Here is another Schumann: Sonata no. 11, The Peharia.
I found my copy at a book fair and it was cheap. You can tell it's pretty beat up so I'd like to get a better copy. The problem is, from what I've read this is the best translator. Penguin is probably my favorite paperback edition, but they have a different translator. Maybe I'll buy it anyway, just to have an attractive copy, and, anyway, I can compare the two translations and see which one I like better.
Can I be a little snarky? Years ago, I had a friend from Switzerland who, while I liked very much, if she thought you said something stupid, she could be quite sarcastic about it, in order to make you feel stupid.
I was mentioning that my mother liked to read a few translations of the same Russian novel to see which she liked better.
"Oh?" My friend asked with a sarcastic smile. "Your mother speaks Russian?"
I was too busy feeling stupid to realize that she misunderstood me. I didn't say my mother was comparing translations for accuracy, and my mother didn't have to know Russian to know which English translation she liked better.
It does bring up something that does bother me. Which is the best translation of a book? The one that is the most literal or captures the essence of the meaning. There are ways we express ourselves in one language that simply doesn't translate into another, so one needs to find an appropriate idiomatic equivalent.
I suppose we have to accept that a large part of an author's writing style will be lost. Ah, well.
Here is my review as I published it on Goodreads.
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I saw this book for a dime at a library book fair and I've read other people's reviews about it so I felt I should give it a go.
This is a science fiction/dystopian novel that is as chilling as it is fascinating. The narrator is living in a reality that has become perfect, thanks to basing it on mathematical principals. There is no "I" only "We". Each person has their identity buried in the whole, like a cog in a machine.
Things that make life worth living, like human relationships, romance, are replaced with satisfying physical urges, like sex. You don't even have to work up an artificial premise like at a bar. You simply take a number of the person you want to have sex with and a time is set up.
No one has a name, only a number. One's purpose in life is to make sure the "whole" is working. There is no soul. If you find you have one, you undergo an "operation" to remove it.
The narrator talks in delirious hyperbole to describe how absolutely wonderful life is under the "Benefactor", but cracks start to appear. The logic he has lived by isn't following through. Loose endings increasingly appear as he more and more desperately tries to resolve or suppress them.
His Achilles Heel is love for someone else. A woman. Her name is I-330, as his is D-305. Love does not fit into the equation set up by the Benefactor, only existence.
The story is beautifully written. I can see how the premise was the inspiration for George Orwell's 1984, but while I found Orwell's more understandable and consequently more bleak, Zamyatin's novel is far more poetic, but also harder to understand.
I found his metaphor's and vivid imagery rich and colorful, but I also wondered at times what was going on. The descriptions were psychedelic, to say the least. I had a hard time knowing whether the author was using metaphor or literal descriptions when stating that she "pierced me with the spears of her eyelashes." Or whether when I-330 spreads her pink gills out like wings....does she really have gills? Or what is he saying?
Maybe it was the translation. Mirra Ginsburg was the translator and from what I've read, she's the best. However, I am curious now to read another. Not that she wouldn't be the most accurate, but I wonder if I would find another translation equally mystifying.
At the end of the day, I am glad I read it and maybe I'll understand it better with a different translation or when I'm older and, hopefully, wiser.
View all my reviews
Here's a photo of a postcard that I sent across the world to a pen pal buddy. Vintage photography is my favorite!
I found my copy at a book fair and it was cheap. You can tell it's pretty beat up so I'd like to get a better copy. The problem is, from what I've read this is the best translator. Penguin is probably my favorite paperback edition, but they have a different translator. Maybe I'll buy it anyway, just to have an attractive copy, and, anyway, I can compare the two translations and see which one I like better.
Can I be a little snarky? Years ago, I had a friend from Switzerland who, while I liked very much, if she thought you said something stupid, she could be quite sarcastic about it, in order to make you feel stupid.
I was mentioning that my mother liked to read a few translations of the same Russian novel to see which she liked better.
"Oh?" My friend asked with a sarcastic smile. "Your mother speaks Russian?"
I was too busy feeling stupid to realize that she misunderstood me. I didn't say my mother was comparing translations for accuracy, and my mother didn't have to know Russian to know which English translation she liked better.
It does bring up something that does bother me. Which is the best translation of a book? The one that is the most literal or captures the essence of the meaning. There are ways we express ourselves in one language that simply doesn't translate into another, so one needs to find an appropriate idiomatic equivalent.
I suppose we have to accept that a large part of an author's writing style will be lost. Ah, well.
Here is my review as I published it on Goodreads.
We by Yevgeny ZamyatinMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I saw this book for a dime at a library book fair and I've read other people's reviews about it so I felt I should give it a go.
This is a science fiction/dystopian novel that is as chilling as it is fascinating. The narrator is living in a reality that has become perfect, thanks to basing it on mathematical principals. There is no "I" only "We". Each person has their identity buried in the whole, like a cog in a machine.
Things that make life worth living, like human relationships, romance, are replaced with satisfying physical urges, like sex. You don't even have to work up an artificial premise like at a bar. You simply take a number of the person you want to have sex with and a time is set up.
No one has a name, only a number. One's purpose in life is to make sure the "whole" is working. There is no soul. If you find you have one, you undergo an "operation" to remove it.
The narrator talks in delirious hyperbole to describe how absolutely wonderful life is under the "Benefactor", but cracks start to appear. The logic he has lived by isn't following through. Loose endings increasingly appear as he more and more desperately tries to resolve or suppress them.
His Achilles Heel is love for someone else. A woman. Her name is I-330, as his is D-305. Love does not fit into the equation set up by the Benefactor, only existence.
The story is beautifully written. I can see how the premise was the inspiration for George Orwell's 1984, but while I found Orwell's more understandable and consequently more bleak, Zamyatin's novel is far more poetic, but also harder to understand.
I found his metaphor's and vivid imagery rich and colorful, but I also wondered at times what was going on. The descriptions were psychedelic, to say the least. I had a hard time knowing whether the author was using metaphor or literal descriptions when stating that she "pierced me with the spears of her eyelashes." Or whether when I-330 spreads her pink gills out like wings....does she really have gills? Or what is he saying?
Maybe it was the translation. Mirra Ginsburg was the translator and from what I've read, she's the best. However, I am curious now to read another. Not that she wouldn't be the most accurate, but I wonder if I would find another translation equally mystifying.
At the end of the day, I am glad I read it and maybe I'll understand it better with a different translation or when I'm older and, hopefully, wiser.
View all my reviews
Here's a photo of a postcard that I sent across the world to a pen pal buddy. Vintage photography is my favorite!
17 comments:
Super review Sharon. I agree, there was so much to this book and it was wonderfully written. I did not think that it packed the emotional punch of Nineteen Eighty- Four though.
I also think about translations. I think that it is more important to capture the essence of the words rather then exact meanings. Of course it is very difficult to know if one does not understand the original language. A book like this has such unconventional prose at times. I can imagine the translation was difficult. I also wonder how much of the essence of the original the translators captured.
This was one of the first dystopian novels I read, and "psychedelic" is a great way to summarize it. I only gave it 2 or 3 stars, but I have to admit, the writing style did draw me in. I liked that "D" was someone in a position of relative prestige and starts out having a "good life"; it makes his character arc all the more interesting.
I don't recall anything about gills... I read the Penguin edition. There were plenty of confusing parts in it, though!
Re: translations... One of my favorite books of all time is Eugene Onegin by the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. I've read or listened to 5-6 translations since I discovered it. My favorite is still James Falen's, and a lot of people (Russian and non-Russian) feel that way. I've also read plenty of bad translations (mostly of Jules Verne) so my "translation radar" is tuned to texts that are emotive and meaningful. If you read many translations, you can usually tell when someone's referring to a thesaurus too often, or injecting their own agenda into the writing.
that looks like about a '56 Pontiac... i read this, i think; might have posted on it also... i need to clean the fog off my memory screen... translations can be difficult; as Marian says, it's possible in some cases to structurally value the use of language, but i've found that i'm accustomed to a certain sort of flow of words, and i have difficulty with some modern translations for that reason; for instance if a version of a 19th C. book uses modern slang and sentence construction, the text can be unreadable, imo, anyway... some modern translations of Russian novels have that problem...
Hi Brian. That is truly a challenge. I am going to get another translation of this book just for comparison.
Hi Marian. That's interesting about translation. I'm going to look up James Falen and see what all he's translated. You know, I must be dumb, but I never realized that Verne was translated. I knew he was French, but his writing just seems so British.
I know exactly what you mean about injecting an agenda. My son is living in China and watches movies to help improve his comprehension. He watches Chinese movies with English sub titles. He's discovered that Hollywood inserts swear words when they don't even exist in the Chinese dialogue.
Oh, boy...your Swiss friend!)
Your mom is a sharp lady! I would also go w/ a new translation even for the different experience. From what you describe, this story sounds a lot like Brave New World -- the elimination of emotions, feelings, and love. Wow! Sounds like something else I need to add to my never ending list. :D
OK. For the THIRD time I am going to try to post a comment. That's a good point about modern translations.
So did you ever own a '56 Pontiac?
I"m so glad R.T. You're one of my favorite bloggers. Look forward to reading your thoughts on the next book or poem.
Hi Ruth. It is interesting. I was reading two translations of The Idiot, side by side. It was interesting how they both said the same thing, but with different words and expressions. I don't know which was more accurate according to style and expression, but the one had a much stronger delivery that I preferred.
i'm glad i'm not alone in having trouble with comment mechanisms... never did. my first car was a '50 Austin Atlantic with a 4 cyl. 2660cc motor and an aluminum tranny the body was aluminum also it had a 4 speed in it with first gear blown out and i got it for $90 and two Solex carbs...
My first car was a 1979 Oldsmobile. I got it in 1991. It was a real monster but, 8 V engine. It could practically orbit into space.
LOL! wonderful image of Sharon behind the wheel, a determined look, crunching the gas pedal, headed toward Mars!
Well, I could get from Mobile, AL to Destin,FL lickety split.
I have thought long and hard about the question you posed about translations. This doesn't typically apply to me (except when I am trying to find mentions of Eleanor of Aquitaine in the Pipe Rolls, of course written in Latin), but I think the essence matters more than the literal. The feeling is what matters most, I think anyway.
Hi Sarah. I think you're right because, unless, we can read the original language, we'll never know the writing style. I think about it, because some authors, it's really the way the write, rather than what they right about that is so good. I wonder how William Faulkner translates into other languages.
Hi Sharon!
Good to be able to comment again :)
I read the Penguin version and didn't find it an easy read but I thought his ideas were quite prophetic with his themes of a technological and utilitarian world. I do enjoy a good dystopian book regularly. This wasn't my favourite by a long shot but it was interesting.
Hi Sharon!
Good to be able to comment again :)
I read the Penguin version and didn't find it an easy read but I thought his ideas were quite prophetic with his themes of a technological and utilitarian world. I do enjoy a good dystopian book regularly. This wasn't my favourite by a long shot but it was interesting.
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