would drop entire words or phrases she didn't understand. She worked at breakneck speed with minimal thought to trying to capture idiom or literary devices. This is especially bad with an artful writer like Chekov. There's a quite fascinating discussion of this in the forward to the Norton collection of Checkov (https://wwnorton.com/books/Anton-Chekhovs-Selected-Stories/ https://wwnorton.com/books/Anton-Chekhovs-Selected-Stories/).
- dazzawazza 6y agoI knew a translator who worked for the EU high commission as a live translator. I asked her about translating books: "Knowing two cultures and languages in such intimate detail that you can know a book and translate it in any meaningful way for the princely sum of ten thousand pounds...no". She compared it to poetry, you agonise over certain phrases and the thousands of years of history that phrase has and all its cultural meaning and all you've got is "he bonked him on the head". She conceded that any translation was better than none as there are ideas out there, hidden, that need to spread and are limited only by language and time.
- machello13 6y agoI see your point, but I don't think saying that "any translation is better than none" invalidates criticism of any specific translation. It's still possible for a translation to be better or worse than other translations.
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- powersnail 6y agoThe Death of a Government Clerk is one of the stories I read when I was a kid, and had never forgotten since. It's so short, but so affecting, especially that ending. There is a sense of absurdity and bleakness in Chekhov's writing that chills me to the bone every time. The endings, although I know things are going to end badly, are always somehow more forlorn and absurd.
- karolisd 6y agoAs a playwright, Chekhov is second only to Shakespeare. And you get get through his 4 major plays in only a few days. There are even great adaptations on YouTube in English or Russian (with subtitles). Highly recommended.
- Taylor_OD 6y agoLink?
- arjunvpaul 6y ago:-) Interesting to read many describe that feeling you get when you read Chekhov. A Russian friend once told me it is тоска (toska) - an unbearable, inescapable anguish - "Really you have to be Russian to understand it. toska is rent for being Russian. More Vodka?"
- olah_1 6y agoI don’t remember the exact quote, but I think it was Fr Seraphim Rose that said Russian people don’t know what the word “fun” is. They don’t understand “fun” as a general sense or feeling of ease / levity. I don’t know if this is accurate but I asked some Russians what they like to do for fun and they didn’t actually understand. They asked if I meant hobbies and said they only have fun when they go out to a club or something. The upshot is that hard people have the best dry humor.
- suryabeep 6y agoThere is a section in 'In the First Circle' by Solzhenitsyn where two prisoners argue about the etymology of 'fun' in Russian. I don't remember the quote off the top of my head right now, but one prisoner posed that'fun is derived from the word for "temporary lack of worry"'. Of course, the other prisoner disagreed with him so I don't know if that etymology is actually correct.
- orthoxerox 6y agoYes, we have "pleasure", "revelry", but not "fun".
- drran 6y ago«Хорошее настроение»
- jepcommenter 6y agoДелу-время, потехе-час
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- markvdb 6y agohttps://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072095/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072095/ is a not so well known short film starring John Cleese. It's based upon a Chekhov novel. Highly recommended.
- AndrewStephens 6y agoBy coincidence, I started reading Chekhov's complete short story output[0] a few weeks ago. It is heavy going. I have learned that 19th century Russia was filled entirely with snow, petty criminals, corrupt officials, more snow, bad vodka, old solders broken by war, horse thieves, racism, typhoid, and snow. [0] http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/57333 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/57333