The Brothers Karamazov: A Novel in Four Parts With Epilogue

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First Things: “The Pevear/Volokhonsky Hype Machine and How It Could Have Been Stopped or At Least Slowed Down” by Helen Andrews This award-winning translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky—the definitive version in English—magnificently captures the rich and subtle energies of Dostoevsky’s masterpiece.” For me, who has English as a second language, this is a good translation although it feels a bit formal. Hebert, James (7 February 2018). "With fresh look at 'Uncle Vanya,' Old Globe bringing something new to the conversation". San Diego Union Tribune . Retrieved 18 February 2018. Already have a favorite translation of The Brothers Karamazov? Let us know which one and why in the comments! More Dostoevsky

Hunnewell, Susannah (Summer 2015). "Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, The Art of Translation No. 4". The Paris Review. Summer 2015 (213). Another example is the last sentence of the first paragraph in the book, describing Fyodor’s muddleheadedness.

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Her knowledge of Russian was not particularly good and she was apt to leave out the bits she could not quite get the sense of, but she adored her work and her style had a natural animation and flow…. [H]er version of Dostoevsky remained the standard one until fairly recently, though there were more accurate renderings by David Magarshak and others.” Pevear, Richard (14 October 2007). "Tolstoy's Transparent Sounds". New York Times . Retrieved 2008-04-23.

For some reason, this translation feels a bit awkward to me, and McDuff has a choice of words and a style that hinder more than help me. I know McDuff appeals to many who have English as their first language, but for me, it doesn’t take me all the way to a good understanding.

On the thread of Dostoevsky translations, are the titles ever translated differently? If so, is it possible to put together a list of equivalent titles in the novel-length works. I have Brothers K., Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and The Possessed, and a compilation of 5 short novels. I also have a book on Dostoyevsky: A Writer's Life by Geir Kjetsaa. I cannot find a reference to The Demons mentioned in some of the recent posts. My best guess is that Constance Garnett translated the title of The Possessed (possibly) differently from the other translators mentioned. McDuff: "Ivan's sights are set higher than that. Ivan would not be tempted even by thousands. Ivan isn't in quest of money, or peace of mind. He may possibly be in quest of torment." Join Book Club: Delivered to your inbox every Friday, a selection of publishing news, literary observations, poetry recommendations and more from Book World writer Ron Charles. Sign up for the newsletter. One day, when Richard was reading “Karamazov” (in a translation by one of Garnett’s epigones, David Magarshak), Larissa, who had read the book many times in the original, began peeking over her husband’s shoulder to read along with him. She was outraged. It’s not there! she thought. He doesn’t have it! He’s an entirely different writer! Pevear and Volokhonsky made it clear that their work is a collaboration—her Russian, his

After the murder, Ivan is driven mad by guilt. That he benefitted from his father’s death tortures him; he questions whether he wanted it, anticipated it, even facilitated it. Like everyone in town, he knew that something bad was coming, and yet he did nothing to stop it. Earlier, when Alyosha tried to talk to him about the tension brewing between their father and Dmitry, Ivan had brushed him off. “What does it have to do with me?” he asked. “Am I my brother Dmitry’s keeper?” Secondly, contemporary Russian draws upon two sources for its diction and syntax: so-called “Old Russian,” the spoken language of the East Slavs, and Old Church Slavic (or Slavonic), the language of the Orthodox Church, similar in a way to Latin and modern Italian. When Alyosha presents us with Zosima’s life and works in Book Six, or when he sees his miraculous dream during Father Zosima’s funeral in Book Seven, I tried to be mindful of this rich high-style source and render it with my own elevated language. Translating Dostoevsky is different from rendering other authors into English. His prose is impassioned, fiery, and intense. Nothing in his novels ever happens “gradually” or “slowly.”

Do they still sell audiobooks on CD?

Should titles be translated literally or loosely? Opinions differ and tastes change with the times. The Brothers Karamazov: Translation Comparison Some critics praise the authenticity and accuracy of their work, while others find it rough and unappealing; much ink has been spilled in the debate. Humiliated and Insulted (aka The Insulted and Humiliated, The Insulted and the Injured, Injury and Insult) Until their translation of The Brothers Karamazovwas published in 1990, the English-speaking world got its Dostoevsky (their preferred spelling—with one y) from the great British translator Constance Garnett. Though her translations of Turgenev and Chekhov are generally considered virtuosic, her versions of Dostoevsky, Gogol, and Tolstoy have drawn criticism for Victorian elision. Her Gogol translations are “dry and flat, and always ­unbearably ­demure,” complained Nabokov. “The reason English-speaking readers can barely tell the difference between Tolstoy and Dostoevsky is that they aren’t reading the prose of ­either one,” grumbled Joseph Brodsky. The critic Korney Chukovsky summed it up best and most brutally when he wrote, “Who does not feel the convulsions, the nervous trembling of Dostoevsky’s style? ... But with Constance Garnett it becomes a safe bland script: not a volcano, but a smooth lawn mowed in the English manner—which is to say a complete distortion of the original.” For her part, Garnett once wrote, “Dostoievsky is so obscure and so careless a writer that one can scarcely help clarifying him.” Well, he was Russian, and Russians use the Cyrillic alphabet, not the Latin/Roman alphabet. The author’s name looks like this in Cyrillic: