Prose Stylists

[Sylph]

The discussion about Philip Roth reminded me to ask something I was going to do some time ago.

Who are your favourite prose stylists? Obviously, it doesn't have to be a novelist who writes in English.

Wodehouse? Nabokov? Waugh? Updike? Hemingway?

[Florestan]

Who are your favourite prose stylists? Obviously, it doesn't have to be a novelist who writes in English.

English: Joseph Conrad, William Faulkner

French: Marcel Proust, Gustave Flaubert

Italian: Gabriele D'Annunzio

German: Hermann Hesse

Latin American: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Alejo Carpentier

Romanian: Mateiu Caragiale

[Drasko]

Nabokov, Bely, Proust

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Joyce, Wodehouse, Nabokov (and nice to see Bely mentioned, whom I have only read in translation).

[Drasko]

(and nice to see Bely mentioned, whom I have only read in translation).

I've read Petersburg in Serbian translation first and was stunned just how hallucinatory Bely's prose is. Made me really curious to how much was lost/added in translation, so managed to hunt down copy in Russian (borrowed it from some sort of Russian Cultural Center here in Belgrade), and after some sweating over it with my hopelessly rusty Russian, found out that Serbian translator did fantastic job, keeping very close to original in style, rhythm and atmosphere of Bely's writing. Both languages being Slavic does probably make things slightly easier.

If anyone wants to try the original there is complete novel online:
http://az.lib.ru/b/belyj_a/text_0040.shtml   

[PSmith08]

Liebling, Macaulay, Waugh, and, of course, Nabokov (earlier rather than later, though).

[eyeresist]

Raymond Chandler (excluding his famous hyperbolic conceits).

William Burroughs.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

I've read Petersburg in Serbian translation first and was stunned just how hallucinatory Bely's prose is.

Nabokov (who knew a thing or two about style) rated Petersburg one of the four greatest literary works of the 20th century, along with Ulysses, The Metamorphosis, and Remembrance of Things Past. The standard English translation (Maguire & Malmstad) comes with a battery of notes, basically apologizing for the translators' inability to render the thing into English with a high degree of accuracy. Still, it's worth reading even if you can't read Russian.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I've read Petersburg in Serbian translation first and was stunned just how hallucinatory Bely's prose is. Made me really curious to how much was lost/added in translation, so managed to hunt down copy in Russian (borrowed it from some sort of Russian Cultural Center here in Belgrade), and after some sweating over it with my hopelessly rusty Russian, found out that Serbian translator did fantastic job, keeping very close to original in style, rhythm and atmosphere of Bely's writing. Both languages being Slavic does probably make things slightly easier.

If anyone wants to try the original there is complete novel online:
http://az.lib.ru/b/belyj_a/text_0040.shtml 

I am sure the relatively close proximity of Serbian to Russian is a great help. Thanks for the link. I still have the firm intention to teach myself Russian one day (I can decipher the Cyrillic alphabet), to be able to read Bely (and a few others) in the original. Have you ever read Kotik Letaev? Or some of his later novels?

Nabokov (who knew a thing or two about style) rated Petersburg one of the four greatest literary works of the 20th century, along with Ulysses, The Metamorphosis, and Remembrance of Things Past. The standard English translation (Maguire & Malmstad) comes with a battery of notes, basically apologizing for the translators' inability to render the thing into English with a high degree of accuracy. Still, it's worth reading even if you can't read Russian.

Nabokov's endorsement was used on the cover of the Dutch translation, from the 1970s. As Joyce then was my god, I couldn't but be interested in this 'Russian Joyce'. I have that English translation by Maguire & Malmstad, too - I like notes and elucidations, the more the merrier. There is also a very good German translation, which I once saw when I was in Berlin. I found it too expensive, and didn't buy it. One day I will.

[Drasko]

Have you ever read Kotik Letaev? Or some of his later novels?

No, nothing else unfortunately. Not sure if anything other than Petersburg has been translated into Serbian, and local availability of books in Russian is rather limited.

[Brian]

Last time we had this thread, I chose D.H. Lawrence, D.F. Wallace, F. S. Fitzgerald, and Vladimir Nabokov. To which I'd now like to add Flaubert, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and (for non-fiction) Roger Ebert.

The choice of Bely is particularly inspired. Even through Maguire & Malmstead I was transfixed.