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

[Lewis B. Sckolnick]

  Or maybe Pushkin suffered from being too smart!

Lewis B. Sckolnick
> If I understood what is said in the article [Почему Пушкин - русский поэт
> http://www.textology.ru/article.aspx?aId=21 ] correctly, Pushkin was a kind of
> personality that today's specialists in mental health would call manic :-) and
> depressive :-(
>
>    Psy Ling
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Robert Chandler<kcf19 at DIAL.PIPEX.COM>
> To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
> Sent: Sat, December 11, 2010 5:27:21 AM
> Subject: [SEELANGS] Gloom and wit in Russian literature (WAS "one more interview
> about Grossman")
>
> 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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-- 
Lewis B. Sckolnick
The Ledge House
130 Rattlesnake Gutter Road, Suite 1000
Leverett, MA 01054-9726
U.S.A.

Telephone 1. 413. 367. 0303
Facsimile 1. 413. 367. 2853
info at runanywhere.com

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