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Given to me by me Grandmother.

Given to me by me Grandmother.

(post is archived)

[–] • 2 pts

Written by some guy disillusioned guy named Fyodor

[–] • 1 pt

You'd be disillusioned too if you were named Fyodor.

[–] • 1 pt (edited )

Thank God it isn't the Russian equivalent of Theodore.

[–] • 1 pt

Use it on your next reincarnation here.

[–] • 1 pt

Outstanding! Your grandmother knew what was up, Theo.

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[–] • 1 pt

It is an awesome book, but reading the first few lines of your copy makes me really appreciate the flavor of my mid-century American translation.

I am a sick man... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased. However, I know nothing at all about my disease, and do not know for certain what ails me.

vs.

I am a sick man... I am a spiteful man. I am an unpleasant man. I think my liver is diseased. However, I don't know beans about my disease, and I am not sure what is bothering me.

Translation is obviously a very tricky game when it comes to literature and poetry, especially when you are attempting to translate from a non-Germanic non-Romance language into English.

Do you translate as accurately as possible, going about it very technically?

Or should you try to impart the spirit of it, knowing a word-for-word translation would lose much of its intending meaning?

Should you ignore idionyms, or try to substitute them for something your lingual audience will understand?

I still have a fantasy about learning medieval Farsi, so I could read Rumi in his original dialect, and decide whether or not he truly was the greatest Poet who ever lived.

[–] • 1 pt

i like the contemporary colloquialism of 'don't know beans' in your translation. I'm certain that wasn't translated from Russian.

[–] • 1 pt (edited )

It is kind of beautiful, right?

You can tell the translator lived through the Great Depression.

[EDIT: I should give respect to the translator. His name was Ralph E. Matlaw, he died at 63 years old in 1990. Here is a link to his obituary: https://web.archive.org/web/20150525204625/https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/28/obituaries/ralph-matlaw-dies-slavics-professor-63.html]

[–] • 1 pt

That's one of his best works actually, very valuable.

A seasoned preparator of the darkest corners of the human soul and a connoisseur of its vices, hopelessly hyped in Russia and beyond (the latter on a scale comparable, perhaps, only to Tolstoy) as a model novelist, an adherent of True Orthodoxy, a beacon of Spirituality™, and an apologist for the Russian mentality. He is a favorite writer of the Japanese, Chinese, and Swedes, with unflagging popularity. Europeans and Americans often rediscover Dostoevsky and read him avidly. The conscience of the nation, a long-time epileptic, an honored gambler of Russia, a moderate antisemite, and simply a good person.

He's also known to say this:

The jews will destroy Russia and become the leaders of anarchy. The jew and his cabal are conspiring against the Russians.

His relationship with the jews was an interesting one, for sure. He sympathized them, but at the same time he ruthlessly criticized their ways, saw through their plans, and was upset that they treat the goyim with contempt and wouldn't share a meal with them. Thus the jew made sure to tarnish his reputation.

[–] • 0 pt

His relationship with the jews was an interesting one, for sure. He sympathized them, but at the same time he ruthlessly criticized their ways, saw through their plans, and was upset that they treat the goyim with contempt and wouldn't share a meal with them. Thus the jew made sure to tarnish his reputation.

I noticed something similar when reading The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and I honestly didn't know what to make of it.

He mentioned that when the 3rd or 4th wave of Soviet Commissars came through his Ukrainian village, they made sure to blame the travesties the initial agricultural collectivization on the Jews present in the 1st and 2nd wave of Soviet Commissars.

But Solzhenitsyn himself seemed to be oddly ambivalent or silent on his judgement of Jewish involvement in the communist extermination of his people.

Do you have any opinions or recommended reading on the matter?

[–] • 1 pt

Yeah, it's a bit of a conundrum. It was common that the regular folk would get repressed and tortured needlessly in the Imperialist Russia, given the entire incarceration and mock execution that Dostoevsky went through. People were accustomed to those in power abusing their authority and trampling on ordinary citizens. They believed their hands were tied and that nothing could be done about it. Learned helplessness. In this way, Russians have a lot in common with the Chinese. No one went full "14/88 gas the jews final solution now" back then, but it's less because of the false teachings and boomerisms, but mostly because he and his peers saw the jews as these poor, rustic, kindred spirits who tried to cruise through many hardships life keeps throwing at them, yet they were befuddled by their vile attitude towards the non-chosenites. Again, it's probably due to the lack of information and connection between the jews and their satanic roots, which was wholly undiscovered at the time for the average, clueless person. To put it into perspective, many Soviet citizens visited synagogues, but not to worship. They went there to get a free meal during their many jewish holidays. lol. As for recommended reading, I'm not sure any of those are available on English, a lot of it are just various articles and ramblings of random people on forums trying to piece it together. Reading more classic works could give a bit more of an insight into the mentality, perhaps.