War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Summary and Reviews
|
Our Price: $198.72 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $32.50 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of War and Peace
Book Review: Delighful reading
Summary: 5 Stars
I struggled through War and Peace many years ago, so imagine my surprise(and pleasure) to find that this new translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky is a wonderful read and gives the reader an entirely new perspective on Tolstoy. I am rereading The Brothers Karamazov now, translated by the same couple, and am looking forward to Anna Karenina.Book Review: Engaging rendition
Summary: 5 Stars
I have tried to read different translations of War and Peace, including Garnett's and Edmonds'. One thing that has always annoyed me - especially with Garnett's translation - is the tendency to use Western or Roman Catholic terms whenever something related to Christianity is involved (Edmonds does not make this mistake). Instead of using the language of Orthodoxy, we often get "holy images," attended Mass," the Virgin Mary," etc, instead of "icon," "attended Liturgy," or "the Theotokos." While invisible to most readers, to Orthodox ears it is grating. The Pevears get this right by avoiding Western terminology in speaking about things religious. And, as other reviewers have noted, it is nice to see the French broken out. As far as the quality of the language, it doesn't seem any less awkward than other translations I have read. Garnett may have turned a phrase with a bit more flare but at the expense of making Tolstoy sound like Tolstoy and more like a Victorian. I agree, too, that this version would have been nice had it been published as a three volume set. You can't really tote it around to read at work or on the bus.Book Review: Essential -- a staggering achievement
Summary: 5 Stars
It's hard to overstate the case for this translation as being essential. It is also hard to avoid hyperbole in its praise. While it might not be the easiest one to read, Pevear and Volokhonsky (P&V) have succeeded in a virtual recreation, in English, of Tolstoy's masterpiece on many apparent levels, and on some other very subtle ones. Abstruse as some of their resultant syntax might be on occasion, the beauty of this English prose and utter faithfulness to every aspect of Tolstoy's apparent intentions is remarkable and overwhelming. Viewing the work as a vast proem gives ample opportunity for P&V elucidation of the symmetrical structures in the work. From the use of alliterative micro-sentences like "Silence ensued." and "Drops Dripped." to the almost obsessive repetitions of phrases, we can begin to appreciate Toltoy not merely as a narrative genius, but a Miltonic architect and chiastic formalist. The choice of unusual, sometimes haunting words ties chapters together. For example, in the description of a sick, dysfunctional bee-hive, given a chapter's space by Tolstoy, bees are described as being "laden" or "unladen," ("empty") with pollen. When, in the next chapter, looters pillaging the ruined hulk of Moscow's carcass, are described using these identical adjectives, there can be no mistaking Tolstoy's metaphor.
Could it be accidental that the sardonic discussion of the numerological reduction of Napoleon's French title to the cabalistic value 666 (and Pierre's contortions to do the same with his moniker) appears on pages 665 and 666 of this edition?
The use of all the French seems to be a necessary obstacle; the effort to plough through beaucoup de mots français, might, in Tolstoy's Christian ethic, reflect Hopkins's injunction: "Sheer plod makes plow down sillion shine." Tolstoy apparently wanted the French, even if it occludes, as an essential element to his prose. Knowing who speaks French, and when, enhances one's knowledge of a character's rank in society, his or her's inclinations, and reveals much nuance of the dialog. P&V present all of the odd variations of a Russion/French mix: Russians trying to speak French (i.e. incompetently, or ironically), French trying to blunder through Russian; even Denisov's speech impediment is carried over in his occasional mutterings in "Fghrench." Being thorough about the French is also justified in the dramatic structure: When Pierre is captured, at the end of the devastation of Moscow, his humanity reaches out to his captors in French - captors who at their core are painted with sympathy. But, with the sudden scene switch to the comforts of soiree life in St. Petersburg, in a jarring apposition to the privations of Moscow, the casual French dialogue seems especially damning of the frivolity and shallowness of social creatures impervious to Moscow's sacrifice.
Having read both the Dunnigan and the Garnett translations concurrently while reading this one (for months!), I can't imagine not owning and re-reading P&V's definitive edition. Ideally, one can read Dunnigan's easy prose style in Signet's inexpensive book (with the teeny-tiny print), while enjoying the manifold literary dimensions of this breathtaking translation. Bravo!
Book Review: Excellent Translation
Summary: 5 Stars
This is my second time reading "War and Peace" and, although I am only a couple hundred pages into it, I find it new and refreshing compared to the other translation I read. I have read and enjoyed other translations by Pevear and Volokhonsky and their "War and Peace" is equally as fresh. I recommend it to anyone seeking an appreciation of Tolstoy.Book Review: Excellent idiomatic translation - Difficult reading though
Summary: 5 Stars
This new English translation of Tolstoy's classic by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky is certainly the most worthy to appear in a long while. The translators attempt to preserve the literary experience one would have if one were to read the original Russian. The French is preserved with English footnotes. Many seemingly "awkward" (to use a term frequently used by other reviewers) expressions, such as repeated words, are preserved. This is truly a word-for-word literary translation. The practice of "dynamic equivalency" has been downplayed in favor of rendering the text to match Tolstoy's prose style.
I took some Russian in college, and I attempted to read W&P in Russian a few times. I found the reading extremely painful and spent upwards of an hour sometimes just trying to understand one paragraph; Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, and Chekhov proved much more accessible. But I also got a sense of realism and true-to-life narrative that I found lacking in others. To translate W&P into smooth flowing English in the style of modern day novelists, or even Victorian era novelists, is to rob the novel of the unique "real-world" style Tolstoy adopted. I liken it to translating James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake into the French equivalent of modern day smooth English prose. Would you, if you be an English reader of Joyce, consider that a proper way to render that classic for foreign readers? I think not. Remember that when you read this W&P.
While I will always go back to the Maude translation, this certainly is the first choice among more recent translations. Garnett, Edmonds, Dunnigan, and Briggs are woefully inferior in comparison.
So I encourage you not to be disturbed by the difficulty you may find reading this version. You may not be able to speed through it Evelyn Wood style, but you'll experience the world Tolstoy tried to preserve with it more fully this way.