Product Details
Verses and Versions: Three Centuries of Russian Poetry Selected and Translated by

Verses and Versions: Three Centuries of Russian Poetry Selected and Translated by
By Vladimir Nabokov

List Price: $40.00
Price: $23.28 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com

63 new or used available from $5.75

Average customer review:

Product Description

Vladimir Nabokov was hailed by Salman Rushdie as the most important writer ever to cross the boundary between one language and another. A Russian émigré who began writing in English after his forties, Nabokov was a trilingual author, equally competent in Russian, English, and French. A gifted and tireless translator, he bridged the gap between languages nimbly and joyously.

Here, collected for the first time in one volume as Nabokov always wished, are many of his English translations of Russian verse, presented next to the Russian originals. Here, also, are some of his notes on the dangers and thrills of translation. With an introduction by Brian Boyd, author of the prize-winning biography of Nabokov, Verses and Versions is a momentous and authoritative contribution to Nabokov's published works.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #171127 in Books
  • Published on: 2008-11-11
  • Original language: Russian
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • 480 pages

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
Nabokov, touted as the only major modern author to write masterpieces in two languages, is also often called the best modern translator into English, though usually on the basis of his rendering of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, which is yet quite controversial (see Douglas R. Hofstadter’s Onegin translation, 1999, for elucidation). The contents of this collection based on a project Nabokov left unrealized go a long way to bolster those claims. Embracing a half-century of published translations of Russian poetry, it consists predominantly of satisfying English poems that, unlike Nabokov’s Onegin, observe the originals’ rhyme schemes, as the appearance of the Russian poems on facing pages verifies (one can see the rhymes, if not the metrics). Including several important eighteenth-century pioneers, 66 pages of translated Pushkin, 20 of Lermontov, 32 of Tyutchev, and indicative helpings of Baratinski, Fet, Nekrasov, Blok, and Hodasevich (whom Nabokov thought “the greatest Russian poet of Nabokov’s time”), consider this essential for translated Russian literature collections. --Ray Olson

Review

PRAISE FOR THE TRANSLATIONS OF VLADIMIR NABOKOV

"It was Nabokov's gift to bring paradise wherever he alighted."—John Updike, The New York Times Book Review

"As entertaining as Rabelais, as dependable as the O.E.D. What Nabokov has done is to throw a bridge between Russian and American culture, a bridge built out of his all-informative commentary and agonizingly honest translation."—The Virginia Quarterly Review



Consider this essential for translated Russian literature collections. (Booklist )

About the Author

VLADIMIR NABOKOV (1899–1977), a Russian-born poet, novelist, literary critic, translator, and essayist, was awarded the National Medal for Literature for his life's work in 1973. He taught literature at Wellesley, Stanford, Cornell, and Harvard. He is the author of many works, including Lolita, Pale Fire, Ada, and Speak, Memory.  BRIAN BOYD is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of English at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and is a renowned expert on the life and works of author Vladimir Nabokov. STANISLAV SHVABRIN is a scholar, translator, and lecturer in Russian literature at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Customer Reviews

Indispensable5
It is not enough that Vladimir Nabokov was one of the most gifted and prolific prose
stylists of the 20th century, that he was a supremely talented chess player and a
recognized expert in lepidoptery. He also was an outstanding translator of poetry
and prose, his sensual multi-linguality an endless source of admiration and envy.

This collection of Nabokov's translations of Russian poetic masterpieces into
English was a half-century in the making, pursued and put off multiple times during
the writer's lifetime. It is finally published here with editing by Brian Boyd and
Stanislav Shvabrin, with additional Nabokovian texts of criticism and, most
notably, with Nabokov's influential (and, for some, infuriating) ruminations on the
art of translation. As an introduction to the crowning heights of Russian verse, this
work is invaluable. As a testimony to Vladimir Nabokov's skill as a translator
and literary critic it is indispensable.

As reviewed in Russian Life.

V is for Victory5
An eloquent book that should be in the library of any person interested in Russian poetry, Vladimir Nabokov and/or the difficult art of translation.

Professors Brian Boyd and Stanislav Shvabrin have performed a notable service in organizing and bringing this fine collection to print.

I am not knowledgeable about the subject poems (or the Russian language) so can not judge for certain if Mr. Nabokov's translations to English are the best. But, I would wager they are.

Please also consider reading this great intellect's memoir "Speak, Memory."

As Mr. Nabokov said of a long dead Russian poet, "... all is finished now: the bequeathed gold shines on a shelf in full view of the future..."

Fantastic!5
This is a book to savor. Nabokov explains the intracacies of translation that is sensitive to both languages, and cites several examples. What a fascinating mind! The poems are enchanting, heartbreaking and compelling. Pushkin in particular stays with you and calls you back for another reading. Most of all, these poems are meant to be read out loud.