Translating Literature

[GringoTex]

I just finished the new translation of Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina." I loved it. When I read an older translation about seven years ago, I didn't think much of it.

Now part of my change-of-mind is probably due to the evolution of my own personal tastes, but I'm convinced it's mostly due to the translation.

It disturbs me that the translation of a novel can so determine my appreciation of it. Maybe "War And Peace" is better than the translation I read. Maybe "The Plague" is better than the translation I read. There's only one novel by Balzac I haven't liked ("Eugenie Gandet") and maybe it's the translation's fault. This is infuriating.

So...does anyone know enough about this stuff to recommend translations? Based on the new translation of "Anna Karenina," I THINK I can recommend Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. I just discovered they've also translated "Brothers Karamazov," one of my all-time favorites. I plan to check it out.

[DoctorJones24]

Two translators I've read a few times and always been very impressed with:

William Weaver - Italian to English
Gregory Rabassa - Spanish to English

[nicodemus]

Translations make all the difference in the world as far as I'm concerned. When I read Yukio Mishima's Sea of Fertility tetralogy, the first two book were translated by one person and the third and fourth books each by different people. The first two were so much stronger and enjoyable than the second two. You could tell the stories in the latter novels were just as strong, but they lacked a certain something that made the suffer when compared to the other two.

The same can be said for film subtitles. I've seen both the Hong Kong and American versions of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the subtitles on the American version are vastly superior. I've also seen both the American and Hong Kong versions of Kurosawa's Yojimbo and the same is true.

A poor translation will render a work unenjoyable.

[Belgian guy]

Simple solution is off course to read the works in their original language as much as possible. If you know French, English and German, you are already able to read a large portion of the worlds Great Literary Masterpieces. Off course then you still have the hundreds of other great books for which you will still have to depend on translations. Traductore Traditore indeed...

[GringoTex]

Originally posted by DoctorJones24
Two translators I've read a few times and always been very impressed with:

William Weaver - Italian to English
Gregory Rabassa - Spanish to English

Thanks. Next question: what's a good Italian novel to read?

[GringoTex]

Originally posted by Belgian guy
Simple solution is off course to read the works in their original language as much as possible.

Thanks. I don't know why I didn't think of that. I'm going off to learn Russian and French now.

[Dr. Wankler]

Originally posted by GringoTex
Thanks. Next question: what's a good Italian novel to read?

I don't think it's a Weaver translation, but Ignazio Silone's Bread and Wine is pretty good, as is his Fontamara.

Then there's that Italo Calvino guy...

[Belgian guy]

Originally posted by GringoTex
Thanks. I don't know why I didn't think of that. I'm going off to learn Russian and French now.

Well why not, learning a foreign language is never a waste of time...

[GringoTex]

Originally posted by Dr. Wankler
I don't think it's a Weaver translation, but Ignazio Silone's Bread and Wine is pretty good, as is his Fontamara.

Then there's that Italo Calvino guy...

I'll check it out. I've never read an Italian novel.

[GringoTex]

Originally posted by Belgian guy
Well why not, learning a foreign language is never a waste of time...

I envy people who can become fluent in new languages as adults. I'm not one of them. And I'm bitter about that.

[Sardinia]

Alessandro Manzoni
Giovanni Verga
Gabriele d’Annunzio
Antonio Fogazzaro
Italo Svevo
Luigi Capuana
Luigi Pirandello
Alberto Moravia
Eduardo De Filippo
Dino Buzzati
Carlo Emilio Gadda
Cesare Pavese
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Giorgio Bassani
Leonardo Sciascia
Umberto Eco
Carlo Cassola
Ignazio Silone
Grazia Deledda

(...)

[Michael K.]

I do like Pavese.

[champmanager]

Gringo Tex, all the Russian translations I liked were by the same English woman from the later 1800's...whose name eludes me at the moment. She translated all the Dostoevsky I've read, and she translated some other Russians as well (but perhaps she's not as authorative a source with Tolstoy as she is with Dostoevsky). But from what you wrote I'm guessing she did the ones you read and didn't like. For some reason for old books (the only foreign language books I've read, really) I want an old translation.

[DoctorJones24]

Gringo, IIR, you like some postmodern, fairly experimental stuff, don't you? If so, you definitely should read Calvino's "If on a winter's night a traveller." Also Eco is very fun, especially "Name of the Rose." I think Weaver has translated both of those. He's been going back and doing older stuff more recently though.

[Sardinia]

Giovanni Verga - Little Novels of Sicily: Stories
Italo Svevo - Zeno's Conscience
Luigi Pirandello - The Late Mattia Pascal
Dino Buzzati - The Tartar Steppe
Umberto Eco - Name of the rose
Ignazio Silone - Fontamara
Grazia Deledda - Reeds in the Wind
Italo Calvino - If on a winter's night a traveler