Are Constance Garnett's translations of Dostoevsky any good?

>>9723392
Not according to senpais on the internet and lit. Rumour has it that she skipped sentences that she couldn't understand.

She is the best translator

Do you really think teenagers on /lit/ have read multiple translations of Dostoevsky and don't just spout off whatever they've read on the internet?

>>9723392
If she's so shit, then how come Avsey is the only translator to not retain her title "The Brothers Karamazov?"

Revised Garnett and Avsey are the best translators of Dostoevsky.

>>9723435
>Revised Garnett
Are you talking about the Susan McReynolds one for Norton? I was thinking about buying that version of the Brothers Karamazov. What's improved about it if I might ask?

>>9723392
Being a woman this should be an immediate indicator of no

>>9723473
yeah ive read parts of it and liked it

> what's improved

i dunno, lol, it's norton publishing and i generally trust them

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>>9723392
>Are Constance Garnett's translations of Dostoevsky any good?
I prefer them.

I don't know about its accuracy, but her English reads more naturally than other translations

>>9723483
>that P&V introduction
literally what the fuck were they thinking

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Is this one OK?

>>9723500
its not the revised garnett (ie norton publisher) but its still garnett

guaranteed that spine is shit-tier

>>9723392
She was very prolific in her translating work. This was great for getting Russian lit into the English-speaking world, but she worked so quickly that the quality of her work wasn't the best. She skipped challenging passages, homogenized everything into her own Victorian sensibilities (in terms of language and content), and even added things that weren't there when she saw fit. In the decades since, better work has been done and is to be preferred. One thing in her favor is that her work is public domain and easy to obtain in a pinch from places like Project Gutenberg.

David Magarshack is a better choice than Garnett for earlier translations that retain more of a vintage sense to them. Frederick Whishaw, another common older translator, is inferior.

Among more recent translators, Ignat Avsey is a good choice for the few titles he completed. David McDuff is another good choice. Andrew MacAndrew did a really nice Karamazov. Jane Kentish has done a couple of titles that are well regarded. Oliver Ready's Crime and Punishment is praised

>>9723435
Everyone but Avsey followed her title choice because of familiarity and inertia. The word order in Russian, which she followed, is standard and not officious like it sounds in English

>>9723482
>>9723473
There's another, earlier Norton revision of Garnett done by Ralph Matlaw. It's very good as well. In fact I think the later revision is based on his work

>>9723516
is it true that P&V aren't even fully bilingual but one is better in english and the other in russian and they just translate each other?

>>9723473
>What's improved about it if I might ask?
Not him but I read revised Garnett's C&P and some archaic words were replaced, for example: 'cock' for 'cockerel'

Constance garnet is still the only one who translated a dream of a ridiculous man perfectly . Literally all other translations are garbage and laughable

Just learn Russian, you fucking pleb.

>>9723513
How much is the difference in quality of unrevised/revised?

I am so fucking frustrated with these translation issues. Everywhere I go someone says something different. P/V is shit, Garnett is shit, McDuff is shit... P/V great! There's no one better than Garnett! If you don't get Avsey's you aren't reading the true book! It's so fucking annoying. I don't know what to read.

>>9723570
You don't know Russian.

I've only read the Pevear & Volkhonsky translation of Crime and Punishment so I can't compare it to anything else, but I'll say that it didn't seem nearly as great as some people said it was. Certainly you can still understand the book just fine, but I feel that some other translations may be better.

>>9723411

Did she skip anything important?

>>9723575
garnett or avsey

i read mcduff's karamazov and it was just ok

>>9723638
Is the unrevised Garnett (Karamazov) OK or do I need to stab a pencil in my eye and order something revised on Amazon?

>>9723530
That is accurate

>>9723674
Bump. Is she OK unrevised?

>>9723674
>>9723716
if you have it already then its probably fine

i mean, literally all the big anglo authors who read dostoevsy (joyce, hemingway) were reading garnett

>>9723392
I've read several by her, she's legit. Even if she is a woman, she does a good job.

Not the previous anon, but has anyone read Andrew MacAndrew? My bookstore has him and unrevised Garnett.

>>9723748
see
>>9723516
> Andrew MacAndrew did a really nice Karamazov.

ive heard good things about his w&p, mostly because he translates the french

>In b4 /lit/ shits on her but recommends translators that worked off her translation (e.g. McDuff)

Yes, but I prefer P&V. Take everything /lit/ says with a grain of salt because none of these assholes actually speak Russian.

The last time someone made one of these threads (why do people only seem to make these threads about Dostoevsky translations?), I saw some try-hard claiming that P&V's use of "wicked" instead of "spiteful" like other translations in Notes from Underground was indefensible, which is a complaint I'd heard before somewhere else, but after a few seconds of Googling, I found what looked to me like a pretty good defense lol:

>The opposite of zloy is dóbryi, "good," as in "good fairy" (dóbraya féla). This opposition is of great importance for Notes from Underground; indeed it frames the book, from "I am a wicked man" at the start to the outburst close to the end: "They won't let me .. I can't be .. good."

>We can talk forever about the inevitable loss of nuance in translating from Russian into English (or any other language into any other), but the translation of zloy as 'spiteful' instead of 'wicked' is not inevitable, nor is it a matter of nuance.

>>9723530

Yes; Volokhonsky's English is poor, and Pevear prides himself on basically not knowing Russian at all. So they rely very much on the native language of the other. As a result, their translation process results in basically twice the error of a single translator.

There is exactly one title they worked on where I think they make a positive contribution, and that's War and Peace. Tolstoy deliberately used word repetition as a stylistic choice, and many translators obscure that by using synonyms, but P&V render his choice fairly faithfully. Also they seem to handle the question well of what to do with all the French content.

By and large, though, I avoid them like the plague. (W&P aside, my first choice for Tolstoy is the Maudes.) P&V really don't get Dostoyevsky I don't think. The worst is Notes from Underground, which they misunderstand and mistranslate to the extent that they mislead the reader about the nature of the Underground Man and the whole work.

How is the revised Garnett Crime and Punishment?

>>9724384
I read that version and some fragments of Ready's translation and I can say it's pretty good

Anon from >>9723833, can you please have an internet fight with the anon from >>9724337 so I can make up my mind whose side I'm on? I need some closure on this, thanks.

>>9724337
Haven't read War and Peace yet but have read (and disliked) some V&P Dosto works, should I really read their version of War and Peace first?

>>9724901

They wouldn't be my first choice for W&P either; it's just not as bad relative to their other work. There's also another recent translation of W&P, by Anthony Briggs, but I don't think Briggs represented Tolstoy properly at all. The translations I would recommend are the Maudes or Ann Dunnigan.

>>9725115
Might check out the Maude then, thanks.

Any opinions on Jessie Coulson? I was considering picking up his translation of C&P.

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/crime-and-punishment-9780199536368?cc=us&lang=en&

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How's this P/V?

>>9726840
its shite

>>9726840
that P/V is awful, like all of them