A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: Dave Eggers

Alexis recommended this book, one that I have avoided largely because of the title for a number of years. I’m glad I was able to look past the ironic title and the opening introduction of the book (seriously, skip it) to read a book that was both moving and incredibly funny.

The opening of the novel proper is very engaging and quite emotional, as Eggers describes the experience of his mother going through painful cancer and the family’s attempt to deal with it.

Perhaps the greatest strength of the novel is that Eggers seems to have a healthy sense of humor about himself. The depiction of his attempt to get on the Real World is outstanding, especially when he meets of the characters who does make it on to the show. Even better is the extended sequence where Eggers interview (and imagines interviewing) for the show.

It’s a rare memoir, one where the author’s flaws aren’t sugar-coated, nor the setup for a touching conclusion in which he overcomes those earlier flaws.

Definitely recommended.

 

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Another Take on Translation

Another interesting review and discussion of the translation, in the New Yorker, by James Woods. Again, it's not entirely safe reading if you have not completed the novel, but it's an excellent piece, both about Tolstoy:

Babel’s conceit, about Tolstoy’s work being so life-filled that he somehow does not seem to write at all, has been the dominant modern tribute paid to the Master’s animism, from Matthew Arnold’s admonition that we should take “Anna Karenina” not as a work of art but as a “piece of life” to A. N. Wilson’s assertion that “War and Peace,” “for seven-eighths of the time . . . does not feel as if it is being narrated at all.” The paradox is not only that “War and Peace” can seem unwritten, even though the accumulated drafts amount to five thousand pages. It is also that its author can seem unread, someone who has never needed to read anybody else’s fiction..

and the translation:

Richard Pevear, in an eloquent introduction, provides a startling example of the ways in which translators do not simply tidy up texts but make things “clear” that they deem obscure. In the novel’s epilogue, Marya enters the nursery: “The children were riding to Moscow on chairs and invited her to come with them.” That is exactly what Tolstoy writes, because he wants us to experience a little shock of readjustment as the adult meets the otherworldliness of childish fantasy. But Garnett, the Maudes, and Briggs all insert an explanatory “playing at,” to make things easier for the adults. As the Maudes render it, “The children were playing at ‘going to Moscow’ in a carriage made of chairs, and invited her to go with them.”

This might seem like a trivial point, but it is a little clue to the vision of the whole novel. Tolstoy sees reality as a system of constant adjustments, a long, tricky convoy of surprises, as realities jostle together and the vital, solipsistic ego is affronted by the otherness of the world.

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Translation Wars

I had a bit of of slowdown in the re-reading of War and Peace with the decision to switch translations, but have made it through the end of Part III, or the Russian defeat at Austerlitz. It was very difficult to find the Maude translation, but I'm happy to have made the switch. Just as their (her?) translation of Resurrection is my favorite, I am finding a lot to enjoy about their W&P. In simplest terms, it's more readable. As much as I wanted to enjoy the Peavar and Volokhonsky, I found many passages quite uncomfortable to read, with some very awkward syntax occasionally making sentences difficult to follow.

It turns out that I was not the only reader struggling to find the ideal translation. Over at Language Hat (definitely worth a visit), there is an interesting post and discussion about the translation of War and Peace that addresses a few of my concerns. The New York Times Reading Room blog is also abuzz with Tolstoy talk, featuring a surprisingly heated discussion, including comments from Richard Peavar, about the best translation of the book. The Reading Room site is also worth a visit, but don't read about W&P there until you've finished the book.

Professor Dmitry Buzadzhi, from the Moscow State Linguistic University, seems especially unimpressed with the Peavar and Volokhonsky translation:

As we all know, Pevear, who does not speak much Russian, collaborates with his wife, Larissa Volokhonsky, who prepares a word-for-word English crib, which Pevear himself can hardly understand at first [Robert Wechsler. Performing Without a Stage: The Art of Literary Translation, 1998. p.201-202]. This practice seems suspicious from the very beginning but could be justified if it produced excellent results. But the actual (not self-proclaimed) quality of the translations proves the opposite. Pevear and his wife do not “make up one translator who has the luck to be a native speaker of two languages” as Pevear claims in his essay, but rather remain two not entirely professional translators, neither of whom has quite mastered the other language and who seem to be multiplying each other’s mistakes.

For me, with no knowledge of the fidelity of the translation as a guide, the largest issue is one that is being hashed out on these sites: the flow of the text. Richard Pevear is adamant that Tolstoy is not a writer concerned with "smoothness," but I find it hard to believe that Tolstoy's prose was as awkward as some of the passages in the V&P translation. Maybe the Maudes made Tolstoy sound more like an Englishman than a Russian, but there is a readable liveliness to the translation that I am really enjoying, despite having to start over.

I guess that makes sense. Peavar, Anthony Briggs (another recent translator), and even Tolstoy himself thought highly of the Maudes work, Tolstoy saying, "Better translators … could not be invented."

Good enough for me.

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War and Peace: Back to the Maudes

Courtesy of a crazy, $12.95 book at Barnes and Noble that contains War and Peace, Anna Karenina, and The Cossacks, I am back with the Maudes.

Thoughts soon.

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War and Peace

I'm not making the progress I'd like in War and Peace yet, but a few notes:

  1. Proofreading is a lost art. I understand that War and Peace is an enormous book, but I have been very surprised at the number of errors that have slipped through in this translation.
  2. I wish I knew Russian. I've done a bit of comparison between this V&P translation and the Anne Dunnigan one lying around my house, and there have been some interesting discrepancies. There's a simplicity to the language in this version that surprises me.
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