A Short Story “Bobok” by F M Dostoevsky Translated by b L Brazol: Genre Transformations

A short story “Bobok” by F.M. Dostoevsky is regarded to be one of the most complicated works of the writer not only from the point of the number of issues being discussed, but also in terms of genre identification. The scholars believe that it is possible to consider the story as an example of the synthesis of genres. The purpose of the article is to reveal the peculiarities of the reception of “Bobok” in the USA by identifying the genre shifts in the English translation of the story. The material of the study is a short story “Bobok” and its English translation made by Boris L. Brazol in 1949. The original and translated texts are analyzed within the philological approach including the bases of comparative analysis. Additionally, the study uses the findings of Russian and foreign Dostoevsky scholars, as well as the works on genre theory, reception theory, and fiction translation. Compared to the original text, the English version of “Bobok” demonstrates formal and issue-related transformations that are primarily induced by the peculiarities of the literature in the USA in the middle of the 20th century: emergence of black humor as one of the most adequate forms of creative writings in the context of cultural crisis. The translator focuses on conveying those story’s features that coincide with the key characteristics of black humor genre, i.e. satirico-humorous effect, borderline condition of character, overlapping of reality and unreality. The complex narrative structure is not preserved; there is no iconic linkage in conveying the words that constitute the logical gradation and are directly connected with the main issues of the story.The absence of the complex structure of the story in the translation, including the ignorance of iconic linkage in conveying the key concepts of the original, blurs out the genre diversity of “Bobok” and results in issue-related transformations. The complicated story “Bobok” is perceived in English version as a black humor writing, which in its turn identifies the stage of “passive saturation” of American culture with such texts followed by the stage of blossom (“active transmission”) of black humor poetics in 1950–70th.

short story “Bobok”, translation interpretation, genre shifts