KAFKA AND NABOKOV
Nabokov Improves On Kafka's 'Metamorphosis'
Well, not of interest to everyone, but this is the corrected text of master writer Fraz Kafka's 'Metamorphosis' by the Russian master writer Vladimir Nabokov.
WOF loves both these writers and we think that maybe, just maybe, Nabokov is correct is saying that his work has improved on Kafka.
We shall, as always leave the final decision to you, dear readers.
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Labels: WORLD OF FOUND KAFKA NABOKOV
posted by WORLD OF FOUND at 15:21
7 Comments:
Er, I think it's the translation he's correcting.
This is page 150 of VN's lectures on literature. He is correcting the translation. He complains about the translation in other parts of the chapter.
Yeah, maybe it's a surprise, but Kafka did not write in English.
"WOF loves both these writers and we think that maybe, just maybe, Nabokov is correct is saying that his work has improved on Kafka."
Can I just say that this is the most excellent example of somebody kicking himself in his own head I've seen in a long time? :-)
Now I have to dig out the original to see which translation is closer to Kafka's original.
I love this. I do this to books, too, ones that aren't even in translation.
Nabokov wasn't allowed to teach American literature while working at Cornell in New York. He taught Don Quixote, Jane Austen and Kafka, among others. The notes are his corrections on the translation. The irony is that Nab never admitted to being able to read German, although he lived there for over a decade. His wife was Jewish.
I think WOF had put Metamorphosis is parenthesis implying that there was cognizance of the fact that it was not Kafka in the original language.
Nevertheless I enjoyed his editing and reasoning.
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