Fortochka

[Natasha S. Randall]

Goodness, thank you all for your contributions... what a Pandora's box ~

I'm looking for something that would work in translating Dostoyevsky - particularly the sentence "В невыразимой тоске я подходил к окну, отворял  форточку и вглядывался в мутную мглу густо падающего мокрого снега..." It's from the second part of Zapiski iz Podpol'ya.

And since he has walked up to the OKNO - he must then open the FORTOCHKA... so I can't really use the same word for both.

Transom is great but I can't shake the ring of boats and radios when I hear it. Vent window, vent pane, ventilation pane are also good - if just slightly technical-sounding. Quarter window gets at it - at least the mind's eye has a good picture of a fortochka with that word.

As far as I can tell, a vasistas (a French word?) opens by swinging open from a top or bottom hinge - and is indeed sometimes a skylight I think. And fanlights/dormers/lunette windows seem to be the parts of windows that sit atop a quadrilateral window - in the form of a triangle or semi-circle... and an oriel window is a kind of bay window.

A fortochka is just such a Russian thing - and what a useful thing! (We should all have them in the US and UK - why don't we?) Maybe I'll keep the very Russian-ness of the word/object and transliterate with a footnote? I tend to avoid too many footnotes but think this is a rather charming thing to keep in the original.

Keep suggestions coming if you're so inclined - I'm very grateful if still undecided...

Natasha 

Natasha Randall
Translator
Oxford/New York



-----Original Message-----
>From: anne marie devlin <anne_mariedevlin at HOTMAIL.COM>
>Sent: Feb 3, 2011 9:59 AM
>To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
>Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Fortochka
>
>What about simply the top pane of the window?
>AM
> 
>> Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2011 02:18:20 -0500
>> From: paulbg at PBG-TRANSLATIONS.COM
>> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Fortochka
>> To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
>> 
>> Marian Schwartz wrote:
>> 
>> > I can see "window." I can see "pane" (which is what I've used in the
>> > past). If using this kind of word raises questions and sparks
>> > someone's interest in finding out just how Russians open a single
>> > pane, well, тем лучше. I worry about crossing too far over the line
>> > between translation and explication, especially in a work of
>> > literature.
>> 
>> For me, "window" is the entire assembly, including the framing and 
>> glazing, but the core meaning is the opening that permits passage of 
>> light and/or objects. But "pane" is specifically a piece of glass or 
>> other transparent material, and nothing else. A window may have several 
>> panes, but to identify форточка with "pane" strikes me as misguided -- 
>> it misses the point of both words.
>> 
>> -- 
>> War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
>> --
>> Paul B. Gallagher
>> pbg translations, inc.
>> "Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
>> http://pbg-translations.com
>> 
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