EDNOTE. As far as the name LOLITA goes, the
equivalence is only approximate since the articulatory position of the tongue is
slightly different in Russian & English. In the remaining the differences
are greater, e.g., "svet moei zhizni, ogon' moix chresl" does not
really approach the aesthetic effect of the alliterative "l"s and
"f"s and the internal rhymes of "light of my life, fire of my loins."
Multiply this sort of thing by tens of thousands of cases in comparing original
and translated texts and you will see that the aesthetic experience is very
different in the two versions.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2003 9:34 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: The Russian Lolita
As can be seen from a comparison of the opening passages (after
Ray's foreword) of _Lolita_ in English and in Russian, the tongue does perform
precisely the same tricks for both sets of readers:
"Lolita, light of my
life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking
a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee.
Ta."
«Лолита, свет моей жизни, огонь
моих чресел. Грех мой, душа моя. Ло-ли-та: кончик языка совершает путь в три
шажка вниз по нёбу, чтобы на третьем толкнуться о зубы. Ло. Ли.
Та.»
Transcription of Russian: “Lolita, svet moej zhizni, ogon’
moikh chresel.. Grekh moj, dusha moja. Lo-li-ta: konchik jazyka sovershaet put’
v tri shazhka vniz po njobu, chtoby na tret’em tolknut’cja o zuby. Lo. Li.
Ta.”
Jamie L. Olson
At 09:03 AM 08/06/2003 -0700, you wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dane
Gill" <pennyparkerpark@hotmail.com>
) ------------------
>
Here's a question for those of you that speak/read both Russian
and
English:
> Is there anything lost in the Russian translation of
Lolita? I understand
> that there is always something amiss when a piece
of work is translated,
and
> I have read both here and elsewhere that
Nabokov's Russian novels are best
> read in their original language.
However,as it was Nabokov himself that
did
> the translation of
Lolita is the lost cut to minimum, or does Nabokov's
> literal
translating practices (a la Eugene Onegin) convert Lolita into a
> mere
shade (only a fan of Nabokov would use "shade" instead of "shadow"
>
here) of its former self? I once read the opening lines to the Russian
>
version typed using non-Rusian letters (forgive me for not using
the
proper
> term here) and as I recall the instructonal Lo-lee-ta
pronounciation and
> description of the tongue's journey as Lolita's
name is said was
completely
> different (more than likely, memory has
failed me on this note). This is a
> mere curiousity of mine, as I never
plan I reading Russian - 10 years of
> half hearted French schooling and
I can hardly scrape through a paragraph
of
> Proust, I can't imagine
myself even attempting to learn Russian well
enough
> to read Nabokov
- so please feel free to treat it as such. Thank
you
----------------------------
EDCOMMENT. Sure. Some things are lost
in the Russian --- and some gained.
Even in the hands of a consumate
bilingual like VN the same work is
different in each language even over and
above deliberately altered bits.
Each language has its own range of
associations tied to different roots and
sounds so the English and Russian
readers will make different associations.
>
>
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