Dostoevsky and Translation
100 Days of Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground and Crime and Punishment September 1 - December 10, 2024
100 Days of Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground and Crime and Punishment
September 1 - December 10, 2024
September 10, 2024
ALMOST ready!!! I finished Fathers and Sons, AND What Is to Be Done?, AND Dostoevsky in Love - which is phenomenal - but please consider reading it after you read ALL his novels - spoilers abound!!! Will read Sinner and Saint as I comment on Crime and Punishment starting September 21!!! References to all these books in my preliminary posts!!! First Notes from Underground comment tomorrow - full reading schedule in my post from August 30!!! Those of you who just joined us, please review all of my Dostoevsky related posts starting August 1!!!
A note on Dostoevsky Translations
The first translations of Dostoevsky’s novels were published in French and English in the 19th century and influenced such writers as Robert Louis Stevenson and Friedrich Nietzsche who read Dostoevsky in French translations.
The greatest contribution to the popularization of Dostoevsky in the English-speaking world was made by Constance Garnett (1861-1946), a champion of Russian literature who translated a total of 70 volumes of Russian authors such as Gogol, Turgenev, Goncharov, and Tolstoy, many of which are still in print today. She was Chekhov’s first English translator. Her translations made the works of Dostoevsky accessible to generations of writers from James Joyce and Virginia Wolf to D. H. Lawrence, Oscar Wilde, Hemingway, and Faulkner. Some of the other notable Dostoevsky translators include David Magarshack, David McDuff, and Michael Katz.
The husband and wife team of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky dedicated the past 30 years to creating new translations of the major works of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Bulgakov, Pasternak, and many other Russian writers. Their 1990 translation of Brothers Karamazov received the prestigious PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize. All of my Dostoevsky commentary will be based on their translations of his works.
I met Richard and Larisa in Paris several years ago - a mutual acquaintance mentioned my admiration for their translations - they graciously invited me to have tea with them during a Paris visit. They were beyond generous - we met in front of Shakespeare and Company on the Left Bank - which opened after WWII and was inspired by the legendary Sylvia Beach post WWI Shakespeare and Company which was frequented by Joyce, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway - and spent several hours discussing all of world civilization in a lovely cafe - which I still visit during Paris stays!!! They were brilliant, witty, erudite, patient, and engaging - the perfect intellectual power couple!!!
Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.
Please consider reading the NYT article dedicated to their latest Russian translation I posted last week.
Constance Garnett with her son David.
