Dear
Friends,
Two posts have
appeared on Nab-L that quote me in a manner that might lead to
misunderstanding by those unfamiliar with the context. They refer to
comparisons requested, some years ago, of a sampling of
Ada in Russian as done by four
different translators. The first post is from my friend Lluba Tarvi,
whose criterion is her own method, whereby a "Translation Quotient" is
established arithmetically according to the "...amount [sic] of
excessive 'tokens' " that a translator uses in trying to remain
faithful to the original. Miss Tarvi affirms that "The results scored by A.
Skliarenko surpass those of the other translators by 1 percent[age] point only,
but he used the least amount of excessive tokens, [8]. Probably for this reason
D. Nabokov's impression was that 'the structure of his sentences and paragraphs
is sometimes awkward.' " I shall not go into my
opinions about translation done by mathematical formula, as
opposed to reserving tokens for their rightful use in public
transportation, but I shall say that I prefer to assess
translation by means of an ear and a translational technique developed
over years of collaboration with Vladimir. Nabokov. If the results of the
methods coincide, all the better. I too found Alex Skliarenko's version the
best of the lot, despite the infelicity of certain locutions. I doubt, however,
that those flaws were deliberate. Having appealed to me for help in
polishing his translation (alas, my work load is too great, and I am running out
of tokens), Alex is now extending the appeal to others. He writes, with the
plangent modesty typical of greatness, "If you only knew what torture it is
to translate oneself into a foreign language that one knows only
slightly!"
The second post,
from Michael Glynn, after reiterating in a somewhat patronizing way
the probability of the reason for my "impression" regarding Skliarenko's
English, applies his suppositions to my father. Does Mr. Glynn know of the
agonies Nabokov endured during his passage from "the softest of tongues" to a
"second-rate brand of English?" Does he miss the whole point of sacrificing
all accouterments and embellishments for the sake of the utter literality of a
didactic "pony," to connect the way stations of language and
give a semblance of sense to a great work being taught to under-prepared
students? Read the letters that record my father's tussles with the
uncomprehending Edmund Wilson. Read, also, some of his
deliberately less rigorous translations of poems by Tiutchev, Lermontov,
and Pushkin. Read the translations in which he experimented with
departures from literality for the sake of rhyme and even rhythm. Let
us not be disingenuous, good buddy. Don't you think that, if a second-rate
brand of English had been his choice, Nabokov would have employed it,
for instance, in writing the original of
Ada? Or perhaps you think he did?