Are P&V really that bad?

Are P&V really that bad?

Realistically, yes.

They're abominably bad.

The worst.

No. Every argument against them is the same kind of argument used in favor of Lattimore translation of Homer.

They're good translations, everything that is popular isn't shit

they're okay but they don't deserve half the acclaim they've gotten to be honest

Why?

>half of the translation team doesn't even know russian
>good translation

Not, it's a meme. Current translations benefit from decades of scholarly analysis and research. Notice no one can name better translators.

People always name McDuff and Avsey. What makes P&V better?

No one can name better translators because the english translations of Dostoyevsky are all shit, with no exception. Really, the french translation is amazing, the spanish one is excellent, even the portuguese has 2 great translations, but somehow the english ones are really bad.

But then again, it's not like it changes the entire reflections and points the author tries to make, it just takes away some of his style, prose etc, you'll still understand the book and its ideas perfectly with P&V.

>Notice no one can name better translators.
Better translators for what, Russian? Dostoevsky? C&P?
McDuff, even revised Garnett. P&V was praised for being "soooo readable" by people who (like half of P&V) don't know Russian, until they started noticing that very different Russian authors were getting shaped into the same voice.

McDuff is very good, but P&V is very literal. They don't try to "pretty up" the long stretches of dialogue, it is presented as is: ugly and jagged and often repetitive.

Everyone revises Garnett. They kind of have to, given the fact that she was so fucking sloppy.

>very different Russian authors were getting shaped into the same
>P&V is very literal

so which one is it? it can't be both

>average translation
one person translating
>P&V
One native speaker and one non-speaker

Somehow P&V is worse than the rest because one of them does not speak Russian? It's still the same number of Russian speakers as all the other translations.

It can be both. Pick paragraphs from two authors of a language you don't know, translate them word for word, then turn the results into grammatically correct English. The resulting aberrations should be a very identifiable feature, no matter how differently the original authors wrote.

They might not be that bad, but for Crime and Punishment the Oliver Ready translation (in Penguin) is superior

Is Constance Garnett decent?

No.

STOP
MAKING
THIS
THREAD

How crazy would it be if I read a Japanese translation of C&P to avoid all the 'best English translation' nonsense? English translations of Euro books always sound stilted to me somehow.

Yes. Read this instead

i can't believe you even thought of this. you have to do it now!

is this thread covered with a layer of irony that i don't see?

reminder that all the people slating p&v are sour because they got memed into reading an alternative to the popular translation.

p&v are fine, i guarantee you 95% of the people on this board haven't read more than one translation except maybe for an excerpt.

Should I read Dosto in Spanish or English? I'm already halfway through Garnett's translation of C&P and this thread has scared me.

Everyone says Garnett is loose as fuck in her translations, but at least I enjoy reading them. P&V just suck the life out of everything they translate and I have no idea why they became celebrated.

Ignat Avsey gets marks from me for translating it as "The Karamazov Brothers" and not the more pretentious sounding "Brothers Karamazov".

I also liked David Magarshack's translations of Dostoevsky's short stories. That helped demonstrate Dost could write appealing shit when he wanted to.

which is your native language

Okay, here are three versions. Spot the P&V (hint: it's the bad one). Anyone else thinks judging from an excerpt is unfair, you're free to go and ingest the whole text afterwards.

>I am a sick man … I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I think my liver is diseased. However, I don’t know beans about my disease. I don’t treat it and never have, though I respect medicine and doctors. Besides, I am extremely superstitious, let’s say sufficiently so to respect medicine. (I am educated enough not to be superstitious, but I am.) No, I refuse to treat it out of spite. You probably will not understand that. Well, but I understand it. Of course, I can’t explain to you just whom I am annoying in this case by my spite. I am perfectly well aware that I cannot “get even” with the doctors by not consulting them. I know better than anyone that I thereby injure only myself and no one else. But still, if I don’t treat it, it is out of spite. My liver is bad, well then — let it get even worse!

>I am a sick man … I am a wicked man. An unattractive man. I think my liver hurts. However, I don’t know a fig about my sickness, and am not sure what it is that hurts me. I am not being treated and never have been, though I respect medicine and doctors. What’s more, I am also superstitious in the extreme, well, at least enough to respect medicine. (I’m sufficiently educated not to be superstitious, but I am.) No, sir, I refuse to treat it out of wickedness. Now, you will certainly not be so good as to understand this. Well, sir, but I understand it. I will not, of course, be able to explain to you precisely who is going to suffer in this case from my wickedness. I know perfectly well that I will in no way “muck things up” for the doctors by not taking their treatment; I know better than anyone that by all this I am harming only myself and no one else. My liver hurts; well, then let it hurt even worse!

>I am a sick man. ... I am a spiteful man. I am a most unpleasant man. I think my liver is diseased. Then again, I don't know a thing about my illness; I'm not even sure what hurts. I'm not being treated and never have been, though I respect both medicine and doctors. Besides, I'm extremely superstitious—well at least enough to respect medicine. (I'm sufficiently educated not to be superstitious; but I am, anyway.) No, gentlemen, it's out of spite that I don't wish to be treated. Now then, that's something you probably won't understand. Well, I do. Of course, I won't really be able to explain to you precisely who will be hurt by my spite in this case; I know perfectly well that I can't possibly “get even” with doctors by refusing their treatment; I know better than anyone that all this is going to hurt me alone, and no one else. Even so, if I refuse to be treated, it's out of spite. My liver hurts? Good, let it hurt even more!

Both the second and third are bad.

I am an alpha man.. I lift weights.. I am /intelligentual/ and do not give a fuck about other people, I just live my life as I see for the best

I'm an alpha man, and if my liver hurts I take fucking care of it, or if I can't, then I'll die and the book ends there.

People dislike P&V because their very literal translation of the Russian clashes with the Western tradition of revising foreign texts to sound more erudite. They talk about this in the translation notes in Notes from Underground.

Stay assmad, pseuds

People that criticize translations have no idea what makes a translation good or bad because they don't know what they want going into it. Ever single Russian professor or Russian lit professor I have had both in the US and IN RUSSIA has recommended P+V to get a glimpse of Russian literature. It comes the closest to mimicking the uniquely disjointed and repetitive nature of the Russian language in a way that others do not. If you want readability in English and care more about the universal themes and plot more than the cultural aspect, then other translations are better since they come across as more legible. The reason that P+V seems unbearable is just because it tries harder to behave like Russian than other translations do.

No, people dislike P&V because their very literal translations fail to convey meaning.

I'm guessing the second is P&V. I liked the first the best.

Kek, the first and third translations are so different from the original, as though it is some totally different novel. The P&V is the most precise.

It honestly doesn't fucking matter. Whatsoever. Preferability in translation boils down to personal taste and personal reading habits. P&V are fine. The only people who argue against that like this retard are pseuds.

I got their translation for Notes from Underground and it was terrible. Got the Oxford one and it was a big improvement.

But what do you mean by that? They show the prose style of the author, themes, plot points, and dialogue just fine. What other meaning is there to convey?

The one translated by Couson? If so, then I'm terribly sorry to inform you, but that translation is egregiously bad and very much distorted from the original text, as if it were translated from numerous other translations. Despite what others are saying, the P&V is the best and most accurate translation I've ever come across. As for those who can read Russian and, as such, compare the both, and still complain about it, they simply fail to fathom that English and Russian are very different languages, and that many concepts present in Russian can't be conveyed in English no matter what.

No by Kentish.

All translations are a different novel! If you want to read Crime and Punishment you need to learn Russian. The question is which translation constitutes the best new novel.

>fail to fathom that English and Russian are very different languages
... and that therefore translating the words one by one without regard for the overall meaning of the sentence, not to mention novel, does not make for a good translation. Russian readers shit on P&V not because it happens to constitute bad writing in English, but because it doesn't mean what the Russian text means. P&V was carried to prominence by marketing and there's nothing surprising about it being now pulled down by word of mouth.

>and that therefore translating the words one by one without regard for the overall meaning of the sentence, not to mention novel, does not make for a good translation
It wouldn't be possible whatsoever.