Dostoyevsky

Cafe Society
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[QUOTE=Maeglin]
So much is dependent on the translation. Constance Garnett basically brought Dostoyevsky to the English-speaking world, and her translations are still often read today. They are Victorian in the extreme, and they cleave very closely to the original Russian. I know maybe five words of Russian so I really cannot comment on her technique, per se, but personally, I find them unbearable. For the longest time I thought I did not really like Dostoyevsky, despite my best efforts. I thought there was something wrong with me.

Then I read something not translated by Garnett and my opinion did a 180.
[/QUOTE]

My Brothers K is a Garnett translation. Which translation would you recommend then?

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I read *Crime and Punishment * years ago and enjoyed it. I don’t remember the translatior. That’s the only Dostoevsky I’ve read.

As for Garnett, I enjoyed her *War and Peace * translation, but someone in another thread had a cow when I said that.

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[QUOTE=chocolatefrog]
My Brothers K is a Garnett translation. Which translation would you recommend then?
[/QUOTE]

I’m obviously not Maeglin, but I would recommend the Richard Pevear/Larisa Volokhonsky translation, like I mentioned in my earlier post regarding “The Idiot.” They’re a husband-and-wife team (he’s American and she’s Russian) and write vibrant, sensitive prose. The Amazon entry for this translation displays this snippet from a review:

I believe that.

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[QUOTE=Bibby]
This, from Amazon – hope that’s allowable:

(PS, sorry for the hijack from Dostoyevsky)

Bibby
[/QUOTE]

Thank you. I don’t wanna junior mod but I’m pretty sure it’s ok as long as it’s not a referrer link.

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I read the Brothers Karamazov ages ago and Crime and Punishment more recently. I own much of his work, some of it in Russian although I’ve not read any of the Russian books yet. When I lived in Saint Petersburg I visited some of the places where he lived. You can still go to the place where Raskolnikov lived, I believe, but I did not do that. My Russian teacher gave me his copy of Crime and Punishment for my birthday. He said that he, as a Saint Petersburger, did not like Dostoevsky too much because he lived in the same insane city as Dostoevsky had, so he could not appreciate Dostoevsky on an anthropological level the way outsiders could. Plus, he said, Dostoevsky writes in a terrible style.

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I have tried to read The Idiot three times in the last 20 years, since my half sister gave me a copy as a gift. Last time I got 2/3 of the way through before giving up. I still have the same copy - one day, I’m going to finish it, dammit!