{"id":122319,"date":"2018-03-07T11:00:31","date_gmt":"2018-03-07T16:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=122319"},"modified":"2018-03-08T11:03:59","modified_gmt":"2018-03-08T16:03:59","slug":"muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/","title":{"rendered":"Too Much \/ Not Enough: Translating Reed Grachev"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

A tram outside the Leningrad metro in 1987.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Two years ago, while translating the stories of Reed Grachev, a suppressed Russian writer of the mid twentieth century, I encountered a passage told from the perspective of a bus driver: He observes that the bus is very full, then looks in the mirror at an unnamed someone and wonders why she isn\u2019t giving the \u201csignal.\u201d He starts the bus and sees that some people have been left behind at the stop. Unstated, but self-evident to any Russian reader, is that the unnamed someone is the conductor (in charge of selling tickets), who should have given the driver a \u201csignal\u201d<\/span> to close the doors when the bus was at capacity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Grachev\u2019s stories are full of public transportation. On trams, buses, trains, and trolleybuses, people are jostling and crowded. The sensory overload of these tight spaces contrasts with the emotional state of his characters, who are, almost without exception, alienated. Each is searching for a connection beyond the physical and is thus, one could say, in transit. The bus driver observes that the bus is packed, and yet not everyone has made it on. This dynamic of \u201ctoo much \/ not enough\u201d<\/span>\u00a0is omnipresent in Grachev\u2019s work, which poignantly evokes the heightened isolation of individuals within a collectivized system.\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/p>\n

Grachev\u2019s writing is elliptical and fragmentary, and translating it for an American audience was confounded by the chasm between Soviet and American attitudes toward transportation. In Soviet Russia, public transportation was bound up with the collective ethos of socialism.\u00a0The state placed caps on car ownership, which meant that buying a car was not the social rite of passage that it had become in the U.S. Nearly everyone used public transportation. <\/span><\/p>\n

I hoped to convey the nuances of the story\u2019s action and atmosphere to American, and likely autocentric, readers while also somehow staying true to its spare telegraphic style and its experimental form. The passage\u00a0above comes from Grachev\u2019s story \u201cThe Cloud,\u201d<\/span> which narrates a Soviet lathe worker\u2019s mental collapse through a series of fragmented, kaleidoscopic vignettes. Though the story\u2019s protagonist is a model worker typical to socialist realist literature, Grachev\u2019s style more resembles Faulkner, Godard, or Antonioni, experimental artists whose works were newly available during the decadelong cultural thaw that followed Stalin\u2019s death in 1953. Grachev, like many Thaw writers, was caught between socialist realism and more innovative movements, like contemporary Western Modernism, neorealism, and the Russian avant-garde of the 1920s. He was motivated by formal experimentation and the expression of truth<\/span>\u00a0but ultimately was beholden to state ideology and aesthetic judgments. For Grachev, at least, the Thaw didn\u2019t deliver on its promises of artistic freedom, and whether because of its depictions of the failures of collectivism, its focus on individual subjectivity, or its resistance to conventional literary aesthetics, \u201cThe Cloud\u201d<\/span> and much of Grachev\u2019s work went unpublished until after the Soviet era.<\/span><\/p>\n

*<\/span><\/p>\n

A decade before I began translating Grachev\u2019s work, I spent a year in Saint Petersburg, learning Russian. Coming home from my first day of classes, I got helplessly, pathetically lost. I exited the metro and walked for what seemed like hours through familiar yet unfamiliar markets of dried fish and cheap imported goods. I lived off the Avenue of Enlightenment, a wide boulevard with sparse car traffic, and I walked down a road that resembled it exactly. I turned onto a street that looked like my street and then onto a block of nine-story buildings that looked like my block of nine-story buildings. Time was passing, but I couldn\u2019t tell how quickly\u2014it was mid summer, when it hardly got dark. I followed a young couple into a building that could, I told myself, be my building, and then into an elevator that, really, I knew not to be my elevator. I showed them my address, and soon they were on the phone with my hosts. The niece of\u00a0my host\u00a0family came marching across a dewy field of trash and small white flowers to get me. It turned out I\u2019d gotten off the metro too soon. \u201cYou\u2019re supposed to just go to the end,\u201d<\/span> she said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Growing up in the D.C. suburbs, I was given a car at\u00a0sixteen and had rarely, if ever, used public transportation. When I moved to Saint Petersburg, I relinquished my carbound autonomy and synced up with the city\u2019s train schedules and bus routes. I gained new communal understandings of space and time\u00a0by traveling along the\u00a0city\u2019s intricate network of tunnels, tracks, and wires, which set its rhythms and drew its boundaries. I rode trams, buses, and gypsy cabs and sprinted down the long escalators of the gorgeous and clean Saint Petersburg metro. I loved its inexplicably cheap metal tokens and the vaulted grandeur of its stations. Mosaics and statues gilded its interiors, presenting an entirely different sensory experience than that of the D.C. metro, whose unnerving plush seats and grimy seventies color palette of sunflower and harvest gold could not even be called utilitarian. The Saint Petersburg metro was classical, though it predated the D.C. metro by just two decades, designed to showcase the monumental achievements of the state. Transportation was an intense aesthetic experience and a cultural education since the majority of the city\u2019s residents\u2014from military veterans to slick, pointy-shoed businessmen\u2014used it. The views of the city and its people afforded to me by public transportation were revelatory, though I was often lost.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I started dating my tutor, a good-natured hipster-rapper, new routes and modes of transportation opened themselves to me. The elektrichka<\/i>, a suburban commuter train, took us to his parents\u2019<\/span> high-rise subdevelopment and to Kronstadt, a quaint naval town on the Gulf of Finland where, away from the city\u2019s roiling traffic of gypsy cabs, black Mercedes-Benzes, marshrutki<\/i>, and all the other aforementioned types of transport, it was safe and pleasant to ride bikes. The elektrichka<\/i> was slow-moving and cozy. On its wooden-slat benches, we sipped cans of bubblegum-tasting gin and tonic, licked popsicles, and read tabloids. No one bought tickets because the bribe price, paid to an attendant at the exit turnstiles, was cheaper.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eventually, I went farther afield to distant cities and neighboring countries. On a train to Krakow, I met a pretty middle-aged Russian woman who had married a cab driver in Poland, where she now lived. She wondered what I was doing in Russia and seemed confused by my answer. \u201cA fellowship?\u201d<\/span> she said. \u201cPeople get fellowships to go to France or Italy. Not here.\u201d<\/span> We were at the border, waiting for the Russian wheels to be changed to fit the Polish tracks. It was the farthest I\u2019d ever felt from home. <\/span><\/p>\n

*<\/span><\/p>\n

What is one to do with such distances in translation? As a translator, my instinct is to keep readers oriented, but this can diminish the thrill of experiencing something truly foreign\u2014some version of what I felt getting lost and finding my way in Saint Petersburg. Foreignization or domestication\u2014the decision to hew closer to the original text and language or to make more concessions to the language and culture of the translation\u2014is a persistent theoretical debate that has\u00a0little to do with the reality of conveying meaning in a foreign language and context. If you underexplain, as strict foreignization would have it, the reader may put the book down. But if you overexplain, the work ceases to resemble itself, or worse\u2014falls flat.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Leningrad metro opened in 1955. Although Grachev must have ridden it in his adulthood, his stories are arrested in the city of his youth\u2014his characters stay above ground. He depicts the city just a decade after Hitler\u2019s Blockade, during which trams were described\u2014by Lidiya Ginzburg, among others\u2014as a gathering place for the straggling, starving population, as well as a lighted beacon of their collective task of self-preservation. Transportation tempers alienation in Grachev\u2019s stories, too, but imperfectly. In \u201cThe Toothache,\u201d<\/span> an orphan bares his soul to a military veteran on a train, and the two share a few moments of companionship and mutual understanding. Then, as the train speeds past an apartment building, the orphan imagines the cozy lives inside and suddenly, uncontrollably, recalls every bad thing that has ever happened to him. In \u201cMaria,\u201d<\/span> a saleswoman tells the story of her son\u2019s death in the war to an inattentive delivery man. Her tone is chatty, but the jarring din of trams and buses outside evokes her hidden anguish. In Grachev\u2019s novella \u201cAdamchik,\u201d<\/span> a young factory worker takes the bus to work each morning, resting his cheek on the bundled bodies packed close to him. He longs to be a stiliaga<\/i>\u2014a hipster\u2014and to own a moped. When he finally acquires one, he tears destructively across the city, liberated but more alone than ever.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In Grachev\u2019s stories, cars\u2014an antipopulist form of transportation allowed only to the exceptional few (party officials, outstanding workers) \u2014are fully villainous. In \u201cCar,\u201d<\/span> a young boy witnesses a road accident in which another child is hit. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t the driver, it was the car!\u201d<\/span> he shouts in confusion when the assembled crowd asks him who was at fault. In one of Grachev\u2019s most confounding stories, \u201cTomatoes,\u201d<\/span> the driver of a new Moskvich takes his wife to sell overpriced produce every Sunday near Lake Baikal. He\u00a0litters, lies around drinking vodka, and, at the end of the story, hits and humiliates her. They get back in the car, which rolls off \u201cbouncing comfortably on its new springs.\u201d<\/span> One could read, in this descriptive quip, an indictment of petty commerce and individualistic private transport, a jab at the sacrificial woman trope in classic Russian literature, or a satirical send-up of official antimotorization policies. Or perhaps the woman\u2019s eerie forbearance in the face of the man\u2019s abuse is pure sadomasochism, to which the nice powder-blue Moskvich and we readers are\u00a0perverted spectators. These are a few options, among which the translator thankfully does not have to choose.<\/span><\/p>\n

Part of the appeal of translation is its start-to-finishness, which, like a metro line (and unlike writing), points to some predictable and foreseeable end. But the line is never so straight as it initially appears: a work\u2019s themes thicken and tangle; imbalances\u2014between languages and between form and content\u2014present themselves, demanding recalibration en route; and it\u2019s ultimately the reader who will assimilate and make sense of the work, which keeps going past the translator\u2019s stop. The translator can tell a reader to \u201cjust go to the end,\u201d but it\u2019s only by a series of approximations that the translation is accomplished. Look for a familiar street, then turn on a familiar block. Follow a nice-looking couple and enter a familiar building. Then get in the wrong elevator, and don\u2019t even bother to press the button. It will start and stop going up, but then the doors will open and, incredibly, you\u2019re there.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sabrina Jaszi translates and writes about Russian literature.\u00a0She lives in California. You can read her most recent translations of Reed Grachev\u2019s stories in\u00a0<\/em>Catapult\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0<\/em>Subtropics<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Two years ago, while translating the stories of Reed Grachev, a suppressed Russian writer of the mid twentieth century, I encountered a passage told from the perspective of a bus driver: He observes that the bus is very full, then looks in the mirror at an unnamed someone and wonders why she isn\u2019t giving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1416,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[27798,32571,33217,31116,7845,28154,530],"class_list":["post-122319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture","tag-car-ownership","tag-public-transportation","tag-reed-grachev","tag-saint-petersburg","tag-short-stories","tag-soviet-russia","tag-translation"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nToo Much \/ Not Enough: Translating Reed Grachev by Sabrina Jaszi<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The appeal of translation is its seeming start-to-finishness, which, like a metro line, points to some predictable and foreseeable end.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Too Much \/ Not Enough: Translating Reed Grachev by Sabrina Jaszi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"March 7, 2018 \u2013   Two years ago, while translating the stories of Reed Grachev, a suppressed Russian writer of the mid twentieth century, I encountered a passage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-03-07T16:00:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-03-08T16:03:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/leningrad_1987.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"680\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sabrina Jaszi\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sabrina Jaszi\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sabrina Jaszi\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a0c12477394e63bae3b5147e2fe1b4b8\"},\"headline\":\"Too Much \/ Not Enough: Translating Reed Grachev\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-03-07T16:00:31+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-03-08T16:03:59+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/\"},\"wordCount\":1889,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/leningrad_1987.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"car ownership\",\"public transportation\",\"Reed Grachev\",\"Saint Petersburg\",\"short stories\",\"Soviet Russia\",\"translation\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Arts & Culture\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/\",\"name\":\"Too Much \/ Not Enough: Translating Reed Grachev by Sabrina Jaszi\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/leningrad_1987.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-03-07T16:00:31+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-03-08T16:03:59+00:00\",\"description\":\"The appeal of translation is its seeming start-to-finishness, which, like a metro line, points to some predictable and foreseeable end.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/leningrad_1987.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/leningrad_1987.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Too Much \/ Not Enough: Translating Reed Grachev\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a0c12477394e63bae3b5147e2fe1b4b8\",\"name\":\"Sabrina Jaszi\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e482182ec57db732250398762997b2622c7a501182c1b9984ab0fb7a2b18681c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e482182ec57db732250398762997b2622c7a501182c1b9984ab0fb7a2b18681c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Sabrina Jaszi\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/sjaszi\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Too Much \/ Not Enough: Translating Reed Grachev by Sabrina Jaszi","description":"The appeal of translation is its seeming start-to-finishness, which, like a metro line, points to some predictable and foreseeable end.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Too Much \/ Not Enough: Translating Reed Grachev by Sabrina Jaszi","og_description":"March 7, 2018 \u2013   Two years ago, while translating the stories of Reed Grachev, a suppressed Russian writer of the mid twentieth century, I encountered a passage","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2018-03-07T16:00:31+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-03-08T16:03:59+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1000,"height":680,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/leningrad_1987.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Sabrina Jaszi","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Sabrina Jaszi","Est. reading time":"9 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/"},"author":{"name":"Sabrina Jaszi","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a0c12477394e63bae3b5147e2fe1b4b8"},"headline":"Too Much \/ Not Enough: Translating Reed Grachev","datePublished":"2018-03-07T16:00:31+00:00","dateModified":"2018-03-08T16:03:59+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/"},"wordCount":1889,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/leningrad_1987.jpg","keywords":["car ownership","public transportation","Reed Grachev","Saint Petersburg","short stories","Soviet Russia","translation"],"articleSection":["Arts & Culture"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/","name":"Too Much \/ Not Enough: Translating Reed Grachev by Sabrina Jaszi","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/leningrad_1987.jpg","datePublished":"2018-03-07T16:00:31+00:00","dateModified":"2018-03-08T16:03:59+00:00","description":"The appeal of translation is its seeming start-to-finishness, which, like a metro line, points to some predictable and foreseeable end.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/leningrad_1987.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/leningrad_1987.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/07\/muchnot-enough-translating-reed-grachev\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Too Much \/ Not Enough: Translating Reed Grachev"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a0c12477394e63bae3b5147e2fe1b4b8","name":"Sabrina Jaszi","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e482182ec57db732250398762997b2622c7a501182c1b9984ab0fb7a2b18681c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e482182ec57db732250398762997b2622c7a501182c1b9984ab0fb7a2b18681c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Sabrina Jaszi"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/sjaszi\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122319"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122444,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122319\/revisions\/122444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}