Friday, June 3, 2016

о переводах

We find the same sprinkling of outdated words and phrases in the novels of Trollope and Dickens and George Eliot. Should they, too, be rewritten for modern sensibilities? (Would u really want that?) - Socks by Janet Malcolm
мадам сравнивает переводы Анны Карениной, при этом честно признается, что русского не знает: The reader should not be misled into thinking that I know Russian. A Russian speaker kindly supplied these words.

still i agree with her on use of outdated words and phrases.
What side are you on? Whose interests should the translator serve? Those of the reader of simple wants, who only asks of a translation that it advance rather than impede his pleasure and understanding? Or those of the more advanced (or masochistic) school who want to know what the original was “like”?

upd 9/25: in Sept 29th issue in Letters:
Not even an acute critic like Janet Malcolm is qualified to pass judgment on a translator’s work if she has no knowledge of the text in its original language. - Alice Sedgwick Wohl

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