Valerie's review
War and Peace
by Leo Tolstoy
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The low rating is for the Pevear & Volokhonsky translation, not the novel. P&V are the husband-and-wife team who've become famous in the past 10 years, partially through an Oprah endorsement, partially through accolades from the New Yorker. Their translations are, loosely, celebrated as being more "accurate". this is a fairly nonsensical claim, but what it's based on is the idea that they stick closer to the grammatical structure of the Russian. there are two ways they do this, one, is a much-hyped attempt on their part to "preserve the writer's style." so if Tolstoy repeats a word, they'll repeat it, though most translators would vary the word rep to make it sound "better." the second way is to, as literally as possible, while still maintaining coherence, say what the Russian says. (Nabokov famously did this to Onegin.)
I was openminded about this as an approach, and have been using their Gogol stories as a companion to reading it in Russian...more
The low rating is for the Pevear & Volokhonsky translation, not the novel. P&V are the husband-and-wife team who've become famous in the past 10 years, partially through an Oprah endorsement, partially through accolades from the New Yorker. Their translations are, loosely, celebrated as being more "accurate". this is a fairly nonsensical claim, but what it's based on is the idea that they stick closer to the grammatical structure of the Russian. there are two ways they do this, one, is a much-hyped attempt on their part to "preserve the writer's style." so if Tolstoy repeats a word, they'll repeat it, though most translators would vary the word rep to make it sound "better." the second way is to, as literally as possible, while still maintaining coherence, say what the Russian says. (Nabokov famously did this to Onegin.)
I was openminded about this as an approach, and have been using their Gogol stories as a companion to reading it in Russian. (For that purpose, the more literal the better.) But now, from the experience of trying to read War & Peace in the P&V English I can say: They're frauds. This is awful stuff. Tolstoy's Russian is always gorgeous and simple. The P&V English is as clunky, awkward and unreadable. (I haven't read War & Peace in Russian but I have read it twice before in English and have read Anna Karenina in Russian, so I have some basis for saying what his writing should read like.) Even when the P&V more or less makes grammatical sense--and it doesn't always--it's a strain to get through.
So, in one sense, you are reading what the Russian "says" but is this really "accurate"? A Russian, reading this in Russian, would be experiencing smooth, humble (wind-y and discursive but still always glowing with an inner light) sentences that go down like butter. You, reading the translation, are reading some very tortured English. Wouldn't making it more readable also make it more accurate? That's what previous translators have opted for and it doesn't seem so crazy to me.
It's kind of interesting, actually, to see the hype machine in action, elevating these translators above all others, and making the release of their books such events. Now in 10 or 20 or however long years someone will come along and debunk them.
Also, whatever rat-bastard graphic designer who made this huge book in such a large font with such heavy paper is obviously not a reader. it is impossible to curl up with. the more time i spend with it the more i loathe it as a marketing gimmick and a shelf-warmer that very likely will put people off reading a truly great novel.
I'll be abandoning it as soon as I can get to a bookstore to buy the Ann Dunnigan....less
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Tolstoy discussion:
http://readingroom.blogs.nytim...funny, this reminds me that i keep picking Ulysses back up, determined to finish it this time, but i keep reading alice sebold crap instead...
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thanks for the link!
i love Ulysses. the trick is to read it out loud to yourself. and have other people read it out loud to you.
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Interesting comments. I don't read Russian fluently myself, so I can't really enter into the argument. But I wanted to mention that not just the New Yorker, but also the New York Review of Books raved about this new translation. I don't think you can chalk it all up to the Oprah endorsement when so many alleged Tolstoy scholars are in agreement. I myself am looking forward to reading this version.
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That's the problem with the New Yorker and the NY Review of Books; they give the impression of academic consensus without neccessarily being so. Tolstoy scholars, by and large, have not adopted P&V, despite what the media implies. If you look into the research behind these magazine articles, it's pretty thin. I actually called one of the Russian Lit professors in the original David Remnick article who was listed as one of the people who helped them get their first translation, Brothers K. published, and the guy was like, "what? i was never a supporter." That was 10 years ago, so I'm sure he said something that could be used that way, and the article wasn't lying, but....
But in any case, none of this stopped me from trying it myself, and you should too. I'm now on page 600-something of the Constance Garnett and it's been like night and day how much more readable it is. Come back and tell us how you like it?
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I've also heard great things about the Constance Garnett translations, seem to be something of a standard, don't they. To some extent it's probably to the benefit of such magazines if they do pump up these sorts of 'new classics', more sales, more interest in their articles, etc. Thanks for your comments!
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You've read "War and Peace" THREE TIMES?
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Well, in the middle of the third time. I seem to read it about once a decade. What people don't realize is that War & Peace is a real page-turner!
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I've nearly finished the Rosemary Edmonds translation. I don't have much to compare it to and I don't speak Russian, but I am finding it very readable. Some of her translation of the peasants' dialogue seems a bit quaint but that's about the only fault I can find with it from a 'readability' point of view.
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I actually loved this translation. As my third time reading it, I found it very powerful, a pounding force of nature that I think the translators captured. It was also the easiest and clearest read of his philosophical sections, not that they will ever be easy! But this time I got them, and thought deeply about what Tolstoy had to say, and how these musings related to the book as well.
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message 10:
by
Dan
(last edited 06/04/2008 02:10PM)
06/04/2008 02:09PM
Valerie I agree wholeheartedly! I read the Anthony Briggs translation, and absolutely adored it. It was powerful, fluent and concise. Having heard the hype about the Russian couple's translation I was convinced it might actually be even better. Since well they were Russians and I thought it'd repair the only thing I could level at the Briggs's edition - its use of English idioms. Sigh. The new transaltion is as horrible as you say it is. It isn't unreadable (I don't think anyone could botch up Tolstoy that badly), but it's clunky and grammatically, it's awkward. What's the best edition you've read?
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Please read the Chekhov stories, Valerie. I don't think you mention having read them. There are direct comparisons to be made with several translators including the stalwart and often lovely Garnett, and significant matters of interpretation. The ending of The Betrothed is very interesting. See who you think gets it right.
I don't read Russian and I have not read another War & Peace but this translation was never awkward to me.
I guess I feel as Lori does.
Your criticism of Pevear & Volokhonsky seems vituperative if not malicious.
Do you have an ax to grind?
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message 12:
by
Tyler
(last edited 08/28/2008 08:50PM)
08/28/2008 08:49PM
Valerie -- I've seen the P&V translations hyped so much on this site that I've wondered if people are being paid to do it.
I haven't read a P&V translation yet, and yours is the first review to critique it in a way that makes sense.
I've mostly read Constance Garnett. Personally, I don't get why people are saying she was so wrong to translate "Demons" as
The Possessed, given that the book concerns people who have been taken in by ideas, not by other people. So I don't accept the idea that a straight translation from Russian is the only thing that conveys the original spirit of the Russian.
Unfortunately, I don't read Russian, so I've had no way to assess the arguments about the various translations. Thank you for taking the time to explain this further.
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I hadn't ever heard of this site when I read the P & V version of W & P so I certainly wasn't influenced by hype here.
And I had not read reviews of the P & V translation.
I had read Russian fiction translated by P & V, compared them to others, and preferred them because they seemed better (though I like Garnett.)
Maybe, so many people like the P & V translations because they are good.
But conspiracy theories are so appealing, aren't they?
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Frank -- Nobody is suggesting a conspiracy. My remark was intended tongue-and-cheek, but I can see now how it might be misinterpreted.
What I credit Valerie for isn't that she simply stated a preference, but that she has explained very clearly why she prefers it. She is further able to speak from the unique position of someone who knows both Russian and English.
I've seen countless posts that strongly advocate the P&V translation, saying that it's somehow better, but they don't explain what they mean. It seems to me that a person with such a decided preference of one translation over the other would be able to talk about his preference with an appropriate degree of specificity.
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I could be specific about their Chekhov translations which flow more smoothly and use more colloquial and natural phrasing than the others, in my opinion. No, I can't be certain that they are true to the Russian or true to Chekhov's intent but I can see, having read a lot of Chekhov in many translations, that they are consistent with my expectation of Chekhov.
But let's take a point that Valerie makes. The other translators do not repeat words when Tolstoy does. They use synonyms to make it sound "better." Having said this she goes on to something entirely different.
I'm not sure what her point is but I would think that a translator would honor the author's repetitions. Tolstoy would have been aware he was repeating a word. It cannot be treated as an accident. Why would a translator feel he or she could better the author's intended repetition?
To me, this remark casts doubt on Valerie's approach as does the vehemence of her criticism.
The statement that the translation is awkward and unreadable is just false. I don't know whether it is representative of Tolstoy but it is not only readable and natural to the ear, it is often very beautiful.
Read a few passages from it at random and make your own decision, Tyler.
By the way, the criticism of the size and weight of the volume also seems overdone to me.
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