Subject
Nabokov sighting
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EDNOTE. I am reading a mystery by Spanish writer Arturo Perez-Reverte called _The Seville Communion_. The penultimate XIVth chapter has an epigraph from Nabokov's _Pnin_: "There are people---amongst whom I would include myself---who detest happy endings."
In general Sonia Soto's translation reads well -- although I am not in a position to vouch for its accuracy. In carping way I can only note that in her treatment of the VN epigraph she has violated a cardinal rule for translators. She has translated the above VN (quasi-)quote directly from the Spanish rather than going to the English original "Some people - and I am one of them - hate happy ends" (1st line of chptr 3). Her version not only radically alters the tone of VN's version, but worse yet, replaces VN's "happy end" with the more usual English form "happy endings." The "happy end" is a calque from Russian (borrowed, of course, from English) and is an early indication of the narrator's native tongue.
In general Sonia Soto's translation reads well -- although I am not in a position to vouch for its accuracy. In carping way I can only note that in her treatment of the VN epigraph she has violated a cardinal rule for translators. She has translated the above VN (quasi-)quote directly from the Spanish rather than going to the English original "Some people - and I am one of them - hate happy ends" (1st line of chptr 3). Her version not only radically alters the tone of VN's version, but worse yet, replaces VN's "happy end" with the more usual English form "happy endings." The "happy end" is a calque from Russian (borrowed, of course, from English) and is an early indication of the narrator's native tongue.