Uncategorized 01 Nov 2005 05:20 pm
Kalevala translations
I have reason to think that at least a couple of you will have an opinion on this one. I’m going to read the Kalevala this fall. Which translation do you think is most fun to read?
Uncategorized 01 Nov 2005 05:20 pm
I have reason to think that at least a couple of you will have an opinion on this one. I’m going to read the Kalevala this fall. Which translation do you think is most fun to read?
on 01 Nov 2005 at 5:39 pm 1.jesse said …
Dunno about translations, but have you ever seen the MST3K episode featuring ‘The Day the Earth Froze,’ a film drawing from the Kalevela?
[No, but that is pretty much exactly what Josh said. I have never seen an MST3K episode. I am your basic pop-culture illiterate. — Cam]
on 01 Nov 2005 at 7:41 pm 2.Grouchy Chris said …
I have the Oxford World’s Classics edition, which is translated by Keith Bosley. I liked it, but I haven’t compared it to other translations.
on 01 Nov 2005 at 8:54 pm 3.Gary said …
I think the best translation is by Eino Friberg. The book is (I believe) out of print, but you can still find copies of it. The ISBN is 9511101374. Sadly my copy vanished in the early 1990s. I suspect my grandmother, but I have no proof.
on 02 Nov 2005 at 2:16 am 4.sphinx_n_herhat said …
I made a noise about this before and was ignored — as I suppose I should be where people are smart and read things because they are interesting. But it does surprise me when people without an “ala” or a “ki” or an “inen” at the end of their name are interested in the Kalevala. Tell me, Sculpin, what brings you to the material?
on 02 Nov 2005 at 3:21 am 5.Mris said …
I love my Francis Peabody Magoun translation. It preserves the deadpan weirdness beautifully, which is what I really want most. Other versions are better at preserving the meter.
on 02 Nov 2005 at 8:14 am 6.Cam Sculpin said …
Sphinx: Grouchy Chris read a bit of it aloud to a bunch of his friends a few years ago, and it was awesome. And with Mris working on a novel presently called Sampo, “-ala”/”-ki”/”-inen” stuff has been sort of gently floating through my radar.
But mostly it’s Grouchy Chris’s enthusiastic recommendation. I am slowly working my way through Grouchy Chris’s enthusiastic recommendations. Any year now I will sit down and watch Lagaan.
on 02 Nov 2005 at 12:45 pm 7.Gary said …
Lagaan rocks! You should watch it. Bollywood & cricket are made for each other.
on 02 Nov 2005 at 8:09 pm 8.sphinx_n_herhat said …
He read it aloud? Cooool. That’s the way it’s supposed to be done. I read a chunk of it (not aloud) back in college just because I was curious and it’s in my roots. Didn’t seem to take it to it as much as he did. But performance does change written material.
My grandmother’s middle name, Tellervo, came from the Kalevala. It embarassed her. When you really want to put the old in “old fashioned”…
Thanks for the heads up about Mris’s novel. I will keep a note in the mental file that it could be out there someday.
on 02 Nov 2005 at 8:13 pm 9.sphinx_n_herhat said …
And of course you know that I would encourage you to follow up on his recommendation of Lagaan :-).
on 02 Nov 2005 at 8:57 pm 10.Cam Sculpin said …
I know.
And I will! I was all set to watch it when it aired on IFC a while back, but the subtitles were impossible to make out. White subtitles on a mostly-white background, if I recall correctly. I gave up.
And I think Tellervo is a great name. Everything old is new again.