Another Russian Translation War

Remember a few years back when two new translations of War and Peace dropped around the same time? The translators and publishers engaged in a media war (for those few who took interest… like me) over which was the edition. (By the way, the answer is both, assuming you are a true scholar of Tolstoy. If you wish to truly understand a translated literary work you will read as many different translations as possible. Actually, you really ought to learn the original language, but look who’s talking—I don’t speak no Russian.)

Well, peep this. Chad over at Three Percent defends the Open Letter edition of Ilf & Petrov’s The Golden Calf fron an attack by Russian Life’s The Little Golden Calf. The post is interesting not only for the translation questions and concerns raised, but also because it is really fucking funny.