George, I hesitate to post because you're obviously busy. But here's a question that maybe you could answer at some point in the future--not necessarily this week!
In the podcast "Let's Deconstruct a Story," (what a nice podcast!) you mention 12 stories that were your core stories, the ones you read again and again, and that you find yourself reacting to as you write your own work. Master and Man, you said, is one of those stories. Can you tell us what the other 11 are? (Apologies if you've already told us at some point.)
Also, i love Melora Hardin. She's great in everything,, but I'm partial to Jan in the Office. Just brilliant, her portrayal.
Not sure I remember. :) But: Araby (Joyce); Hunters in the Snow (Wolff); A Small Good Thing (Carver); Good Country People (O'Connor); Hot Ice (Stuart Dybek); Testimony of Pilot (Hannah); My First Goose (Babel); The Conventional Wisdom (Elkins); Gooseberries (Chekhov). There are probably more like 20, really, and I kept adding to the list as I got older and less male-centric. Shiloh, by Bobbie Ann Mason, the stories in Black Tickets by Jayne Anne Phillips; so many by Grace Paley and a little excerpt from one of T. Morrison's novels that I read in a class in Texas (Suicide Day). The Overcoat, The Nose (Gogol); In the Basement and DeMauppassant (Babel). On and on! (Also: Monty Python.)
From Peter Orner in the Paris Review in a piece where he claims that he will not defend the art of the short story:
"How about I put it this way? Each time I read “Guy de Maupassant” I die a little death. I don’t read it to find out what happens. The Babel character and Raisa hook up on the couch, in the throes of their mutual literary passion. The throes on the couch will always be part of some distant, unreachable youth. Even Maupassant himself ended up eating his own shit in Paris, or so Babel tells us, without evidence, at the end of the story. I read it to breathe, breathe. Because I’m alive and the upshot of Babel’s story, and any good story, is to remind us (because we forget, every day we forget) that breathing is finite. Breathing takes concentration."
I ordered a 65th birthday cake for myself and some similarly-aged friends. I was slightly late picking it up and I instantly remembered that story. I wondered if I was going to be pestered by phone calls from an angry baker.
Thank you, George. It's really helpful to read that preface again today. I had a job interview today; I would rather have been writing, but the anxiety of the interview stuff made it difficult. In the end I did some drawing instead (I've been illustrating as many of my substack posts as possible: https://strangeorbeautiful.substack.com/p/relatable-dilemmas-for-millennial)
Anyway... I needed a reminder to keep going. Thank you.
I wanted to complain that you never tell us the name of the translator of the Russian stories we are reading.
The New York Times obituary of the great translator Edith Grossman, who recently died, had this to say:
Translators had long been seen as the “humble Cinderella” of publishing, she said in an interview for this obituary in 2021. But as she wrote in her groundbreaking book “Why Translation Matters” (2010), she saw the role “not as the weary journeyman of the publishing world, but as a living bridge between two realms of discourse, two realms of experience, and two sets of readers.”
Dr. Grossman was among the first to insist that on any book she translated, her name appear on the cover along with that of the author, a practice that publishers had traditionally resisted for both financial and marketing reasons. They liked to think that they could wave “a magic wand” and turn a book from one language into another, she joked in the interview. “And no human is involved. No human who needs to be paid?”
Complaint noted but I feel compelled to mention that I believe this is the only second Russian story so far for which I've neglected to identity the translator. For My First Goose, we had a discussion with the translator, Boris Dralyuk. For Lady with Pet Dog, the translator's name is there in the pdf. In my text for The Overcoat, I identify Constance Garnett as the translator and in my text for The Devil, I mention an alternate translation, by Alymer Maud, although, as I believe I explained elsewhere, I'm not quite sure who the translator of the text is.
But, since you've asked - I have a similar problem here, in that the translator is not ID-ed on the ancient pdf - but I believe it, too, is Garnett.
Thanks, George! It is the absence of the name of the translator(s) on the PDFs that makes it difficult for us readers to remember. I was too quick to criticism you generally -- for that I apologise. And I appreciate the personal response, given how busy you are! Best wishes, John
I am 99.9% certain that the translator of the version you gave us is Constance Garnett. I read her version alongside yours, and cannot discern any differences.
I went to the Gutenberg Project, found that the first text is as per the pdf that George has teed up and invited us to read (easier thanks to whichever Story Clubber, with a bunch of better than I know how regarding pdf, rejigged the first to enhance our ease of reading and printing 'the cleaner version' 👍) 'An honest Thief'.
Guess what?
There's no attribution of and due credit to who translated D's short story from Russian to English offered by Gutenberg! Just offers Title: 'Short Stories' and Author: 'Fiodor Dostoievski'.
Conclusion - by dint of knowledgeable / intuited / evidenced triangulation - the text we are presently reading over there, behind the paywall (😂 reads like something might have been written into 'Shawshank Redemption'), is that left unto us as literary legacy by Constance Garnett. Accordingly I'm now confident in suggesting you go the whole hog Mary, nail in the 'missing' 0.1% and call upon Story Clubbers, one and all, to give it up for Constance 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏...
Question: how does knowing that we are reading Text X of Writer Y by Translator Y going to impact the work we are gearing up to do on 'An Honest Thief'? Don't answer here? Maybe one to address in the conversation that will start on Sunday (where I am) 'Beyond the Paywall'?
I absolutely don’t know about these translations, i.e., Garnett or other. But I have a suspicion. I have experience reading various translations of fascicles (chapters) from the Shobogenzo, the essential text studied by Soto Zen practitioners. Written by Eihei Dōgen, a 13th c Japanese monk,the Shobogenzo is dense and often difficult to understand. Resultantly there are many translations into English, each of which varies, some in significant ways. Selecting a translation that “feels right” is often daunting and also part of the fun of studying Dōgen. Most often I and my study partners read one and then another, and sometimes a third to clarify meaning.
So with respect to Rob’s question, “how does knowing that we are reading Text X of Writer Y by Translator Y going to impact [our reading]? I think it must.
One more thing. I am a reader, not a writer, following this wonderful blog of George’s.
My participation here has vastly improved my interest in the short story and has led to my reading a greater variety of authors, both classical and modern. Thank you so much George and everyone among us who contributes with comments.
Is reading a fascicle of Shobogenzo, in effect and essentially, an equivalent of a sort, in your experienced perception, of reading a short story Mark?
Ha! Well Rob, not at all. Rather I was commenting about the issues of translation from a different perspective in order to somewhat generalize. I hope I’m making sense.
It is the Constance Garnett translation. I spent 30 minutes trying to find another translation, without success. Even Kindle tricks you into buying the Garnett translation (without identifying it as such) when you try to buy the Modern Library David Magarshack translation. The issue is of course copyright - the Garnett translation is in the public domain; more up-to-date ones are not.
Which translator of a Russian story, or indeed other story first written in a language other than English, is it that you don't recall George citing.? Thinking back my recollection is that one of the richest threads that George has woven into the warp and weft of Story Club is not just the citation but the celebration of translators... do, for example, the first names Boris and Elise strike a bell with you John?
No, they don't Rob. But I'm afraid I don't follow all of George's excellent threads. And I have apologised to George for my overbroad criticism -- he is right that he usually does identify the translator.
Your post go me thinking John, along two lines, which is why I posted my reply to you.
As it happens you've kindly addressed one, about how many 'slices' of the gradually and gently growing 'Story Club Pie of Short Fictions' those currently subscribed get to first to read and then perhaps go on to do some 'work on'. I do feel very lucky to have come across, thanks to a friend's signposting, Story Club just as it was being launched on Substack and to have been able, by and large but not totally, to have 'read and worked on' what have become the twin strands of 'Office Hours' (Thursday Newsletter) and 'Story in the Spotlight' (Sunday Newsletter).
As to the other I've found myself wondering whether being given anything beyond the text, at least to begin with, is help or hindrance. That name, Dostoyevsky, carries so may connotations as does this other name we've seemed to nail, Constance Garnett... but just what do we actually gain in terms of getting inside the way the words work / are made to work on the pages... whether one or many... to make the story? Wonder as I may there's no single, simple answer other than 'well, it depends' that's yet struck and stuck with me.
Good to have had this opportunity to be 'shootin' the breeze' with you John.
So Iam, was it the coat or / and the shirt that you realised was / were not on you back awhile after that genial geezer, who'd be so interested in hearing tell of your city date with artist friends, had stepped down from the bus, courtesy of the driver acceding to his impromptu request for an unscheduled stop way back down the road, way back out there in the boondock?
Coincidentally I got really high a couple weeks back and ordered War and Peace. It's so big I have to turn the pages carefully or they whole paperback will fall apart under its own weight. I've been working through it slowly and trying to substack blog my progress.
George- love that your list of favorite children’s books includes the pants with nobody inside them (which I adored as a kid) and especially those lines:
Here is a wonderful image that is identified as Dostoevsky's manuscript draft for The Brothers Karamazov-https://www.pinterest.com/pin/beautifulinspiration-in-2022--3518505951577990/
...when i watch my own TV, & I'm doin' this and i'm doing that, & i'm tryin' to meet some girl, & she says "baby, baby, come back maybe next week", & it seems i'm on a losin' streak, i can' get no...
I somehow had not read that CivilWarLand preface. (It’s funny, we keep giving CivilWarLand to our sons, forgetting we’ve done so, as if it’s a Lesson for Life, forgetting how dark and quirky it is, just remembering I think, the humanity at its core, and that’s all we want for them.)
I copied and pasted this line just now and put it in my phone Notes. A lesson for writing, and maybe, weirdly, for life, though I can’t explain how:
…if I put a theme park in a story, my prose improved…
I had a Dostoevsky phase post-college, read everything, remembered a bunch of quotable paraphrases, like, “why count the years, why count the months, when one day is enough to know all happiness,” and then I read more and got super into minimalism and feared returning to Dostoevsky, afraid my prior joy wouldn’t withstand my new aesthetics, and then, also, learned of the common, perhaps universal, occurrence amongst the young (men, in particular) of having their own Dostoevsky phase, and I felt my own literary tastes to be less special, and anyhow, I’m really looking forward to George leading this reading, I’ve been super busy lately, but will make time for this, thank you.
To me, there are always problems with literary translation. It's virtually impossible to do a mirror image equivalent translation from one language to another without sacrificing cadence or nuance. Russian to English is a particularly difficult exercise as V. Nabokov explains here: https://newrepublic.com/article/62610/the-art-translation
As adept at grammar and syntax as many translators are, most if not all will acknowledge tossing into the mix for whatever reason at least a smidgin of subjectivity and intuition. Consequently, personal interpretation runs the risk of either deviating from or missing entirely the author's intent.
A few months ago, Story Club digested Gogol's "Overcoat". The reader may recall AA's demise: "At length, AA breathed his last." (Story Club)
Here's an alternative example: "At last, AA gave up the ghost." I don't recall whose version this is, but to me, it fits the "spirit" of the story better than the Story Club translation.
Nabokov provides further insight to the difficulty of translating Russian to English in the chapter on Gogol in his "Lectures on Russian Literature". Following are some comparative examples between the Story Club version of "Overcoat" and Nabokov's:
(Story Club) But Papa remained silent and said not a word to anyone of what had happened to him, where he had been or where he had intended to go.
(Nabokov) But Papa kept silent and he told no one of what had befallen him, not where he had been, nor wither he had wished to go. Following this example Nabokov informs the reader that in the original Russian, Gogol's intent was to depict this scene as a parody of a Biblical parable so wrote it "Biblically".
The Story Club translation misses the nuance.
(Story Club) The apparition looked around and inquired "What do you want?", at the same time showing a fist such as is never seen on a living man.
(Nabokov) The apparition showed a fist of a size rarely met with even among the living.
Nabokov goes on to say, "[If you lack fluency in Russian] there is no other way of getting to Gogol or any other Russian writer for that matter. His work, as all literary achievements, is a phenomenon of language, not of ideas. One cannot understand an author if one cannot even pronounce his name." At which point Nabokov proceeds to give a lesson in Russian pronunciation, noting that the pronunciation of the last "L" in Gogol's name has no equivalent in English and continues with, among other things, cautioning the acolyte that "you will be stiff and bruised after your first declension of personal pronouns".
It may be fun to gambol with the classical Russians of 175 years past, and it may be easy to remain in thrall of translators, but I have to think there's a reason that "lost in translation" has become the cliche that it is and that we might be better served with works by authors whose native tongue is English.
Hi Jay. One thing to bear in mind - here, we're not really reading these as "Russian stories" (ie, to become experts in Russian lit) but just....as stories. As examples of the form, that are easy and fun to work with. This is a point I always try to make with my students. In this sense, it really doesn't matter how much adherence the translation has to the original. Even a terrible version is still a story and can be assessed as such. At Syracuse (and here, in my view anyway), we are trying to understand story mechanics - how they work, how to improve our own, etc. So I never obsessed much over which translation to use, if the story has some basic power. It's hard not to be moved by, for example, Death of Ivan Illych even though, of course, those of us who don't read Russian have truly never read it. But we've read something, if you see what I mean, and if it moved us (and that one moves me every time) then there's something to be learned from it.
For sure, stories do essential and high-level work on the language level. But even if we set that part aside as unknowable, there's still much to learn from translated works. We'd also want to keep in mind that some writers are more readily translated than others - critics say (and I think even Nabokov has said) that Tolstoy is easier to translate than Gogol (that is, harder to screw up).
PS If we approach a translated story as just....a story in English - we lose much but still have a lot to work with. We still read it, it still moved us (or didn't).
Ultimately, every reading process is a translation process. A translator who knows both languages and has a rich store of expression in her own language will have something interesting to offer the reader.
Dear Mr. Saunders: I'm about as much an expert on classical Russian literature as I am an expert on the esoterica of quantum mechanics. And as others I have read numerous translations all the while somewhat naively taking for granted that the translator would endeavor to provide as both a matter of course and professional pride an accurate facsimile of the original. Then some time ago I came upon Nabokov's "Lectures on Russian Literature" and when I read that Nabokov admitted that he himself was incapable of faithfully translating Gogol from Russian to English I had, as Samuel L. Jackson intoned in that scene in Pulp Fiction, "a moment of clarity" as I realized that any translation, as diligent as it may be, will never attain the stature of mirror image.
The Avant Garde composer Philip Glass said that "a musician can master technique without possessing style but cannot have style without a command of technique". And Nabokov, in that same chapter on Gogol, where he defined Gogol's writing as "four dimensional" and compared him to his contemporary, the Russian mathematician Lobachevski, mentioned that Lobachevski had opined that two parallel lines did not meet because they were incapable , but rather because "they had other things to do". He goes on to say that with The Overcoat, those lines not only meet, they "wriggle and entangle", the takeaway being that mechanics and design and engineering, the inciting incident, story arc, transitions, climax, denouement, linguistic nuance, cadence and "musicality" of language are intertwined and inseparable. So while well-executed literature can be read on numerous levels (if only to get the gist), I believe that the best way to appreciate literature is to read the original.
Hi Jay. Your point it well-taken and I appreciate all of your examples. I'm not sure how long you've been in Story Club, but we've had several discussions in these posts about the art of translation. We were able to ask questions of Story Club member Elise Magistro, the translator of Her Father's House, when we discussed that story. And of course, there was the wonderful exchange with Boris Drayluk when we discussed My First Goose (he was the translator of the version we read). There was a lot of discussion about the translation of An Incident as we compared versions. And every time we discuss a Russian writer, there are several brilliant Story Club members who are versed in Russian who help us understand the nuances of the translations. I do understand your take (I think). It can sometimes seem that perhaps we are missing something crucial due to decisions made by translators. However, I've come to see that it's an incredible art form--translating is. And I appreciate more than ever the hard work that goes into it. Would we be better served by only reading works written in English? My opinion is that we would not be. We would miss out so completely on different cultures, different ways of seeing the world, different values, etc. To me, it's a marvel that we can read the work of those who write in other languages. Yes, sometimes there might be a nuance that is "lost in translation." But a good translator understands that nuance and works very hard to choose the "mot juste" that will replace it and make it something we can understand--with our limited abilities to ever fully understand another language/culture.
To me a translation is kind of the equivalent of an Elvis impersonator or a tribute band. Disingenuous? probably. I am always suspicious that I am being fed surimi instead of snow crab. Don't know who to believe, art form notwithstanding...close but no cigar.
A translator is a co-creator of a work, not an impersonator. I'd say (not that you asked) that it might be best to turn away from Nabokov's rant and instead look into the art of translation. It's easy enough to go down some wonderful rabbit holes online! Personally, I'm so grateful for translators!
Are you saying that the author/translator relationship is like Lennon/McCartney or Rogers/Hammerstein? I think that the translator is a RE-creator rather than a co-creator. And rather than "ranting" Nabokov is merely pointing out the peril of attempting to translate accurately a Salvic-root language to a Latin-root language while retaining the cadence and nuance of the original. Here's a ranking of languages according to their difficulty of mastery:
No, not like Lennon/McCartney. But a translator does choose every word of a translation--they are creating a work from a work.(You call that re-creating. I'll have to ponder that. I don't think it's an actual re-creation that a translator provides. It's a different animal altogether, I think. It's a new creation derived from another creation. Maybe that's just semantics.)
I'd love it if there were a translator here in Story Club who wouldn't mind weighing in! I"m not the expert in describing the art of translation. I did find this quote online from a translator: “translation is not a freestanding art form, yet it’s both an original and a derivative work.” And this: “The translator is giving you her interpretation of the work, similar to performing musicians. Even those musicians who are doing their best to follow the notes on the page just as the composer wrote them are invariably infusing the work with their own interpretation and style.” https://news.columbia.edu/news/art-literary-translation
Anyway, Jay, I really don't know enough on the subject! But I thank you for getting me thinking!
I worked as a literary translator for years. Sometimes this work reminded me of the work of the alchemists. You take the text in one language and then a transformation process happens. It's about language, but as a translator you also hear moods, rhythms, things that are not so easy to define. It's not only a conscious process, but a kind of unconscious empathy comes into play. The text in the target language then emerges from all this. It is something personal that plays into the creation of the text. That is why two translations are never the same, even if they are both "correct". But exactly the same thing happens when we read a text. Everyone has a personal view that is never 100% congruent with that of the others.
Hi Jay, I think your point is a good one but I also think maybe you are depriving yourself of some joy here by being this concerned with the precision of translations. People have argued these things forever. Musicians go on endlessly about live performance vs. the 'accuracy' of a recording. While the differences are technically true, I'm not sure the goal of the artist is to have the receiver experience literal accuracy vs. an emotional realization, an alignment, an epiphany etc. The translator must interpret intent and meaning as much as word definition. They do their best but in the end all that matters is what you, the reader, feel, think and take away from the reading. I can tell you 2+2=4 or I can tell you 8/2=4. As long as you arrive at 4 it's fine if you take different paths.
I loved your piece on kids' books and second what you say about good memories of reading to my kids--Mister Dog was one I discovered through them, even though it's older than I am. Happily, they are only 16 and still occasionally (though they'd never tell their friends) like it when I read aloud to them, especially when they are sick. This also made me think of my own childhood, which featured repeats of both Millions of Cats, The Sneetches, and The Pokey Little Puppy. Shout out to Bartholomew and the Oobleck, another Dr. Seuss favorite from that era.
Speaking of literary events and great links, last weekend, I attended the Jaipur Literary Festival in Boulder, Colorado. Yes, this is an offshoot of the Jaipur Literary Festival annually held in India. The festival is donation supported, free to the public and hosted at the Boulder Public Library. It’s a whirlwind of events over three days, with local and international artists, musicians, singers, writers, poets, and scholars. Unable to experience every event as there were often three happening at once, I was able to attend several of the individual speakers and panel discussions. All this year’s events were recorded and will be uploaded to the JLF website as with years past under archive. Below is the link to festival website and two of the guest speakers and their work that have short story collections.
George, I hesitate to post because you're obviously busy. But here's a question that maybe you could answer at some point in the future--not necessarily this week!
In the podcast "Let's Deconstruct a Story," (what a nice podcast!) you mention 12 stories that were your core stories, the ones you read again and again, and that you find yourself reacting to as you write your own work. Master and Man, you said, is one of those stories. Can you tell us what the other 11 are? (Apologies if you've already told us at some point.)
Also, i love Melora Hardin. She's great in everything,, but I'm partial to Jan in the Office. Just brilliant, her portrayal.
Not sure I remember. :) But: Araby (Joyce); Hunters in the Snow (Wolff); A Small Good Thing (Carver); Good Country People (O'Connor); Hot Ice (Stuart Dybek); Testimony of Pilot (Hannah); My First Goose (Babel); The Conventional Wisdom (Elkins); Gooseberries (Chekhov). There are probably more like 20, really, and I kept adding to the list as I got older and less male-centric. Shiloh, by Bobbie Ann Mason, the stories in Black Tickets by Jayne Anne Phillips; so many by Grace Paley and a little excerpt from one of T. Morrison's novels that I read in a class in Texas (Suicide Day). The Overcoat, The Nose (Gogol); In the Basement and DeMauppassant (Babel). On and on! (Also: Monty Python.)
From Peter Orner in the Paris Review in a piece where he claims that he will not defend the art of the short story:
"How about I put it this way? Each time I read “Guy de Maupassant” I die a little death. I don’t read it to find out what happens. The Babel character and Raisa hook up on the couch, in the throes of their mutual literary passion. The throes on the couch will always be part of some distant, unreachable youth. Even Maupassant himself ended up eating his own shit in Paris, or so Babel tells us, without evidence, at the end of the story. I read it to breathe, breathe. Because I’m alive and the upshot of Babel’s story, and any good story, is to remind us (because we forget, every day we forget) that breathing is finite. Breathing takes concentration."
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/07/17/a-refusal-to-defend-or-even-stick-up-for-the-art-of-the-short-story/
Thank you for this wonderful advice. This story reminds me of my passion for writing - even if I am doing it pathetically badly....
A Small Good Thing (Carver) one of the best short stories ever. Ever.
I ordered a 65th birthday cake for myself and some similarly-aged friends. I was slightly late picking it up and I instantly remembered that story. I wondered if I was going to be pestered by phone calls from an angry baker.
Thank you
Thank you!
Thank you, George. It's really helpful to read that preface again today. I had a job interview today; I would rather have been writing, but the anxiety of the interview stuff made it difficult. In the end I did some drawing instead (I've been illustrating as many of my substack posts as possible: https://strangeorbeautiful.substack.com/p/relatable-dilemmas-for-millennial)
Anyway... I needed a reminder to keep going. Thank you.
I wanted to complain that you never tell us the name of the translator of the Russian stories we are reading.
The New York Times obituary of the great translator Edith Grossman, who recently died, had this to say:
Translators had long been seen as the “humble Cinderella” of publishing, she said in an interview for this obituary in 2021. But as she wrote in her groundbreaking book “Why Translation Matters” (2010), she saw the role “not as the weary journeyman of the publishing world, but as a living bridge between two realms of discourse, two realms of experience, and two sets of readers.”
Dr. Grossman was among the first to insist that on any book she translated, her name appear on the cover along with that of the author, a practice that publishers had traditionally resisted for both financial and marketing reasons. They liked to think that they could wave “a magic wand” and turn a book from one language into another, she joked in the interview. “And no human is involved. No human who needs to be paid?”
Hi John,
Complaint noted but I feel compelled to mention that I believe this is the only second Russian story so far for which I've neglected to identity the translator. For My First Goose, we had a discussion with the translator, Boris Dralyuk. For Lady with Pet Dog, the translator's name is there in the pdf. In my text for The Overcoat, I identify Constance Garnett as the translator and in my text for The Devil, I mention an alternate translation, by Alymer Maud, although, as I believe I explained elsewhere, I'm not quite sure who the translator of the text is.
But, since you've asked - I have a similar problem here, in that the translator is not ID-ed on the ancient pdf - but I believe it, too, is Garnett.
Thanks, George! It is the absence of the name of the translator(s) on the PDFs that makes it difficult for us readers to remember. I was too quick to criticism you generally -- for that I apologise. And I appreciate the personal response, given how busy you are! Best wishes, John
No, I appreciate the reminder, John. Translators are heroes! :)
I am 99.9% certain that the translator of the version you gave us is Constance Garnett. I read her version alongside yours, and cannot discern any differences.
I went to the Gutenberg Project, found that the first text is as per the pdf that George has teed up and invited us to read (easier thanks to whichever Story Clubber, with a bunch of better than I know how regarding pdf, rejigged the first to enhance our ease of reading and printing 'the cleaner version' 👍) 'An honest Thief'.
Guess what?
There's no attribution of and due credit to who translated D's short story from Russian to English offered by Gutenberg! Just offers Title: 'Short Stories' and Author: 'Fiodor Dostoievski'.
Moving right through and past this, in my view, gobsmack of shoddy citation by the GP I searched online for ''an honest thief dostoevsky translations' and was landed at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Honest-Thief-Stories-Digireads-com-Classic-ebook/dp/B004UMS4IO/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=&asin=B004UMS4IO&revisionId=4a3d69f5&format=2&depth=1 from where, having clicked the Kindle Edition option, I clicked on Read Sample and got to the opening of 'An Honest Thief' which reads exactly as does George's 'ancient pdf'.
Conclusion - by dint of knowledgeable / intuited / evidenced triangulation - the text we are presently reading over there, behind the paywall (😂 reads like something might have been written into 'Shawshank Redemption'), is that left unto us as literary legacy by Constance Garnett. Accordingly I'm now confident in suggesting you go the whole hog Mary, nail in the 'missing' 0.1% and call upon Story Clubbers, one and all, to give it up for Constance 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏...
Question: how does knowing that we are reading Text X of Writer Y by Translator Y going to impact the work we are gearing up to do on 'An Honest Thief'? Don't answer here? Maybe one to address in the conversation that will start on Sunday (where I am) 'Beyond the Paywall'?
I absolutely don’t know about these translations, i.e., Garnett or other. But I have a suspicion. I have experience reading various translations of fascicles (chapters) from the Shobogenzo, the essential text studied by Soto Zen practitioners. Written by Eihei Dōgen, a 13th c Japanese monk,the Shobogenzo is dense and often difficult to understand. Resultantly there are many translations into English, each of which varies, some in significant ways. Selecting a translation that “feels right” is often daunting and also part of the fun of studying Dōgen. Most often I and my study partners read one and then another, and sometimes a third to clarify meaning.
So with respect to Rob’s question, “how does knowing that we are reading Text X of Writer Y by Translator Y going to impact [our reading]? I think it must.
One more thing. I am a reader, not a writer, following this wonderful blog of George’s.
My participation here has vastly improved my interest in the short story and has led to my reading a greater variety of authors, both classical and modern. Thank you so much George and everyone among us who contributes with comments.
Is reading a fascicle of Shobogenzo, in effect and essentially, an equivalent of a sort, in your experienced perception, of reading a short story Mark?
Ha! Well Rob, not at all. Rather I was commenting about the issues of translation from a different perspective in order to somewhat generalize. I hope I’m making sense.
100% it is!
Yes, me too, Mary. I have a collection of her translations of Tolstoy’s stories, and it is definitely this one.
Thanks, Merrie!
It was an Honest thief^^
The real issue is that the book I copied the story out of is in another location somewhere - otherwise, I could say for sure that it's Garnett.
It is the Constance Garnett translation. I spent 30 minutes trying to find another translation, without success. Even Kindle tricks you into buying the Garnett translation (without identifying it as such) when you try to buy the Modern Library David Magarshack translation. The issue is of course copyright - the Garnett translation is in the public domain; more up-to-date ones are not.
Which translator of a Russian story, or indeed other story first written in a language other than English, is it that you don't recall George citing.? Thinking back my recollection is that one of the richest threads that George has woven into the warp and weft of Story Club is not just the citation but the celebration of translators... do, for example, the first names Boris and Elise strike a bell with you John?
No, they don't Rob. But I'm afraid I don't follow all of George's excellent threads. And I have apologised to George for my overbroad criticism -- he is right that he usually does identify the translator.
Your post go me thinking John, along two lines, which is why I posted my reply to you.
As it happens you've kindly addressed one, about how many 'slices' of the gradually and gently growing 'Story Club Pie of Short Fictions' those currently subscribed get to first to read and then perhaps go on to do some 'work on'. I do feel very lucky to have come across, thanks to a friend's signposting, Story Club just as it was being launched on Substack and to have been able, by and large but not totally, to have 'read and worked on' what have become the twin strands of 'Office Hours' (Thursday Newsletter) and 'Story in the Spotlight' (Sunday Newsletter).
As to the other I've found myself wondering whether being given anything beyond the text, at least to begin with, is help or hindrance. That name, Dostoyevsky, carries so may connotations as does this other name we've seemed to nail, Constance Garnett... but just what do we actually gain in terms of getting inside the way the words work / are made to work on the pages... whether one or many... to make the story? Wonder as I may there's no single, simple answer other than 'well, it depends' that's yet struck and stuck with me.
Good to have had this opportunity to be 'shootin' the breeze' with you John.
I'm citing that he cities^^
Oh boy, just what is needed, 4 hrs on the buss today to a city date with artist friends. (An honest thief in the seat beside me.)
So Iam, was it the coat or / and the shirt that you realised was / were not on you back awhile after that genial geezer, who'd be so interested in hearing tell of your city date with artist friends, had stepped down from the bus, courtesy of the driver acceding to his impromptu request for an unscheduled stop way back down the road, way back out there in the boondock?
Margaret S., thank you for sharing color Tolstoy. Did he have a vibe, or what?
Coincidentally I got really high a couple weeks back and ordered War and Peace. It's so big I have to turn the pages carefully or they whole paperback will fall apart under its own weight. I've been working through it slowly and trying to substack blog my progress.
George- love that your list of favorite children’s books includes the pants with nobody inside them (which I adored as a kid) and especially those lines:
“I said, and said, and said those words.
I said them. But I lied them.”
(!!)
Here is a wonderful image that is identified as Dostoevsky's manuscript draft for The Brothers Karamazov-https://www.pinterest.com/pin/beautifulinspiration-in-2022--3518505951577990/
...when i watch my own TV, & I'm doin' this and i'm doing that, & i'm tryin' to meet some girl, & she says "baby, baby, come back maybe next week", & it seems i'm on a losin' streak, i can' get no...
What does she, this "some girl," get out of you "doing this and that"?
Is your TV your own? If it isn't how would you know?
If you're on a losin' streak, why should any "baby, baby, come back" to where they never were?
Just choosing to respond, 'off the cuff' to the terroir where, reading your comment, I've landed up in Michael, resolutely un-contextualised...
I somehow had not read that CivilWarLand preface. (It’s funny, we keep giving CivilWarLand to our sons, forgetting we’ve done so, as if it’s a Lesson for Life, forgetting how dark and quirky it is, just remembering I think, the humanity at its core, and that’s all we want for them.)
I copied and pasted this line just now and put it in my phone Notes. A lesson for writing, and maybe, weirdly, for life, though I can’t explain how:
…if I put a theme park in a story, my prose improved…
I had a Dostoevsky phase post-college, read everything, remembered a bunch of quotable paraphrases, like, “why count the years, why count the months, when one day is enough to know all happiness,” and then I read more and got super into minimalism and feared returning to Dostoevsky, afraid my prior joy wouldn’t withstand my new aesthetics, and then, also, learned of the common, perhaps universal, occurrence amongst the young (men, in particular) of having their own Dostoevsky phase, and I felt my own literary tastes to be less special, and anyhow, I’m really looking forward to George leading this reading, I’ve been super busy lately, but will make time for this, thank you.
To me, there are always problems with literary translation. It's virtually impossible to do a mirror image equivalent translation from one language to another without sacrificing cadence or nuance. Russian to English is a particularly difficult exercise as V. Nabokov explains here: https://newrepublic.com/article/62610/the-art-translation
As adept at grammar and syntax as many translators are, most if not all will acknowledge tossing into the mix for whatever reason at least a smidgin of subjectivity and intuition. Consequently, personal interpretation runs the risk of either deviating from or missing entirely the author's intent.
A few months ago, Story Club digested Gogol's "Overcoat". The reader may recall AA's demise: "At length, AA breathed his last." (Story Club)
Here's an alternative example: "At last, AA gave up the ghost." I don't recall whose version this is, but to me, it fits the "spirit" of the story better than the Story Club translation.
Nabokov provides further insight to the difficulty of translating Russian to English in the chapter on Gogol in his "Lectures on Russian Literature". Following are some comparative examples between the Story Club version of "Overcoat" and Nabokov's:
(Story Club) But Papa remained silent and said not a word to anyone of what had happened to him, where he had been or where he had intended to go.
(Nabokov) But Papa kept silent and he told no one of what had befallen him, not where he had been, nor wither he had wished to go. Following this example Nabokov informs the reader that in the original Russian, Gogol's intent was to depict this scene as a parody of a Biblical parable so wrote it "Biblically".
The Story Club translation misses the nuance.
(Story Club) The apparition looked around and inquired "What do you want?", at the same time showing a fist such as is never seen on a living man.
(Nabokov) The apparition showed a fist of a size rarely met with even among the living.
Nabokov goes on to say, "[If you lack fluency in Russian] there is no other way of getting to Gogol or any other Russian writer for that matter. His work, as all literary achievements, is a phenomenon of language, not of ideas. One cannot understand an author if one cannot even pronounce his name." At which point Nabokov proceeds to give a lesson in Russian pronunciation, noting that the pronunciation of the last "L" in Gogol's name has no equivalent in English and continues with, among other things, cautioning the acolyte that "you will be stiff and bruised after your first declension of personal pronouns".
It may be fun to gambol with the classical Russians of 175 years past, and it may be easy to remain in thrall of translators, but I have to think there's a reason that "lost in translation" has become the cliche that it is and that we might be better served with works by authors whose native tongue is English.
Hi Jay. One thing to bear in mind - here, we're not really reading these as "Russian stories" (ie, to become experts in Russian lit) but just....as stories. As examples of the form, that are easy and fun to work with. This is a point I always try to make with my students. In this sense, it really doesn't matter how much adherence the translation has to the original. Even a terrible version is still a story and can be assessed as such. At Syracuse (and here, in my view anyway), we are trying to understand story mechanics - how they work, how to improve our own, etc. So I never obsessed much over which translation to use, if the story has some basic power. It's hard not to be moved by, for example, Death of Ivan Illych even though, of course, those of us who don't read Russian have truly never read it. But we've read something, if you see what I mean, and if it moved us (and that one moves me every time) then there's something to be learned from it.
For sure, stories do essential and high-level work on the language level. But even if we set that part aside as unknowable, there's still much to learn from translated works. We'd also want to keep in mind that some writers are more readily translated than others - critics say (and I think even Nabokov has said) that Tolstoy is easier to translate than Gogol (that is, harder to screw up).
But again - it comes down to what our purpose is.
PS If we approach a translated story as just....a story in English - we lose much but still have a lot to work with. We still read it, it still moved us (or didn't).
Ultimately, every reading process is a translation process. A translator who knows both languages and has a rich store of expression in her own language will have something interesting to offer the reader.
Dear Mr. Saunders: I'm about as much an expert on classical Russian literature as I am an expert on the esoterica of quantum mechanics. And as others I have read numerous translations all the while somewhat naively taking for granted that the translator would endeavor to provide as both a matter of course and professional pride an accurate facsimile of the original. Then some time ago I came upon Nabokov's "Lectures on Russian Literature" and when I read that Nabokov admitted that he himself was incapable of faithfully translating Gogol from Russian to English I had, as Samuel L. Jackson intoned in that scene in Pulp Fiction, "a moment of clarity" as I realized that any translation, as diligent as it may be, will never attain the stature of mirror image.
The Avant Garde composer Philip Glass said that "a musician can master technique without possessing style but cannot have style without a command of technique". And Nabokov, in that same chapter on Gogol, where he defined Gogol's writing as "four dimensional" and compared him to his contemporary, the Russian mathematician Lobachevski, mentioned that Lobachevski had opined that two parallel lines did not meet because they were incapable , but rather because "they had other things to do". He goes on to say that with The Overcoat, those lines not only meet, they "wriggle and entangle", the takeaway being that mechanics and design and engineering, the inciting incident, story arc, transitions, climax, denouement, linguistic nuance, cadence and "musicality" of language are intertwined and inseparable. So while well-executed literature can be read on numerous levels (if only to get the gist), I believe that the best way to appreciate literature is to read the original.
And yet...Nabokov translated. :)
Hi Jay. Your point it well-taken and I appreciate all of your examples. I'm not sure how long you've been in Story Club, but we've had several discussions in these posts about the art of translation. We were able to ask questions of Story Club member Elise Magistro, the translator of Her Father's House, when we discussed that story. And of course, there was the wonderful exchange with Boris Drayluk when we discussed My First Goose (he was the translator of the version we read). There was a lot of discussion about the translation of An Incident as we compared versions. And every time we discuss a Russian writer, there are several brilliant Story Club members who are versed in Russian who help us understand the nuances of the translations. I do understand your take (I think). It can sometimes seem that perhaps we are missing something crucial due to decisions made by translators. However, I've come to see that it's an incredible art form--translating is. And I appreciate more than ever the hard work that goes into it. Would we be better served by only reading works written in English? My opinion is that we would not be. We would miss out so completely on different cultures, different ways of seeing the world, different values, etc. To me, it's a marvel that we can read the work of those who write in other languages. Yes, sometimes there might be a nuance that is "lost in translation." But a good translator understands that nuance and works very hard to choose the "mot juste" that will replace it and make it something we can understand--with our limited abilities to ever fully understand another language/culture.
To me a translation is kind of the equivalent of an Elvis impersonator or a tribute band. Disingenuous? probably. I am always suspicious that I am being fed surimi instead of snow crab. Don't know who to believe, art form notwithstanding...close but no cigar.
A translator is a co-creator of a work, not an impersonator. I'd say (not that you asked) that it might be best to turn away from Nabokov's rant and instead look into the art of translation. It's easy enough to go down some wonderful rabbit holes online! Personally, I'm so grateful for translators!
Are you saying that the author/translator relationship is like Lennon/McCartney or Rogers/Hammerstein? I think that the translator is a RE-creator rather than a co-creator. And rather than "ranting" Nabokov is merely pointing out the peril of attempting to translate accurately a Salvic-root language to a Latin-root language while retaining the cadence and nuance of the original. Here's a ranking of languages according to their difficulty of mastery:
https://effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-difficulty/
No, not like Lennon/McCartney. But a translator does choose every word of a translation--they are creating a work from a work.(You call that re-creating. I'll have to ponder that. I don't think it's an actual re-creation that a translator provides. It's a different animal altogether, I think. It's a new creation derived from another creation. Maybe that's just semantics.)
I'd love it if there were a translator here in Story Club who wouldn't mind weighing in! I"m not the expert in describing the art of translation. I did find this quote online from a translator: “translation is not a freestanding art form, yet it’s both an original and a derivative work.” And this: “The translator is giving you her interpretation of the work, similar to performing musicians. Even those musicians who are doing their best to follow the notes on the page just as the composer wrote them are invariably infusing the work with their own interpretation and style.” https://news.columbia.edu/news/art-literary-translation
Anyway, Jay, I really don't know enough on the subject! But I thank you for getting me thinking!
Lenny Bruce: "Art? He's in the band. I think he plays tenor sax."
I worked as a literary translator for years. Sometimes this work reminded me of the work of the alchemists. You take the text in one language and then a transformation process happens. It's about language, but as a translator you also hear moods, rhythms, things that are not so easy to define. It's not only a conscious process, but a kind of unconscious empathy comes into play. The text in the target language then emerges from all this. It is something personal that plays into the creation of the text. That is why two translations are never the same, even if they are both "correct". But exactly the same thing happens when we read a text. Everyone has a personal view that is never 100% congruent with that of the others.
Hi Jay, I think your point is a good one but I also think maybe you are depriving yourself of some joy here by being this concerned with the precision of translations. People have argued these things forever. Musicians go on endlessly about live performance vs. the 'accuracy' of a recording. While the differences are technically true, I'm not sure the goal of the artist is to have the receiver experience literal accuracy vs. an emotional realization, an alignment, an epiphany etc. The translator must interpret intent and meaning as much as word definition. They do their best but in the end all that matters is what you, the reader, feel, think and take away from the reading. I can tell you 2+2=4 or I can tell you 8/2=4. As long as you arrive at 4 it's fine if you take different paths.
I loved your piece on kids' books and second what you say about good memories of reading to my kids--Mister Dog was one I discovered through them, even though it's older than I am. Happily, they are only 16 and still occasionally (though they'd never tell their friends) like it when I read aloud to them, especially when they are sick. This also made me think of my own childhood, which featured repeats of both Millions of Cats, The Sneetches, and The Pokey Little Puppy. Shout out to Bartholomew and the Oobleck, another Dr. Seuss favorite from that era.
I hung out with a bear^^
Thanks for posting the preface to that book. I'd never read it before. It hit cruelly close to home for me today.
Thank You!👍
Speaking of literary events and great links, last weekend, I attended the Jaipur Literary Festival in Boulder, Colorado. Yes, this is an offshoot of the Jaipur Literary Festival annually held in India. The festival is donation supported, free to the public and hosted at the Boulder Public Library. It’s a whirlwind of events over three days, with local and international artists, musicians, singers, writers, poets, and scholars. Unable to experience every event as there were often three happening at once, I was able to attend several of the individual speakers and panel discussions. All this year’s events were recorded and will be uploaded to the JLF website as with years past under archive. Below is the link to festival website and two of the guest speakers and their work that have short story collections.
https://jlflitfest.org/colorado
Chika Unigwe: author of four novels, short stories, and essays. She is a professor at Georgia College and State University's MFA in Creative Writing Program. https://www.chikaunigwe.com/biography.html Just published novel, The Middle Daughter and earlier collection of short stories: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-middle-daughter-chika-unigwe/18593687?ean=9781950539468 and https://bookshop.org/p/books/better-never-than-late-chika-unigwe/281206?ean=9781911115540
Vauhini Vara: journalist, editor, novelist, short story writer, essayist, and playwright. She is currently teaching at Colorado State University and Lighthouse Writers Workshop. https://www.vauhinivara.com Just released collection of short stories: https://bookshop.org/p/books/this-is-salvaged-stories-vauhini-vara/19659665