Falen's Evegenii Onegin / khandra

[David Powelstock]

Of course it's true that in translating one is always balancing a variety of
factors, but that's no excuse for gaffes of this magnitude.  BTW, now that I
remind myself of the stanza in question, Pushkin's narrator has already used
"angliiskii splin" by this point and is now searching for a Russian
equivalent.  Nabokov has, predictably, the utterly opaque "Russian
'chondria'."  (Honestly, if you're going to translate, translate already!)
To call it "simply Russian ennui" ends up, in context, being silly.  Maybe
"Russian gloom."  But this is an instance in which Falen has allowed the
always tenuous balance of literary factors to go out of whack, sacrificing
far too much syntactically to the other desiderata.  My guess is that he
would be glad to have it back.  All translators experience this at one point
or another.  But to defend such a slip on the grounds that translation is
hard is an insult to translators.  Better to change the line far more
radically than Falen has in this instance than to propagate such a crude
misanthropologism.

My third and fourth cents,
David
(Powelstock)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Slavic & East European Languages and Literature list
> [mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU] On Behalf Of Deborah Hoffman
> Sent: Friday, May 06, 2005 6:50 PM
> To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Falen's Evegenii Onegin / khandra
>
> I would also agree that this is not necessarily an error.
> Frequently translators must choose from betwee several not
> entirely acceptable options, especially when translating into
> English with its plethora of synonyms, each of which calls to
> mind its own set of associations and collocates well or
> poorly with other words in a very opaque way.
>
> For example, using "soul" for khandra may work perfectly well
> given the particular context - which I have not seen.  In
> another context, say a work by Olesha perhaps it could be
> "spite," in a work about Leonid Utesov perhaps "blues," in a
> work describing a flighty or temperamental character perhaps "pique"
> would work, in doing Sherlock Holmes even "spleen,"
> which otherwise sounds archaic and odd, and makes one think
> of Greeks.
>
> Beyond that, in reproducing verse, Falen has to take things
> like rhyme, assonance, consonance, not to mention meter into
> consideration, all of which could have made "soul" more
> desirable than other alternatives.  Nabokov (I really should
> look this up and see for myself what he did) would likely
> have footnoted whatever choice he made, which interferes with
> the flow of the text and any hope of reproducing the
> original's effect on the original reader.  To cite a cliche,
> things inevitably get lost in translation and sometimes all
> you can do is decide which things they are.
> --Deborah
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> Date:    Fri, 6 May 2005 06:28:32 +0100
> From:    Robert Chandler <kcf19 at DIAL.PIPEX.COM>
> Subject: Re: Translations of Pushkin, Tolstoy?
>
> Dear Laura,
>
> I agree entirely with your general praise of Falen.  I just
> want to add that the line you quote is not an 'unfortunate
> translation choice' in the least.
> It conveys Pushkin's meaning and tone very well.  I
> appreciate that a language teacher may find it irritating if
> students end up thinking that 'khandra' = 'soul' - but
> translators are NOT language teachers!
>
> Best Wishes,
>
> Robert Chandler
>
> > I just used Falen for the first time in a survey
> course and found
> that
> > it was surprisingly accurate, given how well it
> conveys the tone of
> the
> > original to non-Russian speakers.  One word of
> warning: 1:38 contains
> > the unfortunate translation choice of rendering
> "koroche: russkaia
> > khandra" as "We call it simply /Russian soul/."
> Students read all
> kinds
> > of deep meanings into this, something which I plan
> to forestall with
> > advance warning next time around.
> >
> > Laura Goering
> > Carleton College
> >
> > pjs wrote:
> >
> >> Anyone have any strong feelings about the Johnston
> vs. the Falen
> >> translation of E.O. for a survey course in
> 19th-century Russian
> >> literature?  My sense (after a cursory inspection)
> is that the
> Johnston
> >> hews more closely to the original while the Falen
> "reads better."
> Other
> >> suggestions?
> >>
> >> How about _Death of Ivan Illich_?  Any suggestions
> there? Anyone
> seen the
> >> Pasternak-Slater translation?
> >>
> >> Peter Scotto
> >> Mount Holyoke College
>
> Deborah Hoffman
> Graduate Assistant
> Kent State University
> Department of Modern and Classical Language Studies
>
> http://www.personal.kent.edu/~dhoffma3/index.htm
>
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