«Мертвые души» на английском языке (переводы)
APPENDIX TWO: TRANSLATIONS INTO ENGLISH
Introduction
How many translations of Gogol’s DS
have been published in English? My first estimate is about twelve, but surely it’s
even more than that. Since I do not have the twenty years it would require to
check all these translations, comparing them line by line with the original
Russian, I have proceeded as follows. I take my original Russian text of DS
from Vol. 5 in Gogol’s Collected Works (Moskva: Khudozhestvennaja
literatura, 1967). When I come upon places in the original that may present
special problems for the translator, I check them in five different
translations: (1) Bernard Guilbert Guerney (NY: Modern Library, 1965) [originally
published in 1942, revised 1948, 1964]; this translation includes passages from
early drafts of DS, later cut by Gogol, but that presents no particular
problem in comparing translations; in 1996
the American Gogol scholar Susanne Fusso republished the Guerney
translation, updated and edited, minus the passages from early drafts (which
she includes in an appendix); that book is still in print (Yale University
Press); (2) David Magarshack (Penguin Books, 1961); (3) George Reavey (Norton
Critical Edition, 1985); (4) Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (Random
House, 1996; Vintage Classics Ed., 1997); (5) Donald Rayfield (Garnett Press,
2008; New York Review, 2012). Page numbers cited in my text refer to the copy
in my possession, which is the copy published in the last date given above.
Here are the abbreviations I use: BGG for Guerney; SF for Fusso; DM for
Magarshack; GR for Reavey; PV for Pevear and Volokhonsky; DR for Rayfield. Although
not checking all the passages in her translation, I pay homage to the dean of
all translators of Russian literature into English, Constance Garnett (CG), by
occasionally consulting her text (my copy: Ottawa, Canada: East India
Publishing Co., 2023).
THE TEXTUAL COMPARISONS
[my comments and amendations in brackets within the quoted English
text, URB]
d
Feminine
Hypocrisy and Cant
Here's how the translators handle a
passage that modern-day feminists would pounce upon, flailing whips in hand: Chichikov’s
ruminations about the governor’s daughter in Ch. 5. “No ved’ chto, glavnoe,
v nej khorosho? . . . chto v nej, kak govoritsja, net eshche nichego bab’ego,
to est’ imenno togo, chto u nikh est’ samogo neprijatnogo. Ona teper’ kak
ditja, vse v nej prosto, ona skazhet, chto ej vzdumaetsja, zasmeetsja, gde zakhochet
zasmejat’sja. Iz nee vse mozhno sdelat’, ona mozhet byt’ chudo, a mozhet vyjti
i drjan’, i vyjdet drjan’! Vot pust’-ka tol’ko za nee primutsja teper’ mamen’ki
i tetushki. V odin god tak ee napolnjat vsjakim bab’em, chto sam rodnoj otets
ne uznaet . . .”
BGG: “But then what, chiefly, is so
good about her? . . . that as yet there
isn’t anything womanish about her, as they say derogatively, i.e., precisely
that which is most unpleasant about the dear creatures. [SF gets rid of dear
creatures] She is now like a child; everything about her is simple—she will
say whatever will come to her mind [comes to mind], will laugh outright
wherever and whenever she may feel like laughing. One can fashion anything out
of her; she can be a miracle, and she may turn out to be so much trash—and
will! In one year they’ll [BGG leaves out the mommas and aunties in error here,
replacing them with a generalized they; SF brings back the mommas and
aunties] pump her so full of all sorts of womanishness that her own father
won’t recognize her . . .”
PV: “But what is it, chiefly, that’s
so good in her? . . . . . that there’s nothing about her that’s female, as they
say, which is precisely what is most disagreeable in them [we would do better
with a noun here, women, not the pronoun them]. She’s like a
child now, everything is simple in her, she says what she likes, she laughs
when she wants to. Anything can be made of her, she may become a wonder or she
may turn out trash, and trash is what she’ll turn out [good here, but better: and
trash is what she will turn out!]. Just let the mamas and aunties start
working on her now. In a year they’ll have her so filled with all sorts of
female stuff that her own father won’t recognize her . . .”
GR: “But what is her chief virtue? . .
. . that there is nothing feminine about her, nothing of what makes all women
so repulsive. At present she is like a child, everything about her is simple,
she says what comes into her head, laughs when she feels like it. She might be
moulded in any way—either into a miraculous or a worthless person. Most likely
the latter! [weak writing here; and there’s no “most likely” in the original;
there’s a certainty]. Only wait till the mammas and aunties take her in hand.
Within a year they will fill her with so many feminine wiles that her own
father would not [won’t] recognize her . . .”
DR: “But the point is, what is
actually so good about her? . . . . there’s nothing female about her yet, none
of the things that are most unpleasant in women. She’s still like a child,
everything about her is straightforward, she’ll say whatever comes into her
head, she’ll laugh if she feels like it. You can make anything you like out of
her, she could be a wonder, but she could turn out rubbish, and so she will.
[!] Just let her mama and aunties start working on her. In a year they’ll fill
her with so much female nonsense that her own father won’t recognize her . . .”
DM: “But what is it that is so
particularly nice about her? . . . . that there is so far nothing, as they say,
[as they say sets up the expectation of a generalized colloquial word,
which never appears here] of the female about her, that is to say, nothing of
what makes women so distasteful. She is like a child now; everything about her
is simple, she says what comes into her head, she laughs when she feels like
laughing. You could make anything out of her. She might become something
wonderful and she might turn out worthless, and quite likely she will turn out
worthless [weak writing; the word trash is strong, as is the original
Russian; trash beats worthless here, and the quite likely
is in error]. Wait till the mummies and aunties get to work on her. In one year
they will [they’ll] stuff her full of all kinds of [so much] female frippery so
that her own father won’t recognize her . . .” [Gogol’s rhythms are all-important;
think of the rhythm of the sentence here—GR has a faltering, indirect rhythm; a
better variant, straight and to the point: “In one year they’ll have her
stuffed so full of female fripperies that her own father won’t recognize her.”]
There is not much difference here between
the translations. They all make the main points: that a girl may start out
well, but by the time she’s into adolescence she is tainted by feminine
hypocrisy and cant; soon she is hopelessly lost in banality and fakery. Who,
primarily, is at fault for powdering her brains with frivolity? According to
the narrator, or Chichikov, it’s the mommas and aunties, which persons BGG, for
some reason, leaves out of his translation. But here’s the big problem: none of
the translators can find exactly the right word [is there one?] for the
strongly derogative bab’ego, which is an adjective that comes from baba,
a disparaging word for a woman [broad, a word that sounds too modern to
be used in a translation set in the nineteenth century]. Realizing that he
can’t come up in English with a good enough derogatory adjective for the ways
of muliebrity, BGG tries to prop up his “womanish” by tacking on a phrase, “as
they say derogatively.” He even attempts some amelioration by adding
condescending words, “the dear creatures.” SF rightly deletes that phrase. The
others use “female” or "feminine,” “womanish,” but none of these words have
the requisite tone of denigration.
In desperation I turn to Constance
(CG), the progenitor of all translators who deal Russian lit into English, but
she lets me down as well on the matter of the derogative bab’ego: “But
what is it that is especially fine in her? . . . that there is so far nothing
of what is called feminine about her, which is precisely what is most
distasteful in them.” Weak.
So if all translators have come up
lacking, what’s to be done with the beginning of this passage? The best I can
do is this: “But then, what, mainly, is so nice about her? It’s nice that . . .
she has nothing as yet of the mincing biddy in her, that very thing that makes
women so distasteful.”
As for more negative words referring
to women, the translators settle on ‘unpleasant’ [the most exact equivalent of
the Russian original], ‘disagreeable,’ ‘distasteful.’ GR goes all in on
“repulsive” (too strong). As for Gogol’s narrator in the original (Chichikov),
he doesn’t go so far as to call women repulsive, but, all in all, he pulls no
punches—telling us that the girl could turn out to be a marvel, or could end up
rubbish, and she certainly will! Several of the translators soften that
slightly, but the unsoftened versions are best. BGG has it right: “she may turn
out to be so much trash—and will!”
Note that the same word that gave the
translators such trouble at the beginning of the passage shows up again near
the end. It was in the genitive case when first used, but here—in the last
sentence—it’s in the instrumental (bab’em). BGG (womanishness)
and PV (female stuff) still haven’t got the derogatory tone right, but
the other translators have figured it out successfully: GR: feminine wiles;
DR: female nonsense; DM (best here): female fripperies.
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