Lolita

[Ptichka]

RGirl, I actually read Kundera in translation (in English mainly since translations into Russian are not that great). Nabokov is a different story. As to reading different authors in different languages... I don't know. I used to speak very decent French. I would read some French works in the original (Maurois, Camus). While I did enjoy it, I think I enjoyed it more in languages I spoke fluently. One thing that does frustrate me, though, is that in America today it is often rather incompetent people who go into translation business. One of my latest favorites is Haruki Murakami, and I've heard people who read him in the original be absolutely outraged by the translations.

 

[Rgirl]

Pitchka,
Yes, in the "lit biz" translations and translators are very controversial. Plus some authors, ie, those who use a lot of street language and vernacular, are especially difficult to translate. Take Celine from French to English, for example. The most recent translation was by Ralph Manheim about 25 years ago. I can't remember who did the translation before Manheim, but I found a copy in the library once and compared to Manheim's, it was pitiful. Of course there are those who read French who say Manheim's translations are pitiful, lol. All I know is that if I had to depend on a translation to get the true feel for the work of a writer such as Hubert Selby, Jr.--well, I'd be very frustrated if I knew the rhythms and sounds of the street Selby gets into his prose but couldn't access myself.

My understanding is that really good translators can make so much more money in business and politics than in translating books that books get the short end of the ball--to use a malaprop one might find in a bad translation
Rgirl

 

[Ptichka]

I Russia there was for a time the phenomenon of the best writers earning money through translations. For example, Boris Pasternak translater Shakespeare. It's odd. On the one hand, those translations are great; OTOH, you don't know if you are getting Shakespeare or Pasternak. Of the translators from Russian into English, I would recommend Mirra Ginsburg. She did Bulgakov's "Master and Margaritta" (the only decent translation of my favorite book), some of Pushkin's humorous works, and much more.