EDNOTE. Translator Sklyarenko replies to Oleg Dorman. As editor may I note that all of the translators involved are quite welcome to voice their thoughts here.
 
----- Original Message -----
From: alex
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2003 11:35 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: Comparative Ada translations

Although, as one of the performers in the translation circus, I am not supposed to respond to critical comments from the audience, especially coming from people who occupy the gallery seats and, pollice verso, demand that dead and wounded bodies be quickly taken away and given to the lions, I hope that the present brief reply won't meet any objections of the jury.
 
In his eloquent, but somewhat ungrammatical, attack on the translators of Ada, Mr. Dorman suggests, inter alia, that the correct Russian translation of Demon's words in 1.38, "It's incredible that a young boy should control his father's liquor intake," would go as follows:
"[Eto neslykhanno, chtoby yunosha] ukazyval ottsu skol'ko pit'."
But that is a paraphrase, one of the worst crimes that a translator can commit! The suggested Russian phrase would befit a drunken yokel, a petty tyrant in his own family, and not the American aristocrat of Russo-Irish descent. Besides, it doesn't render Demon's slightly humorous tone here.
With the permission of the members of the jury, I would like to say that, on the whole, the characters' speech is one of the weakest spots in all published versions of the Russian Ada. Nabokov's heroes are often made to speak a foul and vulgar language which is not characteristic of them, especially as Russian happens to be their mother tongue. The poetic Russian of Pushkin and Nabokov, but not the wretched Soviet variety! That's why I tried so hard to avoid the "Sovjargon" and "Soljournalese" in my version. If I have completely achieved that, is of course another question.
I won't enter the polemics with Mr. Dorman about the essence of translation. I would limit myself to saying that, after some eight years of work, I have arrived at the conclusion that Ada can be perfectly translated into the poetic and precise Russian. The miraculousness with which the act of translating occurs, is now in itself such a pleasure and gives such a gratification that one needs no other reward.
 
Alexey Sklyarenko, translator from St. Petersburg
 
p. s. The best Russian translator of Proust is Adrian Frankovski (1888 - 1942). His translation of "Du cote de chez Swann" (1934) remains unsurpassed. Frankovski died in the besieged Leningrad, of hunger.
  
 
      
 
 
   
----- Original Message -----
From: D. Barton Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2003 2:54 AM
Subject: Fw: Comparative Ada translations

EDNOTE. Moscow filmmaker Oleg Dorman offers heartfelt thoughts on Russian translations of Nabokov. Translation of belletristic prose is always difficult, more art than science. Translation of VN is an extreme  case. Nabokov readers are especially fortunate that the author translated (and/or revised) much of his own work and that his gifted son undertook still more. As for other translators, I can only suggest (in addition to superb command of English and Russian) that a close study of VN's own translations  provide the best preparation.
----- Original Message -----
From: Oleg Dorman
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2003 1:49 PM
Subject: Comparative Ada translations

Dear Friends,
I has never yielded to the temptation to discuss Russian translations of Nabokov's prose in public. I am sure that the only sensible position, the only productive criticism  here, is to make a translation yourself. But as the interpreters themselves proposed to talk over the results of their absolutely noble and selfless work, I feel I may let out a fly from the ointment and say that all the presented translations and commentaries, as well as all other translations of Nabokov into Russian are catastrophically awful, totally unacceptable, and often mock the original. The incomparably clear and rich sound of Nabokov's English turns into the resonant rattling of a rusty tincan attached to a cat's tail. I do know myself that  such philippic is indefensible especially because I speak about the whole -- not about the details. I can only propose for instance (not to start a theoretical dispute) that Russian syntax, the Russian sentence cannot store as much as English, and the structure of Nabokov's phrase and period should perhaps be rather different, boldly different in English and in Russian. What is light and natural in the English Nabokov becomes unavoidably forced and clumsy in supposed-Russian translations. Like (forgive me, please) the pedestrian tricks of an old clown.
Very often the same thought, the same garland of images cannot be arranged in one Russian period as it perfectly as is done in English. But surely Nabokov bewitches his translators.  Or how can we explain (just one example, just one and childishly simple at that), why all of them use some artificial construction instead of clear Russian "UKAZYVAL OTCU, SKOL'KO PIT'"?

Translating Nabokov's English with  peculiar Russian words (like MREYAT', ISPOD, BREKFASTAT' and others) makes the super-subtle author a slot-machine, a vulgar buffoon who mechanically reacts to everything in the same words.
We do have in Russian an example of a congenial translation of a writer congenial to Nabokov. It is Nikolay Lubimov's Marcel Proust.
But it is of course a miracle - which a repetition of a miracle can only be.
Forgive me again, - but someone should say it frankly one day.