Washington Post: “ The Brothers Karamazov is a classic, but it’s not beyond criticism” by Michael Dirda A final version of the above writing is from Andrew R. MacAndrew and the Bantam Classic version, which also is pleasing to me: I see P&V’s calculated evasion of Victorian English as eminently appropriate. Without P&V, I doubt I would have sweated with Levin at the reaping or walked dizzily through the city with Raskolnikov during my college years’ long hot summers of extra-curricular reading, some of the best and most intense reading experiences of my life.”

I have no idea how Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky’s translation of The Brothers Karamazov came to be regarded as definitive. Let me rephrase that. I know why. Fourteen thousand copies a year, practically indefinitely, is why. There’s a lot of money at stake, for them and for their publisher. What I don’t know is how.Admittedly, their method is a publicist’s dream come true. A husband-and-wife team, Larissa makes a literal translation as close to word-for-word as possible and then Richard tidies up her copy. (He hasn’t mastered the language himself, not even at a conversational level, which is why I feel comfortable criticizing their work so harshly. I may not know Russian—but neither does Richard Pevear.) The result, as you might imagine, is a fairly close replication of the original. The promotional material practically writes itself. No one has ever offered a truer approximation of Dostoevsky’s prose! P & V are like Gillette razors—you just can’t get any closer! Should titles be translated literally or loosely? Opinions differ and tastes change with the times. The Brothers Karamazov: Translation ComparisonThe husband-and-wife team works in a two-step process: Volokhonsky prepares her English version of the original text, trying to follow Russian syntax and stylistic peculiarities as closely as possible, and Pevear turns this version into polished and stylistically appropriate English. Pevear has variously described their working process as follows: A. S. Byatt lives and writes in her handsome west London house and, in the summer months, in her house in the south of France. Both are filled with art, predominantly by her contemporaries, libraries of extravagant, Borgesian range and curiosa of many kinds, hinting at her unusual fecundity of mind: exotic preserved insects, the intricate examples of Venetian millefiori glassware and objects rare and fascinating of all imaginable varieties. The impression given by her houses is confirmed by her conversation, which moves confidently between literature, biology, the fine arts, and theoretical preoccupations and displays a mind turned always outwards. She is not a writer one can imagine being tempted to write a memoir: solipsism is not in her nature. Constance Garnett has: "Ivan is above that. He wouldn't make up to anyone for thousands. It is not money, it's not comfort Ivan is seeking. Perhaps it's suffering he is seeking?" Pevear and Volokhonsky created more a transliteration from the original Russian than a translation. As a result, the text has a less Anglicized, less poetic, perhaps more realistic tone to it. Some passages lose the lyrical quality found so strikingly in Garnett. Still, overall, Pevear and Volokhonsky’s realism has the effect of making the text uniquely powerful…. [I]f you are already familiar with The Brothers Karamazov, take a stab at Pevear/Volokhonsky.”

It is in this new translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky that one finally gets the musical whole of Dostoyevsky’s original.” Larissa was born in Leningrad; her brother Henri is a poet who was a rival of Brodsky. While Larissa was still living in Russia, she learned English, sat in on a translation seminar, and, using a smuggled copy of The New Yorker, translated a story by John Updike. After she emigrated, in 1973, she translated “Introduction to Patristic Theology,” by John Meyendorff, a Russian Orthodox priest and thinker. Above, I’ve added an image of the first paragraph from the Signet edition. It’s clear from comparing this extract to the Garnett extract that the text has been edited. The wording is exactly like the Garnett translation for almost the entire first sentence (“owing to” changed to “because of”); the other sentences also follow Garnett closely but not exactly. Every sentence has some different words substituted in. Anyway, kudos to all who were involved in producing this work. Rendering one of the all time world’s best writer’s masterpiece unto sound is no small task, and you all rose to the very high occasion. I salute you!

Richard Pevear was born in Waltham, Massachusetts, on 21 April 1943. Pevear earned a B.A. degree from Allegheny College in 1964, and a M.A. degree from the University of Virginia in 1965. He has taught at the University of New Hampshire, The Cooper Union, Mount Holyoke College, Columbia University, and the University of Iowa. In 1998, he joined the faculty of the American University of Paris (AUP), where he taught courses in Russian literature and translation. In 2007, he was named Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature at AUP, and in 2009 he became Distinguished Professor Emeritus. Besides translating Russian classics, Pevear also translated from the French ( Alexandre Dumas, Yves Bonnefoy, Jean Starobinski), Italian ( Alberto Savinio), Spanish, and Greek ( Aias, by Sophocles, in collaboration with Herbert Golder). He is also the author of two books of poems ( Night Talk and Other Poems, and Exchanges). Pevear is mostly known for his work in collaboration with Larissa Volokhonsky on translation of Russian classics. David McDuff is a British translator of Russian and Scandinavian poetry and prose, an editor and a literary critic. Penguin published his translations of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and The Idiot. About the McDuff translation of The Brothers Karamazov

First published as a complete novel in 1880 following serialization in 1879 and 1880, The Brothers Karamazov was first translated into English in 1912. To the best of my understanding, the Kropotkin translation is just Garnett’s translation with some parts changed and some parts left out. Shepherd Express: “ The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Michael R. Katz” by David LuhrssenThanks for your effort in writing this! You’ve gathered all the information one needs to make an informed decision when selecting a translation. Your formatting, hyperlinking, & execution are impeccable! Please continue writing content like this for the great works!

Just when you think, Dmitry knows how to sew?, the detective questioning him asks, “You know how to sew?” The detectives are from the land of realism. In “The Brothers Karamazov,” narrative unfurls at the mad and authentic pace of human emotion. There have been twelve translations of The Brothers Karamazov so far. I found complete audio versions of 3 of them (shown in bold below). The book itself is riveting. I’ve read several novels by Dostoyevsky including The Idiot and Crime and Punishment which were favorites, but The Brothers Karamasov surpasses them substantially. It is one of the greatest novels, discussing issues of child abuse, murder, God and the Devil, Christianity, love, loyalty, sin, redemption…. essential issues of their time…and all time. (The setting is in later 19th century Russia.) Wagner, Vit (15 December 2007). "A mention on Oprah translates into success". The Star. Toronto . Retrieved 2008-04-23. Garnett has, apparently, been criticized for skipping some paragraphs and writing in a style very typical of Victorian England. I was worried about this at first, but then remembered that Dostoyevsky’s style – which, to some degree, was conspicuous in all the various Dostoevsky translations I’ve read previously – is, in my opinion, one of his weaknesses. At his best, the plot, characters and philosophy are all wonderful, but I’ve often found the prose a bit repetitive, not very beautiful and somewhat (forgive me!) adolescent in tone – which is quite jarring when the psychology is as insightful as it is.Slater, Ann Pasternak (2010-11-06). "Rereading: Doctor Zhivago - The Guardian". The Guardian . Retrieved 2011-07-09. Another example is the last sentence of the first paragraph in the book, describing Fyodor’s muddleheadedness. He believed profoundly in the translator’s role as a creative figure and leader of taste, and paid the price for this ideal in his unsuccessful lawsuit against the University of Westminster (settled out of court) for not crediting his translations as ‘original research’.” About the Avsey translation of The Brothers Karamazov Pevear and Volokhonsky’s playful engagement with the characters’ language respects Dostoyevsky’s solecisms and inconsistencies and ‘as it weres’, and the result is earthy, colloquial and occasionally wordy.”