Subject
Nabokov on Translation: "I see however no other way..." (fwd)
Date
Body
Near the end of VN's lecture on Gogol, he explains his philosophy of
translation - and his ultimate goal - with the utmost clarity:
"Bluntly speaking ... if you expect to find out something about Russia,
if you are eager to know why the blistered Germans bungled their blitz,
if you are interested in 'ideas' and 'facts' and 'messages,' keep away
from Gogol. The awful trouble of learning Russian in order to read him
will not be repaid in your kind of hard cash. Keep away, keep away. He
has nothing to tell you. Keep off the tracks. High tension. Closed
for the duration. Avoid, refrain, don't. I would like to have here a
full list of all possible interdictions, vetoes and threats. Hardly
necessary of course, as the wrong sort of reader will never get as far
as this. But I do welcome the right sort - my brothers, my doubles. My
brother is playing the organ. My sister is reading. She is my aunt.
You will first learn the alphabet, the labials, the linguals, the
dentals, the letters that buzz, the drone and the bumblebee, and the
Tse-tse fly. One of the vowels will make you say 'Ugh!' You will feel
mentally stiff and bruised after your first declension of personal
pronouns. I see however no other way of getting to Gogol (or to any
other Russian writer for that matter). His work, as all great literary
achievements, is a phenomenon of language and not one of ideas.
'Gaw-gol' not 'Go-gall.' The final 'l' is a soft dissolving 'l' which
does not exist in English. One cannot hope to understand an author if
one cannot even pronounce his name. My translations of various passages
are the best my poor vocabulary could afford, but even had they been as
perfect as those which I hear with my innermost ear, without being able
to render their intonation, they still would not replace Gogol..."
In short, I would advise everyone who reads and admires Nabokov to heed
his message, and to break out their Russian dictionaries and grammars,
and go straight to the original sources...
--- Neal McCabe
----------------------------
EDITOR: Hear, Hear!
translation - and his ultimate goal - with the utmost clarity:
"Bluntly speaking ... if you expect to find out something about Russia,
if you are eager to know why the blistered Germans bungled their blitz,
if you are interested in 'ideas' and 'facts' and 'messages,' keep away
from Gogol. The awful trouble of learning Russian in order to read him
will not be repaid in your kind of hard cash. Keep away, keep away. He
has nothing to tell you. Keep off the tracks. High tension. Closed
for the duration. Avoid, refrain, don't. I would like to have here a
full list of all possible interdictions, vetoes and threats. Hardly
necessary of course, as the wrong sort of reader will never get as far
as this. But I do welcome the right sort - my brothers, my doubles. My
brother is playing the organ. My sister is reading. She is my aunt.
You will first learn the alphabet, the labials, the linguals, the
dentals, the letters that buzz, the drone and the bumblebee, and the
Tse-tse fly. One of the vowels will make you say 'Ugh!' You will feel
mentally stiff and bruised after your first declension of personal
pronouns. I see however no other way of getting to Gogol (or to any
other Russian writer for that matter). His work, as all great literary
achievements, is a phenomenon of language and not one of ideas.
'Gaw-gol' not 'Go-gall.' The final 'l' is a soft dissolving 'l' which
does not exist in English. One cannot hope to understand an author if
one cannot even pronounce his name. My translations of various passages
are the best my poor vocabulary could afford, but even had they been as
perfect as those which I hear with my innermost ear, without being able
to render their intonation, they still would not replace Gogol..."
In short, I would advise everyone who reads and admires Nabokov to heed
his message, and to break out their Russian dictionaries and grammars,
and go straight to the original sources...
--- Neal McCabe
----------------------------
EDITOR: Hear, Hear!