In Search of Meaning discussion

Here are a few tips which I have learned the hard way after buying books with translations that I found to be inadequate, or lacking in supplementary materials. I suppose this would apply to translations of all kinds, but since I've been reading a lot of Russian novels lately I will apply these tips to them.

1) Ensure your book has Footnotes or Endnotes.

The first time I read Crime and Punishment it had no footnotes or endnotes, and now that I'm reading it for the second time I'm realizing all the things that I missed. I cannot tell you how much I've learned about Russian history, politics, and social life, just from the footnotes of novels. This is the best tip I can advice I think I can offer. Moreover, footnotes are much more valuable and rare than endnotes. With endnotes, you must have a second bookmark in the back of your book and keep flipping back and forth whenever a notation number appears, breaking up the momentum of the novel. Footnotes are much more practical since the note is on the same page as the notation number appears; I think publishers are lazy and it's much more convenient for them to print all the notes together and stick them in the back of the book.

2) Compare and contrast translators.

Not all translators are created equal, so compare and contrast which translations you prefer. I would perhaps advise staying away from Constance Garnett for Russian translations, as she is known for having a distinct Victorian writing style, and for skipping entire sentences she doesn't know how to translate, leaving them out of the novel entirely. A Russian critic Brodsky once said, “The reason English-speaking readers can barely tell the difference between Tolstoy and Dostoevsky is that they aren’t reading the prose of either one. They’re reading Constance Garnett.”

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky are good, though their translation is quite literal and can be stiff reading at times. I love David McDuff's translation of Crime and Punishment and Robert A. Maguire's translation of Demons. Louise and Aylmer Maude's translation of War & Peace is quite good and received Tolstoy's approval.

I usually go to my school's library and compare and contrast several versions before making a choice. If you're reading Russian novels, you're in it for the long haul, so get comfortable with the translator.

Edit: I actually find Constance Garnett's translations to be especially beautiful. I re-read her translation of Notes from Underground and enjoyed it a lot. Just read the translator you like the most.

3) Do not read abridged versions of novels. Just Don't.

4) Read a few prefaces to the novel from different versions of the book.

The Preface gives you a great background of the novel's historical, social and political context at the time of its creation. For example, I would never have known that Mikhail Bulgakov burned the drafts of his novel The Master and Margarita more than once before completing it. Thus the quote "Manuscripts don't burn" wouldn't have had such a deep and lasting impression on me. A bit of warning though: sometimes prefaces contain spoilers for God only knows why, so if a preface is hinting at some spoiler-worthy material, I would suggest reading the novel first and coming back to the preface later.

Anyways I hope these tips were helpful. If you have any more please feel free to leave a comment. Have a great day!

Thanks for the tips, Tom. The Master and Margarita is high on my list but my library doesn’t have it, so looks like I’ll have to buy a copy this summer.

What do you think of the Pan MacMillan Collector's Library translations?

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/...

RE:ABRIDGED COPIES: My sister has accidentally purchased a few versions of Les Misérables that she didn’t realize were abridged. She read the last one and realized after a triumphant “finish” that, well, . . . she was not finished, so she’s now reading the full and I guess it’s not always clearly marked.

Thanks for the tips. The problem sometimes is that, oddly enough, there aren't many translations of what you're looking for... and sometimes, there aren't any. I love Dostoevsky, and I also like to see the "fine-tuning" of works of art. That is, I like to see rehearsals of plays, manuscripts of texts, and sketches of paintings.
That's how I learned there was a preliminary version of "Crime and Punishment," written in the first person, which Dostoevsky abandoned after a few chapters, to start writing again in the third person. Well, the manuscript (called "Raskolnikov's Diary") was available in Spanish (for 100 years), also in Italian, French, German... and Russian. In English, I searched and searched for it for years, and I just found it a few days ago. Finally!! The translator's name is M. Smirnov. I don't know if he/she is well-known, but he/she is the only one who offers it, so I bought it. I don't think it's bad! I'd like to hear other opinions. Has anyone else read it?