Bulgakov: Three Versions of Hell in the Griboyedov Restaurant

Irina Shipovskaia, "Griboyedov"

(Image from Master & Margarita)

Readers will recall -- even if they do not care -- that I compared two translations of a passage from The Master and Margarita depicting hell in the guise of a paradise-and-lunch jazz-bar restaurant where Moscow's offially recognized literati meet.

Here's the passage as translated by Mirra Ginsburg from the original Russian in her 1967 edition:

Dripping with perspiration, the waiters carried sweating beer mugs high over their heads, shouting hoarsely and with hatred, "Sorry, citizen!" Somewhere in a loudspeaker a voice commanded: "Karsky shashlik, one! Zubrovka, two! Tripe polonais!" The thin high voice no longer sang but howled, "Hallelujah!" The clashing of the golden cymbals occasionally covered even the clatter of the dishes which the dishwashers were sending down the chute into the kitchen. In short, hell. (Chapter 5, New York: Grove Press, 1967)

I compared it to Michael Glenny's translation of hell's kitchen, also from 1967:

Pouring sweat, the waiters carried dripping mugs of beer over the dancers' heads, yelling hoarsely and venomously 'Sorry, sir!' Somewhere a man bellowed through a megaphone:

'Chops once! Kebab twice! Chicken a la King!' The vocalist was no longer singing -- he was howling. Now and again the crash of cymbals in the band drowned the noise of dirty crockery flung down a sloping chute to the scullery. In short -- hell. (Chapter 5, London: Collins and Harvill Press, 1967)

I noted that the two translators had clearly made some stylistic choices in rendering the Russian into English. Well, I've now received a copy of the translation by Diana Burgin and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor, and here's how they translate the passage:

Bathed in sweat, the waiters carried foaming mugs of beer above the dancers' heads, yelling hoarsely and venomously, "Sorry, sir!" Somewhere, orders were being shouted through a megaphone, "One shashlyk! Two zubrovkas! Tripe polonaise!" The thin voice no longer sang but wailed, "Hallelujah!" The crash of the jazz band's cymbals was sometimes muffled by the crash the dishes made as the dishwashers sent them down a slide into the kitchen. In a word, hell." Griboyedov (Chapter 5, Dana Point, California: Ardis Publishers, 1995)

The two translators Burgin and O'Connor tell us in their "Translators' Note" that they "have made every effort to retain the rhythm, syntactic structure, and verbal texture of Bulgakov's prose." Not knowing Russian, I cannot judge that, but from a comparison of their translation with the two others above, I'd say that they also "retain the rhythm, syntactic structure, and verbal texture" of prior translations.

I have only Ginsburg and Glenny -- both translating in 1967 and therefore very likely independent of one another -- but let's compare verbal similarities, using colored font to note parallels to Burgin and O'Connor. We'll ignore what all three have in common. First, Mirra Ginsburg's translation (using red):

Dripping with perspiration, the waiters carried sweating beer mugs high over their heads, shouting hoarsely and with hatred, "Sorry, citizen!" Somewhere in a loudspeaker a voice commanded: "Karsky shashlik, one! Zubrovka, two! Tripe polonais!" The thin high voice no longer sang but howled, "Hallelujah!" The clashing of the golden cymbals occasionally covered even the clatter of the dishes which the dishwashers were sending down the chute into the kitchen. In short, hell. (Mirra Ginsburg)

Next, Michael Glenny's translation (using blue):

Pouring sweat, the waiters carried dripping mugs of beer over the dancers' heads, yelling hoarsely and venomously 'Sorry, sir!' Somewhere a man bellowed through a megaphone:

'Chops once! Kebab twice! Chicken a la King!' The vocalist was no longer singing -- he was howling. Now and again the crash of cymbals in the band drowned the noise of dirty crockery flung down a sloping chute to the scullery. In short -- hell. (Michael Glenny)

Now, the translation by Diana Burgin and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor (with parallels to Ginsburg in red and Glenny in blue):

Bathed in sweat, the waiters carried foaming mugs of beer above the dancers' heads, yelling hoarsely and venomously, "Sorry, sir!" Somewhere, orders were being shouted through a megaphone, "One shashlyk! Two zubrovkas! Tripe polonaise!" The thin voice no longer sang but wailed, "Hallelujah!" The crash of the jazz band's cymbals was sometimes muffled by the crash the dishes made as the dishwashers sent them down a slide into the kitchen. In a word, hell." (Diana Burgin and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor)

Make what you will of these parallels, but to me, they suggest some degree of dependence by Burgin and O'Connor upon Ginsburg and Glenny that ought to have been acknowledged in the "Translators' Note" (though if we emphasized exact word order, the parallels would be fewer).

However, Burgin and O'Connor have, apparently, corrected the penultimate sentence in the passage to say that the noise of the dishes was sometimes louder that that of the cymbals (rather than vice-versa).

I'll leave to the Russian language experts to tell us if Burgin and O'Connor got that penultimate point right.