“The Kid and Carlson” - scientific translation. New translation of the book “Kid and Carlson Who translated Carlson into Russian
We remember the translators who introduced little Soviet and Russian readers to the Ugly Duckling and Alice in Wonderland, the Little Prince and Carlson, Peter Pan and Winnie the Pooh along with Natalya Letnikova.
Anna and Peter Hansen
Anna Ganzen. Photo: mxat.ru
Leonid Zolotarev. Illustration for Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale “The Snow Queen”. Publishing house "Onyx 21st century", 2001
Peter Ganzen. Photo: kasimovcb.ru
“Life itself is the most beautiful fairy tale”- said Hans Christian Andersen. This phrase also became famous in Russia - thanks to the writer’s fellow countryman Peter Ganzen. Andersen and Hansen met as students in Copenhagen. Later, Peter Ganzen came to Russia for work - here he collaborated with the Northern Telegraph Society. A native of the Danish kingdom learned Russian, translated into Danish " An ordinary story"by Ivan Goncharov, and then the works of Leo Tolstoy.
Hansen enriched Russian literature with Andersen's fairy tales. Later, the Russified Dane also found a co-author - he began translating with his wife Anna Vasilievna. The first listeners and critics of Danish fairy tales in Russian translation were the four Hansen children. In addition to Andersen, the couple translated Henrik Ibsen and Knut Hamsun, Søren Kierkegaard and Karin Michaelis.
“Finally they reached the bedroom: the ceiling resembled the top of a huge palm tree with precious crystal leaves; From the middle of it descended a thick golden stem, on which hung two beds in the shape of lilies. One was white, the princess slept in it, the other was red, and Gerda hoped to find Kai in it. The girl slightly bent one of the red petals and saw the dark blond back of her head. It's Kai! She called him by name loudly and brought the lamp right up to his face. The dreams rushed away noisily; The prince woke up and turned his head... Ah, it wasn’t Kai!”
Excerpt from the fairy tale “The Snow Queen”
Nina Demurova
Nina Demurova. Photo: lewis-carroll.ru
Gennady Kalinovsky. Illustration for Lewis Carroll's fairy tale "Alice in Wonderland." Publishing house "Children's Literature", 1974
Co fairy world Russian readers became acquainted with the mathematician Charles Dodgson, who wrote under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, even before the revolution. In Russia, the book was published in 1879 under the title “Sonya in the Kingdom of the Diva,” without indicating the author. Later, Vladimir Nabokov spoke about Alice’s travels under the pseudonym Sirin; another of the translations is attributed to the writer Mikhail Chekhov.
In 1966, literary critic Nina Demurova took up the book. She found the work very difficult to translate because of the author's play on words. Demurova did not try to make Carroll's story and its characters "more Russian." She preserved not only the spirit of the English fairy tale, but also the unique style of the author.
Nina Demurova's translation was recognized as exemplary, and she was accepted as an honorary member of the Lewis Carroll Society in Britain and the USA. In 1978, “Alice,” translated by Demurova, was published by the Nauka publishing house in the famous “Literary Monuments” series.
“...When the Rabbit suddenly took his watch out of his vest pocket and, looking at it, rushed on, Alice jumped to her feet. Then it dawned on her: she had never before seen a rabbit with a watch, and with a vest pocket to boot! Burning with curiosity, she ran after him across the field and just managed to notice that he had ducked into a hole under the hedge.
At that very moment, Alice darted after him, not thinking about how she would get back out.”Excerpt from the fairy tale "Alice in Wonderland"
Nora Gal (Eleanor Galperina)
Nora Gal (Eleanor Galperina). Photo: vavilon.ru
Nika Goltz. Illustration for the fairy tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry “ A little prince" Eksmo Publishing House, 2011
Russian is one of 180 languages in which translators around the world have retold the philosophical parable about the Little Prince. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote this story in 1942. That same year, in the USSR, Nora Gal first tried herself in the art of translation.
Before that, she entered different institutes seventeen times, and in 1935 she finally graduated from the Moscow Pedagogical Institute. She defended her dissertation on the works of Arthur Rimbaud and worked for the journal International Literature.
“Even if not always completely, even if in fragments we recognized Kafka, Joyce and Dos Passos. Caldwell and Steinbeck, Heinrich and Thomas Mann, Brecht and Feuchtwanger, Jules Romain, Martin du Gard and Malraux - these are the meetings we owe to the magazine.”
Nora Gal
One of these fateful meetings occurred with Exupery’s book. Nora Gal read “The Little Prince” in French and wanted to introduce the story to her friends. She translated the text and soon decided to publish it. The manuscript was accepted only in the sixth journal, Moscow, in 1959. However, soon work with Exupery and Salinger, Harper Lee and Camus made Nora Gal a master of literary translation, known not only in the USSR, but also abroad.
“I would like to start like this:
“Once upon a time there lived a Little Prince. He lived on a planet that was slightly larger than himself, and he really missed his friend...” Those who understand what life is would immediately see that all this is the pure truth.”Excerpt from the fairy tale “The Little Prince”
Samuel Marshak
Vladimir Konashevich. Illustration for the collection of Samuil Marshak “The boat floats, floats.” Publishing house "Detgiz", 1956
Samuel Marshak. Photo: polit.ru
Sergey Bordyug, Nikolay Trepenyuk. Illustration for the collection of Samuil Marshak “Humpty Dumpty. Czech and English songs and jokes." Publishing house "Astrel", 2002
For adults, Samuel Marshak translated William Shakespeare, Robert Burns, Robert Stevenson. And for children - fairy tales different nations: Norwegian and Czech, Mongolian and Lithuanian, English and Scottish.
Marshak began translating from English while studying at the University of London, and did it so successfully that he was awarded the title of honorary citizen of Scotland. Samuel Marshak found common themes in fairy tales from different parts of the world: “It is difficult to establish which people these stories belong to. Plot “Old woman close the door!” I met in English folklore, in Latvian and Ukrainian". Returning to Russia, Marshak organized children's theater in Krasnodar and wrote plays for young audiences. 130 years after the birth of Samuil Marshak, his poems are still popular among young readers, and one of the major theater festivals bears his name.
Humpty Dumpty
Sat on the wall.
Humpty Dumpty
Fell in his sleep.
All the royal cavalry
All the king's men
Can not
Humpty,
Can not
Chatting,
Humpty Dumpty,
Dumpty-Humpty,
Collect Humpty Dumpty!Translation of the English song “Humpty Dumpty”
Lilianna Lungina
Lilianna Lungina. Photo: kino-teatr.ru
Anatoly Savchenko. Illustration for Astrid Lindgren’s fairy tale “The Kid and Carlson.” Publishing house "AST", 2006
The Swedish “man in the prime of his life” was first introduced to the Soviet reader by Lilianna Lungina. Her childhood was spent in Europe and Palestine, French and German languages I knew Lungina since childhood. After returning to the USSR, she entered the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History, then defended her dissertation at the A.M. Institute of Literature. Gorky.
Since her student years, Lungina wanted to translate, but she did not get French and German authors: these languages were very popular among fellow translators. Institute practice helped, where Lungina studied Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian. She began looking for books to translate in Scandinavian literature. So fate brought Lillianna Lungina together with a prankster living on the roof. In 1961, Three Stories about Malysh and Carlson was published in the Soviet Union. The book was instantly sold out, and quotes from the text “went to the people.”
When Astrid Lindgren came to Moscow, she met Lilianna Lungina, and then they corresponded for many years. After the resounding success of Carlson, Lungina introduced Pippi, Roni and Emil from Lönneberga to young readers. For adults, she translated August Strindberg, Henrik Ibsen, and - as she dreamed at the beginning of her career - Germans and French: Heinrich Böll and Friedrich Schiller, Boris Vian and Emile Azhar.
“...The kid was lying on the floor in his room and reading a book, when he again heard some kind of buzzing outside the window, and, like a giant bumblebee, Carlson flew into the room. He made several circles near the ceiling, humming some cheerful song in a low voice. Flying past the paintings hanging on the walls, he slowed down each time to get a better look at them. At the same time, he tilted his head to the side and narrowed his eyes.
“Beautiful pictures,” he said finally. - Extraordinary beautiful pictures! Although, of course, not as beautiful as mine.”An excerpt from the fairy tale “The Kid and Carlson”
Irina Tokmakova
Irina Tokmakova. Photo: redakzia.ru
Maxim Mitrofanov. Illustration for James Barry's fairy tale " Peter Pan and Wendy." Publishing house "ROSMEN", 2012
Peter Pan, Nils and the Moomins - Irina Tokmakova took up translating stories about restless boys and distant descendants of Scandinavian trolls by accident. After graduating from the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University, she worked as a guide-translator and once accompanied a group of foreigners, among whom was a Swede. He heard that Tokmakova was quoting a Swedish poet, and later sent her a collection of folk songs. Irina Tokmakova translated them for her son, but her husband, the illustrator of Murzilka, took them to the editor. The first poems of the poetess-translator were published in the magazine in 1961.
Later, Irina Tokmakova translated into Russian the stories of Astrid Lindgren's Mio and James Barry's Peter Pan, Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit, Selma Lagerlöf's Nils and other children's favorites.
“All children, except for one and only child in the world, sooner or later grow up. Wendy knew this for sure. This is how it turned out. When she was two years old, she was playing in the garden. An amazingly beautiful flower caught her eye. She tore it off and ran to her mother. Wendy must have been very pretty at that moment, because her mother, Mrs. Darling, exclaimed:
- What a pity that you won’t stay like this forever!
That's all. But from that moment on, Wendy knew that she would grow up. A person usually realizes this when he is two years old...”Excerpt from the fairy tale "Peter Pan"
Boris Zakhoder
Boris Zakhoder. Photo: wikipedia.org
Boris Didorov. Illustration for Alan Milne’s fairy tale “Winnie the Pooh and Everything.” Publishing house "Dom", 1992
Nozzles, Pyhtelki and Shumelki, without which today it is difficult to imagine the Russian Winnie the Pooh, are the free creativity of Boris Zakhoder, who replaced the “little brains” of the bear cub with sawdust.
Zakhoder was not the first translator of Alan Milne into Russian. The chapters of “Winnie the Pooh” were published in the February issue of “Murzilka” for 1939. The author of that translation remains unnamed. Almost twenty years later, Zakhoder came across an article about Milne’s story in an encyclopedia. The writer recalled: “It was love at first sight: I saw a picture of a cute bear cub, read a few poetic quotes - and rushed to look”. Zakhoder immediately took up the translation. More precisely, as he emphasized, for retelling.
“The first thing Winnie the Pooh did was to go to a familiar puddle and roll around in the mud to become completely, completely black, like a real cloud. Then they began to inflate the balloon, holding it together by the string. And when the balloon swelled so much that it seemed like it was about to burst, Christopher Robin suddenly let go of the string, and Winnie the Pooh smoothly flew into the sky and stopped there - just opposite the top of the bee tree, only a little to the side.”
An excerpt from the fairy tale “Winnie the Pooh and All-All-All”
By the time he met Pooh, the writer had already published more than one collection of his poems for children, which were highly appreciated by Korney Chukovsky and Lev Kassil. But the main hobby of Boris Zakhoder’s entire life was the works of Johann Wolfgang Goethe. The writer called Goethe “my secret adviser” and translated his poems for many years.
Messages leaked to the press that the writer Eduard Uspensky had undertaken to make a new translation of “Carlson Who Lives on the Roof” caused a heated discussion, most reminiscent of swearing. It would seem - well, what so terrible happened? We publish a whole bunch of translations of Carroll's Alice, and this does not bother anyone. And with the same Carlson, Lilianna Lungina’s classic translation by no means has a monopoly - there is at least a version by Lyudmila Braude. What's the fuss about?
Perhaps the whole point is in the way he announced his plans - this is what he said in that memorable interview: “The translations we know are very softened, but times are no longer the same. I set myself the goal of making the translation more daring. This doesn't mean that I will change the plot. The language will just be more modern. For example, in one of the episodes in the old translations, the Kid says to Carlson: “My mom and dad don’t recognize you.” This means that for the parents, Little Carlson does not exist, he is a fiction.
And I will translate this phrase as follows: “They think that you are a glitch.”
Modern children know this word. Therefore, when Carlson answers: “I’m not a glitch, I’m real,” everyone immediately understands everything.”
It sounds, of course, scary, but the reason for such a friendly “ugh!”, I think, is not even in “modernization”. Even if Eduard Nikolayevich had learned Swedish perfectly and kissed the ground, promising the most careful treatment of the original source, he would still have been booed with the same enthusiasm. Because main reason The point is that no one needs a new translation of “Carlson” for nothing. Even diamond.
“How so? - you ask. - What about “the more the merrier” and “let all the flowers bloom?”
And like this. “Carlson” is a crystal fairy tale of our childhood, and don’t stretch your paws to it.
But seriously: have you ever wondered why different translations of the same books are made? Typically, this happens in three cases. Sometimes - when the existing translation really becomes extremely archaic and no longer corresponds to the norms of the language, such as the pre-revolutionary novel “Ivangoe”, now known as “Ivanhoe”.
The second case is when the work is de facto “copy protected.” That is, it was written by the author in such a way that it is not possible to make an adequate copy in a foreign language; in fact, you have to compose the text anew. Poems, for example. Or prose oversaturated with linguistic games. It seems that there is no need to explain why in our children’s literature “Alice in Wonderland” has the maximum number of translations into Russian? Granstrem, Rozhdestvenskaya, Soloviev, Chekhov, Demurova, Olenich-Gnenenko, Zakhoder, Nabokov, Nesterenko, Starilov, Kononenko - and that’s not all.
Well, the third case is when several translations appear almost simultaneously, each of them gains fans, and none of them becomes “canonical”. This is what happened to us, for example, with Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.
But with Carlson the situation is completely different. Lungina's translation was published in the mid-60s, it was very successful and quickly became classic and generally accepted. Almost three generations have grown up on it, and a half-century monopoly has led to the fact that “the topic is closed.” Quite a common story, by the way - for example, who remembers that in addition to Zakhoder’s classic “ Winnie the Pooh“Are there translations by Victor Weber or the Mikhailov/Rudnev tandem?
We will not accept other translations, if only because we not only like Lungina’s “Carlson” - it has grown into us.
Words and expressions from this translation entered the Russian language, became established there, took root, and it is almost impossible to drive them out of there. You can’t translate Malyshka, for example, “Krokhoy” - they won’t understand, sir, and the book “Krokha and Carlson” will end up as dead weight in the publishing house’s warehouses. Likewise, we will never accept any alternative to “calm, just calm.” These are stable expressions of the Russian language. Dostoevsky enriched our language with the word “to shy away”, Lungina - “housewife”.
It is no coincidence that the reading public simply ignored Braude’s translation that appeared several years ago, although it was closer to the original source. Well, what self-respecting person would read a book where instead of “housewife” there is “housewife”? And you can hurt yourself by proving that the surname “Bok” is translated from Swedish as “goat”, and Braude’s play on words is much closer to what was in the original - all your efforts will go to waste.
Why, then, was it necessary to entrust a new translation to Uspensky?
Eduard Nikolaevich himself in one of his interviews simply explained it this way: “In fact, I wrote a lot good books, it’s just that publishers prefer to publish the most foamy, hits. And I have, for example, the book “False Dmitry,” which took five whole years to write. Or stories about Zhab Zhabych Skovorodkin, and much more. Recently I sold myself wholeheartedly to one publishing house with the only condition: it must publish all my books. And soon there will be probably about twenty of them at a time. Now I'm translating Carlson. I know, I know, a translation of this story already exists, and the translation is wonderful. But, apparently, the publishing house, where I am now a pocket author, decided not to get involved with the rights to it. So he handed me an interlinear book, which I’m sitting on with pleasure.”
This explanation, of course, has a right to life, but I think it’s not only and not so much the point. The very idea of combining the brand names “Lindgren” and “Uspensky” on one cover is too tempting not to try to implement it, having all the possibilities for this.
And so it happened: recently the book “Carlson from the Roof or the Best Carlson in the World” appeared in bookstores, the authors of which include Eduard Uspensky on the cover.
Now, finally, you can stop making assumptions and see for yourself what the desire to “make the translation more daring” resulted in. To begin with, let’s talk about the good things. Despite the advances, there is no “glitch” in the book; it was replaced by a “mirage”. Well, as the announcer said in the joke, enough about the good stuff.
In a nutshell, Uspensky's translation is not just terrible - it is generally beyond good and evil.
To begin with, “modernization” did not work. Despite all Uspensky’s assurances about the need to clean out outdated words that are incomprehensible to modern children, he himself, on the very first pages of Lungin’s “Bethan shouted to him, “Wipe your nose!” replaces with his own “Sister Bettan said: “You sniffle like an old grandfather with galoshes.” Well, God be with them, with galoshes, but a little later Fille pushes Rulle out into the hallway - this is in an apartment - and here the parents cannot get by with a banal certificate.
Secondly, the translator’s attempts to imitate modern jargon do not even cause irritation, but pity, since they are designed in the style of “two zhigans fled from the Odessa kichman”: “I feel like I’m inclined to make a little fuss,” “I drove Rulle to hit him again and again.” ", "Can I get drunk with the firefighters?" The apotheosis, of course, is Carlson’s song, which replaced the classic one:
Let everything be around
Burns with fire
And you and I will sing:
Uti, bosse, busse, basse,
Bisse, and let's rest...
In the new version it sounds quite unexpected, one might even say boldly:
So that the shots would thunder and I would have fun,
Tots-tots-pervertots, grandma is healthy.
And two dozen dumplings would come to me,
Tots-tots-pervertots, eating compote...
Thirdly, the translator’s consistent implementation of the principle “let it be whatever you like, but not like Lungina’s” gives rise to nightmarish linguistic monsters and “calmness is only calmness” is not the worst thing at all.
In addition, the translator constantly rushes about, unable to withstand the pressure of his own creativity, and cannot settle on any one option. A baby, for example, even in one sentence can be called both “Baby” and “Brother”, which, of course, is closer to the original lillebror - “little brother”, but does not add integrity to the translation. And so in everything: now “a man at his best age,” now “a man in his best years.” The most unlucky thing was the “everyday matter”, which within a few pages mutates from a “trifling matter” to a “trifling matter”, then to “a trifling matter”, “a trivial matter” and “everyday matter”. Accordingly, the “housekeeper” is replaced in shifts by the “manager goat”, the domestic Kozlotur, Kozlotetya, Kozloturishcha and other “domestic animals”.
The translator who took on the modernization of “Carlson” can be reproached for many things, except for one thing. Uspensky cannot be suspected of simply rewriting existing translations and not translating interlinearly. The presence of the interlinear translation is confirmed not only by gratitude to Alla Rydstedt and those who compiled it, but also by much more significant evidence:
“I will teach you shame! - Miss Bok shouted. “I’ll lock you up and hide the key so you can’t go into the kitchen for a while.” And she looked at her wristwatch.”
“Thank you, very kind! - said the malicious Kid. - So I'm not locked up anymore?
- No, not anymore! - said the lady and went to the door. She tried to turn the doorknob, first once, then again. The door didn't open. Then she threw her entire weight at the door. This did not help - the door was and remained closed.”
“The poor one is the one who lost his wallet,” said the Kid. He was probably worried.
- And how! - Carlson confirmed. “But if you are a cart driver, be kind enough to keep an eye on your things.”
I think that's enough. All we can do is remind parents of the need to be vigilant in the bookstore, and we address the publisher with a classic phrase from the book that has become a proverb.
The one that in Uspensky’s “translation” sounds like “To action! Come to your senses before it's too late. There is a clear lack of cinnamon in your shamelessly expensive buns!”
Lindgren A. Carlson from the roof or the best Carlson in the world. Retelling by E. Uspensky. M.: Astrel: AST, 2008.
As you know, Eduard Uspensky is now not just children's writer, but also co-author Astrid Lindgren. I took and retold the story about Carlson, so now they are together on the cover - Swedish writer and Uspensky. I deliberately took two books from the store - a new one and an old one, with a translation by Liliana Zinovievna Lungina, in order to compare the texts - what's the matter, why is he, the new Carlson?
"In the city of Stockholm, on the most ordinary street, in the very
An ordinary Swedish family lives in an ordinary house.
surname Svanteson. This family consists of the most ordinary
dad, a very ordinary mother and three very ordinary boys
- Bosse, Bethan and Baby.
“I’m not an ordinary kid at all,” says the Kid.
But this, of course, is not true. After all, there is so much in the world
boys who are seven years old, who have blue eyes, unwashed
ears and pants torn at the knees, why doubt it?
nothing: The baby is the most ordinary boy.
The boss is fifteen years old, and he is more willing to stand in
football goal than at the school board, which means he too
the most ordinary boy.
Bethan is fourteen years old and has braids just like
like other ordinary girls."
Strictly speaking, the writer Uspensky “retells” not the book by Astrid Lindgren, but the translation by Liliana Zinovievna Lungina. At the same time, her last name is not included in the source data of the book, and Uspensky himself says that he does the translation himself:
TO modern language, apparently, refers to the strange word “pond”, which the writer uses on the very first page his books.
"In the whole house there is only one thing that is not quite ordinary
the creature is Carlson, who lives on the roof. Yes, he lives on
roof, and that alone is extraordinary. Perhaps in others
in cities the situation is different, but in Stockholm it is almost never
it happens that someone lives on the roof, and even in a separate
small house. But Carlson, imagine, lives exactly
there.
Carlson is a small, plump, self-confident
little man, and besides, he can fly. On airplanes and
Everyone can fly helicopters, but Carlson can fly by himself
to yourself. All he has to do is press a button on his stomach, and he...
With your back, a clever little motor immediately starts working. For a minute,
until the propeller spins properly, Carlson stands
motionless, but when the engine starts working with all its might, Carlson takes off
up and flies, swaying slightly, with such an important and worthy
looking like some director - of course, if possible
imagine a director with a propeller behind his back.
Carlson lives well in a small house on the roof. By
in the evenings he sits on the porch, smokes a pipe and looks at
stars. From the roof, of course, you can see the stars better than from the windows, and
therefore one can only be surprised that so few people live on
rooftops The other residents must simply not realize
live on the roof. After all, they don’t know that Carlson has his own there
house, because this house is hidden behind a large chimney.
And in general, will adults pay attention to some kind of
a tiny house, even if they trip over it?
One day, a chimney sweep suddenly saw Carlson’s house. He
I was very surprised and said to myself:
- Strange... A house?.. It can’t be! Stands on the roof
a small house?.. How could he end up here?
Then the chimney sweep climbed into the chimney, forgot about the house and
I never thought about him again."
(Astrid Lindgren. Baby and Carlson. translation from Swedish by L. Lungina)
(Astrid Lindgren, Eduard Uspensky. Carlson from the roof)
Here, for some reason, the director turns into a boss from the Ministry of Education, Carlson no longer smokes his pipe, but some “roof people” and “flyers” appear. In general, the text swells excessively and loses its brevity. The baby in the book is called Little Brother, which, of course, exactly corresponds to the Swedish interlinear lillebror (little brother), but the motivation for renaming one of the main characters, whom we all know as Little Brother - in the book and cartoon - is unclear.
And so on and so forth. Question: why was it necessary to force out a much worse text from a wonderful translation on which generations of readers grew up? According to the principle “bad, but yours”? I don’t think that the writer who successfully privatized someone else’s Cheburashka figurine faces any financial problems. And Eduard Nikolaevich’s self-realization is all right. What then?
In Sweden they say that Carlson was not invented by Astrid Lindgren, but by Karin, the daughter of this world-famous children's writer. She told her mother that when she gets lonely, a little mischievous man flies into the room through the window, and if one of the adults suddenly appears, he quickly hides behind the picture. This is how the famous literary tandem was born - Malysh and Carlson, who lives on the roof. After 12 years, the book was translated into Russian, and then almost immediately an animated film was made based on it.
The famous Soviet animation director Boris Stepantsev offered the children's audience two episodes based on the first part of the trilogy. Perhaps there would have been a third, but Stepantsev didn’t get around to it because he was busy with new projects. The only thing left in the collection of drawn stories was a filmstrip called “Carlson Plays Pranks Again.” The images of the characters were created by the artist Anatoly Savchenko. This is the work of his hands - the big-eyed, gullible Kid, the rogue robbers, the monumental Freken Bock and, of course, the charming ugly Carlson. Who voiced your favorite characters?
Unique voice
The People's Artist of Russia recalled how unexpectedly it fell to him to become the voice of the portrayed Carlson: the director, who sought to make the image of the hero expressive and dynamic, could not find an actor for this role. Real luminaries of the scene of that time auditioned for her - Alexey Gribov, Mikhail Yanshin, but there was no exact fit for the image. Livanov, who was working in a nearby studio, accidentally saw the sketches of the frames and caught the resemblance between the drawn man with a motor and the good-natured director Grigory Roshal. The actor tried to parody Roshal in the image of Carlson and hit the mark. Even Astrid Lindgren liked the voice, who, during a visit to the USSR, asked to introduce her to the person who voiced Carlson in the cartoon. He was also loved by Soviet viewers, young and old.
Everything and Carlson
Who voiced other characters in the famous cartoon? The kid spoke in the voice of the only actress who received the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR specifically for her voice acting in animation. Interestingly, her recognizable “childish” falsetto was once a low alto. In her youth, the girl caught a serious cold and for some time only wheezed. And she spoke again in a high voice, well known to us. By the way, that incomparable timbre with which the legendary Livanovsky Sherlock Holmes speaks, as well as Barmaley, Boa constrictor, Gromozeka, Carlson (who voiced all these cartoon characters, there is no need to specify) also appeared as a result of a cold. During filming in 1959, the actor lost his voice because the recording was not carried out in a warm studio, but outside in windy and forty-degree cold conditions.
In Taganrog, near the house where Faina Ranevskaya was born, there is a cafe called “Freken Bok”. The great actress was also among those who immortalized the cartoon “Carlson”, who voiced the proud and despotic “Housekeeper”.
“He flew away, but he promised to return!”
Forty years later, Russian viewers again met the cheerful hero in Swedish. This time, the one who voiced Carlson was actor Sergei Bezrukov. Many film lovers believe that this version of the book turned out to be much weaker than the previous, Soviet one. The hero lost that elusive charm that gave meaning to all his pranks, and turned out to be simply greedy, evil and selfish. Is it because in Carlson, as Astrid Lindgren herself noted after visiting Russia, “there is something Russian,” and therefore understandable only to Russians?
The charming prankster Carlson, who diluted the gray everyday life of the Kid with adventures, appeared thanks to his wild imagination Swedish storyteller. The writer created a legend that a fat man with a propeller once flew into her house and asked for the address of the boy Svante Svanteson. But Lindgren gave the character a much deeper meaning: Carlson can be considered the imaginary friend of a lonely child - a common phenomenon in the psychology of young children.
History of creation
The birth of “a man in his prime” was preceded by two fairy tales. In the story “Little Nils Carlson,” Astrid Lindgren talked about a brownie who brightened up the loneliness of a boy who had lost his sister. The character was not known as an inveterate prankster, and he was deprived of the talent to fly.
But the hero of the second fairy tale, “Between Light and Darkness,” Mr. Mop (in the original sounds like Mr. Lilyonkvast) already resembled the future Carlson in some features - a kind, funny and noisy little man levitated easily, and without special devices. The name of the funny little man who brings joy to a child was invented by the writer’s daughter Karen.
The mop became a friend to a sick boy who could not get out of bed. But compared to the ugly and selfish Carlson, the character behaved more modestly, and his role boiled down to showing his young friend a fairyland in which nothing is impossible.
The Swedish storyteller decided to develop the character, “ground” him and make him a more real person. This is how a “middle-aged” man appeared, whose flying abilities were explained by the presence of a propeller. As a child, Lindgren spent a lot of time at the airfield, watching the exciting flights of airplanes. The place of residence of the “best flyer in the world” is also not accidental - at a tender age, Astrid loved to climb trees and roofs.
According to rumors, the prototype of Carlson was the Reich Minister of Nazi Aviation, although the storyteller and her relatives denied the assumption. Astrid met the ace back in the 1920s at an air show. At that time, the man was just in the “full prime of his life,” and also loved to eat and was distinguished by incredible charm.
From the pen of the writer came a trilogy of adventures of a seven-year-old boy and his flying companion. The book “The Kid and Carlson, Who Lives on the Roof,” published in 1955, immediately captured children’s hearts. The popularity of the duet convinced Lindgren to continue the fairy tale story: in 1962, young readers received the second book, “Carlson, who lives on the roof, flew in again,” and in 1968, the third, “Carlson, who lives on the roof, plays pranks again.”
Carlson's debut entry into the literary arena involved a funny situation. The author noted in the fairy tale that she personally met the flying character and even told him the address of the Kid, which she will keep secret from readers. Naturally, the children were interested in the place where the “moderately well-fed” merry fellow and prankster lived. Local journalists decided to support the hype about the release of the fairy tale and joked by placing an advertisement in the newspaper that the person who found Carlson’s roof was entitled to 10 thousand crowns.
Astrid Lindgren, frightened by the consequences of such a rash action (after all, the children would immediately rush to search, conquering the tops of Stockholm buildings), hastened to publish the Kid’s address:
“Carlson lives very close to my house, on the other side of the park, which is under my windows. This is Vulcanus Gatan Street, 12. My family life began there.”
The first book about Carlson and Malysh reached Russia in 1957, translated by Lilianna Lungina. The world saw the characters through the eyes of the artist Ilon Wikland, and later she was accompanied by illustrator Anatoly Savchenko.
Image
Carlson, to put it mildly, is an unusual creature: a short but already grown man with a propeller on his clothes (judging by the book, the device is definitely not attached to his body) who knows what he does in his free time from meetings with the Kid. As the character himself admits, his mother is a mummy, and his father is from a family of gnomes.
An outspoken fat man insists on being called moderately plump, otherwise he will be offended. Disheveled red hair and overalls are integral parts of Carlson's image, which was portrayed by Elon Wikland, and since then the character has been presented only this way. A sociable extrovert is selfish, loves attention and praise, and also sweeps away all the sweets in his path.
Plot
The first part of Astrid Lindgren's trilogy introduces young readers to "an ordinary family living in an ordinary Stockholm house." Youngest child Of the three children, nicknamed Baby, he felt lonely due to yet another beating received from his parents. And then a little man with a propeller on his back arrived.
The Kid has a new cheerful friend, who is also a terrible prankster who causes nothing but trouble. He immediately burned a bookshelf, blew up a steam engine and took the child on a journey: the boy went with Carlson to the roof, where the newly made comrade dressed himself in sheets and dispersed the thieves. The brother and sister, and then the Baby’s parents, met Carlson, but agreed not to tell anyone about the existence of the strange little man.
In the second book, the Kid, together with an extraordinary friend, cleaned the house and Carlson’s closet. And then the heroes were left alone with the corpulent, domineering Freken Bock. The mischievous inhabitant of the roof in the form of a ghost first scared the housekeeper to death, and then became friends with her.
In the final part of the tale, it becomes more difficult for the family every day to hide the secret of Carlson's existence. Information about an “unidentified flying object” was leaked to the press, and a monetary reward was promised for the capture of the mysterious creature.
Meanwhile, the Baby's family went on vacation, leaving the child in the care of Freken Bock and the evil, always dissatisfied old Uncle Julius. Carlson re-educated his relative, so much so that Julius became kinder and even proposed to the housekeeper. And the rooftop resident decided to enrich himself by giving a television interview about himself. At the same time, he did not reveal the name, noticing only that the last name begins with “Karl” and ends with “son”.
Animation
The works of Astrid Lindgren have survived many productions in the theater, cinema and even on the radio. The characters are familiar to Russian viewers primarily from cartoons. In 1968, the first episode of the cartoon based on the book by the Swedish storyteller “The Kid and Carlson” was released on silver screens, and two years later the sequel was “Carlson Is Back.” Director Yuri Stepantsev, production designers Anatoly Savchenko and Yuri Butyrin worked on the films.
The creators of the cartoon understood that main character is not so simple and requires a very good actor to play the voice. Mikhail Yashin also tried to voice Carlson, but the director lacked texture in the voices of the stars of Soviet cinema.
Stepantsev was at a loss. His friend came to the rescue, who, looking at the drawing of the cartoon character, saw the resemblance to director Grigory Roshal and simply decided to parody him. The film crew was delighted, however, as was the author of the fairy tale - Astrid Lindgren, who had visited the USSR, wanted to meet with the actor with the charming voice of the “Russian Carlson”.
Gave the baby a voice. This is the only character for whom there were no problems in finding an actor. And Freken Bock was invited to do the dubbing, which the director later regretted. The actress did not agree, and when she gave the go-ahead, she implemented her own rules at the studio. It got to the point that she kicked out Yuri Stepantsev, demanding to provide a field for creativity. But the result exceeded all expectations - the “housekeeper” with Ranevskaya’s hoarse voice turned out excellent.
The authors of Soviet cartoons changed the characteristics of book characters. Thus, the Kid in the Swedish fairy tale is a boy spoiled by his parents’ love, and he has friends. In addition, Lindgren's mother is a housewife. In the Russian production, this is a lonely child whose mother and father work from morning to evening.
Carlson developed a love for jam only in the animated adaptation; in the book version, “a man in the prime of his life” prefers cakes and meatballs.
Quotes
“I’m a man no matter what! In full bloom."
“I’m being naughty! Well, I mean, I’m playing around.”
“It’s nothing, it’s just an everyday matter.”
“Calm, just calm!”
“And I don’t need anything else. Except... Maybe some huge cake, mountains of chocolate and maybe some big, big bag of sweets, and that’s all.”
“Now you will see the best motorized ghost in the world. Wild, but cute."
“If I’m really worth a hundred thousand million, couldn’t I get some cash so I can buy a little puppy?”
“What about me?.. Baby, am I better? Better than dogs? A?"
- The mentality and preferences of children from different countries do not coincide. This was proven by the works of Astrid Lindgren. At home, Carlson failed to achieve the popularity of his predecessor Pippi Longstocking, but in Russia they loved the well-fed rooftop dweller more. In the West, the character is generally considered negative: he steals buns, smokes a pipe, is rude and intrusively demands attention. This behavior even forced the US Department of Education to remove Lindgren's fairy tale from the school curriculum.
- The psychological tendency of children aged 3 to 7 years to create fictitious friends in their imagination is called “Carlson syndrome.” Psychologists consider this not a disease, but only a consequence of a lack of parental attention. Approximately 65% of kids are “friends” with characters invented in their heads, who help overcome complexes and fears, forget about problems, and bring bright colors to life.
- In 2012, the collection of Russian cinema was replenished with the film “That Carlson!” The comedy, where he played the main role, only vaguely resembles the original. The film, directed by Sarik Andreasyan, received negative reviews from critics.
- Vasily Livanov, who voiced Carlson in the Soviet cartoon, was afraid that the parodied Grigory Roshal would be offended. However, the director was delighted with the charismatic man with a motor on his back, and on the eve of the next New Year he sent the joker Livanov a telegram with an “autograph”: “Roshal, who lives on the roof.”
