From Solaris to the Zone
July 11, 2012 6:50 AM Subscribe
Through a spasm of serendipity whose mechanism I cannot begin to fathom, two inarguable masterpieces of Eastern European science fiction - Solaris by Stanislaw Lem and Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky - have recently been accorded fresh translations. In this posting I would like to briefly consider the virtues of these new versions [...]
Previously on the new translation of Solaris (now also available as an ebook). Via Helen DeWitt.
Previously on the new translation of Solaris (now also available as an ebook). Via Helen DeWitt.
I really need to read the new Solaris.. The old translation, the one everyone hates, still makes for an awesome read, with the weirdness of the planet being far grander than either of the film versions.
And I've not experienced Roadside Picnic in any form, not even S.T.A.L.K.E.R., which seems like a huge omission for me.
posted by Artw at 6:57 AM on July 11, 2012
And I've not experienced Roadside Picnic in any form, not even S.T.A.L.K.E.R., which seems like a huge omission for me.
posted by Artw at 6:57 AM on July 11, 2012
Oh this is exciting! The Russian films of Solaris and Stalker are two of my favorites ever, so reading the book has been on my to-do list for a while, and I'm just too lazy to read 'em in Russian.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 6:59 AM on July 11, 2012
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 6:59 AM on July 11, 2012
Just going by the excerpts, I could agree that the new translation is more Lem-nian. But the previous translation strikes me as more poetic and better written.
Anyone who has done a translation knows that rigid faithfulness to the text does not necessarily produce the best translation, as paradoxical as that may seem.
posted by vacapinta at 7:03 AM on July 11, 2012 [1 favorite]
Anyone who has done a translation knows that rigid faithfulness to the text does not necessarily produce the best translation, as paradoxical as that may seem.
posted by vacapinta at 7:03 AM on July 11, 2012 [1 favorite]
And I've not experienced Roadside Picnic in any form, not even S.T.A.L.K.E.R., which seems like a huge omission for me.
Artw, get thee to a giant teevee and watch Tarkovsky's Stalker right now, I don't care what you're doing.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:24 AM on July 11, 2012 [5 favorites]
Artw, get thee to a giant teevee and watch Tarkovsky's Stalker right now, I don't care what you're doing.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:24 AM on July 11, 2012 [5 favorites]
My copy of the old Solaris has Clooney on the front of it. :-(
To be fair, that is the better film version.
posted by Artw at 7:31 AM on July 11, 2012
To be fair, that is the better film version.
posted by Artw at 7:31 AM on July 11, 2012
Tarkovsky's Stalker is basically the best movie anybody's ever made about anything. Really, I love that movie so freaking much.
posted by koeselitz at 7:35 AM on July 11, 2012 [11 favorites]
posted by koeselitz at 7:35 AM on July 11, 2012 [11 favorites]
My copy of the old Solaris has Clooney on the front of it. :-(
Mine too. I'm okay with it because that fact is basically an encapsulation of the entire Cold War conflict.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:46 AM on July 11, 2012
Mine too. I'm okay with it because that fact is basically an encapsulation of the entire Cold War conflict.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:46 AM on July 11, 2012
"Stalker" and "Roadside picnic" are both great works of art and I love them.
The thing is, they don't really have much in common - yes, "Stalker" is based on the book, but other than having the Zone, stalkers and a few more common details, these two things have almost nothing in common. Different plotlines, different characters dealing with different issues...
Both are great, though, and I highly recommend them.
posted by egor83 at 7:47 AM on July 11, 2012
The thing is, they don't really have much in common - yes, "Stalker" is based on the book, but other than having the Zone, stalkers and a few more common details, these two things have almost nothing in common. Different plotlines, different characters dealing with different issues...
Both are great, though, and I highly recommend them.
posted by egor83 at 7:47 AM on July 11, 2012
Lem's Polish writing actually is deeply convoluted and sesquipedalian, so, for what it's worth, that preview snippet of English-via-French Solaris doesn't say very much. A much more effective text to try would be another one of Lem's novels, The Invincible, which was translated into English via German, and which is just incredibly sloppy.
I wrote the following about Roadside Picnic elsewhere:
posted by Nomyte at 7:48 AM on July 11, 2012 [16 favorites]
I wrote the following about Roadside Picnic elsewhere:
Having just finished Пикник на обочине, I am terrified to imagine what it might look like in English translation (and it's been translated into English at least twice).Basically, I'm of the opinion that the actually interesting and novel parts of the book are difficult to convey in translation.
To start with the simplest issue, it's set, in part no doubt due to its dour tone, in a kind of burlesque West that ABS cobbled together out of names and terms borrowed from their own translations (I think there's a law firm somewhere in there called Korsh Korsh & Simak). It probably read as plausibly foreign to their contemporary Russian readers, but in English it no doubt reads like the burlesque it is.
A much, much bigger problem is that pretty much the whole novel is told from the point of view of a character who is a lout and, basically, a petty criminal, and his Russian reflects that. Here, for instance, is the first handful of sentences:
Накануне стоим это мы с ним в хранилище уже вечером, остается только спецовки сбросить, и можно закатиться в "Боржч", принять в организм капельку-другую крепкого. Я стою просто так, стену подпираю, свое отработал и уже держу наготове сигаретку, курить хочется дико, два часа не курил, а он все возится со своим добром: один сейф загрузил, запер и опечатал, теперь другой загружает, берет с транспортера "пустышки", каждую со всех сторон осматривает (а она тяжелая, сволочь, шесть с половиной кило, между прочим) и с кряхтеньем аккуратненько водворяет на полку.
What's the translator supposed to do with "стоим это мы," "закатиться," "принять," "стену подпираю," and especially that "аккуратненько"? Certainly, the tone of these words and phrases can be conveyed in English, but translating all of them into English slang equivalents would be ridiculous overload. And so the narrator just ends up sounding like Generic Male Character in translation. For reference, here's the corresponding passage in the Bouis version:
The night before, he and I were in the repository--it was already evening, all I had to do was throw off my lab suit and I could head for the Borscht to put a drop or two of the stiff stuff into my system. I was just standing there, holding up the wall, my work all done and a cigarette in my hand. I was dying for a smoke--it was two hours since I'd had one, and he was still puttering around with his stuff. He had loaded, locked, and sealed one safe and was loading up the other one--taking the empties from the transporter, examining each one from every angle (and they're heavy little bastards, by the way, fifteen pounds each), and carefully replacing them on the shelf.
To begin with, who talks like that? "Holding up the wall"? Second of all, ""аккуратненько" is definitely ill-served by "carefully."
A third issue is that the narration, for all its colloquialisms, is actually very, very sparing with actual obscenities. Very sparing. A sharp border between colloquialism and profanity is another feature of Russian. I'd hope a good English translation would dial up the level of casual profanity quite a bit, where in the original it's essentially implicit throughout. A contemporary Russian reader would be adept at matching diction with emotional intensity. A reader of an English translation would have none of the necessary clues.
Essentially, in translation the novel becomes a generic sci-fi novel about some generic guy.
The problem is not that the translation is wrong. The translation is perfectly fine. It shows absolutely no signs that the translator misunderstood the text. It's not a difficult novel. The problem is that those few sentences in Russian add up to a portrait of the narrator. In English, no matter how accurately or idiomatically those sentences are translated, they do not add up to any kind of portrait. That is the loss.
The problem is also not that Bouis did a bad job or that Bormashenko (the newest translator) did a better job. They both did a perfectly adequate job, adapting the text to various extents where it became necessary. Their translations are readable and engaging. The problem is that the novel loses a lot in translation regardless of the choices you make. The "voice" of its narrator is just not part of English writing. Book English does not have an analogous "stratum." If the translator makes an effort to keep the narrator's voice, you get a weird and incoherent pastiche of Holden Caulfield. If the translator does not keep the narrator's voice, you end up with Standard Adult Male Narrator.
posted by Nomyte at 7:48 AM on July 11, 2012 [16 favorites]
Just bought the new translation of "Roadside Picnic." Can't wait to get to it. Juggling about six different books right now (including the new Steve Erickson and the how-have-I-reached-the-age-of-40-and-never-read-this original Dune novel). And this post is totally prompting me to put Stalker into my Netflix queue once again.
posted by jbickers at 7:48 AM on July 11, 2012
posted by jbickers at 7:48 AM on July 11, 2012
Tarkovsky's Stalker is pretty great, if you like the Tarkovsky kind of thing. It's very Tarkovsky, so if you don't appreciate long still silences you won't like it. But bear in mind that the movie is radically different from the book. The book is much more colorful and full of action, has totally different characters, and a completely different plotline. Similar themes, maybe, but don't judge one by the other. I think I preferred the book.
Incidentally, these are two of my favorite sci-fi books because of the central idea that we make contact with some kind of alien thing, but it remains utterly incomprehensible to us. Peter Watts' Blindsight is another along these lines. Anyone know of any more?
posted by echo target at 7:52 AM on July 11, 2012
Incidentally, these are two of my favorite sci-fi books because of the central idea that we make contact with some kind of alien thing, but it remains utterly incomprehensible to us. Peter Watts' Blindsight is another along these lines. Anyone know of any more?
posted by echo target at 7:52 AM on July 11, 2012
Anyone know of any more?
Well, if you can find other translations of Lem (easy) and the brothers Strugatsky (more difficult), you'll have plenty of the same sort of stuff: failure to make contact, failure of reason, failure to make progress, etc. For Lem, try Eden, Fiasco, His Master's Voice, Golem XIV (this one's rather ponderous). For Strugatsky, try Definitely Maybe, or The Doomed City, or The Beetle in the Anthill, or almost anything, really, although you'll have to find them used, if you can. They've all been translated, but in small and long out of print editions.
posted by Nomyte at 7:59 AM on July 11, 2012 [1 favorite]
Well, if you can find other translations of Lem (easy) and the brothers Strugatsky (more difficult), you'll have plenty of the same sort of stuff: failure to make contact, failure of reason, failure to make progress, etc. For Lem, try Eden, Fiasco, His Master's Voice, Golem XIV (this one's rather ponderous). For Strugatsky, try Definitely Maybe, or The Doomed City, or The Beetle in the Anthill, or almost anything, really, although you'll have to find them used, if you can. They've all been translated, but in small and long out of print editions.
posted by Nomyte at 7:59 AM on July 11, 2012 [1 favorite]
Nomyte, I don't think the stalker's loutiness was lost in the translation. I read the new translation a couple of months ago, and he definitely came across the way you describe - a harsh and sketchy guy, though obviously with a deep commitment to family. The picture comes more through context than through his speech, but it does get through.
Or maybe I really am missing out on a lot by not being able to read the Russian version. I thought the translation was already fantastically interesting and novel. I'd love to hear what else I might be missing.
posted by echo target at 8:01 AM on July 11, 2012 [1 favorite]
Or maybe I really am missing out on a lot by not being able to read the Russian version. I thought the translation was already fantastically interesting and novel. I'd love to hear what else I might be missing.
posted by echo target at 8:01 AM on July 11, 2012 [1 favorite]
echo target: Anyone know of any more?
CJ Cherryh's Voyager in Night gave me that feeling, certainly. It is quite confusing, because the character names are things like - if I'm remembering right - ==== and <>. There are human characters, obviously, but they don't do a lot and spend most of the story either bewildered or horrified.
posted by smcg at 8:02 AM on July 11, 2012
CJ Cherryh's Voyager in Night gave me that feeling, certainly. It is quite confusing, because the character names are things like - if I'm remembering right - ==== and <>. There are human characters, obviously, but they don't do a lot and spend most of the story either bewildered or horrified.
posted by smcg at 8:02 AM on July 11, 2012
Or maybe I really am missing out on a lot by not being able to read the Russian version.
We obviously would have very different experiences reading the English translation. It's really hard to say whether you're the one who's "missing out" or whether I'm the one who's distracted by the awareness of the Russian original. The original and the translations are different books, and each one stands on its own. The Russian original works in one way, the translation works in a different way and creates a different impression. But there are definite and very substantial differences (not in outright content, of course).
Ultimately, I think it's great that people who read English can now enjoy the novel in any form. There's not a lot of science fiction in which the "hero" is basically driven insane by circumstances and stress over the course of the novel, and you basically watch him break down and lose heart little by little. It's much more of a noir or even a horror book than it is typical sci-fi.
posted by Nomyte at 8:10 AM on July 11, 2012 [2 favorites]
We obviously would have very different experiences reading the English translation. It's really hard to say whether you're the one who's "missing out" or whether I'm the one who's distracted by the awareness of the Russian original. The original and the translations are different books, and each one stands on its own. The Russian original works in one way, the translation works in a different way and creates a different impression. But there are definite and very substantial differences (not in outright content, of course).
Ultimately, I think it's great that people who read English can now enjoy the novel in any form. There's not a lot of science fiction in which the "hero" is basically driven insane by circumstances and stress over the course of the novel, and you basically watch him break down and lose heart little by little. It's much more of a noir or even a horror book than it is typical sci-fi.
posted by Nomyte at 8:10 AM on July 11, 2012 [2 favorites]
my ear hears something eminently Lemian in Johnston’s choices (from the first link).
I'm looking forward to reading the new translation (well sort of looking forward to it, rereading Solaris is like rereading Through A Scanner, Darkly, it's not exactly "fun") and seeing how it strikes me differently. But I'm not sure there is a lot of value in a non-native speaker, non-translator's opinions based on his impression of what sounds more "Lemian".
Whenever I read about the challenges and choices of translation I can only despair of what I'm missing out as an individual barely literate in one other language besides English. I'll take what I can get of course but the contemplation of the vast vistas of lost meaning out there is daunting nonetheless.
There's not a lot of science fiction in which the "hero" is basically driven insane by circumstances and stress over the course of the novel, and you basically watch him break down and lose heart little by little.
Fantastic, it's shaping up to be a stellar summer for beach reading.
posted by nanojath at 8:18 AM on July 11, 2012 [1 favorite]
I'm looking forward to reading the new translation (well sort of looking forward to it, rereading Solaris is like rereading Through A Scanner, Darkly, it's not exactly "fun") and seeing how it strikes me differently. But I'm not sure there is a lot of value in a non-native speaker, non-translator's opinions based on his impression of what sounds more "Lemian".
Whenever I read about the challenges and choices of translation I can only despair of what I'm missing out as an individual barely literate in one other language besides English. I'll take what I can get of course but the contemplation of the vast vistas of lost meaning out there is daunting nonetheless.
There's not a lot of science fiction in which the "hero" is basically driven insane by circumstances and stress over the course of the novel, and you basically watch him break down and lose heart little by little.
Fantastic, it's shaping up to be a stellar summer for beach reading.
posted by nanojath at 8:18 AM on July 11, 2012 [1 favorite]
Nomyte....that's an extremely long and convoluted way of saying 'it's impossible to perfectly translate a novel'. This is a basic tenet of reading anything in translation. The question is not 'does the translation make me feel the same exact thing as the original'. The question is, does the translation hold up as an equal work of art. In your opinion, which translation holds up as an equal work of art?
posted by spicynuts at 8:41 AM on July 11, 2012
posted by spicynuts at 8:41 AM on July 11, 2012
Ah, crap, Nomyte....sorry I didn't see your comment at 11:10.
posted by spicynuts at 8:42 AM on July 11, 2012
posted by spicynuts at 8:42 AM on July 11, 2012
Anyone know of any more?
The Invincible is another one by Lem that's got a similar feel going. Although, it's less "incomprehensible" and more a feeling like that it has absolutely nothing to do with humanity.
posted by Gygesringtone at 9:09 AM on July 11, 2012
The Invincible is another one by Lem that's got a similar feel going. Although, it's less "incomprehensible" and more a feeling like that it has absolutely nothing to do with humanity.
posted by Gygesringtone at 9:09 AM on July 11, 2012
Tarkovsky's Stalker is basically the best movie anybody's ever made about anything.
Yes but also except but don't forget Andrei Rublev.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:14 AM on July 11, 2012 [2 favorites]
Yes but also except but don't forget Andrei Rublev.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:14 AM on July 11, 2012 [2 favorites]
Artw, get thee to a giant teevee and watch Tarkovsky's Stalker right now, I don't care what you're doing.
But you might want to do this with a clear head. That movie is visual melatonin if you approach it while tired.
posted by griphus at 9:17 AM on July 11, 2012
But you might want to do this with a clear head. That movie is visual melatonin if you approach it while tired.
posted by griphus at 9:17 AM on July 11, 2012
Yeah, that's kind of why I am not into the Russian Solaris.
posted by Artw at 9:27 AM on July 11, 2012
posted by Artw at 9:27 AM on July 11, 2012
I am a fan of Lem's work, and Solaris is one of his best, IMHO. I'll be happy to read a new translation of it. (I enjoyed both movies, but admit that Tarkovsky's had much more of the feel of Lem's writing.) I have not read the Strugatsky book but have known of it for many years, and was, oddly enough, just thinking about it the other day. Must be a sign!
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 9:30 AM on July 11, 2012
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 9:30 AM on July 11, 2012
I love Tarkovsky and I love his Solaris but he was of the opinion (and I think I agree with him) that it is the least of his films. So don't let it sour you on him.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:30 AM on July 11, 2012
posted by shakespeherian at 9:30 AM on July 11, 2012
Synchronicity! I was just reading the new translation of Roadside Picnic on the bus this morning. I don't know Russian, of course, so the differences from the older translation are interesting, especially since I just read the Bouis translation last year.
For example, here's the first paragraph of the new (Bormashenko) translation. Compare and contrast to the one Nomyte posted:
It's probably obvious from the fact that I'm re-reading so soon, but I love the book. As a big fan of both the Tarkovsky film and the video games, it's interesting to "see" the original Zone: Tarkovsky transformed it into a cinematic metaphor and turned the dangers invisible; GSC Game World changed it into an interesting place to shoot dozens of men in the face. The book is generally a lot closer to the game; you can imagine the game designers reading it and having a light go on in their heads. "What if there was a game where you played as a stalker, seeking contraband treasure in the Zone? Except there are more stalkers, lots of them, and they live in the Zone, and they all have guns, and most of them are trying to kill you! Oh, and let's make it so the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and the alien Zone are one and the same. Brilliant!"
posted by neckro23 at 9:36 AM on July 11, 2012 [2 favorites]
For example, here's the first paragraph of the new (Bormashenko) translation. Compare and contrast to the one Nomyte posted:
The other day, we're standing in the repository; it's evening already, nothing left to do but dump the lab suits, then I can head down to the Borscht for my daily dose of booze. I'm relaxing, leaning on the wall, my work all done and a cigarette at the ready, dying for a smoke—I haven't smoked for two hours—while he keeps fiddling with his treasures. One safe is loaded, locked, and sealed shut, and he's loading yet another one—taking the empties from our transporter, inspecting each one from every angle (and they are heavy bastards, by the way, fourteen pounds each), and, grunting slightly, carefully depositing them on the shelf.Generally, it seems it's still a bit awkward but much clearer in certain spots. The restoration of previously-censored material also helps. Some of the Zone anomalies get new names: "Mosquito mange" becomes "bug trap" and "witches' jelly" is "hell slime"...
It's probably obvious from the fact that I'm re-reading so soon, but I love the book. As a big fan of both the Tarkovsky film and the video games, it's interesting to "see" the original Zone: Tarkovsky transformed it into a cinematic metaphor and turned the dangers invisible; GSC Game World changed it into an interesting place to shoot dozens of men in the face. The book is generally a lot closer to the game; you can imagine the game designers reading it and having a light go on in their heads. "What if there was a game where you played as a stalker, seeking contraband treasure in the Zone? Except there are more stalkers, lots of them, and they live in the Zone, and they all have guns, and most of them are trying to kill you! Oh, and let's make it so the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and the alien Zone are one and the same. Brilliant!"
posted by neckro23 at 9:36 AM on July 11, 2012 [2 favorites]
Also, echo target -- try Algis Budrys's brilliant 1961 Nebula nominated novel, Rogue Moon -- one of my top 5 favorite sf novels. It has a heartbreaking final sentence.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 9:38 AM on July 11, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 9:38 AM on July 11, 2012 [1 favorite]
If he cut that silly driving scene way down then it would be fine.
The standing theory is that since that scene was shot in Tokyo and it took a fuckton of Soviet paperwork and red tape to get a film crew to Tokyo and the government really wanted to see that money come back but he didn't really get much useful material, he kept that in there as a like 'No no seriously it's a good thing you let me go to Tokyo, I mean look how many minutes of this tunnel we captured!'
posted by shakespeherian at 9:40 AM on July 11, 2012 [3 favorites]
The standing theory is that since that scene was shot in Tokyo and it took a fuckton of Soviet paperwork and red tape to get a film crew to Tokyo and the government really wanted to see that money come back but he didn't really get much useful material, he kept that in there as a like 'No no seriously it's a good thing you let me go to Tokyo, I mean look how many minutes of this tunnel we captured!'
posted by shakespeherian at 9:40 AM on July 11, 2012 [3 favorites]
> It has a heartbreaking final sentence.
Roadside Picnic ends the same way as Mass Effect 3.
> If he cut that silly driving scene way down then it would be fine.
I actually find that scene really unnerving. I imagine that this was the director's intention. If you remember, before departing for Solaris, Kelvin's father admonishes him about the "fragility" of space. It's a juxtaposition: first you get the idyllic cottage and its environs, where Kelvin is already creating friction; then you get the driving sequence, which is ostensibly still on Earth, but is eerie, uneasy, and somehow inhuman. And then you get to the Solaris station a kajillion squillion miles away, and you wonder: "If we can make ourselves this awkward on Earth, what unheard-of heights of cosmic disquiet will we rise to when we're eighty light years away?"
posted by Nomyte at 10:24 AM on July 11, 2012 [2 favorites]
Roadside Picnic ends the same way as Mass Effect 3.
> If he cut that silly driving scene way down then it would be fine.
I actually find that scene really unnerving. I imagine that this was the director's intention. If you remember, before departing for Solaris, Kelvin's father admonishes him about the "fragility" of space. It's a juxtaposition: first you get the idyllic cottage and its environs, where Kelvin is already creating friction; then you get the driving sequence, which is ostensibly still on Earth, but is eerie, uneasy, and somehow inhuman. And then you get to the Solaris station a kajillion squillion miles away, and you wonder: "If we can make ourselves this awkward on Earth, what unheard-of heights of cosmic disquiet will we rise to when we're eighty light years away?"
posted by Nomyte at 10:24 AM on July 11, 2012 [2 favorites]
I love Tarkovsky and I love his Solaris but he was of the opinion (and I think I agree with him) that it is the least of his films. So don't let it sour you on him.
The liner notes to the criterion edition of that film (which I have watched 15 times awake, and 150 times while sleeping during all/part of it) were written by Akira Kurosawa, who says within that Tarkovsky's Solaris is a hugely influential film on his work that came afterward.
I'll just repeat that. Akira. Kurosawa. Says that Tarkovsky's Solaris was hugely influential to him.
posted by shmegegge at 10:38 AM on July 11, 2012
The liner notes to the criterion edition of that film (which I have watched 15 times awake, and 150 times while sleeping during all/part of it) were written by Akira Kurosawa, who says within that Tarkovsky's Solaris is a hugely influential film on his work that came afterward.
I'll just repeat that. Akira. Kurosawa. Says that Tarkovsky's Solaris was hugely influential to him.
posted by shmegegge at 10:38 AM on July 11, 2012
Sure but his favorite film was C.H.U.D. so
posted by shakespeherian at 10:40 AM on July 11, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by shakespeherian at 10:40 AM on July 11, 2012 [1 favorite]
According to a Russian friend, Soviet-era film makers had their performance measured in 90-minute units. So if you didn't want to make a 1½ hour film, you made a 3 hour film. But I never could tell whether or not he was lying.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:48 AM on July 11, 2012
posted by benito.strauss at 10:48 AM on July 11, 2012
> Incidentally, these are two of my favorite sci-fi books because of the central idea that we make contact with some kind of alien thing, but it remains utterly incomprehensible to us. ... Anyone know of any more?
I second Guy_Inamonkeysuit's recommendation of Rogue Moon; when I read it in F&SF it blew my tender little mind.
I'm glad I'm able to read the Strugatskys in Russian; they're amazing stylists. I've never liked Lem in English, and now I'm wondering if maybe I should try him in Russian; do any of the Russian-speakers here have a recommendation for a good translation?
posted by languagehat at 10:49 AM on July 11, 2012
I second Guy_Inamonkeysuit's recommendation of Rogue Moon; when I read it in F&SF it blew my tender little mind.
I'm glad I'm able to read the Strugatskys in Russian; they're amazing stylists. I've never liked Lem in English, and now I'm wondering if maybe I should try him in Russian; do any of the Russian-speakers here have a recommendation for a good translation?
posted by languagehat at 10:49 AM on July 11, 2012
Nomyte: "Roadside Picnic ends the same way as Mass Effect 3."
A bunch of whiny gamers?
posted by symbioid at 10:49 AM on July 11, 2012 [1 favorite]
A bunch of whiny gamers?
posted by symbioid at 10:49 AM on July 11, 2012 [1 favorite]
Incidentally, these are two of my favorite sci-fi books because of the central idea that we make contact with some kind of alien thing, but it remains utterly incomprehensible to us. Peter Watts' Blindsight is another along these lines. Anyone know of any more?Off the top of my head, Paul Park's Celestis (Coelestis) fits into this category quite well. Humanity founds a Vast Space Empire, which immediately begins to collapse because it occurs almost simultaneously with the general decline of the earth and humanity's inevitable extinction. A consultant or something from Earth gets on the last boat off to the last stop possible--a remote planet that more or less resembles the 20th century US its colonists came from, except for the deeply strange...everything. The aliens' experience of reality is so radically different from ours that they consider us dead; inanimate objects.
AND THEY SPEAK IN CAPSLOCK AND RUN ON SENTENCES IF I RECALL CORRECTLY WHICH IS MORE FUN THAN I MAKE IT SEEM
posted by byanyothername at 10:55 AM on July 11, 2012
Anyone know of any more?
People often cite Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama for this. A big alien thing comes through the solar system, but we never really understand what it's doing or what it's for. I think Clarke was going for a sense of the vastness and nonhumanness of the universe, though I didn't find the object weird enough to do that work. (But who knows, maybe in forty years people will say the same thing about Blindsight.)
posted by stebulus at 1:58 PM on July 11, 2012
People often cite Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama for this. A big alien thing comes through the solar system, but we never really understand what it's doing or what it's for. I think Clarke was going for a sense of the vastness and nonhumanness of the universe, though I didn't find the object weird enough to do that work. (But who knows, maybe in forty years people will say the same thing about Blindsight.)
posted by stebulus at 1:58 PM on July 11, 2012
There's a Stalker RPG (originally Finnish, but available in an English translation.)
posted by Zed at 2:28 PM on July 11, 2012
posted by Zed at 2:28 PM on July 11, 2012
I've not experienced Roadside Picnic in any form, not even S.T.A.L.K.E.R., which seems like a huge omission for me.
I read this new translation of Roadside Picnic and played (some of) S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I finished RP in a couple days, couldn't drag myself all the way through the game. Also, the game guys apparently never contacted Strugatsky for permission to use his ideas, if that means anything to you (so it says in the Stalker RPG, newly published in English, which I own but have not really read, lulz).
posted by adamdschneider at 2:56 PM on July 11, 2012
I read this new translation of Roadside Picnic and played (some of) S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I finished RP in a couple days, couldn't drag myself all the way through the game. Also, the game guys apparently never contacted Strugatsky for permission to use his ideas, if that means anything to you (so it says in the Stalker RPG, newly published in English, which I own but have not really read, lulz).
posted by adamdschneider at 2:56 PM on July 11, 2012
I'll defend the driving scene in SOLARIS too. I think it was Jonathan Rosenbaum who noted that it's essentially a stand-in for a scene that's prominently "missing": Kelvin's journey to space. The whole point of SOLARIS is "we don't want other worlds; we want mirrors". So instead of watching models of spaceships glide around space, the journey from the natural world to the artificial is filled in with footage of an earthly city, in a journey that's as long, rhythmic, and (if you're in the right mood) hypnotic as a long ocean voyage.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 10:14 PM on July 11, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 10:14 PM on July 11, 2012 [1 favorite]
Having not read the new translation yet, and not being able to read Polish at all... I prefer the old translation in the quoted paragraphs. "The vanity of all action" is a phrase with historical and theological resonance that "the futility of all action" lacks; "unbreakable silence" is infinitely more active than "categorical silence"; "autistic ocean" is a much better phrase than "oceanic idiot". But it may be that the Lem is deliberately as cold and inert as the new translation.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 10:17 PM on July 11, 2012
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 10:17 PM on July 11, 2012
Well, here's that paragraph in Polish:
"Categorical silence" is kategoryczne milczenie, which is indeed "categorical" in the sense of being "absolute." I don't think that's the dominant sense of the word in English, although "unbreakable" misses the fact that the silence is intentional and self-imposed.
"Oceanic idiot" is ocean-debil, where "debil" means "imbecile" in both the derogatory and old-timey psychological senses. Autism wasn't a well-known concept in Poland when Lem was writing. Even in English, individuals with autism were popularly called psychopaths until the 80s.
The choices the translators made clearly show the opposing forces of "faithful, but not necessarily natural" and "natural, but not necessarily faithful."
posted by Nomyte at 11:12 PM on July 11, 2012 [4 favorites]
Przez pewien czas popularny był (rozpowszechniany gorliwie przez prasę codzienną) pogląd, że myślący ocean, który opływa całą Solaris, jest gigantycznym mózgiem, przewyższającym naszą cywilizację o miliony lat rozwoju, że to jakiś „kosmiczny yoga", mędrzec, upostaciowana wszechwiedza, która dawno już pojęła płonność wszelkiego działania i dlatego zachowuje wobec nas kategoryczne milczenie. Była to po prostu nieprawda, bo żywy ocean działa, i to jak jeszcze - tyle że według innych, aniżeli ludzkie, wyobrażeń, nie buduje więc miast ani mostów, ani machin latających; nie próbuje też zwyciężyć przestrzeni ani jej przekroczyć (w czym niektórzy obrońcy wyższości człowieka za wszelką cenę upatrywali bezcenny dla nas atut), zajmuje się natomiast tysiącznymi przekształceniami - „autometamorfozą ontologiczną"; już to uczonych terminów nie brak na kartach dzieł solarystycznych! Ponieważ, z drugiej strony, człowieka, uporczywie wczytującego się we wszystkie możliwe solariana, ogarnia nieprzeparte wrażenie, iż ma przed sobą ułamki intelektualnych konstrukcji, być może genialnych, przemieszane bez ładu ł składu z płodami jakiegoś kompletnego, graniczącego z obłędem, głuptactwa, powstała jako antyteza koncepcji „oceanu-yogi" myśl o „oceanie-debilu"."Vanity of all action" is conveyed by płonność wszelkiego działania, where płonność is the noun from płonny, which means "futile," "fruitless," or "barren," of both actions and land. For me, the most natural reading of "vanity" in English is the personal kind, rather than the quality of being "in vain."
"Categorical silence" is kategoryczne milczenie, which is indeed "categorical" in the sense of being "absolute." I don't think that's the dominant sense of the word in English, although "unbreakable" misses the fact that the silence is intentional and self-imposed.
"Oceanic idiot" is ocean-debil, where "debil" means "imbecile" in both the derogatory and old-timey psychological senses. Autism wasn't a well-known concept in Poland when Lem was writing. Even in English, individuals with autism were popularly called psychopaths until the 80s.
The choices the translators made clearly show the opposing forces of "faithful, but not necessarily natural" and "natural, but not necessarily faithful."
posted by Nomyte at 11:12 PM on July 11, 2012 [4 favorites]
Nomtye: Regarding "vanity"---do you know if the phrase was commonly used in old religious texts? That's what struck me about "vanity" rather than "futility"---it's the phrase that Church theologians used in the Middle Ages.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 11:28 PM on July 11, 2012
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 11:28 PM on July 11, 2012
Ecclesiastes 1:2:
King James: Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
Jakub Wujek bible (1599): Marność nad marnościami, rzekł Ekklesiastes: marność nad marnościami, i wszystko marność.
Biblia Gdańska (Danzig bible, 1632): Marność nad marnościami, powiedział kaznodzieja; marność nad marnościami, i wszystko marność.
Biblia Tysiąclecia (Millennium bible, 1965): Marność nad marnościami, powiada Kohelet, marność nad marnościami - wszystko marność.
Biblia Warszawska (Warsaw bible, 1975): Marność nad marnościami, mówi Kaznodzieja, marność nad marnościami, wszystko marność.
I don't know anything about Polish, but from these examples it sure looks like marność, not płonność, would be the biblically allusive equivalent of "vanity".
posted by stebulus at 1:51 AM on July 12, 2012 [1 favorite]
King James: Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
Jakub Wujek bible (1599): Marność nad marnościami, rzekł Ekklesiastes: marność nad marnościami, i wszystko marność.
Biblia Gdańska (Danzig bible, 1632): Marność nad marnościami, powiedział kaznodzieja; marność nad marnościami, i wszystko marność.
Biblia Tysiąclecia (Millennium bible, 1965): Marność nad marnościami, powiada Kohelet, marność nad marnościami - wszystko marność.
Biblia Warszawska (Warsaw bible, 1975): Marność nad marnościami, mówi Kaznodzieja, marność nad marnościami, wszystko marność.
I don't know anything about Polish, but from these examples it sure looks like marność, not płonność, would be the biblically allusive equivalent of "vanity".
posted by stebulus at 1:51 AM on July 12, 2012 [1 favorite]
(I chose those four Polish bibles based on a quick scan of Wikipedia's Bible translations into Polish and linked articles.)
posted by stebulus at 2:03 AM on July 12, 2012
posted by stebulus at 2:03 AM on July 12, 2012
Wow---thanks, y'all!
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 1:42 PM on July 12, 2012
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 1:42 PM on July 12, 2012
Discussions like this are why I stay.
posted by kjs3 at 5:47 AM on July 13, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by kjs3 at 5:47 AM on July 13, 2012 [1 favorite]
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