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May 2008 - Voting

Make your choice for May 2008's book of the month:

  • Taras Bulba, Nikolai Gogol

    Votes: 1 4.3%

  • A Farewell To Arms, Ernest Hemingway

    Votes: 6 26.1%

  • Dreams Of My Russian Summers, Andreï Makine

    Votes: 3 13.0%

  • Fathers And Sons, Ivan Turgenev

    Votes: 6 26.1%

  • The First Circle, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

    Votes: 7 30.4%
  • Total voters
    23
  • Poll closed .
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Stewart

Stewart

Active Member
Okay, I've taken the seemingly most popular suggestions for the 2008 Book of the Month and made the above poll. While there were a number of suggestions, I'm keeping the pot to the most discussed/nominated books to ensure the voting spread isn't across a wide range of books (and thus picking the one with two votes over all the others with one).

Thereforethe five I've picked out are:
  • Taras Bulba, Nikolai Gogol
  • A Farewell To Arms, Ernest Hemingway
  • Dreams Of My Russian Summers, Andreï Makine
  • The First Circle, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
  • Fathers And Sons, Ivan Turgenev

Voting starts today and ends in fourteen days.

If you are not going to take part in the book of the month discussion then it may be better if you don't vote. Likewise if you only intend on taking part if your nomination is the most polled option.

Each person has one vote. Votes are public.
 
A lot of good choices: 4 Russians and Hemingway. Maybe the runner-up could be the BOTM in June, unless it would be two Russians in a row.
 
I voted, but the way I see it, they're all great selections. I like silverseason's suggestion of having the runner-up be the BOTM for June.
 
Unfortunately I wont be able to participate in the next BOTM discussions, but I was checking the books on poll and realized that if correctly translated, Dreams Of My Russian Summers, by Andreï Makine, would be called The French Will. I thought it was a portuguese thing that the translations of book names have absolutely nothing to do with the original, but I guess it's a global problem...
 
Landslide said:
I was checking the books on poll and realized that if correctly translated, Dreams Of My Russian Summers, by Andreï Makine, would be called The French Will.
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Le Testament Francais is the original title and yes, it's Dreams Of My Russian Summers in English. Why? Well, it may just be that The French Will means nothing to us speakers of English or that to translate it directly would lose something. Or that the duel meaning of 'Will' doesn't serve the story by opening it to misinterpretation (i.e. Will, a document left after death; will,being determination of a sort; and Will being a person's name, also).

I remember Umberto Eco talking about The Name Of The Rose being translated to some language where the title became, in English, Sex In The Monastery, or some such nonsense.
 
Stewart said:
it may just be that The French Will means nothing to us speakers of English or that to translate it directly would lose something
Click to expand...

That may be the case but I think the title of the book is as important as the book itself so it should be respected in the translation. Of course there are cases where the translations can't be true to the original and in such cases the translator should try to find one that transmits the original idea.

Stewart said:
Or that the duel meaning of 'Will' doesn't serve the story by opening it to misinterpretation (i.e. Will, a document left after death; will,being determination of a sort; and Will being a person's name, also).
Click to expand...

In that case couldn't it be The French Testament?

Stewart said:
I remember Umberto Eco talking about The Name Of The Rose being translated to some language where the title became, in English, Sex In The Monastery, or some such nonsense.
Click to expand...

That's just sad :(.


Anyway I'm going off topic, but I just think it's an important issue especially when you read a translation and then come to a forum where the original version is being discussed and you have no idea it's the same book cause the titles are so different...
 
I've just edged the Solzhenitsyn into the lead. But something tells me not for long.

Why? Nostalgia attaching to my labouring through One Day in the Life of I.D., Cancer Ward & First Circle in my teenage years. Sad really.

Bart.
 
Apropos Solzhenitsyn, I just realised he's still alive. The old dog.

But I've been looking up The First Circle and it doesn't seem to be in print in the UK. We're such phillistines.
 
Stewart said:
Apropos Solzhenitsyn, I just realised he's still alive. The old dog.

But I've been looking up The First Circle and it doesn't seem to be in print in the UK. We're such phillistines.
Click to expand...

I found my copy on a library sale cart, for a small donation. Don't give up!
 
I am surprised to learn The First Circle is also not in print in the USA. If it ends up as our selection, I will need to scrounge around the used book stores.
 
I got a nice hardcover copy translated by Thomas Whitney from amazon.com. Our used bookstore didn't have a copy.
 
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