Dead Souls

DEAD SOULS

AVAILABLE TRANSLATIONS

- 1886: Isabel Hapgood
- 1916: D. J. Hogarth
- 1922: Constance Garnett
- 1942: Bernard Guilbert Guerney
  - 1996: Revised by Suzanne Fusso
- 1957: George Reavey
  - 1985: Revised by George Gibian
- 1961: David Magarshack
- 1961: Andrew R. MacAndrew
- 1996: Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
- 1998: Christopher English
- 2004: Robert A. Maguire
- 2008: Donald Rayfield

EXCERPTED COMPARISONS

For my purposes, I mainly compared the Hogarth, Garnett, Guerney/Fasso, P&V, English, Maguire, and Rayfield translations

Selections highlighted in gray stood out as the best versions of that passage. The one with text in bold was my favorite.

Compare Translations - Gogol

CRITICAL OPINIONS

Wikipedia - Wikipedia entry for the novel

NY Times - Archive of a contemporary review of the Garnett translation (published 1923)

The Guardian - A. S. Byatt praises the Maguire translation

Alma Books - Excerpt of first chapter of the Rayfield translation

Google Books - Preview of Revised Guerney translation from Yale University Press

JStor - Review of P&V and Revised Guerney translations, with summary of some earlier ones. He finds pros and cons to each:

Constance Garnett (1922): "stylishly elegant and vivid" but perhaps too polished, "at the expense of the author's distinctive voice."
Magarshack (1961): "generally faithful and accurate, even to sentence structure and breaks, and with greater subtlety in character presentation."
Reavey (1985): "unfortunately takes liberties with structure and detail, though the result is a smoothly pleasurable read."
Guerney/Fasso (1996): more poetic, archaic, and flowery writing, better capture of humor
P&V (1996): "stimulating and accessible contemporary version"

JStor - Robert Maguire reflects on translating Gogol's Dead Souls

XIXVEK - Comparison of excerpts from Hogarth, Magarshack, P&V, English, and Rayfield with original Russian

Cardinal Points - Interview with Donald Rayfield about his translation and translation philosophy

WHAT I READ

I initially eliminated Magarshack and English as excessively fussy. Hogarth sometimes seemed to find the most straightforward phrases, but more often was too archaic -- but it is not an edition I would be sorry to read; it even manages to be funny. P&V used too many awkward and ungainly choices.

Of Garnett, Guerney/Fasso, Maguire, and Rayfield, each had noticeable strengths and weaknesses. Garnett and Rayfield both risked oversimplifying in some instances while Guerney/Fasso and Maguire tended more towards overly wordiness. Guerney/Fasso could be a bit archaic and occasionally seem totally off, while Maguire could be occasionally too modern. Garnett could be occasionally archaic or vague while Rayfield could paraphrase or be humorless.

After further textual comparisons, the only translations that stood out as definitely unappealing options were Magarshack, P&V, and Rayfield. Magarshack's language was often archaic, cliched, and cheesy; P&V often used awkward and unnatural phrases, and Rayfield often humorlessly flattened the original language. The others all had good points.

Based on its generally appealing character (in a distinctive but not unnatural tone), especially its capacity for humor, I chose the Guerney/Fasso translation.

It is available from Yale Books.

(Dec 2021)

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