Getting it as right as possible …

… The TLS blog: Translation and the case for pragmatism. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

… Chandler noted in particular how a collaboration between Koteliansky (“Kot” to his close acquaintances), D. H. Lawrence and Leonard Woolf had resulted in, to Chandler’s mind, one of the finest translations of Ivan Bunin’s short story "The Gentleman from San Francisco". Even Koteliansky’s “remarkable . . . bold” foreignisms are deserving of praise, he said. Citing the line “strings of bare-shouldered ladies rustling with their silks on the staircases and reflecting themselves in the mirrors”, Chandler extolled the efficacy of Koteliansky’s Russianizing “with their silks” (shelkami, the instrumental) and the even purposely defamiliarizing “reflecting themselves” (otrazhaiushchikhsia, an ordinary reflexive participle). Note, however, that Bunin himself could have achieved Koteliansky’s effect, had he opted for the active otrazhaiushchikh sebia. Undoubtedly a case where the translation is more striking than the original.