D.B.Johnson: Translation:
theory and practice : a historical reader By Daniel Weissbort, Ástráđur
Eysteinsson-Oxford University Press | 2006 This volume is a compendium
that contains a good bit of material by and about translation. In the
chapter "From Pound to Nabokov', the authors gather together both VN's numerous
discussions and samples of his own translations and his comentaries on
translations...There is also discussion about VN's
translations.
Walter Miale: I can't read
Russian.I'm not sure how to apply your method of assessing translations, which
has its limitations, as you note. Some translations read like translations, if
not ponies for students. Others take liberties with literal meaning but provide
distinguished prose and spine tingling literary experience...Ten years ago (Fri,
4 Jun 1999) I tried to make a case on this forum that the ideal translation
should provide the original language (with a transliteration if necessary), a
sublinear word-for-word translation, and on facing pages a literary
translation.
Jansy: In some cases bilingual
editions published in non-anglophone countries spontaneously present
the answer to Walter Miale's plea. Most foreign poems
I recently read brought the original English,French,German,Russian verses
in one leaf and their translation in Portuguese at its side (like Miale I speak
no Russian so, in this case, a sublinear word-for word translation is
required). Take TOoL: in the Brazilian edition we have the facsimile of
the card (in VN's English longhand) and on the opposite side, the text
in Portuguese. The book is less bulky and easier to hold for reading in
bed, too.
C.Kunin and A. Stadlen apparently came to the
same conclusion concerning the comparison I suggested*.
Carolyn wrote: "To me it looks like they are both (sic) saying
exactly the same thing." A.Stadlen noted: "But
Shade writes of life as a commentary to a poem, not as the poem itself.
Kinbote inanely explains to readers what they can read for themselves Shade
wrote."
JM: I
realized too late that I'd expressed myself badly and I thank A.Stadlen for his
correction ("Shade writes of life...not as the poem itself") because my
intention had been to stress the contrast bt. their lines. They might be
"saying exactly the same thing," but style makes all the difference.
Shade writes as a poet and
Kinbote, as an annotator.
Shade registers his considerations ("a
note"!) - in the poem.
Kinbote exchanges Shade's word "commentary" for "footnote"
- in a footnote.
After noticing that each man writes after his own fashion
(inevitably), I realized other little things. Shade's note for future use has no
future (he will die in a few days) and his poem shall remain unfinished.
(btw: a point to Cassandra...)
For Kinbote, life is not a poem,
but it is vaguely described as a "masterpiece."
Other deductions might
be put forward, I couldn't really grasp their logic. Shade believes in
a "plexed artistry.. a richly rhymed life" aso. Kinbote, like Shade, sees "Man"
as a subject of another greater force, or destiny. And yet, their positions
are distinct. Shade ignores his fate. Kinbote feels he controls
it.
*Man’s life as
commentary to abstruse
Unfinished poem. Note for further
use.
(John Shade, PF,lines 939-40)
“…our
poet suggests here that human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast obscure
unfinished masterpiece.”
(Charles Kinbote, footnote to lines
939-40)