Lost in Translation...

So I have been reading (yay go me right Nigel!?) "C and P" and I have been thinking that there is something wrong with the book. You see Dostoyevsky lived in the 1800s which means (using my logic at least) "C and P" was written in the 1800s. Now I can't help but notice when I'm reading that I can understand exactly what the characters are saying and what is going on. This is both good (you know how much I hate to not understand a book) and bad in that there is a cultural piece that is missing from the book. I feel like people in the 1800's would not talk the way that they are talking in the book. This stems (I think) from the way that the book was translated. The translation that we are reading has a copyright date of in 1968, which I think has really influenced the way that the book was written in English. I really noticed the difference when I read one little line in the book. Rasky says to a girl he meets in front of a bar and after she invites him inside he says to her, "I'm going, sweet stuff." Sweet stuff? I'm no Russian language expert, but I have a feeling that what Dostoyevsky had written in the book in Russian was not intended to be read as sweet stuff. It was put in the translation because there are certain words in other languages that I know do not have an exact equivalent word in English. Because there was no exact work for whatever Rasky had said the translator who was working in the 60's used sweet stuff. I know that there is really nothing that can be done (except for me to learn Russian... not really an option for me right now), but I do think that if you can't read Russian you lose a lot of what the language was meant to actually say. A lot of "C and P" is lost in translation...