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Fw: Comparative Ada translations
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MessageEDNOTE. Moscow filmmaker Oleg Dorman offers heartfelt thoughts on Russian translations of Nabokov. Translation of belletristic prose is always difficult, more art than science. Translation of VN is an extreme case. Nabokov readers are especially fortunate that the author translated (and/or revised) much of his own work and that his gifted son undertook still more. As for other translators, I can only suggest (in addition to superb command of English and Russian) that a close study of VN's own translations provide the best preparation.
----- Original Message -----
From: Oleg Dorman
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2003 1:49 PM
Subject: Comparative Ada translations
Dear Friends,
I has never yielded to the temptation to discuss Russian translations of Nabokov's prose in public. I am sure that the only sensible position, the only productive criticism here, is to make a translation yourself. But as the interpreters themselves proposed to talk over the results of their absolutely noble and selfless work, I feel I may let out a fly from the ointment and say that all the presented translations and commentaries, as well as all other translations of Nabokov into Russian are catastrophically awful, totally unacceptable, and often mock the original. The incomparably clear and rich sound of Nabokov's English turns into the resonant rattling of a rusty tincan attached to a cat's tail. I do know myself that such philippic is indefensible especially because I speak about the whole -- not about the details. I can only propose for instance (not to start a theoretical dispute) that Russian syntax, the Russian sentence cannot store as much as English, and the structure of Nabokov's phrase and period should perhaps be rather different, boldly different in English and in Russian. What is light and natural in the English Nabokov becomes unavoidably forced and clumsy in supposed-Russian translations. Like (forgive me, please) the pedestrian tricks of an old clown.
Very often the same thought, the same garland of images cannot be arranged in one Russian period as it perfectly as is done in English. But surely Nabokov bewitches his translators. Or how can we explain (just one example, just one and childishly simple at that), why all of them use some artificial construction instead of clear Russian "UKAZYVAL OTCU, SKOL'KO PIT'"?
Translating Nabokov's English with peculiar Russian words (like MREYAT', ISPOD, BREKFASTAT' and others) makes the super-subtle author a slot-machine, a vulgar buffoon who mechanically reacts to everything in the same words.
We do have in Russian an example of a congenial translation of a writer congenial to Nabokov. It is Nikolay Lubimov's Marcel Proust.
But it is of course a miracle - which a repetition of a miracle can only be.
Forgive me again, - but someone should say it frankly one day.
----- Original Message -----
From: Oleg Dorman
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2003 1:49 PM
Subject: Comparative Ada translations
Dear Friends,
I has never yielded to the temptation to discuss Russian translations of Nabokov's prose in public. I am sure that the only sensible position, the only productive criticism here, is to make a translation yourself. But as the interpreters themselves proposed to talk over the results of their absolutely noble and selfless work, I feel I may let out a fly from the ointment and say that all the presented translations and commentaries, as well as all other translations of Nabokov into Russian are catastrophically awful, totally unacceptable, and often mock the original. The incomparably clear and rich sound of Nabokov's English turns into the resonant rattling of a rusty tincan attached to a cat's tail. I do know myself that such philippic is indefensible especially because I speak about the whole -- not about the details. I can only propose for instance (not to start a theoretical dispute) that Russian syntax, the Russian sentence cannot store as much as English, and the structure of Nabokov's phrase and period should perhaps be rather different, boldly different in English and in Russian. What is light and natural in the English Nabokov becomes unavoidably forced and clumsy in supposed-Russian translations. Like (forgive me, please) the pedestrian tricks of an old clown.
Very often the same thought, the same garland of images cannot be arranged in one Russian period as it perfectly as is done in English. But surely Nabokov bewitches his translators. Or how can we explain (just one example, just one and childishly simple at that), why all of them use some artificial construction instead of clear Russian "UKAZYVAL OTCU, SKOL'KO PIT'"?
Translating Nabokov's English with peculiar Russian words (like MREYAT', ISPOD, BREKFASTAT' and others) makes the super-subtle author a slot-machine, a vulgar buffoon who mechanically reacts to everything in the same words.
We do have in Russian an example of a congenial translation of a writer congenial to Nabokov. It is Nikolay Lubimov's Marcel Proust.
But it is of course a miracle - which a repetition of a miracle can only be.
Forgive me again, - but someone should say it frankly one day.