"Words don’t simply have music and nuance because they belong to a certain language and culture.
"They have etymological roots going back thousands of years. They have associations they picked up in recent centuries and decades. And they have starkly contemporary resonances."
Yes, they do have all these things you mention in the second paragraph, but the roots, associations and resonances of Russian words are unlikely to be the same as those of the words chosen by the translator to represent them in English. Ditto their music and nuance.
He's closed (not shorn) the gap between barely credited ghostwriter and multilingual wordsmith, even though history and religion have been subtly dictated by the latter as much as their victors.
Currently, every American on his Substack, including him, is navigating “where’s the plot?” upon reading their first Bruno Schulz short story “August” the version translated by John Curran Davis (2013) and finding other versions.
Love George Saunders, but he is very American indeed.
Thanks for this, Toby. It must be quite annoying for translators to be overlooked in this way. Of course they are brilliantly talented writers to capture the tone and meaning of a story and carry it intact into a whole other language. Absolutely not okay to just pretend they don't exist!
"Words don’t simply have music and nuance because they belong to a certain language and culture.
"They have etymological roots going back thousands of years. They have associations they picked up in recent centuries and decades. And they have starkly contemporary resonances."
Yes, they do have all these things you mention in the second paragraph, but the roots, associations and resonances of Russian words are unlikely to be the same as those of the words chosen by the translator to represent them in English. Ditto their music and nuance.
Yes, exactly.
Very interesting. I had similar wonderings when I read the book.
He's closed (not shorn) the gap between barely credited ghostwriter and multilingual wordsmith, even though history and religion have been subtly dictated by the latter as much as their victors.
Currently, every American on his Substack, including him, is navigating “where’s the plot?” upon reading their first Bruno Schulz short story “August” the version translated by John Curran Davis (2013) and finding other versions.
Love George Saunders, but he is very American indeed.
Thanks for this, Toby. It must be quite annoying for translators to be overlooked in this way. Of course they are brilliantly talented writers to capture the tone and meaning of a story and carry it intact into a whole other language. Absolutely not okay to just pretend they don't exist!