G. Barabtarlo’s translation of V. Nabokov’s unfinished novel “The Original of Laura” in the context of literary translation traditions

Abstract

The article is focused on the last unfinished English novel by Vladimir Nabokov “The Original of Laura” and its translation into Russian by Gennady Barabtarlo. The author analyzes the translation strategy of Barabtarlo, using the methodological tools proposed by José Lambert and Hendrik Van Gorp. The starting point of the study was Barabtarlo’s thesis about the renunciation of the Soviet translation school that he hated due to the fact that in the framework of realistic translation translators used violence against the original. Nevertheless, the author comes to the conclusion that the translation strategy of Barabtarlo is a synthesis of the postulates of the Soviet and Western traditions of literary translation, and in particular, is an example of a gradually growing trend towards foreignization in translation. However, the Barabtarlo’s translation is one example of an overly literal translation. The translator tries to bring the readers as close as possible to the original and preserve all literary techniques in the translation, in particular, to demonstrate the ambiguity in many fragments, guiding the reader and using all kinds of comments. Barabtarlo tries to be so close to the original, that he sometimes takes rather unusual translation decisions.