----- Original Message ----
From: Nabokv-L <nabokv-l@UTK.EDU>
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2008 3:13:21 PM
Subject: [NABOKV-L] QUERY: The Eye
Thank you for introducing us to Roald Hoffmann. His biography makes you wonder if he ever sleeps! I note that his family names include "Safran" and wonder if he is related to Jonathan Safran Foer, the young novelist, whose family is also from the Ukraine.
On another matter: I just finished reading "The Eye" which, as you know, was translated by Nabokov and Dimitri into English from the original Russian of 1930. I am wondering if anyone out there who has read the Russian version can tell me if the translation changed things from the original. The story in English seemed to me very akin to Nabokov's later
work. Is that simply consistency, or does it reflect changes made in the translation? Thanks very much, Fran Assa
EDNote: I take this opportunity to remind subscribers of Jane Grayson's
Nabokov Translated (Oxford, 1977), which catalogs and discusses many of the changes that were made in the English versions. More recently, Joanna Trzeciak has been writing on Nabokov's self-translations. ~SB
All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.