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stoutfellowI'm currently reading Mikhail Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time, in a translation by Natasha Randall. I don't want to talk about the book just yet, but about the translation.
Randall has chosen to leave certain words, mostly of non-Russian origin, untranslated in the text, but with explanatory footnotes. Some idiomatic phrases she translates literally, again with a clarifying footnote. I can see and appreciate her reasons for doing this; but some of the results are... mystifying. For example, footnote 7 to section 1 ("Bela") defines the idiomatic expression "peaceable prince". So does footnote 8 - and the two definitions are significantly different!
Later, note 14 to the same section reads as follows:
Ah, well. I'm enjoying the reading, in any case.
Randall has chosen to leave certain words, mostly of non-Russian origin, untranslated in the text, but with explanatory footnotes. Some idiomatic phrases she translates literally, again with a clarifying footnote. I can see and appreciate her reasons for doing this; but some of the results are... mystifying. For example, footnote 7 to section 1 ("Bela") defines the idiomatic expression "peaceable prince". So does footnote 8 - and the two definitions are significantly different!
Later, note 14 to the same section reads as follows:
chamois: a goatlike animal native to the Caucasus mountainsGranted, the action at that point takes place in the Caucasus, but the chamois is native to most of the mountain chains of southern Europe! (Burton's Mammals of the World specifically says "the Alps, the Apennines, the Carpathians, and Anatolia" - no mention of the Caucasus, unless it is considered part of Anatolia....)
Ah, well. I'm enjoying the reading, in any case.
