Translation

Okay, well this is my first blog, and it's going to be about literature, because that's what I like. Right now, I'm reading "The Idiot" by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Alan Myers. To my surprise, it's really engrossing. The titular idiot is Prince Myshkin. I don't really understand why he's called an idiot yet, but I feel it's probably ironic, since to me, he seems much more intelligent and self-actualized than the other characters. What I'm really enjoying so far about the book is that, for a grown-up book written a long time ago, the characters and narrator really don't beat around the bush about sex and money the way I'd expect.

For those of you who haven't read it, I'm on page seventy-four, and so far, Prince Myshkin has arrived in Petersburg, Russia, to find an extended relative. He is penniless, and has been living in Switzerland under the care of a medical specialist who supported the prince until his recent demise. The prince goes to the address of his relative to find her, and interrupts her husband, General Yepanchin, making last-minute arrangements for a handful of complicated marriages.

So far, every character, including a man on the train, seems obsessed with a beautiful woman named Nastasya Fillipovna. This woman grew up under the care of a man named Afanasy Ivanovich Totsky, who, I guess, also had sex with her a lot when she was young. Totsky decided to send her to live in this amazing castle, and visited her rarely for four years, until she heard that he was planning to get engaged to someone else. Somehow, she managed to foil this plan, and when she saw Totsky again, she appeared totally changed, and evil. She told him there was nothing he could do to prevent her from preventing him from getting married, even though she herself didn't want him and "had never held him in anything but the most profound contempt, contempt verging on nausea," (44). So, three years later, Totsky, who is fifty, still wants to get married but lives in fear of Nastasy Fillipovna, and he has joined up with General Yepanchin in a conspiracy to get her married. The prospective groom is Ganya, a.k.a. Gavrila Ardalionovich Ivolgin. Ganya used to have a crush on Nastasya, but now that she has indicated that she will marry him, he doesn't want to commit. Also, his mom finds the idea disgraceful, because Nastasya has a nasty reputation from all her years as Totsky's consort. Lucky for Ganya, the arrival of Prince Myshkin has brought about an unexpected plot twist. Myshkin tells the General and Ganya that a man he met on the train, Parfion Semyonovich Rogozhin, will do pretty much anything to get Nastasya's attention, including getting banished from his house because he stole money from his father to buy Nastasya some diamond earrings. Rogozhin's father has recently died, leaving Rogozhin a millionaire. So Ganya seems pretty eager to get Rogozhin and Nastasya together, so he doesn't have to marry Nastasya and Totsky can get married at last.

Finally, Prince Myshkin meets General Yepanchin's wife, Lizaveta Prokofievna, the distant relative, and the prince, the wife, and the three beautiful daughters are all having breakfast together, while the prince regales them with exotic stories of his life abroad.

Like I mentioned, this book is very engaging. It's confusing, due to the complexity of the plot and the fact that almost every character is referred to by two to four unpronounceable names, including titles, first names, last names, and nicknames. During the section in which the narrator relays the complicated background for the story, it can be really hard to keep track of what's going on for this reason. Luckily, someone smart decided to put a list of characters in the beginning of the book, so one can always refer to that in case of confusion. Personally, I really enjoy this writing style, because it forces me to pay close attention and really enhances my commitment to reading. It doesn't hurt that this story is about such fascinating subjects as sex and money, though. Sometimes these classic novels start out with about a hundred pages of politics and family lineage, or a description of a town or something, and in those cases, I really can't maintain an interest. Also, I am really interested to read the introduction byWilliam Leatherbarrow, because, from skimming, it looks like a fascinating mini-biography of Dostoevsky. However, there's a spoiler alert in the beginning of the introduction, so it's just going to have to wait.

The title of this post, "Translations," is due to my curiosity about the art of translating. I've noticed a handful of subtle idiomatic touches that, I'm assuming, are not very closely related to the original Russian, e.g. "The old man ... laid into me for an hour" (12), "And now you're going to get a cool million..." (9), and others. I just find it noteworthy that the translator makes these stylistic calls. I'm just curious, how did Dostoevsky write the words? Is the Russian idiom pretty much the same as the English? Is it much more charming and obscure? If I were fluent in Russian, would I enjoy the original as much as I'm enjoying the translation? How much of what I'm reading is Dostoevsky, and how much is Myers? This must be why high school literature is always stuff that was originally written in English. It doesn't lead to as many questions.