Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR Tertz I could fill all the pages of your issue expressing my delight in your July 19, 1965 issue, which featured Abram Tertz's "Thought Unaware," by detailing the many timeless...
...Every Christian, on the other hand, will know what Tertz means...
...One does not have to agree with all of a man's philosophy to appreciate the "Godgiven" act of artful creativity...
...against a Russian's opinion...
...He speaks from the point of view of one who has been a slave to sex and who has experienced the full depth of its tyranny over human beings...
...Arbor, Mich...
...in this instance, as it happens, the affirmation ofTertz's talent came from a Russian scholar for whose literary judgment Professor Struve has expressed great respect...
...1944 stood up against Hitler ("Dear Editor...
...Nor can anyone who hasread the documents, from Ulrich von Hassel's memoirs to the condemned men's letters (smuggled out of prison by a courageous chaplain) containing last messages to their wives, be indoubt about their moral purpose: to stop the continuation of unspeakable crimes, to help cleanse thename of Germany sofar as that still seemed possible, and touproot the criminal regime...
...Also, Andrew Field gave me an insight into Tertz's earlier works, which no one else has been able to do...
...It is to be able to take pleasure in all His gifts, without being the slave of any.'' This includes freedom from the tyranny of sex...
...The Biblical and the Christian attitude is that sex only falls into its natural place when a man knows what he is living for...
...The whole point of the passage in which that particular sentence occurs is Tertz's revelation to himself of his own repugnancy in passing judgment on the girl...
...Doubtless some of our American "pagans" will misunderstand Tertz's attitude toward sex and take it for the Christian point of view...
...Field is not entitled to pass strictures on Manya Harari and other translators with greater experience, or to undertake translating works like Tertz's and discussing them from the stylistic point of view...
...Berkeley, Calif...
...Perhaps the most glaring example— and the one to citing which I shall confine myself—is the following: Tertz writes (I am trying to give as exact a translation as possible...
...I have just one regret...
...Nevertheless, as I pointed out in my essay, no translation is free of error, and I did not mean to exclude the translation of "Thought Unaware.'' I would also stress that I have never made stylistic pronouncements on Russian poetry or prose without first trying my own impressions The New Leader welcomes comment and criticism onany ofitsfeatures, but letters should notexceed 300 words...
...Field mistranslates this sentence as follows: "I looked at her and thought how really repugnant she was, and I became indignant at this, not noticing my own self-satisfied repugnancy...
...In the words of Paul Tournier: "To depend on God is to be free of men, things and self...
...If Professor Struve will examine my article more closely, he will find that I very carefully state "and not just in myopinion" at thepoint where I discuss Tertz's prose style...
...DEAR EDITOR Tertz I could fill all the pages of your issue expressing my delight in your July 19, 1965 issue, which featured Abram Tertz's "Thought Unaware," by detailing the many timeless thoughts transported to me...
...Fr ~m this fruitful reading I am more thoroughly convinced that if educators emphasized more reading and less talking, the mouth could return to its original purpose . . that of eating and breathing...
...Asforthe other "mistakes and inaccuracies" he alludes to butdoes not present...
...Itis a fault of the Erhard article to picture the German resistance as being far more unified than it really was...
...Male and female created He them...
...NL, August 16...
...the linguistic competence, and when his own translation (or the one on which he collaborated and for which he presumably accepts the responsibility) is teeming with mistakes and inaccuracies...
...Nobody who has gone over the roster of victims whom Hitler made topay with their lives for this actof resistance can deny that they did indeed include, asChancellor Ludwig Erhard said in his article ("The 20th of July," NL, July 19)which Spector criticized, "scholars, men of the cloth, aristocrats, trade-union leaders...
...A little more modesty on his part would not be out of place...
...All I want to do is to ask Field what gives him the right to judge other people's translations from Russian in such a cavalier fashion (I must hasten to say that I have not read Manya Harari's translation of Liubimov) when he lacks the first necessary prerequisite for doing so, viz...
...1would welcome theopportunity to enter into correspondence with him...
...Thank you, New Leader , for your July 19...
...Carl Landauek...
...some of them indulged in proposals "reminiscent of the estates ofthe realm," as Erhard puts it, unfortunately not adding that this was by no means true of the whole resistance...
...Elayne Lansburg Reading Abram Tertz' s new work, "Thought Unaware,'' in The new Leader was an unforgettable experience...
...They were real heroes, and thefact that the outside world could notsave them from their fate is all the more reason not todeprive their memory of the honor which they so amply deserve...
...Mary Miller Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures University of Michigan I have no intention of discussing here all the aspects of the problem (call it "enigma" if you like) of Abram Tertz and of his identity, whether those aspects have been touched upon or left untouched (and some of them have) by Andrew Field in his introductory article to Tertz's "Thought Unaware," which you describe editorially as "a comprehensive and illuminating study...
...Encino, Calif...
...It seems to me, as a philosophy major in college and a studying student ever since in psychology, that both the mantle and soul of Socrates have been transferred to this poet's keeping...
...For the dependent clause in question may also be looked at from a point of view that takes into consideration factors beyond the obvious grammatical reading of an isolated sentence...
...I hope that objective commentators find the translation of "Thought Unaware" (which can more properly by compared to a complex metaphysical poem than to simple prose in terms of difficulty) a responsible effort...
...Berkeley, Calif...
...It would be immodest of me to set forth any claims to my own modesty, but I do not deny Gleb Struve his opinion andhope that he will allow me my own in good faith...
...What authority can his stylistic judgments have...
...Gleb Struve University of California Andrew Field replies: I of course acknowledge the "glaring example" cited by Gleb Struve, but I would point out that the problem is probably one of overly close reading rather than "linguistic competence" (which is not really in question here because my co-translator, Robert Szulkin, has a native command of Russian...
...But questioning the judgment of these people is very different from denying the moral character of their motives...
...Tertz does know what real freedom is since he speaks of freedom from fear and hate...
...a litany for living which I have no doubt the humane will respond to...
...Few ofthe conspirators had any clear political ideas...
...On the first page alone, I have counted at least 10 examples of mistranslation or inaccurate rendering...
...the English wording is susceptible of improvement): "I looked at her and thought how ugly she really was, and this self-complacent ugliness, unaware of itself, made me feel indignant...
...JULY 20, 1944 I must protest against Norman Spector's denigration of the men andwomen who on July 20...
...Nor do I wish to go in detail into the literary merits and demerits of Tertz's work, much of which seems to me of very uneven quality, this being also true of Mysli vraspiokh (the English rendering of it as "Thought Unaware" I regard as rather unsatisfactory...
...For the sake of our "pagans" J wish this point could somehow be clarified...
Vol. 48 • August 1965 • No. 17
