Based on six contemporary British and American novels translated into Russian the paper considers distortions of the original made by the translators resulting in the target text which turns out to be not only inadequate, but contradicting the elementary logic and common sense, i.e. totally absurd. The factual material is classified into four strictly subdivided groups or sections depending on the precise extra-linguistic factors underlying these distortions. At the same time, the authors define pure linguistic instruments and factors that make such deviations of the translation from the original possible. The methodology of the research is the comparative analysis of parallel excerpts of the original and the target text. The authors earnestly prove the real possibility to avoid both erroneously made and deliberate distortions, suggesting their own versions of adequate contextual correspondences. The paper’s factual material may prove interesting to translators and useful for college lecturers of the theory and practice of fiction translation, English stylistics, and related disciplines.
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