Which translation of Dosto and Tolstoy do I read?

>disagrees with your opinion or aesthetic preference
>"y-you just don't understand"
brainlet move to be honest

Simple, don't read Dosto cuz hes shit

What you argued might work for poetry but not for prose. Yes, you don't understand. You're most likely monolingual, so please remain silent.

>Dosto
David McDuff or P&V. Most of the people who hate P&V are either memers or Constance Garnett apologists.
>Tolstoy
The Maudes, no question. They personally knew Tolstoy, and he approved of their translations (although it should be noted that they didn't translate his fiction until after his death).

Do Garnett (cus you can get it for free off Project Gutenberg) or learn Russian
Any middle ground is for people who waste money on unecessary luxuries.

Ever heard of libraries? I just finished the P&V translation of Crime and Punishment today for free thanks to my local library's interlibrary loan system.

I've read signet classic's crime and punishment, and I don't have anything bad to say about it, from what I've seen for BOK, Avsey is you best bet.

Cope. I'm fluent English and French + basic ("conversational") Spanish

Try harder, or maybe actually explain your point?

God I wish. Why did they have to be Russian, one of the most difficult languages for the English tongue to learn.

Not him, but it’s well known that a good translation isn’t trying to be accurate to the letter, because that’s impossible, especially when the gap is as yawning as between English and Russian. The main thing is that the “spirit” or “sense” of the source text be communicated, which often necessitates some inventiveness on the translator’s part. Great translators are those which can consistently communicate the author’s vision in their own verbiage; weak ones like P&V just content themselves with transcribing the literal text as closely as possible, which again, is misguided and comes out less than ideal. Words aren’t numbers with objective quality that you can input anywhere and they’ll translate, there are Russian words and phrases that have no English equivalent, or similar words and phrases that have slightly different senses and connotations and can’t translate exactly (requiring, again, translator mediation), and there are simple words like “bear” that can translate exactly. It’s a complicated process that can’t be approached as simply as P&V do.

Okay, so you said "I don't want flavor, I want what is most close to what he wrote though." Now, while this may seem as a good idea in theory, in practice it actually isn't. It depends on the form (verse poetry, prose, etc.), and the nature of what one's translating (is it figurative? literal? colloquial?). I'll only talk about prose becuse poetry is an entirely different world (and in my taste, the opposite of would apply). For example (considering you know basic Spanish), take for instance the old saying "El león piensa que todos son de su condición". It doesn't have an exact equivalent in English, so if you find it in a text you have three options: a) Translate it literally and thus making sure no English reader truly understands it, b) Finding an English equivalent that's more or less the same (or invent your own if necessary) , or c) Relying on notes just to explain this simple thing. The laziest way is A, which is what P&V do: making things awkward and unpolished (basically Google Translate and barely one step above it). While C is just plain inefficient. B seems to be the most appropiate way of dealing with the issue. To really try and adapt a text's meaning into another language. Not a textual word-for-word replica that frankly you could create yourself, but rather a fully functional and fluid version of the work. THAT is translating. To convey the symbols and meanings that the author expressed into another tongue, preserving what you can, chaging what can't survive, but hoping most of will survive. That's why people say that translators need to be competent writers (apart from being good translators), and P&V certainly aren't. That I can tell you.

>it’s well known
stopped reading

>Words aren’t numbers with objective quality that you can input anywhere and they’ll translate, there are Russian words and phrases that have no English equivalent, or similar words and phrases that have slightly different senses and connotations and can’t translate exactly (requiring, again, translator mediation), and there are simple words like “bear” that can translate exactly. It’s a complicated process that can’t be approached as simply as P&V do.
This.

Is the Maguire translation for Demons good?

answer them, please.

Is the Avesey Karamazov the best?

I also hear the P&V did one of their best translations on a dosto book, but which translation in particular is that? I want to read one of them just to judge for myself whether or not they are competent.