So on a sabbatical, 10 years ago, I set out to read it in Russian, having given myself a couple of months of lessons. I knew the novel, I found, the way a young man in love knows the body of his lover. I was only vexed when I hit the chapters involving farming or fashion. Taking notes on my reflections and discoveries discoveries, I discovered, I had made many times before , my trek through the original took more than a year.
McLean is meticulous and generous; in trying to rank the various editions, this is his most important conclusion:. None of the existing translations is actively bad. From any of them the ordinary English-speaking reader would obtain a reasonably full and adequate experience of the novel. The English in all of them sounds like English, not translationese. I found very few real errors and only a few omissions, and of the latter most were only a few words or phrases.
McLean and C. Turner, author of A Karenina Companion , have done more than most commentators to keep discussions of the novel sensible and free of jargon. But anyone who reads can read Anna Karenina without any help, just the same way that any of my community college students who reads can read Pride and Prejudice without any help from me. Oxford University Press. Nov 15, I occasionally feel disoriented, like watching a movie in the original language after having seen it dubbed.
All unhappy readers worry about Anna Karenina translations and their differences from the original, so let me retreat to my standard position: thank God for translators! They let us think about all the other spellbinding things that are going on besides the particular words. I sometimes felt obliged to be on the lookout for gaffes — and yet the novel is too great and overwhelms me.
There are no translation machines that can get us much closer to the novel than Constance Garnett did in , or Leo Wiener in , or Louise and Aylmer Maude in As readers of Tolstoy, in translation or not, we find ourselves developing the finely tuned receptiveness of the adoring newlyweds Levin and Kitty Part VI, Chapter 3 :. Schwartz : By now Levin was used to expressing his thoughts boldly, not troubling himself to put them in precise words.
He knew his wife in moments of love such as now would understand what he was trying to say; one hint and she understood him. Bartlett : Levin was used by now to blurting out his thoughts boldly, without bothering to put them into precise words; he knew that at loving moments such as this one his wife would grasp what he meant to say from a mere hint, and she did.
Got Russian? In word by word translation, maintaining the syntax insert definite and indefinite articles to taste : Levin already was used now to saying boldly his thought, not giving himself trouble to clothe it in exact words; he knew that his wife in such loving moments, as now, understood what he wanted to say, with hint, and she understood him.
As absolutely masterful as Tolstoy was in finding the exact words, he sometimes banged up his writing, in order for it to be more like speech, more natural. Last I checked, there were AmazonClassics titles. They're all free if you sign up for Kindle Unlimited. Librivox has a catalog of thousands of FREE fiction and non-fiction audiobooks. Recordings are made from public domain works by volunteers. Amazon's Audible membership offers access to hundreds of professionally recorded audiobooks made from unabridged classics.
Tell 'em I sent you! As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Likewise Abebooks and Bookdepository. Anna Karenina : Why is the novel sometimes titled Anna Karenin? Who was Nathan Haskell Dole? Search Abebooks. Who was Constance Garnett? Lawrence established the sense of her hurry and carelessness. She would finish a page, and throw it off on a pile on the floor without looking up, and start a new page.
The pile would be this high…really almost up to her knees, and all magical. Extract from the Garnett translation of Anna Karenina. Get the Enriched Classics Garnett translation of Anna Karenina Includes an introduction, a chronology of the author's life and work, a historical timeline, an outline of key themes and plot points, explanatory notes, critical analysis, discussion questions, and a list of recommended books and films. Available as an ebook ISBN Available as a hardcover ISBN , pages.
Get the Barnes and Noble Classics Garnett translation of Anna Karenina Includes an introduction and notes by Amy Mandelker, biography, chronology, discussions of adaptations of the work, discussion questions, and suggestions for further reading. Available as a paperback ISBN , pages. Available in epub, Kindle, Kobo, and Advanced epub formats. Available as an ebook.
Available in html, epub, Kindle, and plain text formats. Download from Gutenberg. Who were Leonard J. Kent and Nina Berberova? Kent and Berberova did a much more thorough and careful revision of the Garnett translation than Gibian did of the Maude one, and they have supplied fairly full notes, conveniently printed at the bottom of the page. However, there are revisions that subvert, you could almost say Pevearise, the Garnett translation. Get the Modern Library Kent and Berberova translation of Anna Karenina Includes an introduction by Mona Simpson; an editors' note; a table of nineteenth-century Russian civil, military, and court ranks; footnotes throughout the main text; 11 pages of commentary from Tolstoy himself, Dostoevsky, The Nation, William Dean Howells, Matthew Arnold, Thomas Mann, and Vladimir Nabokov; and a Reading Guide consisting of a list of eight topics for discussion.
Who was Leo Wiener? About the Wiener translation of Anna Karenina Anna Karenin In the preface to his Collected Works of Tolstoy , Wiener says he is qualified to translate from Russian by his birth and education in Russia he was born in a city in what is now Poland but which belonged to the Russian Empire at the time and qualified to translate into English by the 20 years he had spent in America.
Perhaps he adhered too closely to the original. Who was Rochelle S. A few second-hand copies of the Townsend Anna Karenina translation are available via Abebooks. Who were Louise and Aylmer Maude? Tolstoy is on the record as heartily approving their efforts to transmit his words and ideas to others: Better translations, both for knowledge of the two languages and for penetration into the very meaning of the matter translated, could not be invented.
I have, therefore also been reluctant to recommend this version to students and to other readers, although many continue to speak highly of it on various grounds. To my mind it is by now seriously inadequate but only its republication twice in … has convinced me that I ought to point out some of its shortcomings in print.
Gareth Jones. Extract from the Maude translation of Anna Karenina. Greenwood, University of Kent. Get the Dover Thrift Editions Maude translation of Anna Karenina Includes the translator's preface, a publisher's note, a list of characters, and a list of Russian words. Who was Rosemary Edmonds?
Who was Joel Carmichael? Extract from the Carmichael translation of Anna Karenina. Who was David Magarshack? Extract from the Magarshack translation of Anna Karenina. Who was Margaret Wettlin?
Who are Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky? Get the Penguin Classics Deluxe Pevear and Volokhonsky translation of Anna Karenina Includes an introduction by Richard Pevear, a translators' note, a list for further reading, a list of principal characters, and endnotes. Who are Kyril Zinovieff and Jenny Hughes? Who is Rosamund Bartlett? Who is Marian Schwartz? Get the Yale Schwartz translation of Anna Karenina Includes an introduction by Gary Saul Morson, a translator's note, a list of characters, and endnotes.
So perhaps there has been an unnecessary amount of fuss about which translation is the best. For Discussion Which translation s have you read? Which book cover do you like the best? Let me know in the comments! About The Author. But I think I shall reread my original version because it's such a delightful old hardback and the smell of the pages is part of the experience!
Zizi Jul 23, PM 0 votes. I read Anna Karenina when I was a freshman in college. I read it in a Chinese translation. It was well translated. I read an English translation after that but did not remember how good it was. I would like to find one that is not only accurately but also beautifully translated. Ted Apr 15, AM 0 votes. I am about to read different translations.
I always assume a translation is a kind of interpretation. Thank each of you for your comments. By and large my favorite of the three translations I've been able to read from has been the Garnett translations with revisions by Leonard J Kent and Nina Berberova. It was published by Modern Library Classics. But their translation of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita is probably the best translation of that text I've ever seen.
I read the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation a couple of years ago, and just recently I read the Joel Carmichael translation, and I enjoyed the charmichael translation more. It seemed like the prose were denser and more fluid, probably more the way Tolstoy intended them to be read.
Leslie May 13, PM 0 votes. I'm a big fan of Librivox because I work with my hands all day and need to listen to something.
It's a very different experience to reading the book, of course, but I just listened to the CG translation, and it was quite compelling. I do have a question though, for those of you that have experience with other translations: several times in the CG version, there are character descriptions that seem to get contradicted abruptly. At Kitty's wedding, she is described as having lost her looks, but then looking especially beautiful.
Levin, so serious throughout, is occasionally described as good-humored as if this were a general trait. I had to wonder if these seemingly sudden changes were due to the text being translated View all 3 comments. Lindsay Oct 17, PM 0 votes. I'm sure he gets that the majority of us drool over this novel, but did anyone actually want to answer the question directly? Let me try to persuade you to read this novel I have read almost every available English-printed edition. Any of the Maude translations are thought to be the most closely synonymous to the Russian novel Tolstoy produced.
There are two editions, less flowery than most, that you may find more to your particular liking. First and foremost, you may do well to consider The Oxford World's Classics edition one of the many Maude translations and then, secondly, the Joel Carmichael translation from Bantam Classics. I do hope you'll find a translation that suits you! This novel truly is one of the greatest literary accomplishments of all time, and deserves its own, sacred spot on every man's bookshelf.
Trent Jul 15, PM -1 votes. I can't comment on the Tolstoy translations as I've not read them, but to claim they are not highly respected translators is laughable. Any casual perusal of the world's top Slavic Language and Literature departments will confirm this.
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