Two new translations of The Little Golden Calf

[William Ryan]

I am delighted that new translations of the splendid "Zolotoi telenok" 
have appeared but I am not convinced by the argument on the Russian Life 
website about the translation of the title "The LITTLE Golden Calf" in 
Anne Fisher's version. Certainly the expression "golden calf" in 
Russian, as in English, is ultimately a reference to Exodus 32 in the 
Bible, and is used metaphorically to mean "money as a god" (even though 
the word gold does not actually appear in the biblical expression - it 
is 'molten calf' in King James Bible and 'telets litii' in the Church 
Slavonic Elizabeth Bible), and presumably Il'f and Petrov, in using the 
modern prosaic diminutive 'telenok', are having a little joke with 
stylistic register - however, introducing the word 'little' into the 
translation does not really convey this jokey nuance and must be 
puzzling to anyone who does not know Russian (i.e. those who read 
translations) because it obscures the meaning of the original set phrase 
and makes it sound like the title of a children's book. Surely the 
straight translation "The Golden Calf" is ironical enough? I haven't had 
a chance to see the book yet, so I wonder how the phrase 'zolotoi 
telenok' and its further diminutive 'zolotoi telonochek' are translated 
when they occur in the body of the text.

Will Ryan


Paul Richardson wrote:
> Ilf and Petrov's "The Little Golden Calf"
> One satirical novel, two seriously different versions
>
> It is rather unusual for two entirely new translations of a classic 
> novel to be released within a month of one another. Since we have 
> gotten several queries about the differences between our Russian Life 
> Books version, published December 1, 2009, and the Open Letter 
> version, published a month or so later, we have posted on our website:
>
> (1) a list of qualitative points of divergence that we have discerned;
> (2) a comparison of the two translations, based on a paragraph 
> recently selected by a third party reviewer;
> (3) a letter from our translator, Anne O. Fisher;
> (4) some background information on our translation of the novel.
>
> Here is the link:
> http://www.russianlife.com/lgc_divergences.cfm
>
> We have also put up a digital version of our translation, and anyone 
> can read the first 85 pages of the novel free here:
> http://bit.ly/bQLYIC
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Paul E. Richardson
> Publisher
> Russian Life books
> www.russianlife.com
>
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