VIII Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2016

Did you notice how imperceptibly technologies enter our lives? We constantly use our smartphones, notebooks, tablets etc., and we can hardly remember when we were at the post office to send someone a letter. It looks like a waste of precious and expensive time. The literary genres do not stand still too. The literature continues to evolve in the 21^st century. It changes according to the new rhythm of life, to the new inquiries, dreams, minds and troubles of the young generation. Nevertheless, could you ever imagine that technology and literature can flow together and create a new genre? We are talking about steampunk, the new milestone in the world of literature.

The world of steampunk can be described as alternative variant of the humankind’s development. This is the High Tech world with robots and steam engines among the surrounding of Victorian England (19^th century). The dictionary gives us the following definition: A genre of science fiction that has a historical setting and typically features steam-powered machinery rather than advanced technology [Oxford Dictionary].

This genre has its own history and perhaps we can say that its creator is Kevin Wayne Jeter who tried to find the common definition to such works as “The Anubis Gates” by Timothy Powers (1983), “Homunculus” by James Blaylock (1986), and to his own works as “Infernal Devices” (1987) and “Morlock Night” (1979). All these works are connected with the same world of 19^th century technologies and with Victorian England narrative style. Ever since, steampunk was reflected not only in the literature but also in the cinematography, music, video games and even in the fashion world where it combines “retro” and “future” styles.

The science fiction literature of the XIX century had a strong hold over creation of works in the genre of steampunk. This, in particular, the work of Jules Verne, Herbert Wells, Mark Twain and Mary Shelley [Strickland 2008]. One of the most famous early examples of a steampunk is submarine “Nautilus” created by Captain Nemo from the film adaptation of the book “20,000 leagues under the Sea,” by Walt Disney Studios. The novel “Titus Alone” (1959) by Mervyn Peake anticipated many of the basics of steampunk. The TV series of “Wild Wild West” (1965-1969) were one of the first works where the main features of steampunk were showed [Grossman 2009 ]. Many literary works, which now rank as steampunk appeared long before the introduction of this term by Kevin Jeter to characterize his book “The Night of the Morlocks”. The earlier books such as “Worlds of the Imperium” by Keith Laumer (1962), “Queen Victoria's Bomb” by Ronald W. Clark (1967) and “Warlord of the Air” by Michael Moorcock portrayed worlds close to the definition of “steampunk” [Boston, MA News, Aug. 2007]

The work that we examine is called “Android Karenina” written by Ben Winters and published in 2010 by an independent book publisher “Quirk Books” (the title that speaks for itself) [Quirkbooks 2010]. “Android Karenina” can also be ranked to “mashup” which means blending or combining. This is the genre of literature, which unites the classic works with the elements of science (or non-science) fiction. The author of this work has already worked in this field. In 2009, Winters published “Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters” which was the mixed story of Jane Austen's famous novel “Sense and Sensibility” with sea theme. Though Ben Winters is relatively young author, we can note his unusual perception of the reality and a great deal of awards that show genuine interest to the new literary genres.

The novel Anna Karenina was first published in 1877 by Leo Tolstoy. This novel is about the tragic love of a married woman Anna Karenina and Vronsky who was a brilliant officer in the background of a happy family life of noblemen Konstantin Levin and Kitty Shcherbatskaya. The large-scale painting of manners and life of noble environmental of Saint Petersburg and Moscow of the second half of the XIX century, combining philosophical reflections of author's alter ego of Levin with advanced psychological sketches of Russian literature, as well as scenes from the life of the peasants.

Now it is one of the most famous classic works of literature. Ever since the term of copyright on this novel has expired, it aroused even greater interest. There is a “fan fiction” according to the theme of the novel. The postmodern novel by Alexander Zolotko “Anna Karenina-2” was published in 2013, and it tells about the fate of Anna Karenina’s daughter, also named after Anna. We can see that the novel still touches the minds of the people of all ages even by means of fan fictions (or fanfics), which is a variety of fans’ art that uses the ideas of the plot and characters from the original work [Oxford Dictionary].

It should be said that 80% of “Android Karenina” contain classic translation, and 20% of its content are represented by robots, aliens and time machine. In parallel to Leo Tolstoy’s rich vocabulary, the lexicon of Ben Winters looks much simpler. Perhaps ardent fans of Tolstoy should not read this book. The robots come to the front background of the whole story and the only thing that can be explained is the accordance of the classes of the robots to the class position of the people of the second half of the 19^th century. For example, the robots of the 1^st and 2^nd classes are actually servants, and the robots of 3^rd classes are closer to their masters, they are robots-companions. The struggle of the robots and people finishes at the platform. This is where the similarity with Tolstoy ends. The Russian mass media reacted disapprovingly and noted that the grandson of the writer Vladimir Tolstoy considers such freestyle as hooliganism [Вести.ру, June 2010]. Many readers were also outraged that Ben Winters indecently put his name next to the name of the great writer on the cover of the book. In spite all of these facts, the book “Android Karenina” was included in the curriculum of the University of Pennsylvania after laudatory review in The New York Times [Вести.ру, June 2010]. We can only add that New York Times is not an authoritative source for our reader.

The next passages are the extracts from one of the best Anna Karenina’s translation made by Constance Garnett and the work of Ben Winters. If we talk about the classic works of literature, it was obvious to take the classic translation of Anna Karenina. In addition, Ben Winters worked exactly with this translation because some lines coincide completely. Constance Garnett is considered by the law as the discoverer of the Russian literature to the English world. These passages are both the first paragraphs of these books. We will try to find the differences and their relevance.

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys' house. The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl, who had been a governess in their family, and she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him. This position of affairs had now lasted three days, and not only the husband and wife themselves, but all the members of their family and household, were painfully conscious of it. Every person in the house felt that there was no sense in their living together, and that the stray people brought together by chance in any inn had more in common with one another than they, the members of the family and household of the Oblonskys. The wife did not leave her own room, the husband had not been at home for three days. The children ran wild all over the house; the English governess quarreled with the housekeeper, and wrote to a friend asking her to look out for a new situation for her; the man-cook had walked off the day before just at dinner time; the kitchen-maid, and the coachman had given warning.” [An e-book from http://www.feedbooks.com/]

“FUNCTIONING ROBOTS are all alike; every malfunctioning robot malfunctions in its own way. Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys’ house. The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with the French girl who had been a mécanicienne in their family, charged with the maintenance of the household’s Class I and II robots. Stunned and horrified by such a discovery, the wife had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him. This position of affairs had now lasted three days, and not only the husband and wife themselves, but all the robots in the household were terribly affected by it. The Class IIIs were keenly aware of their respective masters’ discomfort, and the Class IIs sensed in their rudimentary fashion that there was no logic in their being agglomerated together, and that any stray decoms, junkering in a shed at the Vladivostok R. P. F., had more in common with one another than they, the servomechanisms in the household of the Oblonskys. The wife did not leave her own room; the husband had not been at home for three days. The II/Governess/D145, its instruction circuits pitifully mistuned, for three days taught the Oblonsky children in Armenian instead of French. The usually reliable II/Footman/C(c)43 loudly announced nonexistent visitors at all hours of the day and night. The children ran wild all over the house. A II/Coachman/47-T drove a sledge directly through the heavy wood of the front doors, destroying a I/Hourprotector/14 that had been a prized possession of Oblonsky’s father”. [Leo Tolstoy, Ben H. Winters, Android Karenina, e-book]

The first thing that can be noted is the size of the text. In Ben Winters’s variant, the text is bigger, partially because the descriptions of the robots’ classes add a couple of sentences. E.g. II/Footman/C(c)43, The II/Governess/D145. Despite the fact that there are the robots’ classification at the beginning of the book, it causes some difficulties while reading.When such terms are read, the internal voice makes pauses automatically and in our opinion, this slows down the whole reading.

The style of narration also differs. In Constance Garnett’s translation, the style is more classic, and Ben Winters already uses neologisms (even author’s), many mechanical terms (to malfunction, a mécanicienne, the decoms, the servomechanisms, to mistune) and they are the indicators of modern prose. Though these terms are liked by the most of young audience, it was hard to us to read this text. E.g “were painfully conscious of it” (Constance Garnett), “were terribly affected by it” (Ben Winters); “Every person in the house felt that there was no sense in their living together (Constance Garnett), there was no logic in their being agglomerated together” (Ben Winters).In the first example the word “conscious” has literary style and the word “affected” is the colloquial word. Then, the second example poses the same meaning in both passages of the text, but the Ben Winters’s variant is more complicated, actually, the verb “to agglomerate” is a metallurgy term. However, we can say that the usage of this term still lexically justified, because in Constance Garnett’s translation, it tells about servants (people), and Winters tells about mechanisms (robots of II and III classes). In addition, we can note the sophistication of grammatical structure in Winters’s work.

We should highlight such words as “decoms” and “junkering”. We did not find the definition of the word “decoms” in great number of dictionaries (Oxford Dictionaries and Abbyy Lingvo are among them) and can consider this word as author’s neologism. If we compare both translations, we see that the word “decoms” corresponds to the word “people” in Constance Garnett’s variant. E.g. “the stray people brought together”(Constance Garnett); “any stray decoms” (Ben Winters). Perhaps the author meant some kind of useless robots by this word. The next word “junkering” fulfils the role of the verb in the sentence (“…and that any stray decoms, junkering in a shed at the Vladivostok R. P. F., had more in common with one another than they, the servomechanisms in the household of the Oblonskys”). However, we would not find this word in the dictionary, at least as a verb. There is a word “junker” which is a noun, and it means “an old car in poor condition” [Oxford Dictionary]. The author used this term to show the correspondence to the Garnett’s “people brought together”. In this waywe see, that verbalization takes place as a way of author’s expression. It can also be added that Winters did not always try to find the understandable synonyms.

It is quite interesting to observe how author renames different things from “human” to “mechanic” terms. Nevertheless, sometimes it does not clear much why author used one or the other word or abbreviation. For example: “The II/Governess/D145, its instruction circuits pitifully mistuned, for three days taught the Oblonsky children in Armenian instead of French”. We cannot say why exactly Armenian was chosen as the opposite of French, but perhaps it had to be explained. The other example: “The Class IIIs were keenly aware of their respective masters’ discomfort, and the Class IIs sensed in their rudimentary fashion that there was no logic in their being agglomerated together, and that any stray decoms, junkering in a shed at the Vladivostok R. P. F., had more in common with one another than they, the servomechanisms in the household of the Oblonskys”. It cannot be easily understood not only why “at the Vladivostok R. P. F.” was used and also what is “R. P. F.”? As expected, the abbreviation was not found in the aforementioned dictionaries. It seems like the reader misunderstands the greater part of the text - is this really what the author wanted?

According to a public-opinion poll conducted by us, we distinguish two age groups of readers: 20-35 years and 40-70 years. It should be noted that people of different professions and generations were interviewed and it allows us to conclude the following: in the first age group (20-35) 70% of people do not know about the genre “steampunk” at all, and regardless of this 60% of they are not opposed to mixing the classis works of literature with elements of science fiction. We have some different result in the second age group of people (40-70): here for about 50% do not know about the genre, but the older generation regard about mixing more skeptical, 90% are completely opposed to it. It can be seen that the young generations are more open to experiments and perceive old things better through combining them with something new. In spite of the fact that almost every person has an access to the internet, today, large number of young people are not very well informed. The older generations perceive combining more sensitive, they grew up with classic works of literature and any interference is declined.

In conclusion of our research, we want to say that despite everything Ben Winters did a great job. He interpreted the text in another literary trend, which helped to open “Anna Karenina” once again to the new audience of mainly young people. We will not also deny that adaptation of Winters despite the presence of the colloquial words, is more complicated to read than the classic translation of Constance Garnett. However, Leo Tolstoy in the original is read much more difficult, but it was not the part of our research. We are faced with the problems of misunderstanding and sometimes wordiness, especially from the point of view of Russian-speaking readers. The author used many neologisms, abbreviations and mechanical terms that create an impression of oversaturation. The public-opinion poll shows that the points of view of the readers are divided according to the age of the interviewees. We can see that steampunk as literary genre develops impetuously and reflects further in the cinematography. In our personal opinion, the classic works of literature should not be touched, at least out of regard for their authors. The writer becomes a writer when he creates something by his own, and when nobody was before him. Perhaps the choice of the author was caused by the fact that we are living in the age of rethink of something opened, and not in the era of discoveries.

LITERATURE:

1. Bebergal, B. The age of steampunk: Nostalgia meets the future, joined carefully with brass screws [E-source] / Bebergal P. Boston.com. – URL: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/26/the_age_of_steampunk/

2. Boston, MA news, breaking news, sports, video [E-source] / News magazine. – URL: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/26the_age_of_steampunk

3. Grossman, L. Steampunk: Reclaiming Tech for the Masses: Why steampunk is the subculture of the moment [E-source] / Grossman L. Content Time Magazine. – URL: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1945343,00.html

4. Oxford English Dictionary [E-source] // Oxford University Press. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/ 5. Strickland, J. How Steampunk Works: Famous Steampunk Works [E-source] / Strickland J. People.howstuffworks.com. – URL: http://people.howstuffworks.com/steampunk4.htm

6. Tolstoy, L. Anna Karenina [E-source] / Tolstoy L. Literaryproject.com. – URL: http://literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_1.htm

7. Winters, B, Tolstoy, L. Android Karenina [E-source] / Winters Ben. H., Tolstoy L. The official Quirk Books site. - URL: http://www.quirkbooks.com/book/android-karenina

8. Вести.Ru: новости, видео и фото дня [Электронный ресурс] // Информационный журнал. URL: http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=366846

Код для цитирования: Скопировать