John Crowley's LJ (RSS Feed)
06-20-2008, 08:26 PM
http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif (http://walkingscarlet.livejournal.com/profile)walkingscarlet (http://walkingscarlet.livejournal.com/) raised the following question in response to the discussion of Polish translations:
"Do you have any system in which you choose which translations of a work you want to read? Or is it a case of trying several and picking the one you feel most comfortable with?
"I picked up two different versions of Crime&Punishment and don't know which translation to go with."
I often have the sensation I'm reading the wrong translation of something -- as though I can actually see but not quite read the real book in the real translation through the shrubbery of the one I've got. A sense of wrongness with a rightness just out of view. Of course I may be wrong, and Nabokov was always railing against translations that were too smooth, too mellifluous, too improving of the crudity or oddity of the originals -- check out his translation of Lermontov to see what he did with it, not a Nabokovian sparkle anywhere. Maybe one answer would be: do you want to feel you are reading a book in English, or that you are getting a real glimpse of a book written not in English? I usually go for the first.
Any translators, or anybody, care to comment?
(Original Post) (http://crowleycrow.livejournal.com/90524.html)
"Do you have any system in which you choose which translations of a work you want to read? Or is it a case of trying several and picking the one you feel most comfortable with?
"I picked up two different versions of Crime&Punishment and don't know which translation to go with."
I often have the sensation I'm reading the wrong translation of something -- as though I can actually see but not quite read the real book in the real translation through the shrubbery of the one I've got. A sense of wrongness with a rightness just out of view. Of course I may be wrong, and Nabokov was always railing against translations that were too smooth, too mellifluous, too improving of the crudity or oddity of the originals -- check out his translation of Lermontov to see what he did with it, not a Nabokovian sparkle anywhere. Maybe one answer would be: do you want to feel you are reading a book in English, or that you are getting a real glimpse of a book written not in English? I usually go for the first.
Any translators, or anybody, care to comment?
(Original Post) (http://crowleycrow.livejournal.com/90524.html)