Friendly former Russian Studies major (some decades ago) and diplomat with three years at the US Embassy in Moscow here. I'm no Boris Dralyuk, but can speak to the difference for me personally between reading Russian stories in the original and reading them in translation.
First: One can absolutely both enjoy and learn things about writing, human nature, Russia, and Russian culture from reading any decently translated Russian story. Any solid translation will give you the significant aspects of the story that tap into our common humanity, and insight into how good short stories in the Western tradition work.
From my perspective, here are three of the things that can be (but perhaps are not always) lost when reading any translation from Russian to English.
The first, as George mentions, is some degree of tone—the writer's attitude both toward the subject, and toward the story's theoretical audience. Chekhov was not writing for you and me: we bring our own baggage to our reading, and whatever our baggage might be, it is not that of the Russian intelligentsia of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I think he might be amazed at our discussions of his work, his stories' staying power, and the reverence we have for so much of his work. Tone is present in the language of the story, both in syntax and word choice. Because Russian doesn't work the way English works, and because many Russian words aren't one-for-one cognates with English words, some of the tone slips away, (Further to this: it's correct that Chekhov and Tolstoy are written more simply than Dostoyevsky, Gogol', and especially contemporary Russian writers; less tone is lost.)
Second is nuance. English has about 171,500 words, give or take a few hundred. Standard Russian has about 150,000. An educated person has a working vocabulary of maybe 10,000, give or take a couple of thousand. Pushkin used about 21,000 in his writing! A single Russian word might have multiple possible translations in English: there's not always a one-for-one correlation. Sometimes a single Russian word is like a large vessel holding several possible meanings that engage with each other, and that's part of the pleasure of reading it well. But the translator has to choose a replacement word in English, and in choosing exercises both personal preference for a particular English word and personal understanding of the context in which the word is found. To my mind, when the English is more precise than the Russian, the text is somehow flattened. Non-native speakers of Russian also miss some of this sense of nuance, even when reading a story in the original.
And third, for me, are the aspects of language that enhance the story being told: syntax, word construction and word choice, the rhythms of the words themselves, and (related to nuance, above) their linguistic and cultural connotations. Russian has a base of about 40,000 root words [trauma flashback here to stacks and stacks of 3X5 index cards!] , and they're used at different frequencies than root words making up English. Russian often also borrows words from different languages than English does. I think I'd rather beat myself to death with a dull rock than try to reproduce the magic of Pushkin's or Akhmatova's poetry in English. It could lead me only to despair! Those aspects of language may not be critical to the reader of a short story who's dissecting it in the way George does in A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, but a poet or someone who has a love affair with the music of language will not have the same experience reading a Russian story in translation as in the original.
So: To me, the translation does matter; but I also come at it as a non-native speaker with a moderate "working proficiency" in Russian, and know that I don't bring any particular expertise to the experience of reading a Russian story in the original—my undergrad GPA is proof that I...didn't have any special insight into Russian literature! ;)
Thanks Jerri. Your personal insight here is priceless. I like that you mentioned Tone and Context. There is so much in play beyond the words. As I mentioned in a different reply to Mary, consider the phrase most of us heard growing up: “it’s not what you say but how you say it.” Your comment also made me think about Zoom. Look at how much tone and context fell away from our communication with each other as people were reduced to boxes on a screen. People we already knew. A language we already knew. And yet….breakdown of connection and confusion about the tone of a message. Really, really interesting….
Yes, Zoom. Communicating that way is hard on the brain, so much is lost–– thankfully I don't have to do it often, but my friends that do Zoom for work worry a bit about how things look, how they look, the lighting, how the background looks. I'm not sure the human brain should be "split" that way, at least not when thinking through issues or talking about concepts. Also there's a strange thing that happens when you worry you'll interrupt someone.
Interesting. I'm an (exclusively) online English language tutor, and I actually feel quite the opposite, for tuition. I certainly agree that something is lost, but for some purposes, that's a good thing. Online, here in central Europe, students and myself drop pretenses very quickly, and focus on the language much more readily. In a face-to-face lesson, I find, students are much more prone to consider how they look (not for me; for each other), their manner, the smell of their breath (!) etc. Sat at home, they're more comfortable and grounded. Granted, this is probably not the kind of work you're referencing, but thought I'd throw it in as an interesting counter.
It's funny, I'm thrilled with my Zoom yoga class, which used to be in person, for all the things you list. I've known the teacher and other students for 25 years now, so we're all comfortable. I can imagine that a one on one Zoom or Facetime is easier than a large group, (say more than five people) for an English language class.
Yes there’s a strange thing that happens with serial conversation vs interactive. In person there are so many more cues, which allow us more moves. An eyebrow can say it all. On the computer screen we wait, and perhaps choose more carefully, and yet communicate more poorly. I think there’s something in there that relates to translation. On a related note, I read something in a Morgan Freeman interview about Seven. Apparently he read a passage in the script then told the director something like this, “I can do all this with a look. The words are overkill.”
Thank you, Jerri! This is great information--also, a bit....depressing? There's already so much breakdown in communication between humans who speak the same language! But to think how much nuance goes out the window when we read a translation... And you bring up yet another great point--that non-native speakers also miss out on some of a work's meaning. When I read any of the Russians that we discuss here in SC, I always think of the writer at his desk (so far we've read only males), carefully choosing his words, structure, rhythm--all of which adds to a story's meaning, its unity. And then so much of it is lost in translation! We are left with a strange version--and i sometimes wonder if our analysis is therefore off-base and/or lacking in depth.
All of this makes so much sense - especially the difference between translating poetry versus prose. As someone raised with 2-3 other languages in addition to English, I've found prose translations to be adequate even if losing some of the tone, but poetry has felt dead to read in English after having read the original - poets spend so much time agonizing over their choice of words and when there are no easy one-to-one correlates, it definitely has a big impact. Perhaps reading a few different translations helps triangulate what the original was trying to say?
Hard for me to judge because I can read just a little French in the original, but reading Neruda and even some Russian poets in English, I find myself moved and astonished over and over.
Agreed, Cynthia - I've read translations of poems translated from other languages that I don't know and really enjoyed the poems. I guess what I meant to say is that till I read the translations of poems from a language that I know did I see how hard it is to translate the beauty in poetry. Am advocating for more translations I suppose to be able to see what each translator/translation brings to the original - especially with poetry.
Thank you! The difference between translated prose and translated poetry is something I have thought about a lot. In a way, it's hard for me to imagine any poetry is truly translatable.
I think that's probably true, though I also think all translation exists in some liminal space, and within such spaces, creativity (on the part of the translator and the reader) thrives. In a way, poetry also occupies that space. A poem reaches to capture/hold a moment, the world, but never quite arrives. It's a collaboration between writer, reader and the page. Which is so great!
Thanks, Jerri. This is a small point, but I'm wondering what we are to make of Dmitry's wife's omission of the "hard sign" at the end of words in her letters and her calling him Dimitry rather than Dmitry.
My guess (and it is only a guess based on some tangential knowledge of Russian culture) is that this is supposed to indicate a "progressive" woman for the times, one who is not a keeper of the domestic hearth and the good old ways,not necessarily an intellectual, but one who pulls away from the old-fashioned, masculine world that her husband prefers, and is desexed in his eyes, which is why he would prefer someone elegant, feminine, younger.
Thank you. That certainly seems plausible given the context. Those quirks would undoubtedly have signified something about her to Chekov's contemporaries, but we can only guess. Regardless of what may be lost to us, the story remains a particular favorite of mine.
"Jeez Jerri, thank you so much. And I have a question, if I may? It's this: Chekhov, dear Anton, was writing not speaking 'The Lady with the Dog'. Would his diction have closely resembled his written prose or could it, perhaps, have rendered the same story somewhat differently?"
Rob, if there's a recording of Chekhov speaking somewhere I'm not aware of it (though the technology certainly existed—I've seen video of an elderly Tolstoy on his estate). Probably the closest one can come would be to read his private letters, which I'm sure are collected somewhere! In the meantime, you might enjoy this lovely little essay on Chekhov the man, written by Boris Fishman for LitHub: https://lithub.com/everything-you-think-you-know-about-chekhov-is-wrong/
What an essay; what a timely signposting; what a confidence building piece.
Starting with the last, I've found myself realising and relishing the earthiness that I've discovered in reading Chekov's 'The Lady with the Dog' this time around. I've written comment, frankly, with raw Anglo-Saxon word choices foreground and find that, no shock jock, I'm on the money: Anton was what is commonly described as 'a ladies man', who may even, who knows been in the mind of Leornard Cohen as a he strung the words together that made the lyrics of some of his greatest songs and perhaps even shaped his album 'Death of a Ladies Man'. Gurov, and indeed the Yalta Summer Crowd, strike me as necrotic characters.
Timely? Because it is a beautiful gateway into advancing comprehension of the icon that is 'Chekhov'. The man is much more than the terrifying, all-time classic of Russian and World Literature that is 'Chekov'. Couldn'a ha' come to me - and other Story Clubbers happening to pass a reading eye this way - at a better time (having started to make acquaintance with George while swimming around that pond in the rain trying to keep my copy of 'In the Cart' dry and now doing work with him on 'The Lady and the Dog')
Essay? The most exemplary example of the form I've read in some time, and I've only read it once, on the fly from reading your signpost, so have much to mine from revisiting it.
And just to say, that underlying my reason for asking about comparisons between Russian as written and Russian as spoken are memories of being in Moscow @ 1991/1992 and being fascinated by the skills of Russian colleagues in translating words I and others spoke in what they sometimes referred to as 'compressed mode'.
So pleased to have made, passing, acquaintance with you Jerri via this thread.
This a helpful Jerri, thank you. I have always been curious to know if there might be a difference between translations where one or other language is dominant - therefore his sentence is fascinating - when the English is more precise than the Russian, the text is somehow flattened. It makes me wonder if we need 3D glasses (so to speak) to read the Chekhov stories, that there's another level of richness we can't appreciate in English (no matter how subjectively good the translation is). I spend a bit too much time obsessing over language choice - so it's also a relief to be reminded by George that we can still look at the meaning of the story through the experience of it.
What a beautiful and helpful comment!! Thank you so much for breaking this down. I relate very much to the feeling of English specificity "flattening" certain things -- I feel the same way with some French translations.
Happy Thanksgiving, Story Club! I am home with a sick kiddo and may be getting the sickness myself, so a very uneventful Thanksgiving in these parts this year.
Strangely enough, I found this page out of Dmitri Gurov's wife's diary. I think it holds up well in translation.
Dear Diary,
I have received a letter from Dmitri — he will be returning from Yalta post haste. :(
The children and I have enjoyed our respite from his inane musings while he has been gone. I have warned them that if they snicker or make japes at their father when he invariably starts a sentence with “As a philologist would say…” or “When I was training for the opera…” they will be required to stay home and have extra lessons instead of promenading at the park as they wish.
I shall meet Alexandr tonight, and we will continue our fascinating discussion about language reform and the subtleties of writing poems without using the hard sign. Then, as we are wont to do, we shall make deep and passionate love while staring intensely into each other's eyes — a far cry from Dmitri’s feeble and frantic thrusting.
Oh! And I almost forgot — I have taken note of Dmitri’s irritation at being called Dimitri. I believe I shall only call him Dimitri from now on, and perhaps that will hasten his departure. Having him home is an intolerably irksome situation.
It just occurred to me that I wrote Anton Chekhov fanfic... and if the phrase "Anton Chekhov fanfic" is not the nerdiest thing you've read all day, I don't know what is.
Haha! I've written Anton Chekhov fanfic in the past without even realising it could be considered nerdy. But there you go! I adore Chekhov. I can't explain why, except that he seems to pull out words from me like a cat unravelling a ball of wool.
If this is ACFF (Anton Chekove Fan Fic) bring it on ... more please Sara, more ..,, and did writing it ameliorate, perhaps even cure, the troublesome transient sickness?
These characters are getting too real to us but what a blast. Not a redundant word Sara; some Thanksgiving Gift to we Story Clubbers; hope your child and you shake off whatever is making sickness ascendant in your household.
FAO Graeme: surely the dog is with the lady ^^? She'll be promenading about a bit, feeling flat and bored, after Dmitri's premature departure from Yalta; now fully cognisant of the way it works; watching the fresh talent arrive off the docking ferry.
I can you find that white dog in the snow at this time of year? So next up about an important base for this love story. " The Dangerous Lover." It has haunted European culture for over 200 years^^
Thank you, Sara. This is brilliant. I hope Alexandr finds an opportunity to let slip to Dmitri how much fun they've been having, leaving Dmitri to wonder what he's done wrong. Or perhaps Dmitri won't care and everyone will live happily ever after.
I hope your kiddo is feeling better and you and the rest of the family avoid whatever it is.
Discovering lost diaries is a profitable way to spend an uneventful Thanksgiving. Great fun! Thanks! But I actually think it reads more like a letter to another character than a confiding diary entry...could we thicken the plot somehow?
This question of translation from one language to another is fascinating to me. We who write--we who spend hours, at times, making a sentence ring--we know that every word matters. For our words to be translated, which can't help but mean change--it seems it would be impossible for our true work to ever properly transfer. The translator becomes co-author of the work, bringing to it their own world view, no matter how hard an attempt is made to steer clear of one's own mind. So I love this question. I love knowing, as George has written here, that Chekhov, in his own language, is less gentle, more sarcastic. How would we, who read him only in English, ever know that? And what happens to a story when it's translated then? Meanings that were never....meant. Well, we do the best we can with the tools that we have, that's all. Story becomes more important than words, I guess.
My turkey is in the oven. Guests arrive in an hour. I miss my childhood and I miss my children's childhood. I miss my parents and all of my aunts and uncles with their yiddish accents. I miss the movies we used to make every year--murder mysteries! (The first one, when I was maybe 7, was called "The Not-So-Happy Thanksgiving" and in it my older brother was "murdered" with a butter knife.) But life goes on. I'm so thankful for this group of Story Clubbers, those of you who chime in around here, and those of you who choose to only read along. It's been so much fun to be able to talk about writing like this! And to talk about life. Thank you, all of you.
And to you, George, I send you my heartfelt thanks and my love. Without you, none of this would be possible. xo
Wordsworth wrote two versions of 'Daffodils'; so in a way he was, in composing the second, translator of the first.
Yes Boris Dralyuk, in translating 'My First Goose' steps up to deliver a modest co-authorship of the original, in this latest fine rendering for we non-Russian speaking English Language readers. Personally I think it takes nothing away from Isaac Babel's original but rather offers a nuanced rearrangement similar in its way to say Rimsky-Korakov's orchestration of Modest Mussorgsky's 'Dawn on the Moscow River' enriches the composer's original.
I trust when you get to reading this, assuming you happen to, that you will have good memories of a thoroughly enjoyable and fully digested Thanksgiving.
Had a wonderful Thanksgiving, Rob! Thank you for your message.
As far as Babel goes--well, we who don't know Russian actually can't know for certain if the translation took "nothing away from Babel's original." But Boris is so smart and so deep, I'm guessing his translation is as near to perfect as we are going to get!
I think that relevant judgement, in reading a translated narrative text, is whether it does or does not 'cut the mustard'? First time I noticed 'translation' was back in schooldays, aged 16/17 being asked to engage with Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales'. A scholarly fellow, name of Neville Coghill, was the translation I read, making Middle English come alive and even. indeed, making me interested in listening to 'The Prologue' read in Middle English.
The present English Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage, some years back made a superb English rendering of 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' and in addition to publishing it not only made a marvellous BBC, arts stream, documentary around it (which I know, from clear memory) and I seem to recall (from less reliable, fuzzy memory) even read his translation of this slice of the Arthurian Legend canon, at The Globe in Southwark on the Thames South Bank (which your countryman am Wanamaker 'translated' from dream to reality 👏 👏 👏)
Well, I am in bed with a heating pad and feeling miserable, cold, and achy… so the sickness got me. Almost impossible to avoid when I’ve been cuddling a feverish, coughing 6-year-old all week, I suppose.
I have nothing to do today other than lurk on Story Club - which isn’t a horrible way to spend a sick day.
Happy Thanksgiving to you as well, Mary. I hope your gathering went well. I know I speak for others when I say that in addition to George’s incomparable presence, Story Club has been a greater thing for your own presence as well. Thank you for all your contributions and kindnesses.
My Russian great grandfather died in scandalous circumstances when my grandfather was young. I think perhaps my grandfather's shame and youth created a kind of resistance to the old ways, and so the language was never passed to my father or to me (more's the pity). I think from a macro/story-structure level, the differences in translation do not matter so much - we still see character, movement, conflict, and change. But at the micro/sentence level, there's a different sort of nourishment to be gained. I'm always drawn back to our work on 'My First Goose' and I remember one of the Story Clubbers offered their own translation and noted that beauty could also be translated as glory - so that it wasn't just Savitsky's beautiful body, but glorious body. That changes the reading for me. I'm such a stickler for words - to my ear and mind there is a vast difference between glitter, glimmer, sparkle, and shine. Words come with baggage and bias - accreted over many years and thousands of stories. And words are consciously selected by authors to trigger this bias in the reader - 'her eyes glittered' (uh-oh, she's pissed), 'her eyes sparkled' (thank God; he bought her the right fountain pen). For the purposes of dissecting story, the translation probably doesn't matter as much; but for the purposes of reveling in the true brilliance of the author, I'd say the translation matters a lot.
:) It's a bit of a tragic story. One day I'll write it, but I want to do it right so that it has the kind of humanity we talk about here in Story Club and can hold conflicting realities and present them as authentic (i.e. allowing the reader to feel sympathy and anger simultaneously, and open up the reader to challenging their own ideas about love and fatherhood). Mostly I want to do it that way, because I don't want to disrespect any of the people involved (all long-past, and I would never dream of using their names or trying to write it hyper accurately for posterity's sake, but there's something about trying to capture real people and moments in fiction that sets this burden of responsibility to do it right - as if, even if no-one else knows who the story refers to, my ancestors will and will judge me poorly :)). Maybe I need to write it as an 'exploded non-fiction' book, like Michael Winkler did for (the brilliant) 'Grimmish'...
I’m so touched that my (emailed) question to George sparked this post on translation. George’s reply is sensible and refreshingly non-academic, which I truly appreciate. Partly what prompted my question is how the differing transitions are different enough that each has a different title: In our version, it’s “The Lady and the Dog,” while in my published version, it’s “The Lady and the Little Dog.” Slight difference, it would seem. But not really.
Here’s why, and why I think our version is better: One of my theories about this extraordinary story is that Gurov is actually the dog in Chekhov’s title--not Anna’s Pomeranian. I think the story’s fundamental question is not “Will Anna and Gurov find love?” but rather, “Will Gurov change from being a (horn)dog with women and begin to respect at least this one woman, and then maybe perhaps begin to learn to love her?”
The first section we discussed from last Sunday establishes, I think, all of Gurov’s dog-like characteristics, laid out pretty clearly. What transpires in sections 2-4 are his shifts away from this state of mind, toward a state of real potential personal change. (An interesting side note is that the story is structured similarly to Chekhov’s plays, also in four acts.)
Litvinov’s title preserves the possibility of reading the story in that light. The Pevear/Volokhonsky version’s “The Lady with the Little Dog” doesn’t do that--nor does Yarmolinsky’s, which has “The Lady with the Little Dog”(!)....so another thing to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day, beyond the Story Club community and George’s wonderful teachings, is that we had this translation, which opens things up, rather than close them off.
I like your take Robert. Gurov as 'The Lady's Lap Dog? I can see it and hear those 'people' about Yalta gossiping about this very, perceived, point. Especially if, by any stretch of the imagination, the literal English translation of Gurov came out something like "Randy, as a Gypsy's Whippet".
Me, playing devil's advocate here: Is the title The Lady AND the Dog or is it The Lady WITH the Dog? One little word makes so much of a difference! The Lady AND the Dog plays well into your theory. The Lady WITH the Dog--well, it could still be that the Dog is Gurov, but it plays less well for me. It seems to mean in this version that she is a lady WITH a pomeranian. Still, I do agree with you that Gurov is very dog-like in the start of the story!
And where did the 'pet' dog come from in some translations? And why did Chekov choose to specify the dog that trots, tamely but somehow also threateningly, along behind the lady, as being not only a pomeranian but a white pomeranian?
Boy but this a whole can of, endless, questions that George has pitched at us to chew on. Phew 😰.
Interesting discussion! I can’t say anything about Russian, but I can say something about German-English translation, being an American expat in Germany who has professionally translated for decades.
One year, my German mother-in-law gave me a book for my birthday: the German translation of Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. I started reading it and enjoying it. When I was about a third to halfway through, however, I started wondering what it was like in English, so I bought the original version.
McCourt’s tone was so much more stinging and bitter, it took my breath away. The strange thing was that the German translator was quite renowned. But he did not manage to capture the tone of the original.
I’ve had other experiences like this. It is a dilemma when you don’t know the original language – you definitely miss something.
This is exactly what i worry/wonder about when i read a translation--that the translator (even a very good one) won't capture something crucial that was in the original.
I wish this were limited to translations. Not capturing, or communicating, the intended essence of the message has sent humans spinning off into trouble forever hasn’t it? Missed opportunities. Imagined sleights. Wars. Consider the old saying, “it’s not what you say but how you say it.” Anyway my point is that translations are maybe a second layer problem, a compounding of our already limited capacities to communicate well. It’s the ‘telephone game.’ Even without the language barrier we’re pretty bad at repeating (or understanding well) the words of others.
I couldn't agree with you more. When Boris Dralyuk responded to George's questions, I was struck with the energy he brings into his translating. I perceive that he does his best to feel the energy of what's on the page with the energy he feels while translating it into another language. Could we just call it active listening?
I have a Bantam paperback, A Doctor’s Visit: Short Stories by Anton Chekhov which are edited and with an Introduction by Tobias Wolff. I think I picked it up because I wanted to read Wolff’s introduction. The Lady with the Pet Dog is in there using the Yarmolinsky translation. On the subject of translation I recently found a beautiful hard bound copy of Mark Twain’s The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County in which Twain complains that the French do not find him much of a humorist. So in this book he includes the French translation then he translates that back into English where you can see his use of voice and American folksy jargon becomes plain and tedious. Interesting to think what Americans do not translate well.
That is so funny. I'm imagining a modern Twain using Google Translate, going back and forth between English and French... you just know that would come out odd and stilted.
Happy Thanksgiving, all! So interesting to read that, in Russian, Chekhov comes across a bit sharper. In this story and in The Darling, he was sharp, to me, even in translation. In The Cart, I felt he loved Marya, bitter as she was. In the other two, I didn't feel that at all, I got a - wouldn't call it sarcastic, rather an almost superior tone - she is limited and he lets us know it. And at the end, I was sad and angry at her blindness about the boy, whom she is using for her own emotional ends with no thought of him. In this one, I definitely get the bitter twist on Dmitri. Sarcastic, sharp. Until really the last few paragraphs where the biter is bitten and begins to wake up. But essentially I still think the two "lovers" deserve each other and hope, and believe, they are learning something from the turn of the screw. His style certainly doesn't have the twists of Gogol, or Babel, for that matter (I read My First Goose in three translations) and it may be plain, but it is stunningly pure and that's not just this translation. I spent the day Tues in my husband's heart clinic while he underwent his many many annual tests, and since I couldn't print out the version George sent us, I took Constance Garnet's. There might be some word differences, but the sense, the flow, the power were the same. My favorite Chekhov, incidentally, is Gooseberries, which I had to read four times before I "got" it, and then really only with George's help. But the richness, the people, the landscape, all are to me quite fabulous. I long to dive into a mill pond and whoop - in the rain. And after that, I couldn't help but love that character.
Your post here led me to this pretty fascinating essay she wrote that includes her rules for translating: https://yalereview.org/article/loaf-or-hot-water-bottle (Scroll down to a bit past halfway if you just want to see the rules.)
One of my friends, Sofie Verraest -- who I met at one of George Saunders' workshops in Patmos, Greece -- actually translates her work and has a delightful interview with her here:
"August 3, 2018 was a proud day on planet earth for me. Lydia Davis thought my translation was “fine.” I had an e-mail to prove it. I will repeat it was Lydia Davis who held this opinion. She “particularly liked” how “certain phrases work better in Dutch” and were “somehow more comical,” something I’d noticed as well. It was a beautiful summer day. I considered retiring."
I feel so sad for Lydia Davis over the recent loss of her son--a tragic story. When it happened, it seemed most of the press was on her former husband, Paul Auster and his current wife, Siri Hustvedt. Lydia Davis fell to the background, but I felt her there, aching.
It was interesting to see the Russian word for turkey, Индейка, which could be transliterated as indyeika which gives a hint to its etymology which indicates that the word is related to India, similar to the French deinde which means from India. The fact that the English word is the same as the country is also not a coincidence: the turkey, being an exotic bird when first brought to Europe was given a number of fanciful origins. The Spanish word, pavo, comes from the Latin for peafowl and can be used for that bird as well although pavo real (royal peafowl) is more common. Some regional Spanish dialects retain the indigenous names for the bird, e.g., guajolote in Mexico.
I am far from a linguist but had an interesting encounter with an awful Jorge Luis Borges translation recently. It was an ebook version of The Garden of Branching Paths that seemed to have been translated by an anonymous intern at an Argentine publishing house. It was not only riddled with typos but the translator had also massacred the beautiful rhythm of the original. My Spanish reading is only so so but by comparing the translation to the original it was also clear the translator had completely changed some sections, not just altering descriptions but actions and objects too.
I looked and I have about four different translators for Borges. The most jarring was when I went back and reread the Yates, from the 1960s and how weirdly slangy it was compared to the Coleman translations from the late 1990s.
Isn't it interesting how much of a difference it makes? Seems to show how much art goes into translation and therefore the switch to a different language creates something of a veil between us non- or half-speakers and the original
This translation is wonderful. It has completely changed my mind about 'The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim', which I struggled to read in Hurley's translation, but which takes on a different poetry and accessibility in di Giovanni's. Thanks so much for posting!
So glad you like it! Agree it's wonderful. Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius is one of the strangest stories I've read but really blew me away in this translation.
It's funny when you speak of translation. My parents came here from Holland in 1956. When I was in grade 11, maybe 12, I came home with a copy of THE THREE MUSKETEERS. My father said he wanted to read it. I said: It thought you already read it? He said he did, bit it was a Dutch translation, now he wanted to read the English translation. The man was an avid reader. And now, almost fifty years later, I find myself wondering which version he liked better: the Dutch or the English? My question to myself is why I didn't ask him. Then again, I was 17, and what 17 year old thinks of the obvious?
Being Dutch, and often having been amazed with the muliti-lingual talents of Netherlanders, I'm wondering did he ever read it in the French original text of Dumas? Did you ever happen to ask him?
Sadly no. His education was cut short. I remember he told me he was working by the time he was 16. School was over. That would've been in 1934. But there was a library. He said he and his brother read every book in there. That could be a father boasting just to impress his kid into reading, though.
I am fascinated by translation, with French the language I can manage best. After finally reading Stuart Gilbert's translation of Camus's "The Plague," I plunged into reading it in French. And was APPALLED, HORRIFIED, AND ANGRY to discover that on a very early page, Gilbert actually INSERTED a sentence that absolutely did not appear anywhere in the original. How DARE he?! I found a different translation (Robin Buss) and was much happier - he stuck by Camus. Then, I read that Pevear and Volokhonsky work by Volokhonsky doing a very literal, word-by-word translation from the Russian, and then Pevear reshapes it into smoother English. English is interesting in that - as another commenter mentions "glitter, shine, sparkle," etc. - it developed out of a mishmash of many different languages of different origins, so often has more words to choose from that may have subtly different meanings or connotations. So with P & V, if Tolstoy used the words "dripping" or "dripped" multiple times in a passage, V would keep that as written, and P would retain it. Constance Garnett might mix up the "drips" with dribbles or spatters or drops so as not to be repetitive. Which is "correct"? I don't know. I read Bob Blaisdell's engaging "Creating Anna Karenina," and I asked him how he selected the Garnett translation as the reference text for that book, as her translations have rather fallen out of favor or fashion. He said, "Because it's freely available online so anyone can jump in and consult it on the spot, and it serves that purpose just fine."
Lydia Davis's collection "Essays Two" is largely about translation. She tries to follow the original verbiage so closely as to even try to match the number of syllables and even the occurrence of some of the same letters within the English word she selects. I've also read somewhere that a translator's goal might be to reproduce the story as if the writer of the original had simply written the story in English. As many times as I have watched the wonderful Clouzot film "Quai des Orfevres," I STILL cannot follow long bits of dialog in French because of all the "gangster / cop" slang and idiom.
I'm currently plowing through a new book about the cemetery of Pere Lachaise in Paris in French because it hasn't been translated yet and I wanted to read it. And even though I mostly want to get the main content understood, I want to tinker with his sentences - sometimes he sounds pedantic, then he'll make a little joke, then write an endless sentence with a dozen clauses all separated by commas, and I'm thinking, wow, I really don't get how he FEELS about some things, or is he just not a very skillful writer... or am I missing something? I could make him sound more colloquial OR more academic OR slightly grumpy OR with a bit of dry wit - depending on the words I choose to replace his!
And George, I LOVED the "translation" exercise you posed in Swim in a Pond. You supplied a sentence in English from a Russian original, and then asked how many different ways could we "translate" that line simply into other words in English.How would the different versions sound or feel? How did the rhythms or sounds or sentence structure change the images or feelings evoked by one little sentence describing a bench beneath some trees in a park?
Translation... infinite choices, and no ONE right one! It's wonderful.
You wrote this: "I read that Pevear and Volokhonsky work by Volokhonsky doing a very literal, word-by-word translation from the Russian, and then Pevear reshapes it into smoother English." Does that mean that Pevear did not speak Russian? So he was dependent on Volokhonsky? That is just fascinating! I once took a translation workshop. We were given, for example, short poems in Japanese. The poems were translated word-by-word by someone else, in the order they sat on the page--and then we took those words and worked them into a poem, similar to what you are describing above. It was the MOST fun! I loved it! But i never in a million years would i have guessed that some translations of real works were composed that way--by someone who doesn't know the language they are translating from!
Pevear does indeed speak / read Russian, and has taught Russian literature and translation (and has done his own translation work from several other languages as well!). But Volokhonsky's native language is Russian, so they just established this "division of labor" between themselves. They are married and live in Paris. She writes the first literal draft, with a lot of notes and comments. He then works her draft over with the original Russian in hand, and then they create a third draft together. What a partnership! And their kids are all trilingual...
After an unanticipated warm and thoughtful conversation with mostly new friends at dinner today, finding a post from GS on Story Club adds more richness to the evening. Thanks as always. Just wanted to ask perhaps the obvious on this line: "...essentially, when we are writing, we are “translating” some mental image into language - an image that could be expressed in an infinite number of ways." My thought on this is to ask if, when you are writing or creating a character and how you imagine them "to be," to wonder that your "feeling" of what they feel and what leads to the language you give them arguably could come before "some mental image"? This isn't asked very well, but the notion of a specifically "_mental image_" and not a _bodily feeling_ (which phrase may may be redundant) makes me ask how your _feeling_ as author about your character's feeling gets to the word-filled "page." (p.s., I am the social science person who is not a writer of fiction but does "write" people, so to speak.) Thanks for considering.
There is so much mystery and story inside of this(!): "After an unanticipated warm and thoughtful conversation with mostly new friends at dinner today...."
Mary, wow! You are so right. I was still a bit "buzzed" from it when I began to post, which perhaps helped that along, even though ostensibly unrelated (perhaps) to what I tried to write. A gift from you that sensed the richness of the time that my words indexed. Thank you.
Hi Joseph. I really liked this question and it got me thinking about how George has said many times in his comments, podcasts, etc, that we sometimes have to just see what the character does, or what they want to be. In other words, there is perhaps a point at which it no longer matters how the author conjured them but instead how they evolve. Not sure I’m saying this clearly enough (maybe somebody should translate !) but I’m implying that the character takes on a personality and agency of their own. Obviously, the author creates them, but then there is some weird alchemy by which they start suggesting their own direction.
I think Joseph that a writer, of a fine short fiction, is somewhat the midwife to a story that will out, with or without help.
BTW: what is 'the social person that you are?' Not being trite, in the least. What is not creative about such social science constructs as 'class' and 'caste', 'ritual' and 'religion', 'right' and 'wrong'?
Rob, thanks your response. My question poorly formed. I meant by "social science person" who "writes people" that, unlike fiction, as I understand it, social science writing (sociology, anthropology, e.g., of a non-quantitative sort) is supposed to "re-present" (translate?) the interviewee, primarily using their words, spoken or written, into writing that offers an "accurate" ("valid" and "reliable" [all sorts of problems with these words and their assumptions but I won't go there now]) and documented description of "who they really are." I'm sure you know this. The license for creating a character in fiction writing, I assume, is less limiting but, in that, more demanding of the author (which is one of the great things I have learned more about by being in Story Club). The thing that got me posting was really a question, the answer to which perhaps seems obvious, about how authors are moved by their own, bodily feelings about their characters's feelings that get rendered into what they say and do, "on the page." As GS has said, "hard to talk about." Seems like another level of translation in fiction writing that, no doubt, can be over-analyzed yet fundamental.
And thank you for this expanded articulation of what underpins your comment Joseph.
Social science - whether leaning more towards quantitative or towards qualitative approaches - has always seemed to me to rely on 'imaginative, evidenced, interpretation'. It is all too often, take economic trend projection or opining on what the focus groups are telling us, arguably not much more than a modern versioning of crystal ball gazing. 'Take with a judicious pinch of salt' should be a legally required advice, akin to advice on possible side-effects of taking licensed and prescribed pharmaceutical products.
As for George Saunders why he seems to be the walking, talking, writing antidote to over-analysis.
*Edited comment just to rake out a type and stray, orphaned, redundant sentence start.
Kate, I love Literary Disco. Tod is a near neighbor of mine here in Indio, and so wonderful to hear his comments about George. “Sometimes, when you meet your heroes...”
Friendly former Russian Studies major (some decades ago) and diplomat with three years at the US Embassy in Moscow here. I'm no Boris Dralyuk, but can speak to the difference for me personally between reading Russian stories in the original and reading them in translation.
First: One can absolutely both enjoy and learn things about writing, human nature, Russia, and Russian culture from reading any decently translated Russian story. Any solid translation will give you the significant aspects of the story that tap into our common humanity, and insight into how good short stories in the Western tradition work.
From my perspective, here are three of the things that can be (but perhaps are not always) lost when reading any translation from Russian to English.
The first, as George mentions, is some degree of tone—the writer's attitude both toward the subject, and toward the story's theoretical audience. Chekhov was not writing for you and me: we bring our own baggage to our reading, and whatever our baggage might be, it is not that of the Russian intelligentsia of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I think he might be amazed at our discussions of his work, his stories' staying power, and the reverence we have for so much of his work. Tone is present in the language of the story, both in syntax and word choice. Because Russian doesn't work the way English works, and because many Russian words aren't one-for-one cognates with English words, some of the tone slips away, (Further to this: it's correct that Chekhov and Tolstoy are written more simply than Dostoyevsky, Gogol', and especially contemporary Russian writers; less tone is lost.)
Second is nuance. English has about 171,500 words, give or take a few hundred. Standard Russian has about 150,000. An educated person has a working vocabulary of maybe 10,000, give or take a couple of thousand. Pushkin used about 21,000 in his writing! A single Russian word might have multiple possible translations in English: there's not always a one-for-one correlation. Sometimes a single Russian word is like a large vessel holding several possible meanings that engage with each other, and that's part of the pleasure of reading it well. But the translator has to choose a replacement word in English, and in choosing exercises both personal preference for a particular English word and personal understanding of the context in which the word is found. To my mind, when the English is more precise than the Russian, the text is somehow flattened. Non-native speakers of Russian also miss some of this sense of nuance, even when reading a story in the original.
And third, for me, are the aspects of language that enhance the story being told: syntax, word construction and word choice, the rhythms of the words themselves, and (related to nuance, above) their linguistic and cultural connotations. Russian has a base of about 40,000 root words [trauma flashback here to stacks and stacks of 3X5 index cards!] , and they're used at different frequencies than root words making up English. Russian often also borrows words from different languages than English does. I think I'd rather beat myself to death with a dull rock than try to reproduce the magic of Pushkin's or Akhmatova's poetry in English. It could lead me only to despair! Those aspects of language may not be critical to the reader of a short story who's dissecting it in the way George does in A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, but a poet or someone who has a love affair with the music of language will not have the same experience reading a Russian story in translation as in the original.
So: To me, the translation does matter; but I also come at it as a non-native speaker with a moderate "working proficiency" in Russian, and know that I don't bring any particular expertise to the experience of reading a Russian story in the original—my undergrad GPA is proof that I...didn't have any special insight into Russian literature! ;)
Hope that's helpful.
Incredibly helpful & interesting, Jerri - thanks so much for this.
Thanks Jerri. Your personal insight here is priceless. I like that you mentioned Tone and Context. There is so much in play beyond the words. As I mentioned in a different reply to Mary, consider the phrase most of us heard growing up: “it’s not what you say but how you say it.” Your comment also made me think about Zoom. Look at how much tone and context fell away from our communication with each other as people were reduced to boxes on a screen. People we already knew. A language we already knew. And yet….breakdown of connection and confusion about the tone of a message. Really, really interesting….
Yes, Zoom. Communicating that way is hard on the brain, so much is lost–– thankfully I don't have to do it often, but my friends that do Zoom for work worry a bit about how things look, how they look, the lighting, how the background looks. I'm not sure the human brain should be "split" that way, at least not when thinking through issues or talking about concepts. Also there's a strange thing that happens when you worry you'll interrupt someone.
Interesting. I'm an (exclusively) online English language tutor, and I actually feel quite the opposite, for tuition. I certainly agree that something is lost, but for some purposes, that's a good thing. Online, here in central Europe, students and myself drop pretenses very quickly, and focus on the language much more readily. In a face-to-face lesson, I find, students are much more prone to consider how they look (not for me; for each other), their manner, the smell of their breath (!) etc. Sat at home, they're more comfortable and grounded. Granted, this is probably not the kind of work you're referencing, but thought I'd throw it in as an interesting counter.
It's funny, I'm thrilled with my Zoom yoga class, which used to be in person, for all the things you list. I've known the teacher and other students for 25 years now, so we're all comfortable. I can imagine that a one on one Zoom or Facetime is easier than a large group, (say more than five people) for an English language class.
Should note that I'm only advocating for the efficacy of online communication in this single context, however =)
Yes there’s a strange thing that happens with serial conversation vs interactive. In person there are so many more cues, which allow us more moves. An eyebrow can say it all. On the computer screen we wait, and perhaps choose more carefully, and yet communicate more poorly. I think there’s something in there that relates to translation. On a related note, I read something in a Morgan Freeman interview about Seven. Apparently he read a passage in the script then told the director something like this, “I can do all this with a look. The words are overkill.”
It's the cues, yes. The whole body might lean forward when speaking or about to say something. The little box on Zoom doesn't allow for that.
Actors can make a script sing! Love the story about Denzel Washington.
Oops. The actor was Morgan Freeman. My mistake...I just edited my comment to correct this.
Thank you, Jerri! This is great information--also, a bit....depressing? There's already so much breakdown in communication between humans who speak the same language! But to think how much nuance goes out the window when we read a translation... And you bring up yet another great point--that non-native speakers also miss out on some of a work's meaning. When I read any of the Russians that we discuss here in SC, I always think of the writer at his desk (so far we've read only males), carefully choosing his words, structure, rhythm--all of which adds to a story's meaning, its unity. And then so much of it is lost in translation! We are left with a strange version--and i sometimes wonder if our analysis is therefore off-base and/or lacking in depth.
All of this makes so much sense - especially the difference between translating poetry versus prose. As someone raised with 2-3 other languages in addition to English, I've found prose translations to be adequate even if losing some of the tone, but poetry has felt dead to read in English after having read the original - poets spend so much time agonizing over their choice of words and when there are no easy one-to-one correlates, it definitely has a big impact. Perhaps reading a few different translations helps triangulate what the original was trying to say?
Hard for me to judge because I can read just a little French in the original, but reading Neruda and even some Russian poets in English, I find myself moved and astonished over and over.
Agreed, Cynthia - I've read translations of poems translated from other languages that I don't know and really enjoyed the poems. I guess what I meant to say is that till I read the translations of poems from a language that I know did I see how hard it is to translate the beauty in poetry. Am advocating for more translations I suppose to be able to see what each translator/translation brings to the original - especially with poetry.
Thank you! The difference between translated prose and translated poetry is something I have thought about a lot. In a way, it's hard for me to imagine any poetry is truly translatable.
Sara,
I think that's probably true, though I also think all translation exists in some liminal space, and within such spaces, creativity (on the part of the translator and the reader) thrives. In a way, poetry also occupies that space. A poem reaches to capture/hold a moment, the world, but never quite arrives. It's a collaboration between writer, reader and the page. Which is so great!
Thanks, Jerri. This is a small point, but I'm wondering what we are to make of Dmitry's wife's omission of the "hard sign" at the end of words in her letters and her calling him Dimitry rather than Dmitry.
My guess (and it is only a guess based on some tangential knowledge of Russian culture) is that this is supposed to indicate a "progressive" woman for the times, one who is not a keeper of the domestic hearth and the good old ways,not necessarily an intellectual, but one who pulls away from the old-fashioned, masculine world that her husband prefers, and is desexed in his eyes, which is why he would prefer someone elegant, feminine, younger.
Thank you. That certainly seems plausible given the context. Those quirks would undoubtedly have signified something about her to Chekov's contemporaries, but we can only guess. Regardless of what may be lost to us, the story remains a particular favorite of mine.
Your comment is super interesting and helpful - thanks!
"Jeez Jerri, thank you so much. And I have a question, if I may? It's this: Chekhov, dear Anton, was writing not speaking 'The Lady with the Dog'. Would his diction have closely resembled his written prose or could it, perhaps, have rendered the same story somewhat differently?"
Rob, if there's a recording of Chekhov speaking somewhere I'm not aware of it (though the technology certainly existed—I've seen video of an elderly Tolstoy on his estate). Probably the closest one can come would be to read his private letters, which I'm sure are collected somewhere! In the meantime, you might enjoy this lovely little essay on Chekhov the man, written by Boris Fishman for LitHub: https://lithub.com/everything-you-think-you-know-about-chekhov-is-wrong/
Thak you so very much for signposting me to https://lithub.com/everything-you-think-you-know-about-chekhov-is-wrong/ .
What an essay; what a timely signposting; what a confidence building piece.
Starting with the last, I've found myself realising and relishing the earthiness that I've discovered in reading Chekov's 'The Lady with the Dog' this time around. I've written comment, frankly, with raw Anglo-Saxon word choices foreground and find that, no shock jock, I'm on the money: Anton was what is commonly described as 'a ladies man', who may even, who knows been in the mind of Leornard Cohen as a he strung the words together that made the lyrics of some of his greatest songs and perhaps even shaped his album 'Death of a Ladies Man'. Gurov, and indeed the Yalta Summer Crowd, strike me as necrotic characters.
Timely? Because it is a beautiful gateway into advancing comprehension of the icon that is 'Chekhov'. The man is much more than the terrifying, all-time classic of Russian and World Literature that is 'Chekov'. Couldn'a ha' come to me - and other Story Clubbers happening to pass a reading eye this way - at a better time (having started to make acquaintance with George while swimming around that pond in the rain trying to keep my copy of 'In the Cart' dry and now doing work with him on 'The Lady and the Dog')
Essay? The most exemplary example of the form I've read in some time, and I've only read it once, on the fly from reading your signpost, so have much to mine from revisiting it.
And just to say, that underlying my reason for asking about comparisons between Russian as written and Russian as spoken are memories of being in Moscow @ 1991/1992 and being fascinated by the skills of Russian colleagues in translating words I and others spoke in what they sometimes referred to as 'compressed mode'.
So pleased to have made, passing, acquaintance with you Jerri via this thread.
This a helpful Jerri, thank you. I have always been curious to know if there might be a difference between translations where one or other language is dominant - therefore his sentence is fascinating - when the English is more precise than the Russian, the text is somehow flattened. It makes me wonder if we need 3D glasses (so to speak) to read the Chekhov stories, that there's another level of richness we can't appreciate in English (no matter how subjectively good the translation is). I spend a bit too much time obsessing over language choice - so it's also a relief to be reminded by George that we can still look at the meaning of the story through the experience of it.
What a beautiful and helpful comment!! Thank you so much for breaking this down. I relate very much to the feeling of English specificity "flattening" certain things -- I feel the same way with some French translations.
Jealous of your Russian knowledge!
wonderful to have this insight, thank you!
The music of your words^^
Happy Thanksgiving, Story Club! I am home with a sick kiddo and may be getting the sickness myself, so a very uneventful Thanksgiving in these parts this year.
Strangely enough, I found this page out of Dmitri Gurov's wife's diary. I think it holds up well in translation.
Dear Diary,
I have received a letter from Dmitri — he will be returning from Yalta post haste. :(
The children and I have enjoyed our respite from his inane musings while he has been gone. I have warned them that if they snicker or make japes at their father when he invariably starts a sentence with “As a philologist would say…” or “When I was training for the opera…” they will be required to stay home and have extra lessons instead of promenading at the park as they wish.
I shall meet Alexandr tonight, and we will continue our fascinating discussion about language reform and the subtleties of writing poems without using the hard sign. Then, as we are wont to do, we shall make deep and passionate love while staring intensely into each other's eyes — a far cry from Dmitri’s feeble and frantic thrusting.
Oh! And I almost forgot — I have taken note of Dmitri’s irritation at being called Dimitri. I believe I shall only call him Dimitri from now on, and perhaps that will hasten his departure. Having him home is an intolerably irksome situation.
It just occurred to me that I wrote Anton Chekhov fanfic... and if the phrase "Anton Chekhov fanfic" is not the nerdiest thing you've read all day, I don't know what is.
Haha! I've written Anton Chekhov fanfic in the past without even realising it could be considered nerdy. But there you go! I adore Chekhov. I can't explain why, except that he seems to pull out words from me like a cat unravelling a ball of wool.
🧵 🐈 ⁉ "What's with the thread? Where's the ball of 🐑? Meoww" 😹
If this is ACFF (Anton Chekove Fan Fic) bring it on ... more please Sara, more ..,, and did writing it ameliorate, perhaps even cure, the troublesome transient sickness?
Sadly, no cure. Now my whole family is sick and miserable… but we are staying cozy and having lots of screen time so we are managing our way through.
‘Tis the season!
These characters are getting too real to us but what a blast. Not a redundant word Sara; some Thanksgiving Gift to we Story Clubbers; hope your child and you shake off whatever is making sickness ascendant in your household.
FAO Graeme: surely the dog is with the lady ^^? She'll be promenading about a bit, feeling flat and bored, after Dmitri's premature departure from Yalta; now fully cognisant of the way it works; watching the fresh talent arrive off the docking ferry.
Ha! Yes!
I can you find that white dog in the snow at this time of year? So next up about an important base for this love story. " The Dangerous Lover." It has haunted European culture for over 200 years^^
How can you
"Les Liaisons Dangereuses? Ah qui mon ami 👻❕"
It all starts with questions..even when your fixing things^^
you are^^
I'm laughing as I peck!^^
Thank you, Sara. This is brilliant. I hope Alexandr finds an opportunity to let slip to Dmitri how much fun they've been having, leaving Dmitri to wonder what he's done wrong. Or perhaps Dmitri won't care and everyone will live happily ever after.
I hope your kiddo is feeling better and you and the rest of the family avoid whatever it is.
Hope you feel better soon! Love the insight into the other side of Gurov’s so-called life!!
Discovering lost diaries is a profitable way to spend an uneventful Thanksgiving. Great fun! Thanks! But I actually think it reads more like a letter to another character than a confiding diary entry...could we thicken the plot somehow?
Hope you keep well and the kiddo soon recovered.
Where was the dog?^^
This question of translation from one language to another is fascinating to me. We who write--we who spend hours, at times, making a sentence ring--we know that every word matters. For our words to be translated, which can't help but mean change--it seems it would be impossible for our true work to ever properly transfer. The translator becomes co-author of the work, bringing to it their own world view, no matter how hard an attempt is made to steer clear of one's own mind. So I love this question. I love knowing, as George has written here, that Chekhov, in his own language, is less gentle, more sarcastic. How would we, who read him only in English, ever know that? And what happens to a story when it's translated then? Meanings that were never....meant. Well, we do the best we can with the tools that we have, that's all. Story becomes more important than words, I guess.
My turkey is in the oven. Guests arrive in an hour. I miss my childhood and I miss my children's childhood. I miss my parents and all of my aunts and uncles with their yiddish accents. I miss the movies we used to make every year--murder mysteries! (The first one, when I was maybe 7, was called "The Not-So-Happy Thanksgiving" and in it my older brother was "murdered" with a butter knife.) But life goes on. I'm so thankful for this group of Story Clubbers, those of you who chime in around here, and those of you who choose to only read along. It's been so much fun to be able to talk about writing like this! And to talk about life. Thank you, all of you.
And to you, George, I send you my heartfelt thanks and my love. Without you, none of this would be possible. xo
Wordsworth wrote two versions of 'Daffodils'; so in a way he was, in composing the second, translator of the first.
Yes Boris Dralyuk, in translating 'My First Goose' steps up to deliver a modest co-authorship of the original, in this latest fine rendering for we non-Russian speaking English Language readers. Personally I think it takes nothing away from Isaac Babel's original but rather offers a nuanced rearrangement similar in its way to say Rimsky-Korakov's orchestration of Modest Mussorgsky's 'Dawn on the Moscow River' enriches the composer's original.
I trust when you get to reading this, assuming you happen to, that you will have good memories of a thoroughly enjoyable and fully digested Thanksgiving.
Had a wonderful Thanksgiving, Rob! Thank you for your message.
As far as Babel goes--well, we who don't know Russian actually can't know for certain if the translation took "nothing away from Babel's original." But Boris is so smart and so deep, I'm guessing his translation is as near to perfect as we are going to get!
I think that relevant judgement, in reading a translated narrative text, is whether it does or does not 'cut the mustard'? First time I noticed 'translation' was back in schooldays, aged 16/17 being asked to engage with Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales'. A scholarly fellow, name of Neville Coghill, was the translation I read, making Middle English come alive and even. indeed, making me interested in listening to 'The Prologue' read in Middle English.
The present English Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage, some years back made a superb English rendering of 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' and in addition to publishing it not only made a marvellous BBC, arts stream, documentary around it (which I know, from clear memory) and I seem to recall (from less reliable, fuzzy memory) even read his translation of this slice of the Arthurian Legend canon, at The Globe in Southwark on the Thames South Bank (which your countryman am Wanamaker 'translated' from dream to reality 👏 👏 👏)
Happy Thanksgiving, Mary. ❤️
thanks, Sara! Hope you ended up staying well and that your child is feeling better!
Well, I am in bed with a heating pad and feeling miserable, cold, and achy… so the sickness got me. Almost impossible to avoid when I’ve been cuddling a feverish, coughing 6-year-old all week, I suppose.
I have nothing to do today other than lurk on Story Club - which isn’t a horrible way to spend a sick day.
oh, no! I'm so sorry! Hope it all passes quickly. Absolutely no fun to be sick AND have a sick kid....
Happy Thanksgiving to you as well, Mary. I hope your gathering went well. I know I speak for others when I say that in addition to George’s incomparable presence, Story Club has been a greater thing for your own presence as well. Thank you for all your contributions and kindnesses.
Lee, thanks so much. And I will say the same back to you! So lovely to meet, discuss, learn, and laugh with you here!
My Russian great grandfather died in scandalous circumstances when my grandfather was young. I think perhaps my grandfather's shame and youth created a kind of resistance to the old ways, and so the language was never passed to my father or to me (more's the pity). I think from a macro/story-structure level, the differences in translation do not matter so much - we still see character, movement, conflict, and change. But at the micro/sentence level, there's a different sort of nourishment to be gained. I'm always drawn back to our work on 'My First Goose' and I remember one of the Story Clubbers offered their own translation and noted that beauty could also be translated as glory - so that it wasn't just Savitsky's beautiful body, but glorious body. That changes the reading for me. I'm such a stickler for words - to my ear and mind there is a vast difference between glitter, glimmer, sparkle, and shine. Words come with baggage and bias - accreted over many years and thousands of stories. And words are consciously selected by authors to trigger this bias in the reader - 'her eyes glittered' (uh-oh, she's pissed), 'her eyes sparkled' (thank God; he bought her the right fountain pen). For the purposes of dissecting story, the translation probably doesn't matter as much; but for the purposes of reveling in the true brilliance of the author, I'd say the translation matters a lot.
I want to know about your great grandfather! My brother speaks, reads and writes (legal stuff) Russian. I wish I did.
:) It's a bit of a tragic story. One day I'll write it, but I want to do it right so that it has the kind of humanity we talk about here in Story Club and can hold conflicting realities and present them as authentic (i.e. allowing the reader to feel sympathy and anger simultaneously, and open up the reader to challenging their own ideas about love and fatherhood). Mostly I want to do it that way, because I don't want to disrespect any of the people involved (all long-past, and I would never dream of using their names or trying to write it hyper accurately for posterity's sake, but there's something about trying to capture real people and moments in fiction that sets this burden of responsibility to do it right - as if, even if no-one else knows who the story refers to, my ancestors will and will judge me poorly :)). Maybe I need to write it as an 'exploded non-fiction' book, like Michael Winkler did for (the brilliant) 'Grimmish'...
I agree. That part is a challenge for memoir, keeping the humanity and compassion with deeply flawed real life (perhaps long dead) people.
So well put, Mikhaeyla!
I’m so touched that my (emailed) question to George sparked this post on translation. George’s reply is sensible and refreshingly non-academic, which I truly appreciate. Partly what prompted my question is how the differing transitions are different enough that each has a different title: In our version, it’s “The Lady and the Dog,” while in my published version, it’s “The Lady and the Little Dog.” Slight difference, it would seem. But not really.
Here’s why, and why I think our version is better: One of my theories about this extraordinary story is that Gurov is actually the dog in Chekhov’s title--not Anna’s Pomeranian. I think the story’s fundamental question is not “Will Anna and Gurov find love?” but rather, “Will Gurov change from being a (horn)dog with women and begin to respect at least this one woman, and then maybe perhaps begin to learn to love her?”
The first section we discussed from last Sunday establishes, I think, all of Gurov’s dog-like characteristics, laid out pretty clearly. What transpires in sections 2-4 are his shifts away from this state of mind, toward a state of real potential personal change. (An interesting side note is that the story is structured similarly to Chekhov’s plays, also in four acts.)
Litvinov’s title preserves the possibility of reading the story in that light. The Pevear/Volokhonsky version’s “The Lady with the Little Dog” doesn’t do that--nor does Yarmolinsky’s, which has “The Lady with the Little Dog”(!)....so another thing to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day, beyond the Story Club community and George’s wonderful teachings, is that we had this translation, which opens things up, rather than close them off.
I like your take Robert. Gurov as 'The Lady's Lap Dog? I can see it and hear those 'people' about Yalta gossiping about this very, perceived, point. Especially if, by any stretch of the imagination, the literal English translation of Gurov came out something like "Randy, as a Gypsy's Whippet".
Me, playing devil's advocate here: Is the title The Lady AND the Dog or is it The Lady WITH the Dog? One little word makes so much of a difference! The Lady AND the Dog plays well into your theory. The Lady WITH the Dog--well, it could still be that the Dog is Gurov, but it plays less well for me. It seems to mean in this version that she is a lady WITH a pomeranian. Still, I do agree with you that Gurov is very dog-like in the start of the story!
And where did the 'pet' dog come from in some translations? And why did Chekov choose to specify the dog that trots, tamely but somehow also threateningly, along behind the lady, as being not only a pomeranian but a white pomeranian?
Boy but this a whole can of, endless, questions that George has pitched at us to chew on. Phew 😰.
I like this concept, the title is enhanced, he’s the dog.
Interesting discussion! I can’t say anything about Russian, but I can say something about German-English translation, being an American expat in Germany who has professionally translated for decades.
One year, my German mother-in-law gave me a book for my birthday: the German translation of Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. I started reading it and enjoying it. When I was about a third to halfway through, however, I started wondering what it was like in English, so I bought the original version.
McCourt’s tone was so much more stinging and bitter, it took my breath away. The strange thing was that the German translator was quite renowned. But he did not manage to capture the tone of the original.
I’ve had other experiences like this. It is a dilemma when you don’t know the original language – you definitely miss something.
This is exactly what i worry/wonder about when i read a translation--that the translator (even a very good one) won't capture something crucial that was in the original.
I wish this were limited to translations. Not capturing, or communicating, the intended essence of the message has sent humans spinning off into trouble forever hasn’t it? Missed opportunities. Imagined sleights. Wars. Consider the old saying, “it’s not what you say but how you say it.” Anyway my point is that translations are maybe a second layer problem, a compounding of our already limited capacities to communicate well. It’s the ‘telephone game.’ Even without the language barrier we’re pretty bad at repeating (or understanding well) the words of others.
I couldn't agree with you more. When Boris Dralyuk responded to George's questions, I was struck with the energy he brings into his translating. I perceive that he does his best to feel the energy of what's on the page with the energy he feels while translating it into another language. Could we just call it active listening?
We can^^
Yep^^
Boy. You said it.
Maybe..sometimes things are lost in translation^^
Def 😊
I have a Bantam paperback, A Doctor’s Visit: Short Stories by Anton Chekhov which are edited and with an Introduction by Tobias Wolff. I think I picked it up because I wanted to read Wolff’s introduction. The Lady with the Pet Dog is in there using the Yarmolinsky translation. On the subject of translation I recently found a beautiful hard bound copy of Mark Twain’s The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County in which Twain complains that the French do not find him much of a humorist. So in this book he includes the French translation then he translates that back into English where you can see his use of voice and American folksy jargon becomes plain and tedious. Interesting to think what Americans do not translate well.
That is so funny. I'm imagining a modern Twain using Google Translate, going back and forth between English and French... you just know that would come out odd and stilted.
Kind of like translating a Richard Pryor album into French or Spanish.
Happy Thanksgiving, all! So interesting to read that, in Russian, Chekhov comes across a bit sharper. In this story and in The Darling, he was sharp, to me, even in translation. In The Cart, I felt he loved Marya, bitter as she was. In the other two, I didn't feel that at all, I got a - wouldn't call it sarcastic, rather an almost superior tone - she is limited and he lets us know it. And at the end, I was sad and angry at her blindness about the boy, whom she is using for her own emotional ends with no thought of him. In this one, I definitely get the bitter twist on Dmitri. Sarcastic, sharp. Until really the last few paragraphs where the biter is bitten and begins to wake up. But essentially I still think the two "lovers" deserve each other and hope, and believe, they are learning something from the turn of the screw. His style certainly doesn't have the twists of Gogol, or Babel, for that matter (I read My First Goose in three translations) and it may be plain, but it is stunningly pure and that's not just this translation. I spent the day Tues in my husband's heart clinic while he underwent his many many annual tests, and since I couldn't print out the version George sent us, I took Constance Garnet's. There might be some word differences, but the sense, the flow, the power were the same. My favorite Chekhov, incidentally, is Gooseberries, which I had to read four times before I "got" it, and then really only with George's help. But the richness, the people, the landscape, all are to me quite fabulous. I long to dive into a mill pond and whoop - in the rain. And after that, I couldn't help but love that character.
Lydia Davis, as perceptive on translations as anyone, once said that anyone who writes is a translator.
Your post here led me to this pretty fascinating essay she wrote that includes her rules for translating: https://yalereview.org/article/loaf-or-hot-water-bottle (Scroll down to a bit past halfway if you just want to see the rules.)
Oooh Lydia Davis!! I adore her so.
One of my friends, Sofie Verraest -- who I met at one of George Saunders' workshops in Patmos, Greece -- actually translates her work and has a delightful interview with her here:
https://fictionwritersreview.com/interview/balance-and-coherence-an-interview-with-lydia-davis/
I love the opening paragraph:
"August 3, 2018 was a proud day on planet earth for me. Lydia Davis thought my translation was “fine.” I had an e-mail to prove it. I will repeat it was Lydia Davis who held this opinion. She “particularly liked” how “certain phrases work better in Dutch” and were “somehow more comical,” something I’d noticed as well. It was a beautiful summer day. I considered retiring."
thanks for the link! I'll take a look.
I feel so sad for Lydia Davis over the recent loss of her son--a tragic story. When it happened, it seemed most of the press was on her former husband, Paul Auster and his current wife, Siri Hustvedt. Lydia Davis fell to the background, but I felt her there, aching.
Oh my goodness, I hadn't even realized. Just went down a rabbit hole of reporting in the NYT. My heart is breaking.
yes. it's really so awful, the whole story.
And such a fantastic short story writer!
If you could only walk away with one Lydia Davis, which would it be: 'Translator' or 'Short Story Writer'?
Tough call. Personally, translator by a teeny tiny hair. For her Madam Bovary alone.
That's put Madam Bovary a la Lydia Davis on my list of reads I really must consider making. Thanks for the recommendation Stephen.
The Davis I know is a story writer. So I’d have to pick--out of ignorance of her other side--the writer.
Brilliantly forthright, so frankly honest.
Truth?
So, Simples, even in Trumpville, as The Meerkat says.
Exactly!
It was interesting to see the Russian word for turkey, Индейка, which could be transliterated as indyeika which gives a hint to its etymology which indicates that the word is related to India, similar to the French deinde which means from India. The fact that the English word is the same as the country is also not a coincidence: the turkey, being an exotic bird when first brought to Europe was given a number of fanciful origins. The Spanish word, pavo, comes from the Latin for peafowl and can be used for that bird as well although pavo real (royal peafowl) is more common. Some regional Spanish dialects retain the indigenous names for the bird, e.g., guajolote in Mexico.
Hello :) I couldn’t stop thinking about the origins of the word turkey. https://www.etymonline.com/word/turkey. Thank you for the journey!
Thanks for that little history!
I am far from a linguist but had an interesting encounter with an awful Jorge Luis Borges translation recently. It was an ebook version of The Garden of Branching Paths that seemed to have been translated by an anonymous intern at an Argentine publishing house. It was not only riddled with typos but the translator had also massacred the beautiful rhythm of the original. My Spanish reading is only so so but by comparing the translation to the original it was also clear the translator had completely changed some sections, not just altering descriptions but actions and objects too.
I dropped that version and switched to one by Norman Thomas di Giovanni, who was a friend and collaborator with Borges. It was like night and day. Di Giovanni's version preserved the beauty and strangeness and flow of the original. I highly recommend it - there's a free PDF here: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://libraryofbabel.info/Borges/thegardenofbranchingpaths.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiigcLA78f7AhWGaMAKHYNCAUIQFnoECBIQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3AwcHSdj0VTqTvlSHj3P88
I looked and I have about four different translators for Borges. The most jarring was when I went back and reread the Yates, from the 1960s and how weirdly slangy it was compared to the Coleman translations from the late 1990s.
Isn't it interesting how much of a difference it makes? Seems to show how much art goes into translation and therefore the switch to a different language creates something of a veil between us non- or half-speakers and the original
This translation is wonderful. It has completely changed my mind about 'The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim', which I struggled to read in Hurley's translation, but which takes on a different poetry and accessibility in di Giovanni's. Thanks so much for posting!
So glad you like it! Agree it's wonderful. Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius is one of the strangest stories I've read but really blew me away in this translation.
This was the story that made me pick up 'Fictions'. I can't wait to read the di Giovanni version.
It's funny when you speak of translation. My parents came here from Holland in 1956. When I was in grade 11, maybe 12, I came home with a copy of THE THREE MUSKETEERS. My father said he wanted to read it. I said: It thought you already read it? He said he did, bit it was a Dutch translation, now he wanted to read the English translation. The man was an avid reader. And now, almost fifty years later, I find myself wondering which version he liked better: the Dutch or the English? My question to myself is why I didn't ask him. Then again, I was 17, and what 17 year old thinks of the obvious?
Being Dutch, and often having been amazed with the muliti-lingual talents of Netherlanders, I'm wondering did he ever read it in the French original text of Dumas? Did you ever happen to ask him?
Sadly no. His education was cut short. I remember he told me he was working by the time he was 16. School was over. That would've been in 1934. But there was a library. He said he and his brother read every book in there. That could be a father boasting just to impress his kid into reading, though.
I am also thankful for this story club and all its members. Happy thanksgiving everyone!
🦃🍁🍽🤓
I am fascinated by translation, with French the language I can manage best. After finally reading Stuart Gilbert's translation of Camus's "The Plague," I plunged into reading it in French. And was APPALLED, HORRIFIED, AND ANGRY to discover that on a very early page, Gilbert actually INSERTED a sentence that absolutely did not appear anywhere in the original. How DARE he?! I found a different translation (Robin Buss) and was much happier - he stuck by Camus. Then, I read that Pevear and Volokhonsky work by Volokhonsky doing a very literal, word-by-word translation from the Russian, and then Pevear reshapes it into smoother English. English is interesting in that - as another commenter mentions "glitter, shine, sparkle," etc. - it developed out of a mishmash of many different languages of different origins, so often has more words to choose from that may have subtly different meanings or connotations. So with P & V, if Tolstoy used the words "dripping" or "dripped" multiple times in a passage, V would keep that as written, and P would retain it. Constance Garnett might mix up the "drips" with dribbles or spatters or drops so as not to be repetitive. Which is "correct"? I don't know. I read Bob Blaisdell's engaging "Creating Anna Karenina," and I asked him how he selected the Garnett translation as the reference text for that book, as her translations have rather fallen out of favor or fashion. He said, "Because it's freely available online so anyone can jump in and consult it on the spot, and it serves that purpose just fine."
Lydia Davis's collection "Essays Two" is largely about translation. She tries to follow the original verbiage so closely as to even try to match the number of syllables and even the occurrence of some of the same letters within the English word she selects. I've also read somewhere that a translator's goal might be to reproduce the story as if the writer of the original had simply written the story in English. As many times as I have watched the wonderful Clouzot film "Quai des Orfevres," I STILL cannot follow long bits of dialog in French because of all the "gangster / cop" slang and idiom.
I'm currently plowing through a new book about the cemetery of Pere Lachaise in Paris in French because it hasn't been translated yet and I wanted to read it. And even though I mostly want to get the main content understood, I want to tinker with his sentences - sometimes he sounds pedantic, then he'll make a little joke, then write an endless sentence with a dozen clauses all separated by commas, and I'm thinking, wow, I really don't get how he FEELS about some things, or is he just not a very skillful writer... or am I missing something? I could make him sound more colloquial OR more academic OR slightly grumpy OR with a bit of dry wit - depending on the words I choose to replace his!
And George, I LOVED the "translation" exercise you posed in Swim in a Pond. You supplied a sentence in English from a Russian original, and then asked how many different ways could we "translate" that line simply into other words in English.How would the different versions sound or feel? How did the rhythms or sounds or sentence structure change the images or feelings evoked by one little sentence describing a bench beneath some trees in a park?
Translation... infinite choices, and no ONE right one! It's wonderful.
You wrote this: "I read that Pevear and Volokhonsky work by Volokhonsky doing a very literal, word-by-word translation from the Russian, and then Pevear reshapes it into smoother English." Does that mean that Pevear did not speak Russian? So he was dependent on Volokhonsky? That is just fascinating! I once took a translation workshop. We were given, for example, short poems in Japanese. The poems were translated word-by-word by someone else, in the order they sat on the page--and then we took those words and worked them into a poem, similar to what you are describing above. It was the MOST fun! I loved it! But i never in a million years would i have guessed that some translations of real works were composed that way--by someone who doesn't know the language they are translating from!
Pevear does indeed speak / read Russian, and has taught Russian literature and translation (and has done his own translation work from several other languages as well!). But Volokhonsky's native language is Russian, so they just established this "division of labor" between themselves. They are married and live in Paris. She writes the first literal draft, with a lot of notes and comments. He then works her draft over with the original Russian in hand, and then they create a third draft together. What a partnership! And their kids are all trilingual...
Oh, thanks for this! (I should have just googled them before I posted....) What a partnership, is right!
After an unanticipated warm and thoughtful conversation with mostly new friends at dinner today, finding a post from GS on Story Club adds more richness to the evening. Thanks as always. Just wanted to ask perhaps the obvious on this line: "...essentially, when we are writing, we are “translating” some mental image into language - an image that could be expressed in an infinite number of ways." My thought on this is to ask if, when you are writing or creating a character and how you imagine them "to be," to wonder that your "feeling" of what they feel and what leads to the language you give them arguably could come before "some mental image"? This isn't asked very well, but the notion of a specifically "_mental image_" and not a _bodily feeling_ (which phrase may may be redundant) makes me ask how your _feeling_ as author about your character's feeling gets to the word-filled "page." (p.s., I am the social science person who is not a writer of fiction but does "write" people, so to speak.) Thanks for considering.
Yes, for sure - or sometimes a phrase just gets blurted out and THAT makes the fictive reality “appear”…always hard to talk about, of course. 😉
There is so much mystery and story inside of this(!): "After an unanticipated warm and thoughtful conversation with mostly new friends at dinner today...."
Mary, wow! You are so right. I was still a bit "buzzed" from it when I began to post, which perhaps helped that along, even though ostensibly unrelated (perhaps) to what I tried to write. A gift from you that sensed the richness of the time that my words indexed. Thank you.
Hi Joseph. I really liked this question and it got me thinking about how George has said many times in his comments, podcasts, etc, that we sometimes have to just see what the character does, or what they want to be. In other words, there is perhaps a point at which it no longer matters how the author conjured them but instead how they evolve. Not sure I’m saying this clearly enough (maybe somebody should translate !) but I’m implying that the character takes on a personality and agency of their own. Obviously, the author creates them, but then there is some weird alchemy by which they start suggesting their own direction.
I think Joseph that a writer, of a fine short fiction, is somewhat the midwife to a story that will out, with or without help.
BTW: what is 'the social person that you are?' Not being trite, in the least. What is not creative about such social science constructs as 'class' and 'caste', 'ritual' and 'religion', 'right' and 'wrong'?
Rob, thanks your response. My question poorly formed. I meant by "social science person" who "writes people" that, unlike fiction, as I understand it, social science writing (sociology, anthropology, e.g., of a non-quantitative sort) is supposed to "re-present" (translate?) the interviewee, primarily using their words, spoken or written, into writing that offers an "accurate" ("valid" and "reliable" [all sorts of problems with these words and their assumptions but I won't go there now]) and documented description of "who they really are." I'm sure you know this. The license for creating a character in fiction writing, I assume, is less limiting but, in that, more demanding of the author (which is one of the great things I have learned more about by being in Story Club). The thing that got me posting was really a question, the answer to which perhaps seems obvious, about how authors are moved by their own, bodily feelings about their characters's feelings that get rendered into what they say and do, "on the page." As GS has said, "hard to talk about." Seems like another level of translation in fiction writing that, no doubt, can be over-analyzed yet fundamental.
And thank you for this expanded articulation of what underpins your comment Joseph.
Social science - whether leaning more towards quantitative or towards qualitative approaches - has always seemed to me to rely on 'imaginative, evidenced, interpretation'. It is all too often, take economic trend projection or opining on what the focus groups are telling us, arguably not much more than a modern versioning of crystal ball gazing. 'Take with a judicious pinch of salt' should be a legally required advice, akin to advice on possible side-effects of taking licensed and prescribed pharmaceutical products.
As for George Saunders why he seems to be the walking, talking, writing antidote to over-analysis.
*Edited comment just to rake out a type and stray, orphaned, redundant sentence start.
Love this, George! Wonderful notes on translation. Brilliant to chat with you yesterday - what generosity and insight. THANK YOU. For your story clubbers and re the convo with the translator I mentioned yesterday - here is Stephanie Smee on translating and on her love of Swim in the Pond. https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/stephanie-smee-on-the-art-of-translation/id1412509301?i=1000525358373
Kate, I love Literary Disco. Tod is a near neighbor of mine here in Indio, and so wonderful to hear his comments about George. “Sometimes, when you meet your heroes...”