IV in Russian

[kelber at mindspring.com]

As long as I've got the ear of a Russian English translator, can I ask you one non-Pynchon question? I recently read the Pevear-Volokhonsky translation of The Brother Karamazov, and I was puzzled by their choice of the word "strain," instead of the word "laceration," used in the old Constance Garnett translation, which I'd read years ago in high school. Such as in the the phrase: "Dmitry is only a strain." The word isn't usually used this way, with an article, in English. It's an awkward formulation, and it has no easy connotation. If I called someone "a strain," they'd have no idea what I was talking about. "Laceration" actually seems much closer to the sense of "an open wound" that the context implies. Just curious, do you have any idea why they chose the word "strain"?

Laura


-----Original Message-----
>From: Max Nemtsov <max.nemtsov at gmail.com>
>Sent: Jul 12, 2013 11:57 AM
>To: kelber at mindspring.com
>Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: IV in Russian
>
>thanks, Laura -
>it was my luck, yes, that the insurance term in Russian gives plenty 
>opportunity for wider interpretations. and, porok in Russian may also 
>signify "sin," to boot )) the only minus is that vnutrenniy is not as 
>rich in meaning as inherent, it doesn't have this connotation of being 
>inbred, only more or less internal. well, it's always this give and take 
>game going on, in translation. here you lose, there you win ))
>Mx
>
>On 12.07.2013 19:46, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
>> Congratulations, Max. Great cover. I looked up the word "porok" (sorry, no access to a Cyrillic keyboard)in my Russian-English dictionary, and it gave three definitions: vice, defect, flaw. Whereas looking up the word "vice" in my handy online dictionary gives the first definition as: moral depravity or corruption; wickedness. And the dictionary only mentions the word defect as a minor, less-used definition. So on the face of it, it seems that the Russian word better captures the nuances of Pynchon's title than the English word (which gains meaning only within the whole phrase). Do you think this is so?
>>
>> Laura
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Max Nemtsov <max.nemtsov at gmail.com>
>>> Sent: Jul 12, 2013 9:09 AM
>>> To: pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>> Subject: IV in Russian
>>>
>>> Dear colleagues,
>>> this is just to inform everyone interested that IV will be published in
>>> Russian in late summer - early fall, in my humble translation.
>>> here's the link to the cover: http://spintongues.livejournal.com/385558.html
>>>
>>> a-and the next step will be V. - the Russian publisher hired me to do
>>> the new translation, it's going to be the third one into Russian
>>> no rest for the wicked
>>> Mx
>