Quote:
Originally Posted by db105
I did some comparing, just reading the same passages in several translations, and I'm no fan of Pevear & Volokhonsky. For me the prose doesn't flow well in their translations, but of course that's a very subjective thing.
|
A while back I asked the very helpful and Stephen Dodson, aka
languagehat for his recommendation of a W&P translation (his site is HEAVILY focused on Russian literature). After a disclaimer that he hadn't read anything translated from Russian for many years, the rest of his reply I found balanced and helpful:
Quote:
(when I read it in English, I used Dunnigan's, which is fine), but I'll give you the same advice I give everyone who asks about translations: read a few pages of each one you're considering and choose the one you most enjoy reading. It's like wine -- you're not going to find a really lousy one these days, so what's important is that it's to your taste. Each is going to have minor errors and odd stylistic choices, but so what? You want to have the best reading experience possible, so choose the one that will give you that.
I should add that Pevear and Volokhonsky, as a deliberate practice, use literal translations of Russian idioms, which some people like and others (like me) don't, feeling that it adds a false exoticism. For example, the Russian phrase плевать на, literally 'spit on,' is a very common idiom meaning 'dislike, have contempt for,' and a normal translator would render 'I spit on him' as, e.g., "I despise him" or "I can't stand him" or the like; P&V would say "I spit on him" and justify it by fidelity to the Russian (and blast the other translators for betraying the original). You'll have to decide what works for you.
(I also have a personal dislike for them because of their incessant self-promotion and trashing of rivals, but that of course is irrelevant to which translation you should choose.)
|