Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0024710, Mon, 21 Oct 2013 16:47:22 -0200

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sources for this?
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bedja ttttr - I found the following on English wikipedia. No sources are given for this excerpt. I wonder if someone can give the source to me, or else, tell me whether this is correct or not :The first "translation" was made because of Nabokov's feeling of imperfection in the English version. Writing the book, he noted that he needed to translate his own memories into English, and to spend a lot of time explaining things that are well known in Russia; then he decided to re-write the book once again, in his first native language, and after that he made the final version, Speak, Memory.

Jansy Mello: I remember past discussions related to this wiki sentence. I tried to find a reference in the List Archives but although I could access the text, I found no date nor further references related to the exchange between Alexey Sklyarenko and me.* There must be many other references in the VN-L marking the differences between the Russian and the English editions, including the explanation of why certain alterations of words and popular expressions had to be made by the translator in order to adapt the text to a Russian readership.

I tried to look through what I'd underlined in "Dear Bunny,dear Volodya" but didn't get any closer to this exact formulation. I discovered, on p.317, "Another thing that left me quite limp and hysterical is my Russian version of Conclusive Evidence which is appearing serially in the Novyi Zhurnal and will be published by the Chekhov firm in the fall." In his note, Simon Karlinski clarifies the issue: "The Russian version of Speak, Memory, called Other Shores, was brought out by the Chekhov Publishing House in 1954, after portions of it were serialized in the ´pemigré journals Optyty (Experiments) No.3 and Novyi Zhurnal (The New Review) Nos.37 and 38, during the same year.

I hope A.Sklyarenko can be a better help qua the source used in the wikipedia than I was... I haven't had the opportunity to check the various prefaces to the "Speak,Memory" editions where this information might be present. .

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* - A. Sklyarenko: I'm afraid I only succeeded in misleading you even more with my comments. What is strange, you seem to be aware of the passage absent from Speak, Memory but present in "?????? ??????" (Chapter Three, 5) [ ] I hope someone with better English than mine will translate this passage for you, if it doesn't exist in English (in Conclusive Evidence). The word ????? is implicitly present in Ada ("I have often wondered why the Russian for it... is the same as the German for 'schoolboy' minus the umlaut..." 1.28). As you know, German for 'schoolboy' is Schüler."

JM: I hope there's a volunteer to translate the passage you indicate, for Wiki informs me that "Speak,Memory", originally written in English, is an imperfect "version" of the Russian...*
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* - "Nabokov himself translated into Russian two books that he had originally written in English, Conclusive Evidence, and Lolita. The first "translation" was made because of Nabokov's feeling of imperfection in the English version. Writing the book, he noted that he needed to translate his own memories into English, and to spend a lot of time explaining things which are well-known in Russia; then he decided to re-write the book once again, in his first native language, and after that he made the final version, Speak, Memory (Nabokov first wanted to name it "Speak, Mnemosyne")."

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