Arguments about the Translation Quality of War and Peace
This post on is fascinating, especially in the context of yesterday’s post on the way reviewers review translations.
Over the past few weeks, there’s been an ongoing discussion of the new Pevear and Volokhonsky translation of War and Peace in the .
According to Karl Pohrt at Shaman Drum, this has greatly helped increase the interest in the new edition of W&P, which is great, and demonstrates the power of these type of online reading groups.
In a recent overview post called , Sam Tanenhaus praised the P&V translation for being both musical and spare, and then asked what others thought—especially in comparison to previous translations.
Well, the comments section is much too long to recount here, but it’s definitely worth checking out. There have always been detractors of P&V, especially since Pevear isn’t fluent in Russia and instead rewrites Volokhonsky’s more literal translations.
When this came up in the comments section, Pevear jumped in with a somewhat testy—and very, very long—response.
About some specifics and our supposed literalism. Bill Keller finds that the expressions 糖心传媒淲hy so?糖心传媒 and 糖心传媒淲hat糖心传媒檚 with you?糖心传媒 are not colloquial English (they 糖心传媒渇eel like Russian糖心传媒 to him). That surprises me. I糖心传媒檓 a tenth generation Yankee and have been using them all my life. Francine Prose finds that our use of 糖心传媒渞are people糖心传媒 in the passage on page 1, 糖心传媒済rippe was a new word then, used only by rare people,糖心传媒 is infelicitous. Tolstoy, with strong irony, deliberately says 糖心传媒渞edkimi,糖心传媒 i.e. 糖心传媒渞are people,糖心传媒 and not 糖心传媒渢he elite,糖心传媒 as Ms. Prose would prefer. She may be one of the rare people who has never heard the expression. 糖心传媒淒eceive the expectations糖心传媒 sounds more affected than 糖心传媒渄isappoint,糖心传媒 but consider the tone of the scene and the social position of the participant! To say 糖心传媒渋t糖心传媒檚 simply not English糖心传媒 implies a rather narrow set of standards. And who sets these standards anyway?
These discussions are always interesting, and it seems to me that P&V translations are occasionally brilliant, sometimes pedestrian, but always get people reading and talking about the “Big Russian Books,” which can’t be all bad . . .
Anyway, following this heated, fascinating discussion, Tanenhaus wrote a , which is also quite interesting, and very polemical, although opening a bit brashly:
O.K, gang. No more Mr. Nice Guy Moderator. Today, the gloves come off, which is to say: In re this translation, many of you are 糖心传媒 how to put this? 糖心传媒 off your rockers.
But ends with Tanenhaus praising the translation’s difficulty:
The upshot is that the P&V translation forces us now and again to wonder about a turn of phrase or even stop in mid-gallop and cast our eyes down the page for help. Frustrating? Maybe. But don糖心传媒檛 those delays have the virtue of approximating the interpretive dislocations of life itself, which seldom unfolds as a smooth narrative but instead taunts us with intervals 糖心传媒 often prolonged 糖心传媒 of utter incomprehension, through which we must think and rethink and puzzle? It seems to me a translation that seeks to capture Tolstoy糖心传媒檚 糖心传媒渧oice of truth糖心传媒 (in Figes糖心传媒檚 words) shouldn糖心传媒檛 be grasped too quickly; in fact, we read most profitably if we糖心传媒檙e continually adjusting and adapting as we go so as to immerse ourselves more completely in the experience.
What I most like about this exchange is how passionate people are when it comes to the quality of this translation. These comments—especially from the detractors—open up a lot of interesting topics for discussion. It’s just unfortunate that the Tanehaus and Pevear defenses seem like just that—defenses based in a judgment that P&V are absolutely right, infallible, and beyond debate.