6/29/2023 0 Comments The slynx by tatyana tolstaya![]() ![]() ![]() Yet even more impressive is the fact Gambrell must take what I presume were bastardized versions of Russian words and translate them into a bastardized English word. Passers by on the streets and neighbors in the village here may lapse into phrases and insults that seem as appropriate to Brooklyn or the Bronx. And not being familiar with the Russian language, I can’t imagine what Gambrell’s efforts. I understand translation is difficult because certain words or idioms simply do not translate well or at all between languages. But their recollections of pre-Blast life and much of their language are meaningless to the people who inhabit this Russia. The Olderners – people who survived the Blast – have their own Consequences. ![]() Those born after the Blast have to live with Consequences – too few, too many and/or deformed eyes, ears or limbs gills nostrils on their knees or cockscomb growing on various parts of the body. The wheel was only recently reinvented, mice are a dietary staple and a medium of economic exchange, and fire is still considered so magical that people must rely on “stokers,” whose sole job is to reignite stoves in homes when the fire goes out. The Slynx is a satire set in a Russia more than 200 years after “the Blast.” Life has reverted to a feudal state. That said, one of the more intriguing aspects of Tolstaya’s The Slynx is Jamey Gambrell’s translation of the work. I never want to take anything away from an author as gifted as Tatyana Tolstaya. ![]()
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