Gloom and wit in Russian literature (WAS "one more interview about Grossman")

[Robert Chandler]

Dear Olga, Penelope, Josh and all,

It is, of course, pleasing to read praise of our translation of Kap. dochka, all the more so because it was barely reviewed!

But there is a serious point here that needs to be emphasized.  We often fail to give the few truly outstanding translations the attention they deserve.  To my mind, the greatest of all translations of Russian prose is William Edgerton's translation of 'Levsha'.  The word play is every bit as funny as in the original, and there are at least some occasions when it is imbued with a still greater depth of meaning.  This translation was first published in 1969, in Satirical Stories of Nikolai Leskov, but it had been out of print for a long time when we republished it in Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida.  If we all did what we could to encourage people to read translations like this, or Stanley Mitchell's Eugene Onegin, perhaps there really would be less complaints about the gloominess of Russian literature.

All the best,

Robert

On 10 Dec 2010, at 16:26, Josh Wilson wrote:
> 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... 



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