No writer understood loneliness better than Chekhov
firstthings.com
firstthings.com
And you get get through his 4 major plays in only a few days. There are even great adaptations on YouTube in English or Russian (with subtitles). Highly recommended.
I don’t know if this is accurate but I asked some Russians what they like to do for fun and they didn’t actually understand. They asked if I meant hobbies and said they only have fun when they go out to a club or something.
The upshot is that hard people have the best dry humor.
In english one word means 500 things. So don't project English language's narrow vocabulary.
I have learned that 19th century Russia was filled entirely with snow, petty criminals, corrupt officials, more snow, bad vodka, old solders broken by war, horse thieves, racism, typhoid, and snow.
Also - nothing changed.
I don't know how accurate the translations are because I don't know Russian, but the English was readable and pleasurable to read.
> And that is why one should never read any translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. They translate literary masterpieces word by word, with no appreciation of what the author is trying to accomplish or what makes a great work extraordinary.
If you're interested in Pevear and Volokhonsky's translation methodology, check this out: http://columbiajournal.org/translation-lecture-richard-pevea...
> Pevear explained that they first began translating when they happened to both be reading Crime and Punishment at the same time – Pevear in English, Volokhonsky in Russian – and they compared sentences and saw how radically different they were. Since then, they have developed a system: Volokhonsky makes the first draft, trying to translate as literally as possible [...], explaining any clichés or colloquialisms. Then Pevear looks at the “scribble” (as Volokhonsky calls it), and he “puts it into English” (Pevear said, sighing). Pevear asks Volokhonsky questions, and, in the creating of the third draft, she answers them. Finally, before sending anything off to their editor, Pevear reads the English version out loud while Volokhonsky follows along in the original Russian text.
I contains a couple of passages comparing P&V to the more 'readable' translation by Anthony Briggs. If nothing else it will give you a good example of their style and let you decide for yourself if they're something for you.
Perhaps your problem is less these translators, and more sufficiently complicated literature that needs some time to digest...
The translator is Constance Garnett, who is fairly well regarded. The collection is huge but there are a lot of gems in there!
She was not rigorous, would drop entire words or phrases she didn't understand. She worked at breakneck speed with minimal thought to trying to capture idiom or literary devices. This is especially bad with an artful writer like Chekov.
There's a quite fascinating discussion of this in the forward to the Norton collection of Checkov (https://wwnorton.com/books/Anton-Chekhovs-Selected-Stories/).
She compared it to poetry, you agonise over certain phrases and the thousands of years of history that phrase has and all its cultural meaning and all you've got is "he bonked him on the head".
She conceded that any translation was better than none as there are ideas out there, hidden, that need to spread and are limited only by language and time.
Also, keep in mind that Russian literature gained its reputation in the English speaking world via Garnett. Hemmingway read Garnett.
I really can't agree with this. Her translation work was journeyman level at best. I've read most of her translations, and they simply do not convey the magical soul of Chekhov's prose very well. Nothing is going to replace reading it in the original language, but Pevear and Volokhonsky get far closer in my opinion. Constance Garnet's translations still stick around largely because they are now free.
As I said, the reputation that Russian literature has in the English speaking world is mostly due to Garnett's translations. If nothing else, her translations are beautiful.
From the linked article:
> What differentiates Chekhov from other story writers is his fineness of perception, his ability to discern the subtlest emotional shades, and his appreciation of “the elusive beauty” of human experience. In the story “Strong Impressions,” the hero learns “that the same word has thousands of shades of meaning according to the tone in which it is pronounced, and the form which is given to the sentence.” And that is why one should never read any translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. They translate literary masterpieces word by word, with no appreciation of what the author is trying to accomplish or what makes a great work extraordinary. If Pevear and Volokhonsky had done the King James Bible, Cain would have asked whether he was his fraternal sibling’s custodian. With Chekhov, their approach is especially unfortunate. He is all nuance, and they are all bluntness.
> Some fifty years ago, Ann Dunnigan did the best versions of Chekhov’s plays and of some of his stories. For the rest, the versions of Constance Garnett, all thirteen volumes of which were reprinted in 1986, remain, despite some lapses, impressive in their sensitivity to tone. I have cited their translations in this essay. Just as there is no point in reading a translation of a comic novel that loses the humor, so Chekhov can be appreciated in English only when a translator can catch the fine shades of his stories’ elusive beauty.
I don't agree with this, mostly. Garnett's level of Russian competence was solidly journeyman level work. In the original Russian, Chekhov is much more vibrant and colorful than Garnett's dickensian translation. At best, passable.
That said, she did the world a huge service. It was her work largely that brought Chekhov to the attention of the english-speaking world, but their are better options now. Check out Pevear and Volokhonsky, I find them much closer to the soul of Chekhov's writing.
There is a sense of absurdity and bleakness in Chekhov's writing that chills me to the bone every time. The endings, although I know things are going to end badly, are always somehow more forlorn and absurd.