And one more interview about Grossman

[Josh Wilson]

A lot of this reputation also comes from the fact that quite a lot of
translation from the Russian is quite stodgy - especially the older stuff
that you can get easily and cheaply. Quite a lot of the humor is actually
culturally sensitive and if translated directly it becomes a just a brief
moment of "chto?" rather than a moment to chuckle... 

Chekhov, for instance, (in my view) generally has to be staged by a very
creative troupe who is willing to research and finesse the text a bit. But
still, a lot of audience won't come because they read perhaps one of his
plays in school (in stodgy, cheap translation) and were wholly unimpressed. 

In short, I think this is largely a myth - but as most myths are, not wholly
without reasoning...  

If to move beyond the myth, we'll more Chandlers and probably a bit of
finessing (and maybe sugar-coating) readers to convince them to read all
those Chandlers... 

Just a couple of cents... 


Josh Wilson
Assistant Director
The School of Russian and Asian Studies
Editor in Chief
Vestnik, The Journal of Russian and Asian Studies
SRAS.org 
jwilson at sras.org


-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Robert Orr
Sent: Friday, December 10, 2010 6:07 PM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] And one more interview about Grossman

It's even worse reading Dostoevsky on a rainy Edinburgh afternoon ......... 

-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Olga Meerson
Sent: Friday, December 10, 2010 7:40 AM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] And one more interview about Grossman

Robertjan, congratulations on your wonderful interview about Vassily
Grossman and his significance. The interviewer's (otherwise intelligent)
admonition to never read Dostoevsky in winter, however, like many
admonitions about long books, is silly: many of these books are often very
funny and thus much more effective and relevant than when imagined as
classics to gather dust when respectfully put on some shelf for prominence
but not for the purpose of being read. Grossman is not funny but he grips
you in the same way. One of the silly myths about Russian literature is that
it is great because it is o, so serious -- a myth propagated by those, I am
sure, who do not like to read, not mentioning do not like Russian
literature. Two thirds of The Brothers Karamazov is very, very funny. The
funnier, the eerier--a correlation non-readers often miss about great
literature. 
Your interviewer seems to be a very good reader but why court the
non-reading attitude, even in jest? Is it because nowadays, we all have to
sell and sugar-coat the activity of serious reading, even to our own
children? How sad. 

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