Sentimental Education!Pick any bookcase in your house. Bottom shelf. Eighth book from the left. What is it?
I don´t know the book but loved the cover.Until I pulled this copy of Mikhail Saltykov's The Golovlyov Family from my bookshelf, I hadn't looked at the cover in years and I had forgotten about its enjoyably creepy cover art. I read the novel on my own during my college years - not this copy, but a 1961 Signet paperback translated by the questionably named Andrew MacAndrew. More recently, New York Review Books put the book back into print with a newer translation by Natalie Duddington (another unfortunate name as she was likely nicknamed "Dud"). Could be time for a reread.
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Here's an interesting article on the author and his writing that was published earlier this year:I don´t know the book but loved the cover.
Curiously enough, I used to have two different versions of that particular book, the Duddington translation and the Cioran translation whose cover StevieB posted. I hadn't read either one for a long time and finally decided there was little point to having two separate translations and so I sat down one day and spent some time comparing them. While I cannot speak to which one is more "accurate" (whatever that might mean), I did decide that the Cioran translation was much "smoother" and easier to read. Something about the Duddington was...clunky. (Do I risk saying that it was a "dud"?) So I gave away the Duddington. For what it may also be worth, her translation was made in the mid-1950s and his in the late 1970s, though I suspect the difference in fluidity has less to do with when the translation was made than with the translators' themselves.Here's an interesting article on the author and his writing that was published earlier this year:
Saltykov-Shchedrin: Satirist, wordsmith and legal terrorist
This skilled satirist is relatively unknown in the West, but he made huge contributions to Russian language, literature and social development.www.rbth.com
Thanks for the heads up on the translations. I incorrectly assumed the Duddington translation was the newest since it was the one NYRB used. Guess I can go ahead and read the copy I already own.Curiously enough, I used to have two different versions of that particular book, the Duddington translation and the Cioran translation whose cover StevieB posted. I hadn't read either one for a long time and finally decided there was little point to having two separate translations and so I sat down one day and spent some time comparing them. While I cannot speak to which one is more "accurate" (whatever that might mean), I did decide that the Cioran translation was much "smoother" and easier to read. Something about the Duddington was...clunky. (Do I risk saying that it was a "dud"?) So I gave away the Duddington. For what it may also be worth, her translation was made in the mid-1950s and his in the late 1970s, though I suspect the difference in fluidity has less to do with when the translation was made than with the translators' themselves.
Thanks. Looked him up, he is hopefully public domain.Here's an interesting article on the author and his writing that was published earlier this year:
Saltykov-Shchedrin: Satirist, wordsmith and legal terrorist
This skilled satirist is relatively unknown in the West, but he made huge contributions to Russian language, literature and social development.www.rbth.com
Thanks for the article. Here it is, not the most recent translation though:Until I pulled this copy of Mikhail Saltykov's The Golovlyov Family from my bookshelf, I hadn't looked at the cover in years and I had forgotten about its enjoyably creepy cover art. I read the novel on my own during my college years - not this copy, but a 1961 Signet paperback translated by the questionably named Andrew MacAndrew. More recently, New York Review Books put the book back into print with a newer translation by Natalie Duddington (another unfortunate name as she was likely nicknamed "Dud"). Could be time for a reread.
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HA! Been there, tried that. I will stick to the translations thank you. (It's a miracle that Russian doesn't decline punctuation marks!)Enough with the translations, people!! Just learn Russian already and read all of the wonderful Russian classics IN THE ORIGINAL!!! ?
(It's a miracle that Russian doesn't decline punctuation marks!)