Jansy Mello: Sighting – Dauster’s essay on “Letters to Véra”
SÓ A ARTE ME INTERESSA, MAS AMO VOCÊ
VLADIMIR NABOKOV
http://revistapiaui.estadao.com.br/
http://revistapiaui.estadao.com.br/materia/so-arte-me-interessa-mas-amo-voce/
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Check former posting (dated Sat, 16 Jan 2016): A very recent article directed to the Brazilian magazine “Piauí”…, with a critical introduction of Letters to Véra – Vladimir Nabokov, Edited and Translated by Olga Voronina and Brian Boyd ( Penguin Classics, 2014), by Jorio Dauster, brought out a few excerpts from the VN letters, also translated to the Portuguese by Dauster. The difficulty of finding a corresponding term of endearment, without transmuting it into a strangely odd and cold form of address, must have begun during its original translation from the Russian by Olga Voronina. One of the selected letters began:
Letter dated 10/vi-26:
“Dipod,
This morning, they brought me your third letter, along with my fastbreak. Oh, dipod…” [ ] “Oh, my love, my sweet, my dear one. We walked to Todmoos from St. Blasien on foot. It was burning hot, and I took my shirt off. Tuftikins…My fabulous dipodikins… I’ll read a bit and go to bed.
V. ” (p.69, LV,2014).
Brian Boyd’s appended Notes were indispensable: Dipod : “In Russian, tushkan (tuschkanik means ‘jerboa’); jerboas form most of the family Dipodidae.” (p.568/569). The cuddly term, though, didn’t come out as soft and special as expected (the translator’s first try settled on “gerbinha,” an expression that is almost impossible to trace back to its original form or even visualize) and the choice of “ratinha” (little mouse) is still being considered.
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PS: Only a few of the terms of endearment used in the letters came out in their translation in the selection that was published.