When I think about how Nabokov worked with his translators, I imagine he treated them as sparring partners: first learning from them, then proving (perhaps to himself) that he could handle English better than they could.
In his insightful article, Maxim Shrayer, a well-known Nabokov scholar (I admire his effort), offers a fascinating glimpse into Nabokov’s collaboration with Peter Pertzoff. It appears that their collaboration lasted at least until 1944. Very little is known about Nabokov’s other translators from this period, but they might have existed, and it is clear that Nabokov was actively searching.
In July 1942, Nabokov wrote to James Laughlin (a poet and founder of New Directions):
“I need a man who knows English better than Russian…I would revise every sentence myself and keep in touch with him all the time, but I must have somebody to do the basic work and then to polish my corrections…”
Then, in August 1942, he added:
“Without a good deal of linguistic and poetical imagination it is useless tackling my stuff. I shall control the translation as to precise meaning and nuance, but my English is not up to my Russian, so that even had I the necessary time I would not be able to do the thing alone. I know it is difficult to find a man who has enough Russian to understand my writings and at the same time can turn his English inside out and slice, chop, twist, volley, smash, kill, drive, half-volley, lob and place perfectly every word…”
The very last sentence closely resembles the primary meaning of the Russian verb раздраконить (dragonize), which Maxim Shrayer discusses in detail (i.e to tear something apart).
Yet this Russian word also carries a more obscure slang meaning and can refer to masturbation. It is impossible to say whether Nabokov was aware of this nuance or intended it here. Still, when an unsophisticated person looks at examples of how extensively he rewrote Pertzoff’s translations the metaphor becomes difficult to ignore.
I am not able to critically assess Nabokov’s own English version of the passage that Shrayer quotes in his article, but I can say a few words about the Russian original, which comes from one of my favorite Nabokov short stories. This is one of those small descriptive passages which, in my opinion, could be removed (or trimmed) without changing much in the story. Is it well written? To me—yes. Some editors might have different opinions about the choice of words and syntax. But it also looks like a passage that has been written and rewritten, turned inside out, worked over again and again until Nabokov finally achieved complete satisfaction.
But perhaps the more interesting question is not what Nabokov meant by “dragonizing.” The real question may be what the translator thought. How would Pertzoff describe Nabokov’s edits? How did Pertzoff feel when he received pages that were almost entirely rewritten? Perhaps I can add even more irony here by noting that the name “Pertzoff” originates from the Russian word перец (pepper), which in Russian slang can also mean… well, penis. Perhaps, if Pertzoff could sustain prolonged dragonization, the two of them might have made a remarkable pair. Yet, as the evidence suggests, this was not the case.
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