[pvg]

There's a lot more runway, in a novel, to establish style and voice - both for the authors and for the translators. Monday Begins on Saturday begins:

"Я приближался к месту моего назначения. Вокруг меня, прижимаясь к самой дороге, зеленел лес, изредка уступая место полянам, поросшим желтой осокою."

Pretty much ez-mode compared to this opener, in the Gooseberries (Крыжовник) someone brought up upthread:

"Еще с раннего утра всё небо обложили дождевые тучи; было тихо, не жарко и скучно, как бывает в серые пасмурные дни, когда над полем давно уже нависли тучи, ждешь дождя, а его нет."

Two different translators' takes:

"The whole sky had been overcast with rain-clouds from early morning; it was a still day, not hot, but heavy, as it is in grey dull weather when the clouds have been hanging over the country for a long while, when one expects rain and it does not come."

and

"From early morning the sky had been overcast with clouds; the day was still, cool, and wearisome, as usual on grey, dull days when the clouds hang low over the fields and it looks like rain, which never comes."

The struggle is real!

[eapriv]

I would argue that Strugatski brothers’ first sentence is harder to translate, because it’s a direct quote from Pushkin.

[pvg]

The allusion one can stick in footnote. Sticking Checkhov's style in a footnote is harder than putting Baby in a corner.

[aasasd]

The ‘Gooseberries’ excerpt sounds close to ‘stream-of-consciousness’ with the attempts to describe the inner mood—and indeed I can't think of anyone speaking or writing in English in the manner of that passage, except Nabokov. As a translator, you'd basically have to imagine maybe John Malkovich narrating your book, and then whack at the words until they sound natural coming from him.