Subj : translations, + classics
To   : Alexander Koryagin
From : August Abolins
Date : Thu Jan 02 2020 18:05:36

On 01/01/2020 6:50 a.m., Alexander Koryagin : August Abolins wrote:

 AA>> I'm impressed with your likes. Ivanhoe is quite the epic and
 AA>> filled with very "formal" yet an ancient way of speaking and
 AA>> writing.

 AK> Well, my first meeting with th original ended similarly. But
 AK> after years I returned to this book. There is energy and life
 AK> there.

Hello Alexander!

I find many of the classics between 1850 to 1950 are worth discovery or 
rediscovery.

Wuthering Heights (Bronte) has great characters, witty conversations, and fun 
turns of phrase.


 AK> Such sentences got me down when I tried to read the second book
 AK> about Robinson Crusoe adventures. And the style was very
 AK> tedious, too.

Second book = The Farther Adventures of RC?  Apparently, the stories of RC have 
been suggested to be based on real events.

I have to admit, that I don't think I ever finished reading the *first* story 
of RC.  I am willing to give old books another chance.


 AK> As for Ivanhoe, I've got a nice Russian translation. I can't
 AK> tell you the name of that witty translator -- the book was read
 AK> so many times by me and till me, so it had lost the cover and
 AK> first pages. I'd suggest to you to start with Russian
 AK> translations.

There is absolutely no chance that I will be able to read Russian. ;)

Speaking of Russian and translations, I recently learned about the sci-fi books 
by the Strugatsky brothers.   I have Doomed City on my list.

About the book: "The Doomed City was so politically risky that the Strugatsky 
brothers kept its existence a complete secret even from their closest friends 
for sixteen years after its completion in 1972. It was only published in Russia 
during perestroika in the late 1980s, the last of their works to see 
publication. It was translated into a host of European languages, and now 
appears in English in a major new effort by acclaimed translator Andrew 
Bromfield."

I have enjoyed the english translations of some books by Dostoevsky and 
Tolstoy.  They are great epics of life and consequences.

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