On picking a translation

Under my last blog post, I got a comment from Thomas Parker asking how I selected translations, so let’s jot down some thoughts. 

1/ Anyone who loves Russian literature knows about the translation wars. Anna Karenina and War and Peace each have about a dozen translations—how do we choose? Here are my rules: never Constance Garnett (except her Chekhov); never Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Garnett, because she has a reputation for being fast and making mistakes and throwing out difficult passages. Pevear and Volokhonsky, because their sentences are clunky and I’m no fan of the literalist school of translation (nor am I a fan of their pumping out one translation after another of books that have been translated a million times—how convenient—contrast them with Robert Chandler, who introduced the Anglophone world to Vasily Grossman). 

Anna Karenina I’ve read in two translations—Aylmer and Louise Maude, and Rosamund Bartlett—both were enjoyable, I preferred the latter’s prose. 

War and Peace I’ve also read in two translations, and I tend to recommend Aylmer and Louise Maude, revised by Amy Mandelker. Other versions may modernise the language or anglicise the names or remove the French passages or remove the feminine endings in names—the Maude-Mandelker seems to be the best option—I want something close to the original without being clunky or awkwardly literal. 

My choice of Ignat Avsey for The Brothers Karamazov went against my general preference and habit (I’m full of contradictions), largely because of my struggle to get into Dostoyevsky in the translation of David McDuff. Next time will be a different version. It flowed well and I ended up loving the book, but once in a while something stuck out like a sore thumb, such as the phrase “my ex”. 

2/ It’s because of my wish for something close to the original that I read The Tale of Genji as translated by Royall Tyler. Madness. But Murasaki Shikibu referred to her characters by title or nickname or relation to someone else—the characters have no names—Royall Tyler retains the same effect and it reflects the world in which Murasaki and her characters live.  

As for you, read Seidensticker if you wish. No strong opinion there. But I would advise against Washburn—I know I’m no expert, but The Tale of Genji is a very subtle novel and Washburn removes all subtlety—he explicitly states that he incorporates explanations into the text itself rather than use notes. 

3/ If I read Chinese literature, which you may have noticed I don’t often do, it’s a matter of course that I would always go for a Vietnamese translation rather than an English one. 

So I might not be able to read Hong lou meng in the original, but at least I’m closer, much closer to it than an English speaker is. 

4/ More is lost in translation of poetry. Perhaps all is lost. Nguyễn Du in translation is no longer Nguyễn Du. Is Hàn Mặc Tử? Is Bùi Giáng? 

People ask me what I recommend for Truyện Kiều and I never know what to say except to stay away from Timothy Allen. 

5/ I haven’t read Pushkin, but then I also don’t read poetry in translation. 

But I don’t read poetry anyway, you’re going to say— but I do a little and will do more—even if I am to take the extreme position of never reading poetry in translation, there’s still a world of Vietnamese poetry and English poetry to read. 

6/ I might contradict myself and read Tang poetry in (Vietnamese) translation. 

7/ I’m sad I can’t read Cervantes, Flaubert, Proust, Pushkin, Homer… in the original. English native speakers complaining about Shakespeare’s English and saying that the rest of the world have the “advantage” of reading/ watching his plays in translation is something I could never understand.