Litterbury

There is a small article up on The Wall Street Journal about the husband-and-wife team of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.  I must give credit to The Elegant Variation in drawing my attention to it, a website that I was just taking issue with today, and where I’m about to take issue again.

First off, Pevear and Volokhonsky are renowned in the publishing world for their work, perhaps even having won awards, I don’t know.  They translate classic Russian works together, and Pevear has translated some French on his own.  I’m familiar with these two because about a month or so back I read the Everyman’s Library edition of The Brothers Karamazov, which Pevear and Volokhonsky worked on.  Also, about a year ago I read Pevear’s independent translation of The Three Musketeers, published by Viking, which I believe is now available from Penguin.

Now I’m leery to criticize the translation of Karamazov, seeing as it’s my first Russian novel, and thus making it my first encounter with Fyodor Dostoevsky.  My problem with that book is that it’s so very overrated and, in my view, perhaps not even all that great a book, but I’ll have more to say about that soon enough.  Don’t you worry!

I can, however, safely criticize Pevear’s translation of The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas.  To his credit, Pevear does restore a missing element that had been censored from previous translations into English from it’s native French.  Without giving anything away, there was a minor sex scene that had been altered between two of the characters, and Pevear does include it in his version of the book.  Make no mistake, it’s an important development, but it concerns a single sentence if I recall, and nothing more.

I was anxious to get my hands on a newer translation of the Musketeers, as I’m a devoted fan, and a fan of Dumas in general; he’s one of my favorite authors.  As I read through the book, I seemed to enjoy myself, but when I had finished I had a very distinct feeling that something was missing.  The translation, to my knowledge, is clean enough, but if I had to recommend a version of the Musketeers to someone, this would not be the one.

The writing was crisp and kept up the familiar pace of the adventure, but it also read as very, if not distinctly, modern, and I ultimately decided that it was a little too modern for it’s own good.  Much of the lush romantic swooning that I had come to associate with Dumas seemed to be missing, and the weightier, more archaic sounding language seemed to be completely overhauled to the point of, quite frankly, seeming somehow unfamiliar.  It’s a very literal translation, if that makes any sense.

Now a couple points I want to make.

Have I read The Three Musketeers in French and attempted to translate it myself? No, I have not.  I took some French in junior-high and high-school, but I don’t necessarily believe that I would have the confidence to delve into such an endeavor personally, and I don’t currently have access to a copy of the novel in it’s original French, leaving this argument I’m making to guesswork.

Second, I just noted ‘the weightier, more archaic sounding language.’  Could that very well be the work of time and place versus the translation itself? And could my own familiarity and sense of comfort with older versions be limiting me to a certain bias? Perhaps… but I place very sensitive emphasis on that perhaps.

I’ve read quite a few versions of the Musketeers over the years, and a sizable amount of books by Dumas, and rarely done by the same translator twice:

1.  About four versions of The Three Musketeers; the William Barrow edition from 1846 published by Oxford and Richard Pevear’s version from 2006 being the two in my current library.

2.  Twenty Years After, 2nd in the Musketeer saga, is more difficult to nail down, but large credit goes to William Robson who supplied an authorized French text to London, and seems to be the basis for most modern translations, but I’m not sure who receives the credit for the English itself; my version is published by Oxford.

3.  The Vicomte de Bragelonne, 3rd in the Musketeer saga, is also a bit messy.  My Oxford copy credits an 1848 section (Thomas Williams) and an 1850-1 complete text (Thomas Pederson) for the basis of a copy put out by Routledge in 1857, which has been revised and cleaned up, apparently, for my copy.

4.  Two separate editions of The Count of Monte Cristo; one translated by Robin Buss originally published in 1996, currently available from Penguin, and the recent Everyman’s Library edition from the first English translation credited as anonymous from 1846, and has been revised by Peter Washington; I should note that I’ve yet to read the second one.  I’ve also read an older abridged version (butchered in half) many years ago.  I can credit it to Signet Classics, but that’s all, and it wasn’t very good.

5.  Another Robin Buss translation, this time for the novel, The Women’s War, with an original copyright of 2006, currently available from Penguin.

6.  And lastly, a modern translation of The Knight of Maison-Rouge from Julie Rose, credited as being released in 2003 to the Modern Library.

Whew!

Now, the Oxford editions of the Musketeers are pretty much the copies that readers will find the most readily available.  They are fine editions, but a little on the old-fashioned side of things, but they relate the tales well and convey Dumas’ own knack for storytelling beautifully.

The Julie Rose translation of Red House is good, but it feels a bit conservative.  It could be the book itself, it could be her own stamp of translation, I’m not really in a position to say, but it did feel oddly cold for a Dumas book.  I recently picked up her newer translation of Hugo’s Les Miserables (also Modern Library), so I’ll have to take stock of things when I get around to reading that one.

Now the Robin Buss books are going to be my Rosetta Stone, if you will.  Having read both of Buss’ versions (Monte Cristo and The Women’s War), there remains a a recognizable style that is distinctly, strictly Dumas, but with a bit of modern approach that suggests the effort in trying not to limit the sound or cadence of the translation itself to any specific era.  In short? The Buss translations have more in common with the texture of the first translations of Dumas in English.  It sounds like the Dumas I came to fall in love with in the Oxford editions of the Musketeer books, but not sounding as though it was filtered through a specific era (Victorian? or was that later? I’d have to check).  All the emotion and sparkling psychology of Dumas is richly on display, to the point that I find it crushing that Buss never translated any of the Musketeer books, and never will; he died in December 2006.

It might seem inappropriate to even make this comparison, but the basis of an argument lies in this: the translation work of Robin Buss is very different than the translation work of Richard Pevear.  Granted, we’re talking completely different books here, but when I say that I wouldn’t recommend the Pevear version of The Three Musketeers, I mean it.  Judging how Dumas can be effectively conveyed in modern English put’s Pevear’s work at a step back.

Now here is my argument: having no frame of reference to hold to Russian literature, I’m a little concerned about the Volokhonsky and Pevear translation work that they have done together.

Is it blind and irrational? Yes, and I understand that they have pretty much the whole industry propping them up with accolades, and I would say that their version of Karamazov sounded richer than Pevear’s sole work on the Musketeers, so maybe they just work better together.  But there is the unmistakable fact that the industry seemed to praise Pevear’s version of The Three Musketeers, not that I examined the issue heavily, mind you, but I did come across a few things.

Specifically! Seeing TEV’s post from Sarvas linking to the Wall Street Journal article, in which Sarvas says “The Royal Family of translators, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, are interviewed in the Wall Street Journal,” it jolted my memory on something I had read from Sarvas on his blog some time ago.  I can’t give a date, but it was in regards to Pevear’s new translation of The Three Musketeers, in which Sarvas simply commented “which we liked.”  I remember at the time thinking, huh, I didn’t like it! and thought that it was just yet another opportunity to find myself at odds with Sarvas and his blog.

I have to wonder.  Is Mark Sarvas the real deal and an unbiased opinion on a very honest and widely read blog? Or is he so enmeshed in the industry that it’s just more of the same signs of blind industry acceptance for the lucky few to have been admitted beyond the hallowed, golden gates? My disagreeing with him on the Dumas matter seems slight, even a bit shrill, but to someone like myself it speaks volumes about taste and judgement, and, frankly, I feel comfortable on my side of the issue.

This worries me because if the publishing and literary world is collectively so navel-gazing to the point of almost going down on itself, can one trust their faith to be dealt with honestly and seriously in regards to the quality and craftsmanship that the industry has an invested interest in promoting? I’m starting to wonder, and it makes me uncomfortable with many of the recognized literary blogs that often sound more like endless PR, rather than genuine outbursts of sincerity from real book lovers.

I’m okay with thinking that Pevear and Volokhonsky are a capable team in regards to translating Russian literature, as my own time with their shared work didn’t see any obvious fault to the language, but then again, I have nothing to compare that to, and little to no background on the specific subject either.  That really does concern me, because I’ve read translations of books before that later proved to be inferior, but seemed widely, if not commonly accepted at the time.  And this industry is really enamored with these two, which I hope isn’t representative of fawning adulation.

I’m just as unnerved by the fact that I trust well-connected, highly intelligent and literate people who run sites like The Elegant Variation to give me unfiltered reviews and insight that I can trust.  I’d like to think that it’s generally the case with many other blogs, columns, critics and publishers as well.  Could there be a difference of opinion? Absolutely.  I do find liking Pevear’s translation of the Musketeers odd, though.  And as a Dumas fan, it sticks out to me.

The Wall Street Journal article is here:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704431804574539613167679976.html?mod=article-outset-

Mark Sarvas here:

http://marksarvas.blogs.com/