Translations

[jack]

I mentioned in the last post I wanted to check which translation of Name of the Rose and Three Musketeers to get.

It seems Eco is invariably translated by William Weaver, who is supposed to be good, and is the editions I read. (Someone did helpfully point that out yesterday.)

Three Musketeers was slightly more difficult. I have the Wordsworth Classics edition[1]. It never occurred to me before to wonder who the translator was, but now I look, I couldn't find it anywhere! OK, maybe it's not always worth putting on the front cover, but they can certainly make or break a book, whoever they are, it seems odd it's not on the copyright page or anything.

I had a look on the internet, and it seems there's a *new* translation by Richard Pevear which many reviews have spoken glowingly of. He apparently translated many Russian novels which had previously been butchered. However, I can't read any of it[2], or find any specific comparison.

In the end, I decide to play it safe and order the same edition as I have, because his might be better, but I know this is very good, and it's always possible that this one is more suited to me than an overall better one would be. But if anyone else has read the new translation (out in Penguin, with Pevear's name on the cover), or compared both, I'd be very curious to hear their opinion.

[1] According to a faded label 50p from Galloway and Porter, probably early this millennium. Now I can't remember at all when I first read it. Did I read it at home? I don't think so. At school (non-officially)? Possibly. Or did I just pick it up in the bookshop and get very lucky? I can't remember. And because this was before I kept a diary, I'll probably never know. Mum, do you remember?

[2] Amazon is not on my lizt, as I'm grateful to them for sending me lots of books. However, I am still annoyed by a few little idiosyncrasies. Firstly, why couldn't amazon.uk and amazon.com share digitised texts? It's annoying if it's only available on .com and I haven't bought anything from there. Secondly, however they scan it, couldn't they give the first ten pages of novel, rather than ten pages of hagiographical waffling by the editor?

Comments

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

Have you tried looking for it on google booksearch?

http://books.google.com/

[rcv1.livejournal.com]

[1] I don't remember I'm afraid, I've never read it so I can't have suggested it to you.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oh right. That does ring a bell. You should read it :)

[mair_in_grenderich]

's funny, I was thinking about translations recently - last week, when I started on the "learning French" project with Jules Verne. I ended up with the mp3 open of the audio-book, the French text, and the English text. I've only managed to listen to about two paragraphs, but I realised fairly quickly that the English text is basically useless as it's, well, quite different. But also, it seems (to me, and I'm not French) to have a completely different /feel/, a blandness in the writing that isn't there in the French. So there, after two paragraphs, I was feeling quite sure that this book should be read in French if at all... and wondering how many other translated things I've read that that would true for ...