Larisa, I've read the original in Russian, and I think your translation is as close to it as possible. And most importantly, you managed to preserve the emotional depth of the story.
Oh, Mona, thank you, thank you! I am overwhelmed that you found Bunin's spirit in my translation. It's my first translation, and I introduced Bunin to one of my Substack friends and to anyone who wants to read Bunin.
Mona, it is an honor for me that you read it in my poor translation and loved the story, because you can read it in Russian and see how brilliant it really is. Thank you.
Larisa, спасибо Вам большое, thank you so much for translating this jewel of a story for me! I'm moved, grateful, and full of admiration. I'm in awe of your translation skills into your second language. I can assure that it would be really difficult for me to translate it into Italian.
What a wonderful writer Bunin was; luckily, I found a German website that sells Russian books, and they have Bunin, so I can treat myself.
Portia, I am so glad you liked Bunin's Sunstroke. It's my husband and my favorite story in Russian Literature. How many times have I read it, and now, when I translated it, I noticed I still had tears in my eyes. Bunin was a genius at turning a story about two unnamed, very ordinary people into a unique love story for centuries to read.
Thanks for posting the translation! I read Ivan Bunin's "Cursed Days" during the upheaval here in Portland 2020-2021. It had a strong impact on me, as things grew worse outside my door, and rule of law dissolved.
I think Bunin, of all his contemporaries, wrote absolutely the best women.
If we compare "Sunstroke" with Chekhov's "The Lady with the Dog," which was written only 25 years before, they have a very similar beginning: a summer fling, a brief encounter that ended in separation, and the man falling in love. But Bunin decided to end there, and Chekhov wrote the second half, with them meeting again. And you have two very different stories in the end and two very different women.
And I think Bunin's genius was knowing where to stop.
Larisa’s translation is worth praising for its truthfulness to the original, and Portia - thank you. I was struck by Bunin’s paragraph structure and the simplicity of the sentences in the first and last sections of the story. The middle one is dense, almost sun-stricken in its feverishness. Does the middle section work to match the male protagonist’s psychological state of the unbearable weight of the day? The ending contracts again - the sentences are spare, short and quiet. Light beginning, dense middle section and sparse last part: these are formal qualities that enact the narrative and carry the psychological and emotional weight, I thought when going through the original and Larisa’s beautiful translation.
Yes, many people compare these two stories. My friend prefers Chekhov's. I - Bunin's. And not because Bunin wrote the best women. In both stories, women are not the main characters; the men are. The Bunin's superiority of this story is his great ability to transform the one-night sex to the tragedy of the found and lost love, which we read with tears in our eyes, at least I do. Two ordinary nameless persons and so much love...
I actually think in Sunstroke the unnamed woman is the main character, or at least as "main" as the lieutenant. Yes, we see everything from the lieutenant's point of view, and we are privy to his thoughts, but in the interaction between the two, the woman always has the upper hand. She decides to be seduced (the seduction itself - the active actions of the lieutenant - we don't see, and it's done pusposefully this way), she gives the name to the story (she's the first to call this fling a "Sunstroke"), she doesn't let him follow her, and she completely occupies his (and our) thoughts through the rest of the story. Just like her cologne was left in this room after she left, she remains in this story, motivating and pushing it forward.
Everything that happens in this story happens by her desire and because of her decisions. He does nothing here to be called a "main" character.
We even know more about her - how she looks, her family, etc. - than about the lieutenant, whose rank is more or less the only personal detail about him, making him not just nameless but also faceless.
He is passive and weak, and she is active and strong in their interaction. And Bunin highlights it beautifully: after all is done, she seems younger ("as if she were seventeen") and he feels older.
I love your oppositions; they make the discussion, and the discussion makes the story alive. I think I understand your pov because he is passive, she is active in the behavior of the two characters. But the story is not made on the action; the story is made and strikes us with the results of not even being described by Bunin, a one-night stand. That woman is the reason what happened with this military man. Bunin chose the Lieutenant only because the military men got used to these one-night sex situations. She came and left. But the result is disastrous for this man. And the rest of the story, the bigger part of it, his tribulations, his sufferings, what attracts me and you to the story. She is out of the story, but we are in it fully to the end.
I reread the story in original because your discussion fascinated me. I don’t want to sound like a literary critic or some die-hard New Criticism devotee, but the structure of the story is fascinating, and I am more inclined to support Larisa here although sometimes I feel like pushing against her strong opinions. I’d try to stay away from personal preferences since I am almost a complete Chekhov apologist, but Bunin here is at his best and it’s no wonder Nikita Mikhalkov (his political views aside) turned that story into a film. In the beginning we have almost and entirely the female protagonist - she opens the story, comes into it though unnamed (and this is the detail that makes the reader follow each of her actions carefully); she moves through the story unnamed as she is; she fills the story and then fades out leaving the lieutenant to carry the whole weight of the narrative, and he has to fill it. The end is as abrupt as the beginning, and the structure works for that ending skillfully.
I am afraid the text will disappear and as I am not sure Konstantin will read it as this comment is a reply to a Larisa’s one, I will leave it like that in hope he will read it.
I have to ask my subscribers and readers for their forgiveness that my Bunin somehow, and I still don't understand, -how it happened, was followed by my old essay about the translation of Dostoevsky's Devils. I am very sorry for the inconvenience.
Larisa, I've read the original in Russian, and I think your translation is as close to it as possible. And most importantly, you managed to preserve the emotional depth of the story.
Oh, Mona, thank you, thank you! I am overwhelmed that you found Bunin's spirit in my translation. It's my first translation, and I introduced Bunin to one of my Substack friends and to anyone who wants to read Bunin.
What an amazing story! And what a fitting title the author came up with.
Mona, it is an honor for me that you read it in my poor translation and loved the story, because you can read it in Russian and see how brilliant it really is. Thank you.
My thanks to Ichristopher, Emica Oko, Patric Kinville, Bret Hetherington, Jorgen Lownfeldt, and 20 others for liking my translation of Ivan Bunin.
Larisa, спасибо Вам большое, thank you so much for translating this jewel of a story for me! I'm moved, grateful, and full of admiration. I'm in awe of your translation skills into your second language. I can assure that it would be really difficult for me to translate it into Italian.
What a wonderful writer Bunin was; luckily, I found a German website that sells Russian books, and they have Bunin, so I can treat myself.
Thanks again, what a gift you gave me!
Portia, I am so glad you liked Bunin's Sunstroke. It's my husband and my favorite story in Russian Literature. How many times have I read it, and now, when I translated it, I noticed I still had tears in my eyes. Bunin was a genius at turning a story about two unnamed, very ordinary people into a unique love story for centuries to read.
Thanks for posting the translation! I read Ivan Bunin's "Cursed Days" during the upheaval here in Portland 2020-2021. It had a strong impact on me, as things grew worse outside my door, and rule of law dissolved.
Oh, it is a remarkable example of how literature (even foreign) can be effective and sound contemporary, a century later. Thank you.
Glad we are on the same note.
I think Bunin, of all his contemporaries, wrote absolutely the best women.
If we compare "Sunstroke" with Chekhov's "The Lady with the Dog," which was written only 25 years before, they have a very similar beginning: a summer fling, a brief encounter that ended in separation, and the man falling in love. But Bunin decided to end there, and Chekhov wrote the second half, with them meeting again. And you have two very different stories in the end and two very different women.
And I think Bunin's genius was knowing where to stop.
Because I mentioned the original of the story, I read it here:
https://ilibrary.ru/text/1020/p.1/index.html
Larisa’s translation is worth praising for its truthfulness to the original, and Portia - thank you. I was struck by Bunin’s paragraph structure and the simplicity of the sentences in the first and last sections of the story. The middle one is dense, almost sun-stricken in its feverishness. Does the middle section work to match the male protagonist’s psychological state of the unbearable weight of the day? The ending contracts again - the sentences are spare, short and quiet. Light beginning, dense middle section and sparse last part: these are formal qualities that enact the narrative and carry the psychological and emotional weight, I thought when going through the original and Larisa’s beautiful translation.
Yes, many people compare these two stories. My friend prefers Chekhov's. I - Bunin's. And not because Bunin wrote the best women. In both stories, women are not the main characters; the men are. The Bunin's superiority of this story is his great ability to transform the one-night sex to the tragedy of the found and lost love, which we read with tears in our eyes, at least I do. Two ordinary nameless persons and so much love...
I love that discussion…. It makes me feel like I’m alive and aligning to no machines and algorithms.
Agree.
I will oppose you again (as usual).
I actually think in Sunstroke the unnamed woman is the main character, or at least as "main" as the lieutenant. Yes, we see everything from the lieutenant's point of view, and we are privy to his thoughts, but in the interaction between the two, the woman always has the upper hand. She decides to be seduced (the seduction itself - the active actions of the lieutenant - we don't see, and it's done pusposefully this way), she gives the name to the story (she's the first to call this fling a "Sunstroke"), she doesn't let him follow her, and she completely occupies his (and our) thoughts through the rest of the story. Just like her cologne was left in this room after she left, she remains in this story, motivating and pushing it forward.
Everything that happens in this story happens by her desire and because of her decisions. He does nothing here to be called a "main" character.
We even know more about her - how she looks, her family, etc. - than about the lieutenant, whose rank is more or less the only personal detail about him, making him not just nameless but also faceless.
He is passive and weak, and she is active and strong in their interaction. And Bunin highlights it beautifully: after all is done, she seems younger ("as if she were seventeen") and he feels older.
I love your oppositions; they make the discussion, and the discussion makes the story alive. I think I understand your pov because he is passive, she is active in the behavior of the two characters. But the story is not made on the action; the story is made and strikes us with the results of not even being described by Bunin, a one-night stand. That woman is the reason what happened with this military man. Bunin chose the Lieutenant only because the military men got used to these one-night sex situations. She came and left. But the result is disastrous for this man. And the rest of the story, the bigger part of it, his tribulations, his sufferings, what attracts me and you to the story. She is out of the story, but we are in it fully to the end.
I reread the story in original because your discussion fascinated me. I don’t want to sound like a literary critic or some die-hard New Criticism devotee, but the structure of the story is fascinating, and I am more inclined to support Larisa here although sometimes I feel like pushing against her strong opinions. I’d try to stay away from personal preferences since I am almost a complete Chekhov apologist, but Bunin here is at his best and it’s no wonder Nikita Mikhalkov (his political views aside) turned that story into a film. In the beginning we have almost and entirely the female protagonist - she opens the story, comes into it though unnamed (and this is the detail that makes the reader follow each of her actions carefully); she moves through the story unnamed as she is; she fills the story and then fades out leaving the lieutenant to carry the whole weight of the narrative, and he has to fill it. The end is as abrupt as the beginning, and the structure works for that ending skillfully.
I am afraid the text will disappear and as I am not sure Konstantin will read it as this comment is a reply to a Larisa’s one, I will leave it like that in hope he will read it.
I have to ask my subscribers and readers for their forgiveness that my Bunin somehow, and I still don't understand, -how it happened, was followed by my old essay about the translation of Dostoevsky's Devils. I am very sorry for the inconvenience.
Thank you all, Kameron, Victoria Stoilova, and the others, for your kindness.
That's one great translation. Thank you❤️
Thanks for this great little story, I'd never read Bunin before
It is a little gem, agree.