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Love them or hate them, this couple reign in Russian literature
- mitchbob 2y agohttps://archive.ph/99FTG https://archive.ph/99FTG
- jihadjihad 2y agoI've read a few Russian novels in English, and had heard of Pevear and Volokhonsky while hunting around for translations but never landed on one by them. I'm a big fan of the Norton Critical Editions for literature, they're well edited and full of context that is hard to gather on your own. Their edition of The Brothers Karamazov [0] (translated by Susan McReynolds) stands in my memory as being a pleasure to read and ponder...definitely a book that stays with you over time. 0: https://wwnorton.co.uk/books/9780393926330-the-brothers-karamazov https://wwnorton.co.uk/books/9780393926330-the-brothers-kara...
- indy 2y agoA more critical version of Pevear and Volokhonsky's work appears here: https://www.commentary.org/articles/gary-morson/the-pevearsion-of-russian-literature/ https://www.commentary.org/articles/gary-morson/the-pevearsi... Personally I'd highly recommend reading Michael R. Katz's translation of The Brothers Karamazov instead.
- lordleft 2y agoHave been a long time fan of Pevear & Volokhonsky but I've recently purchased the Katz's translation of TBK and like what I see!
- indy 2y agoCool! I've got both and consider Katz a better writer of English. His prose is just more enjoyable to read and flows much better than P&V's rather too literal translations
- jihadjihad 2y agoI read his translation of Crime and Punishment and I liked it a lot, I saw he had a new-ish translation of The Brothers Karamazov but I haven't read that yet.
- carabiner 2y agoIf you like C over Python, you'll like P&V.
- quercusa 2y agoI've heard good things about that one but apparently it's only available in a 1000-page 6x8" paperback, which seems a shame.
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- lovegrenoble 2y ago“There is one other book, that can teach you everything you need to know about life... it's The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, but that's not enough anymore.” - Kurt Vonnegut https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpqES5V6iAg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpqES5V6iAg
- salemh 2y ago"Nietzche read and admired Dostoevsky. In Twilight of the Idols, he calls him "the only psychologist from whom I had something to learn,"" https://old.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/3d1h59/did_nietzsche_read_dostoevsky/ https://old.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/3d1h59/did_n...
- ubutler 2y agoIs it “this couple reign” or “this couple reigns”? The former just feels wrong despite it being the title.
- Synaesthesia 2y agoI think reigns sounds better. A couple is actually a singular noun.
- pvg 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_noun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_noun
- pdabbadabba 2y agoYep. And that Wikipedia article explains, collective nouns are normally taken to be singular in American English: > In American English, collective nouns almost always take singular verb forms (formal agreement). In cases that a metonymic shift would be revealed nearby, the whole sentence should be recast to avoid the metonymy. (For example, "The team are fighting among themselves" may become "the team members are fighting among themselves" or simply "The team is infighting.") Collective proper nouns are usually taken as singular ("Apple is expected to release a new phone this year"), unless the plural is explicit in the proper noun itself, in which case it is taken as plural ("The Green Bay Packers are scheduled to play the Minnesota Vikings this weekend"). I guess "couple" may be one of the exceptions?
- benterix 2y agoLooks terrible to me but apparently both are acceptable: https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/is-couple-singular-or-plural https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/is-couple-singular-o... > When writing of a couple getting married, it is more common to use the plural form ("the couple are to be wed"). When writing of an established couple, it is more common to use a singular verb ("the couple has six puppies, each more destructive than the next"). So according to MW we're a bit more right than NYT.
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- silent_cal 2y agoI love these two. If I ever read a Russian book I insist on using one of their translations. I can speak and read Russian on a basic level. They're able to make texts sound like Russian, but it English. It's pretty amazing really.
- benterix 2y ago[flagged]
- silent_cal 2y agoI hope so too. It's great literature and there is a lot to admire about their culture, although admittedly the golden age of Russian culture is now well in the past.
- sBqQu3U0wH 2y ago>However, after the war started, I lost all interest in reading anything Russian. I know it's irrational, but these lost their luster instantly. Many share the same sentiment, and some do that more strongly than others. Interestingly, it never had that effect on me, however, though I cannot speak Russian, except read, but my vocabulary is extremely limited. I think it's important to distinguish between current events and the culture, literature, and art that spans centuries.
- rimliu 2y agoAlas, one can argue that the current events are the result of the culture that spans centuries :(
- pyrale 2y agoI would be curious to see how one could seriously argue this. People making this kind of claims tend to grasp at straws to make connections and make implications much more deterministic than they actually are.
- whall6 2y agoI just finished Crime and Punishment (translated by these two). What an excellent experience.
- roschdal 2y agoTolstoy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy
- slothtrop 2y agoHating on P&V has become a meme. I thought the translations were competent and enjoyable. There is far, far worse out there. I read one "modernized" version of the Gambler that was so butchered it was like reading a YA novel.
- cxr 2y agoHas it? Using P&V-fueled/-inspired superiority to hate on Victorian translations (or anything non-P&V, really—including e.g. Magarshack) seems to have a lot more meme energy than the reverse. Previously: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36760010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36760010>
- slothtrop 2y agoYou linked to the same anecdote with more words.
- cxr 2y agoYes. And there's an orange bar across the top of HN. Were you expecting something else from a link labeled "Previously"?
- slothtrop 2y agoI was expecting something not completely redundant, like something to support your pov.
- cxr 2y agoWeird reaction, because redundancy is implied (even while "completely redundant" it is not), and the support is definitely there: > People say, for example, you can't read The Count of Monte Cristo unless it's Buss's translation published by Penguin, or you can't read Garnett's Dostoyevsky. Well, okay, but when pressed about what the purportedly less faithful versions [...] get wrong, I've only ever heard mimetic regurgitation of nonspecific claims (on par with "don't read K&R; it's awful") or when someone actually articulates something concrete and falsifiable, it doesn't hold up—"That actually was in the 19th century translation that I read, so..." If that's not "something to support your pov", I'm not sure what you want. It's a comment that (a) antedates yours on the same topic (literally using the phrase "mimetic regurgitation"), and (b) explains exactly the issue of nonspecific claims that I've run into with people who offer criticisms of the earliest translations into English. Aside from all that, even at worst—if you're not satisfied by any of this, for whatever reason—it contains no less support for my position than the support you provided for yours.
- tines 2y agoConstance Garnett the OG though. Her translations read so much better to me, so much more poetic.
- jallmann 2y agoA few years ago, I read a slightly updated version of Constance Garnett's Anna Karenina and it was stunning. I have been reading a copy of P&V Crime and Punishment that I found laying around, and it does not have quite the intensity that I was expecting. Will probably try another translation - deciding on which one to read is half the fun for me anyway.
- throw4847285 2y agoI read and loved the P&V Anna Karenina, so as a gift my Mom got me War and Peace. She very consciously bought me the Maude translation, which is how I first learned how contentious translations can be. Then I recommended Anna Karenina to a friend and I started going over the pros and cons of the various translations when he stopped me and reminded me that Russian is his first language. That's when it clicked for me. It's like people who obsesses over which cut of a movie is the best, except in this case the "true" author's vision is available and many people can access it, just not them. I understand why people fixate on finding the "best" translation.
- naberhausj 2y agoWar and Peace was my first introduction to the translation debate as well. I read and loved the Anthony Briggs translation, but I also read a few samples from the Maude translation and didn't think it was much different. In general, I think there's too much emphasis on language barriers for the layperson. It's the classic problem where passionate people introduce considerations that aren't relevant to the casual user ("Don't use that brand/thing! This brand/thing is 0.1% better!"). I'm fluent in English, but still am capable of missing subtle uses of the language. Yet, we treat foreign (to us) languages as if all of the subtly is obvious to anyone who is fluent in it. I honestly don't think that the average Russian reader is going to see much more in the language than an English person with a good translation. An expert will see it, but not me. In my opinion the return on investment is much higher for increasing your understanding of both the culture and historical moment, not the language.
- keiferski 2y agoBorges had some interesting thoughts on translation, including this great line: "The original was unfaithful to the translation." BORGES AFFIRMED, in earnest, that an original can be unfaithful to a translation. He vehemently objected to claims that certain translations he admired are “true to the original” and derided the presuppositions of purists for whom all translations are necessarily deceitful in one way or another. Borges would often pro- test, with various degrees of irony, against the assumption – ingrained in the Italian adage traduttore traditore – that a translator is a traitor to an original. He referred to it alternatively as a superstition or pun. For Borges the Italian expression, unfairly prejudiced in favor of the original, is an erroneous generalization that conflates differ- ence with treachery. The idea that literary translations are inherently inferior to their originals is, for Borges, based on the false assumption that some works of literature must be assumed definitive. But for Borges, no such thing as a definitive work exists, and therefore, a translator’s inevitable transformation of the original is not necessarily to the detriment of the work. Difference, for Borges, is not a sufficient criterion for the superiority of the original. https://open.unive.it/hitrade/books/KristalBorges.pdf https://open.unive.it/hitrade/books/KristalBorges.pdf
- untech 2y agoFunny how translations of Dostoyevsky is a contentious topic in English-speaking world. In ru-speaking world, we bicker about Harry Potter and Lord of Rings translations :) There’s a particularly inflammatory translation of HP which causes people to swear that they won’t let their children read it.
- IliaLitviak 2y agoThere is a black market of illegally printed “proper translations”. I had to buy a full HP anthology for my younger sister off some guy’s Corolla, paying in crypto. Same guy was selling counterfeit LEGOs. It was low-quality paper and flimsy covers, but the translation was “correct” and that’s all that matters.
- paulryanrogers 2y ago> There’s a particularly inflammatory translation of HP which causes people to swear that they won’t let their children read it. What makes it inflammatory?
- untech 2y agoThat it isn’t the same translation they read as children and that was used in movies. It is not a particularly high-brow debate, as HP, unlike Dostoyevsky in en-world, is read by everyone. People usually concentrate on proper names. Rowling uses a lot of “meaningful” names like Snape, Sprout or Ravenclaw, and translator have a choice of adapting them or leaving them be. Either choice leaves somebody unhappy. The same problem was with LotR a generation before. (LotR broke through the iron curtain only in 90s). When I read HP in original, I realised that the “proper” translation is also extremely bad. I don’t know what I should do when/if I have children. Either I’ll start working on my own translation during the pregnancy, or I’ll teach them English from the birth.
- Moru 2y agoWe did the English route without even thinking about it. LOtR is very strange in Swedish...
- julianeon 2y agoThey do good translation work; their translations read naturally and are an improvement over the noticeably Victorian-sounding editions which preceded them. I'm sure that, by the year 2200, their translations will be superseded too. But they are great for our time, which is what matters.
- currymj 2y agothe problem is for any given Russian novel, there are often other translations from the 1960s-1990s which use sufficiently modern language. maybe these are better than P&V or maybe not (in some cases yes to my taste), but good luck finding one in a bookstore.
- usrnm 2y agoThe language of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky sounds just as archaic to Russian readers as Victorian English does to you. In a sense, preserving this archaism is closer to the original than trying to modernise it
- giraffe_lady 2y agoBut it wouldn't have sounded archaic to a contemporaneous russian reader. So the translator's choice is to translate into modern english, as the original audience would have experienced it as modern russian for their time. Or to attempt to recreate a modern russian audience's sense of archaism in english. It's an artistic choice, neither is approach is inherently better than the other.
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- sesm 2y agoCrime and Punishment is a part of mandatory literature curriculum in schools.
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- surfingdino 2y ago[flagged]
- silent_cal 2y ago[flagged]
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- silent_cal 2y ago[flagged]
- surfingdino 2y ago[flagged]
- benopal64 2y agoWhat about the people, in Russia, right now, that are actively creating culture? Parties in control of a government are not the people of that country, they are only a small subset of the people from that country. Unfortunately, some parties in control of countries think it is ethically or morally right to send children to kill other people's children.
- surfingdino 2y ago[flagged]
- benterix 2y ago> absolutely love their tzars whoever they may be I don't believe it's true at all. I frequent some Russian forums to get a general sentiment and although people are quite careful to be not too open so that they don't get in trouble, it's pretty clear that Putin is hated for getting the country in this deep shit.
- currymj 2y agothe P&V translations always give me the sensation of American actors speaking in mock Russian accents, like in the Hunt for Red October. I don't really like them for this reason. I imagine they have merits which I am not equipped to evaluate. I find it sort of frustrating that they have a near monopoly. It can be pretty tough to find a non-P&V translation in a bookstore these days. I think this near monopoly, and therefore the financial/career/publishing industry implications, might be why some of the critiques and takedowns seem oddly vicious. It's not just about literary taste.
- carabiner 2y agoI studied Russian for only a year in college, but it was incredibly clear that P&V was the most literal translation that followed russian patterns of speech. In my russian lit class (in english, but taught by a russian) we only used their translations.
- silent_cal 2y agoYes you've nailed it. The P&V translations respect the way Russians construct thoughts and sentences, even if it differs from the way English speakers typically do so. This is (in my opinion) very important for showing the reader what the writer is really trying to say, and also getting the feeling that you are really immersed in the Russian culture while you're reading the book.
- currymj 2y agoit's good to hear that my impressions weren't based on nothing. personally i don't like when a translation works like this, I think it's better to try to replicate the literary effect in the target language. (For example I really enjoyed Emily Wilson's choice to do her Homer translations in blank verse, as the analogue in the English poetry tradition to dactylic hexameter, rather than trying to write English in Greek meter.) but I guess it's a valid choice and might actually be better in certain contexts (plausibly this is true for a university class about Russia and Russian literature).
- another_v 2y agoSeeing this post on the the of the most massive combined missiles + drones attack on Ukrainian power grid, resulting in millions of people having no electricity and water...
- matrix87 2y agoI think P&V are highly overrated and tend to be marketed more aggressively than other "normal" translations. If you're reading a P&V translation, you know you're reading a P&V translation throughout the whole experience. Which is why I stay away from them if there's an alternative Katz is more enjoyable. Would highly recommend Katz's translation of Devils. Captures the chaotic-ness of the story really well
- xnorswap 2y agoI'm the opposite, when I first read P&V's Crime and Punishment it felt more like transported to 19th century Russia, compared to the previous version I'd read (I don't remember whom, perhaps Constance Garnett), which felt like I was in late Victorian England but with Russian names. P&V was a harder read, and I've still not finished reading The Idiot, but it felt much richer, even if reading it required having notes at hand.
- matrix87 2y ago> even if reading it required having notes at hand. Idk man, if it feels like I'm in a classroom again it starts to blur the boundary between work and leisure
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoA tangent but, since AI is good enough to destroy civilization and reign over us like an evil god these days, and translation seems to be one of its strongest points, what's the state of the art with AI translations of out of copyright works of literature? Free versions available via standard ebooks and Gutenberg are often based on the copyright of the translation and so can be dated or just considered lower quality than other, more recent, translations. Can you run the older translations through an AI to jazz them up a bit and maybe secretly steal the IP from other translations? Or, since we're fudging the IP issue anyway, are the underground book pirate rings issuing AI translated versions of Harry Potter (or a more recent equivalent) into niche markets yet?
- throwuxiytayq 2y agoHP is an interesting example. Due to the book's whimsical nature, the international translators had to come up with very creative translations for certain terms. Any new "unclean" translation should be extremely easy to recognize.
- probably_wrong 2y agoSince you chose Harry Potter specifically: the official Spanish translations were always released several months behind the US. Therefore fan groups gathered to make their own versions by scanning the originals on release night, splitting the chapters among subgroups, translate them in parallel, and then merge them back together. All of this in less than a week. So while certainly not the case for most books, if you have a pirate Harry Potter then there's a fair chance that an actual human did the translation. Unrelated, sometimes I'd get a fake unofficial chapter and then I'd have to decide on-the-fly whether Draco undressing Harry felt in line with J.K. Rowling's universe so far.
- beezlebroxxxxxx 2y agoThis is also how many manga "scanlation" groups work. Some of the translations are incredible, especially of comedy manga. One, called Grand Blue, is ostensibly a manga about a young man joining a scuba diving club while in uni. In reality, it's a drinking gag manga with an incredibly funny and absurd sense of humor. I can't read Japanese, but apparently the main scanlation group is incredibly good at translating the japanese jokes into english, even going so far to completely rewrite the jokes but keeping the core idea of the joke intact with quite in-depth footnotes explaining and justifying their changes. The translation notes are fascinating in their own right.
- rurban 2y agoSvetlana Geier, the German Dostoyevsky translator, is/was much more famous/uncontested. They even made an excellent movie about her: “The Woman With the 5 Elephants”. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/20/movies/dostoyevsky-translator-woman-with-the-5-elephants-film-review.html https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/20/movies/dostoyevsky-transl... Regarding P&V: > "The Pevear-Volokhonsky versions of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gogol, Chekhov, and Bulgakov have earned rapturous reviews by James Wood in the New Yorker and Orlando Figes in the New York Review of Books, along with a PEN translation award. It looks as if people will be reading P&V, as they have come to be called, for decades to come. > This is a tragedy, because their translations take glorious works and reduce them to awkward and unsightly muddles. Professional writers have asked me to check the Russian texts because they could not believe any great author would have written what P&V produce." https://www.commentary.org/articles/gary-morson/the-pevearsion-of-russian-literature/ https://www.commentary.org/articles/gary-morson/the-pevearsi...
- petesergeant 2y agoCompletely tangential, but the comments here remind me of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_translations_of_Asterix https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_translations_of_Aste... Lots of interesting stuff of translating jokes and references into a foreign language
- slackfan 2y agoTerrible translations by people who do not have a firm grasp of the language they're translating from, nor the language they are translating to, nor any literary understanding of either languages, or the context the works were written in, or the context of the verbiage used in english, or any knowledge of what translations should be. But they do have great marketing.