Friday, November 19, 2010

An Open Letter to Famous Russian Translator Richard Pevear

Dear Mr. Pevear,

Sir, please find enclosed the content of your latest email to me. Simply put, this is inexcusable. It has gone too far.


I admit to being fooled by the first one. A hyperlink modestly titled Petersburg could very well have directed me to a new translation of Bely's novel. Honestly, the double-entendre didn't even occur to me at the time. A subsequent email entitled "Bang Britzka" appeared similarly innocuous.

It's when the communications turned explicit that you began to turn my stomach. Announcing the release of Maxim Gorky's MILF was not only in bad taste; the cast wasn't even attractive. (I realize that this is actually faithful to Gorky, but Mother Russia has a surfeit of underpaid sex workers who could be doing something other than getting pimpslapped and STDs. Moreover, I hear even regular Russian ladies are fantastically adventurous in the sack, and they too are being punished by the bad economy. Would he not approve of helping them?) That said, I commend the gushing torrent of seemingly fluid brass rendered in heroic socialist-realist scale for the cover of Wee.

While I respect your commitment to acknowledging different genders, Fathers and Sons was either a tasteless fantasy or explicitly illegal; it decidedly takes a backseat to the more progressive (though offensive) Streetwalker and a Fag. I confess to finding a kind of puckish amusement in your offering, Notes from My Underpants, but that was quickly erased by the stereotypically predatory The Adolescent. I can't even reprint the image contained in the message titled, "It was I who cured the old pawnbroker woman and her sister from being lesbo with my dick and rocked them." Ditto the missive from your personal friend "A. Cocky Acockyavitch," who invited me to "CLICK HERE TO SEE WHAT'S UNDER MY OVERCOAT."

Lastly, sir, I have a few observations not specific to any one "production" of yours.
Stop saying Ivan Turgidnev: we get it.
Did you really think people wouldn't notice the Melissa Joan Hart fold-out in Dr. Zhivago? At the very least you could have not used her fat pictures. Her chest has gone droopier than a borzoi's face after a failed hunt.
Please stop sending me proofs where you've used the "find and replace" function to replace "the" with "boobs."
For the love of God, and I mean this one, STOP PUNNING OFF OF BALALAIKA. YES, IT SOUNDS LIKE BALL LIKER..
I know that you're married. It's totally on all of your books. Your behavior is inexcusable, and you should be ashamed. Plus, your wife's Russian. Take that, plus the passion women display during vengeful sex, and I have a serious motive for busting your narrow perv ass. To wit:
If you refer to my daughters as "The Cherry Orchard" again, I'm going to take your life. In Soviet Russia you better check yourself before Chekov wrecks you.
Wessels,
Mr. Chekhov