With unavoidable interruptions, especially during summer time, our "Game" has been continuing for almost two years. For this post I selected several of Victor's drawings that responded to pretty serious "assignments." It doesn't necessarily mean that his responses were also serious.
The idea for the first theme is pretty straightforward, but translating it in English is not. Russian word "Ожидание" can be translated as either "expecting" or "expectation," but both of these words have certain specific connotations that don't exactly fit the intended meaning. Another word, "waiting," is actually closer by its content, but it sounds too prosaic. The intended meaning of the word is not as much about the process of waiting, but more about the state, even closer to "hope" or "anticipation." But the drawings (Victor sent me two, I guess he was afraid to look too serious after the first one) are self-explanatory even without the exact title.
The theme for the next drawing, although seems related, came up on a totally different occasion. Here is another simple word that is not easy to translate with the exact tone: "Опоздание." Should I say "Lateness" (this is the first one that comes to a teacher's mind)? "Coming Late"? None of them sounds right. Google Translate gave me "Delay" - even worse. To make things harder, I'd have to translate the whole poem. My Russian-speaking readers probably know a wonderful author of children's poetry, Renata Muha. Victor has illustrated some of her poems, and this is one of them. Unfortunately I couldn't find English translations of her works, so my non-Russian readers will have to read everything from the illustration.
Finally, one drawing that responds to a serious theme is actually serious (well, more or less...). But it is still somewhat difficult to translate accurately. My "assignment" was: "Глаза в Глаза," which literally means "Eyes to Eyes." We talked about limitations of long-distance communication, when you just listen to a person but don't look in his/her eyes. The most surprising thing for me, as often, was that this drawing was made a long time ago, as though Victor had already thought about every tiny aspect of human emotions and relationships.
"Eyes to Eyes"
"Глаза в Глаза"
To be continued... I am tired of all these translations...
