The Last Ring-bearer
Oct. 3rd, 2010 01:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ymarkovUPDATE: Second edition!
More than 15 years ago Russian scientist Kirill Yeskov tried to settle certain geographical problems in Tolkien's fantasy world. One thing led to another, and he tackled a bigger project - what if we assumed that it's no less real than our world? His conclusion was that in such a case, the story of the Ring of Power is most likely a much-altered heroic retelling of a major war - but what was that war really about?
The result of this re-appraisal was the publication in 1999 of The Last Ring-bearer - a re-thinking of Tolkien's story in real-world terms. Dr. Yeskov, a professional paleontologist whose job is reconstructing long-extinct organisms and their way of life from fossil remnants, performs essentially the same feat in The Last Ring-bearer, reconstructing the real world of Tolkien's Arda from The Lord of the Rings - the heroic tales of the Free Men of the West written in that world. We have a pretty good idea how well heroic tales map to reality from our own world...
I was impressed enough by this work to spend a few dozen lunch hours translating it to English. (Reportedly, some publishing houses have considered a commercial translation of this book, which had been published in several major European languages, but abandoned the idea out of fear of the Tolkien estate, which doesn't countenance any derivative works, especially in English. Witness the history of its relationship with New Line Cinema. This translation is non-commercial. The Russian original can be found here.) I have been fortunate to establish communication with the author and have the translation vetted (and much corrected) by him. I now offer this work for your perusal. At 139,000 words, this 1 Mb PDF is about 80% of the length of The Fellowship of the Ring. Suggestions for corrections will be appreciated. Please mention how you heard about this translation when commenting. Errata will be published here soon.
UPDATE: I have translated an essay Dr. Yeskov wrote after the first publication of this book. It may answer some of your questions about his motivation and method.
One user has reported a virus intercepted during downloading. The PDF itself is Javascript-free and ought not to have any payload other than the text. It was likely a false positive when a stub of the file matched some virus signature during download. Sendspace has informed me that my account has gone premium thanks to all the downloads, and users should now see no ads prior to downloading. One user has reported encountering Captcha; I've never seen any, but suspect that Sendspace puts them up when the download request comes from a domain associated with bots. There have been thousands of successful downloads; if yours fails, please try again. .odt and .mobi versions are available here thanks to Matthew Wilcoxson.
I have to disappoint the fans of Sauron: His Majesty Sauron the VIII rates only a few mentions in this work, having been nothing more than an enlightened king. Nor does the Ring of Power rate more than a passing mention. Likewise the Hobbits: unlike LOTR, this story is not about them. Finally, no attempt has been made to imitate J.R.R. Tolkien's style - it is deliberately modern and down-to-earth.
I am now working on a second edition, with some corrections (very few, the author was thorough) and, hopefully, smoother prose.
Errata
More than 15 years ago Russian scientist Kirill Yeskov tried to settle certain geographical problems in Tolkien's fantasy world. One thing led to another, and he tackled a bigger project - what if we assumed that it's no less real than our world? His conclusion was that in such a case, the story of the Ring of Power is most likely a much-altered heroic retelling of a major war - but what was that war really about?
The result of this re-appraisal was the publication in 1999 of The Last Ring-bearer - a re-thinking of Tolkien's story in real-world terms. Dr. Yeskov, a professional paleontologist whose job is reconstructing long-extinct organisms and their way of life from fossil remnants, performs essentially the same feat in The Last Ring-bearer, reconstructing the real world of Tolkien's Arda from The Lord of the Rings - the heroic tales of the Free Men of the West written in that world. We have a pretty good idea how well heroic tales map to reality from our own world...
I was impressed enough by this work to spend a few dozen lunch hours translating it to English. (Reportedly, some publishing houses have considered a commercial translation of this book, which had been published in several major European languages, but abandoned the idea out of fear of the Tolkien estate, which doesn't countenance any derivative works, especially in English. Witness the history of its relationship with New Line Cinema. This translation is non-commercial. The Russian original can be found here.) I have been fortunate to establish communication with the author and have the translation vetted (and much corrected) by him. I now offer this work for your perusal. At 139,000 words, this 1 Mb PDF is about 80% of the length of The Fellowship of the Ring. Suggestions for corrections will be appreciated. Please mention how you heard about this translation when commenting. Errata will be published here soon.
UPDATE: I have translated an essay Dr. Yeskov wrote after the first publication of this book. It may answer some of your questions about his motivation and method.
One user has reported a virus intercepted during downloading. The PDF itself is Javascript-free and ought not to have any payload other than the text. It was likely a false positive when a stub of the file matched some virus signature during download. Sendspace has informed me that my account has gone premium thanks to all the downloads, and users should now see no ads prior to downloading. One user has reported encountering Captcha; I've never seen any, but suspect that Sendspace puts them up when the download request comes from a domain associated with bots. There have been thousands of successful downloads; if yours fails, please try again. .odt and .mobi versions are available here thanks to Matthew Wilcoxson.
I have to disappoint the fans of Sauron: His Majesty Sauron the VIII rates only a few mentions in this work, having been nothing more than an enlightened king. Nor does the Ring of Power rate more than a passing mention. Likewise the Hobbits: unlike LOTR, this story is not about them. Finally, no attempt has been made to imitate J.R.R. Tolkien's style - it is deliberately modern and down-to-earth.
I am now working on a second edition, with some corrections (very few, the author was thorough) and, hopefully, smoother prose.
Errata
- Page 5: read "consciousness" for "conscious." I'm considering a different expression altogether, as it's hard to walk while unconscious. Same on page 71.
- Page 53: read "Those may very well be needed more than the rest." for "Seemingly, those will be needed no more than all the rest."
- Page 108: read "had decided to call them Mountains of Shadow" for "had decided to cal then Mountains of Shadow"
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no subject
Date: 2010-10-03 10:13 pm (UTC)Impressive, thank you.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-03 11:04 pm (UTC)You may want to read the original: http://fan.lib.ru/e/eskov
no subject
Date: 2010-10-05 09:50 pm (UTC)Otherwise found no inconsistencies with the translation, great work, spent most of the day to read it through. :-)
no subject
Date: 2010-10-06 01:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-06 08:59 am (UTC)It’s logical to suppose that the regiment is still a well-regulated fighting unit that has gone underground, and now these people are planning your ‘liberation’. I think we’ve already established what would happen then.”
Верно ли использование определения well-regulated в этих контекстах?
no subject
Date: 2010-10-08 02:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 04:27 am (UTC)Стр 8 по тексту. У вас: "Sure, the Throne, the Motherland and all that... but the generals kept doing things whose stupidity was obvious even to a sergeant."
У меня загвоздка с оборотом "... things whose stupidity ..." так как я востпринимаю модифицирует `generals` а не `things`.
"... things which stupidity ..." тоже не звучит.
Может надо "... things stupidity of which..."?
Стр 40. Если только Вы не сделали зто умышленно, чтоб сделать речь Цэрлага более "простонародной", то у вас пропущен артикль `of` перед `cola nuts` в предложение: "Wait - gimme a couple cola nuts, I could use them, too." По оригиналу речь Цэрлага: Да, постой! Кинь-ка пару орешков кола - мне тоже не повредит. Может "Hang on, toss me a couple of cola nuts - I could use them too" подойдет?
Стр 48. В оригинале это предложение звучит так: "Есть среди нас и короли. Так же как королевичи, сапожники, портные.... ну и все прочие." У вас это предложение звучит так: "There are kings among us too, аs well as doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, and such." Chief (что скорее титул главы чего-либо) скорее всего не правильно, и Вы имели в виду chef (повар).
Стр 52. В предложение "... sings the majestic strength of the old buck..." пропущен артикль "of" или слово "about". "Sings of the majestic strength of the old buck..." etc.
А так пока отличный перевод. Уже разрекоммендовал многим знакомым. Спасибо вам.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 11:39 pm (UTC)Стр. 40 - да, умышленно. Однако Вы предложили более удачный оборот.
Стр. 48 - этот момент мы некоторое время перетирали с др. Еськовым. Ближайший найденный нами аналог этой считалки - вторая строчка английской считалочки Tinker, tailor, soldier, thief / doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief. Так что без поваров :-)
Стр. 52 - вопрос спорный. Помните у Брэдбери I Sing The Body Electric? Я именно хотел использовать поэтический стиль.
Спасибо, жду дальнейших советов и предложений!
no subject
Date: 2011-01-12 04:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-16 12:45 am (UTC)May I ask how you heard about this?
no subject
Date: 2011-01-26 11:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-29 07:25 am (UTC)Read the story this week. The translation is much appreciated. I may get around to writing a short reivew of the story itself on my blog, but in any case, it was quite enjoyable.
As you mentioned a second edition, here are just some small editorial notes below.
On page 108 of the text, there's a clear set of typos in the second sentence; probably it should read "had decided to call them Mountains of Shadow."
The DSD is called an acronym on page 202 of the text. Likely this is an abbreviation and not an acronym, unless it's really meant to be pronounced something like "Dissed." Of course it could be an acronym in Russian that doesn't turn out to be one in English.
I found the idea "scared spitless" to be a rather invented phrase, which I would find more like "scared shitless," but I have no idea which is better for translation. (It's on page 133, in any case.)
Fine work!
no subject
Date: 2011-01-30 04:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 12:45 am (UTC)P. 202 - I disagree. Here's the definition of "acronym" from Rference.com:
A word formed from the initial letters or groups of letters of words in a set phrase or series of words, as WAC from Women's Army Corps, OPEC from Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or loran from long-range navigation.
As for "scared spitless," it's a current expression, a euphemism for "scared shitless." I feel that it's more appropriate for this text - the author mostly avoids profanity.
Again, thank you.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 05:34 am (UTC)Hence, FBI is not an acronym, nor is the UN, the UK, the EU, IAEA, and so on. These are just abbreviations.
Cheers!
no subject
Date: 2011-02-01 01:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-01 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 01:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 01:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 02:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 02:29 am (UTC)In any case, downloaded, will most definitely be reading this soon. :)
no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 04:11 am (UTC)thanks for doing this. would you be willing to share a plain text version instead of a PDF? i would like to format it for my Kindle.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 05:58 pm (UTC)(The part that's worse, for me, is that I can't track the number of downloads there, so my vanity suffers :-)
no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 08:13 pm (UTC)Fascinating
Date: 2011-02-03 05:31 pm (UTC)This concept has totally caught my imagination. I can't wait to read it!