Well, who would have ever thought: the norite of ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ is now chronic!
@ Lukin: but start with Gogol, with the stories, you won’t be able to resist. Goodness, you have them right there at hand! - I’ll dive into the translation matter: just starting from Gogol, and the stories, I suggest a comparative reading of a few pages between any of the other translations and that of Tommaso Landolfi. My dear Tommaso has done quite a few, not just from Russian, but especially from the Russians: Gogol, of course, and Pushkin, Turgenev, Chekhov, Lermontov, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Leskov... Not all easily available, not always reprinted, but if you happen to find them, it’s worth indulging in. He was a peculiar type, my Tommaso, his pages are a gift to me every time, even if for some he is baroque and inconclusive (deplorable and even annoying aspects, for me, but not in my Tommasino: in Tommasino they become beautiful). And even in translating, his nature would come through. To give an example: the famous Gogol story known as "The Overcoat" in his translation is titled "The Cloak": Not just to be bizzzzzzzzzzzzzarre, but because according to his view, that was the word closest to the type of garment referred to in the text. It may seem trivial, but it really isn’t. And this attitude reflects throughout the text, and I like it. Strange, funny, that Vallecchi, the publisher who often urged him to work (Tommaso was lazy), didn’t push him for a translation of "The Gambler," it would have been almost tautological: it was him, Landolfi, the stubborn gambler who in one night won a fortune at the casino and gambled it all away, even losing the money to get home, forced to hitch a ride on a motorcycle in the dead of night. Another funny thing that comes to mind, regarding his translations, is an anecdote I read many years ago: during an official evening, like a reception at the embassy or a literary award, in Florence, if I remember right, a publisher speaking with a Russian noblewoman, who had seen Tommasino socializing, said to her, pointing at him: "He is one of our best translators from Russian," and she, astonished, replied: "Him? But that gentleman doesn’t know Russian!" And yet… - Forgive my excessive rambling, but when it comes to certain authors, one can become fond, and with others, true love can arise, one becomes devoted and ends up adoring every single, obvious, undeniable flaw, deficiency, or vice. And one tries, by every means and everywhere, to gain more adherents to a cult that should remain jealously secret and perverse. - Kisses to all.
