Heaven knows my Notes from Underground (Записки из подполья, 1864) translation comparison was long enough without me getting back on this hobbyhorse, but I was keeping an eye on how the translators handled formal and informal pronouns. If you’ve read Notes in English and also speak Russian, what pronouns do you imagine were used between the Underground Man and 1) Simonov, his former classmate and friend and current creditor, 2) his former classmate and longtime enemy Zverkov, and 3) Liza? By and large the translators didn’t add metalinguistic comments about pronoun use. If they tried to convey the pronoun choice some other way, I didn’t pick up on it, and for me this layer of meaning just got lost. For example, if you read this passage from the most recent (and very good) translation by Kirstan Lodge, can you tell? “Did you have a fiancé? Huh?” “What’s it to you?” “Don’t worry. I’m not interrogating you. It’s none of my business. Why are you getting mad? Of course, you may have had…
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