Are the Constance Garnett Dostoevsky translations really that bad?
>>25247882>Ernest Hemingway admired her translations of Fyodor Dostoevsky and once told a friend that he was unable to read through Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace "until I got the Constance Garnett translation."
>>25247882the lady I talked to at the bookstore today told me they're the best
They're not bad, no. A little bit dated. I'd say go P&V if you want a very literal translation or go Katz if you want a more modern, stylistic translation.
>>25247882I really dislike her translation of Anna Karenina.
>>25247882They're more wordy than necessary making parts of Dosty's prose more headache inducing than needs be. get the P&V Translations instead, much better and direct with the translations I've read Bros Karamazov and Crime and Punishment with the Garnett translations and the Idiot with the P&V translation, the Idiot read clearer.
>>25247921>P&VAvoid these scumbags; they don't translate, they rewrite and remove anything they don't like. And they suck in every way. They are an industry meme, pushed to the front of the line to serve an agenda.Constance is fine, just keep in context who and where she was. She can be a little dry sometimes, but she is capable of brilliance on ocassions, too. For some of FD's earliest and lesser known works, Constance is pretty much the only major translator.
The P&V and David McDuff translations are better. Garnett sanitises some of the cultural elements
Read antiquated translations like Constance Garnett when the protagonist/narrator is mentally ill (e.g. Crime & Punishment, Notes from the Underground).Read modern translations like P&V when the protagonist/narrator is clear headed (e.g. The Brothers Karamazov).
>>25247934"P&V bad" is a meme. They are just very, very literal. So literal that if you speak a little Russian you will "see" the Russian in translation.They were the gold standard in the Russian department when I was in undergrad.
>>25247921I can't read P&V translations without imaging them having steamy hot Pevear in Volokhonsky sex in-between chapters.
>>25247882Yes, the translations widely read by the greatest writers of the 20th century are "bad". Read the translations shilled by modern "academics" instead! I hear their track record is great
>>25248120I don't speak any russian and the only thing I "see" in P&V's translations is awkward shitty prose. P&V seem like something intended for a small slice of ruslit nerds who don't actually know enough russian to read the originals but somehow got memed as the "most accurate" and started getting shilled by the nyt et al. with the consequence of turning casual readers off of russian literature with their miserable and unreadable english translations. Just another case of academic in-groups actively trying to block out anyone who hasn't dedicated their lives to the topic with the result of ostracizing themselves from relevance and becoming reliant on ever-waning government gibs resulting in the field becoming increasingly insular and cutthroat leading to further self-ostracization.
any comments on the Sidney Monas (1968) translation?
>>25247882If you are alluding to Dostoevsky’s worst novels, then, indeed, I dislike intensely The Brothers Karamazov and the ghastly Crime and Punishment rigamarole. No, I do not object to soul-searching and self-revelation, but in those books the soul, and the sins, and the sentimentality, and the journalese, hardly warrant the tedious and muddled search. Dostoyevsky’s lack of taste, his monotonous dealings with persons suffering with pre-Freudian complexes, the way he has of wallowing in the tragic misadventures of human dignity – all this is difficult to admire. I do not like this trick his characters have of ”sinning their way to Jesus” or, as a Russian author, Ivan Bunin, put it more bluntly, ”spilling Jesus all over the place." Crime and Punishment’s plot did not seem as incredibly banal in 1866 when the book was written as it does now when noble prostitutes are apt to be received a little cynically by experienced readers. Dostoyevsky never really got over the influence which the European mystery novel and the sentimental novel made upon him. The sentimental influence implied that kind of conflict he liked—placing virtuous people in pathetic situations and then extracting from these situations the last ounce of pathos. Non-Russian readers do not realize two things: that not all Russians love Dostoevsky as much as Americans do, and that most of those Russians who do, venerate him as a mystic and not as an artist. He was a prophet, a claptrap journalist and a slapdash comedian. I admit that some of his scenes, some of his tremendous farcical rows are extraordinarily amusing. But his sensitive murderers and soulful prostitutes are not to be endured for one moment—by this reader anyway. Dostoyevsky seems to have been chosen by the destiny of Russian letters to become Russia’s greatest playwright, but he took the wrong turning and wrote novels.
>>25247882Garnett for Dostoevsky, Maude for Tolstoy
>>25247882https://welovetranslations.com/compare-translations/crime-and-punishment/But as always, the most important thing is just reading the book. You can always read a different translation later.
