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Re Dmitri Nabokov's posting. The point I was making, obviously inexpertly, is that it is perhaps impossible to objectively rate one translation above another using some kind of statistical measure. That is my personal opinion at least. I intended no slight whatsoever upon Nabokov's translation of EO - which I personally value greatly along with countless others. I merely meant to suggest that in his translation, Nabokov consciously used language in a way that some found surprising. One of Nabokov's strengths as a writer as all contributors to this forum know, was Nabokov's unsurpassed ability to use surprising language.

I personally believe that Nabokov's translation of EO is a triumphant one - but would any kind of perhaps mechanistic 'Translation Quotient' be able to detremine one way or another whether any translation was 'better' than another? Perhaps in any particular case, the most 'successful ' translation of a particular work may be the most literal, or the least literal - but surely the final judgment is a subjective aesthetic one, rather than a numerical one? I was tilting at the idea of a translation quotient - certainly not at the works of Nabokov whose language and perceptions have given me more pleasure and more emotional nourishment than any other writer.

----- Original Message -----

From: Dmitri Nabokov

Sent: Friday, October 13, 2006 10:53 PM

Subject: [NABOKV-L] To avoid misunderstanding

Two posts have appeared on Nab-L that quote me in a manner that might lead to misunderstanding by those unfamiliar with the context. They refer to comparisons requested, some years ago, of a sampling of Ada in Russian as done by four different translators. The first post is from my friend Lluba Tarvi, whose criterion is her own method, whereby a "Translation Quotient" is established arithmetically according to the "...amount [sic] of excessive 'tokens' " that a translator uses in trying to remain faithful to the original. Miss Tarvi affirms that "The results scored by A. Skliarenko surpass those of the other translators by 1 percent[age] point only, but he used the least amount of excessive tokens, [8]. Probably for this reason D. Nabokov's impression was that 'the structure of his sentences and paragraphs is sometimes awkward.' " I shall not go into my opinions about translation done by mathematical formula, as opposed to reserving tokens for their rightful use in public transportation, but I shall say that I prefer to assess translation by means of an ear and a translational technique developed over years of collaboration with Vladimir. Nabokov. If the results of the methods coincide, all the better. I too found Alex Skliarenko's version the best of the lot, despite the infelicity of certain locutions. I doubt, however, that those flaws were deliberate. Having appealed to me for help in polishing his translation (alas, my work load is too great, and I am running out of tokens), Alex is now extending the appeal to others. He writes, with the plangent modesty typical of greatness, "If you only knew what torture it is to translate oneself into a foreign language that one knows only slightly!"

The second post, from Michael Glynn, after reiterating in a somewhat patronizing way the probability of the reason for my "impression" regarding Skliarenko's English, applies his suppositions to my father. Does Mr. Glynn know of the agonies Nabokov endured during his passage from "the softest of tongues" to a "second-rate brand of English?" Does he miss the whole point of sacrificing all accouterments and embellishments for the sake of the utter literality of a didactic "pony," to connect the way stations of language and give a semblance of sense to a great work being taught to under-prepared students? Read the letters that record my father's tussles with the uncomprehending Edmund Wilson. Read, also, some of his deliberately less rigorous translations of poems by Tiutchev, Lermontov, and Pushkin. Read the translations in which he experimented with departures from literality for the sake of rhyme and even rhythm. Let us not be disingenuous, good buddy. Don't you think that, if a second-rate brand of English had been his choice, Nabokov would have employed it, for instance, in writing the original of Ada? Or perhaps you think he did?