Changing of titles and editing and translation/ Spoilers for Demolished Man

[zanooda2]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" <dumbledore11214 at ...> wrote:

> when I reread the book now I skim or skip Tolstoy's 
> philosophical asides from the story. 


zanooda:

I always do that :-). And I definitely prefer "peace" parts :-).



> Alla wrote:

> Sadly I cannot answer your question about translations. 
> I had heard good and bad words about Pevear's translation 



At one time I intended to read this book in translation (out of curiosity) and I made some research. It seems that there are many translations, but the most solid and renowned one is the so called "Maude translation" made in 1923 by the Maudes (husband and wife) who used to live in Russia and were actually friends with Tolstoy. 

The latest translation was made by Pevear and Volkhonsky, and some like it better than the previous ones, but some hate it :-). It seems that it is closer to the original and to Tolstoy's style. The names of the characters are also closer to the real names, for instance, Andrei and Nikolai, not Andrew and Nicolas, like in some earlier translations. Many readers complain though that they kept French in the text (the translation is given as footnotes) - some find it confusing.

Another translation that I heard of is Garnett's, but this one is even older than Maudes'. There were also Edmonds and Briggs, but I don't know much about them. Anyway, that's what I found out, but of course I don't have my own opinion, because I've never actually read any of this, despite my good intentions :-).



zanooda, who still can't understand why they call Tolstoy "Leo" in English...