War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of War and Peace
Book Review: Improving On A Classic
Summary: 5 Stars
It's hard to find anything original to say about "War and Peace." This classic of 19th century Russian literaure, written by one of the greatest novelists of the last 500 years, has been exhaustively reviewed, studied, dissected, and interpreted in film, drama, opera, and dance (I think). What I can say as a literary gourmand (someone who will read everything from the back of the shampoo bottle to "Valley Of The Dolls" to "Ulysses") and a professional specialist in the Russian language is this: WoP is a damn fine historical novel, worth a try for anyone who's every enjoyed a long historical novel. And this War and Peace, the latest translation of this monumental work from Russian into English, is the most readable and accurate version of the several I have read. Not only do they provide immediate translations of all the French and German conversations and letters in the book so you don't have to wonder what in tarnation is going on, they are true to the marvelous humor and simplicity of the original Russian language. The translation team of Pevear and Volkhonsky has successfully tackled several classics of Russian literature, making books like Demons newly accessible to English-speaking readers. This book is worth the money and the potential hernia.Book Review: Intense and enthralling
Summary: 4 Stars
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy is an intense and enthralling historical novel describing the events before, during and after Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Russia in 1812. An extensive array of characters fraught with their own personal problems begin a tale of personal consequence, while the historical figures of Tsar Alexander I and Napoleon march to a different tune, one of hierarchical power. This novel is such a masterpiece because of it's perspectives on the historical Battle of Borodino and prior events that lead up to the French armies moving into Moscow. Textbooks describe great leaders like Napoleon Bonaparte and generals like Mikhail Kutuzov commanding armies of hundreds of thousands, to meet on the battlefield. But Tolstoy inspects these armies further, the individual unit of a war.
What I found most interesting about this novel was the integration of Tolstoy's own fictional characters and his personal representation of historical figures involved at the time. You can trace the battles on a map, marking where the field of Borodino is, and where the nobility from St. Petersburg came from. It gives an intensely personal side to a war that has been plundered by historians, who are notorious for leaving out what may be the most important aspect to a war, the citizens, the soldiers and the families who suffer and who fight.
Two issues I had while reading this book was the vast array of characters and family names to keep track of and the length of the novel itself. It took about 100 pages to get into the rhythm of the story, but after that, the tensions continue to build, the hardships come more often and it is a work of historical importance that I had to continue reading.
Book Review: Luminous & lyrical, this translation makes Tolstoy come alive
Summary: 5 Stars
War & Peace is one of my favorite novels. I've read it four times before, all in the Garnett translation and always loved it. But I'm blown away by this translation. When I first saw it, I skimmed some of the introduction and became obsessed with getting and reading it. Reading two pages was enough to get me hooked.
The writing is so lyrical, so beautiful, that I can't wait to get to the next part. And that's really saying something when you know the book so well.
If you love War & Peace, get this translation, you'll see the book with new eyes. If you've never read it before, read it in this translation, you'll see immediately why people love it.
Book Review: New Translation of War and Peace
Summary: 5 Stars
Not only is this a wonderful and much needed translation, but the book itself, the cover and the entire design are beautiful. The translation is far superior to any I've read to date; it captures the Russian "feeling" and viewpoint. I highly recommend this superb edition. (There is only one negative and that is its weight! It is huge and heavy.)
Book Review: Not good/actually it's 9 of 16.
Summary: 3 Stars
I have read that Richard Pevear does not know Russian, but merely edits his wife's translation. Okay.
Pevear calls WAR AND PEACE "daunting". It isn't. It's merely overwritten, wordy,redundant, repetitious, chronologically clumsy, and loaded with structural defects, writer's errors and digressions. Tolstoy himself called it "verbose", and said it had too much that was "superfluous". I agree with Tolstoy.
Pevear refers to Pierre as "a singular man", but in fact he was somewhat commonplace and something of a dope. Tolstoy thought Dolokov was his most interesting character and again I agree with him. Pevear lumps Dolokov with "mediocrities" and calls him "ordinary". Even though he drank an entire bottle of rum on a window ledge for a bet, was an accomplished duellist, stopped the retreat and led the Russian win at Schongraben,ran a gambling house, worked for the Persian monarch, and led a band of partisans that drove Napoleon out of Russia! Some "ordinary!"
Pevear points out Tolstoy's repetitions of words, but I don't see that as objectionable. He neglects entirely Tolstoy's chronic repetitions of sentences (even in the same paragraph or on the same pages), paragraphs, even entire ideas. I mean, how many times do you want to be told that history makes great men, not the other way around? After the 6th time or so, one's eyes glaze over.
Pevear claims that Tolstoy created "a new form", but that's just nonsense. A cop-out for people who are in denial and don't want to face the fact squarely that WP is just not very well written. And Tolstoy himself claimed that the form of WP was in keeping with Gogol, Dostoevsky, and other Russian contemporaries.
Pevear is good at pointing out the inadequacies of other translations, and I couldn't find anything to disagree with. (Though I was interested to note that he didn't criticize Dole, which is my favorite.) But this translation commits greater sins by being too literalistic. The Pevears choose words that are anachronistic, or bundles of words that fail to convey meaning, but merely obscure it. Moreover it is not enough to merely translate words-- syntax, grammar, and meaning must also be translated. And there is altogether too much French. I mean, this is supposed to be a translation, right? If they were translating Confucius, would they give us long passages in Chinese?
And Pevear leaves Kutuzov off the list of Principal Characters. Now how on earth could one do that?
This is a good translation for people who like it, and there's nothing wrong with that. And it's a good translation for Americans living in France, like Pevear.
The standard--although it is not my favorite translation--in terms of the overall balance of translation, graphics, and design, continues to be the Maude Inner Sanctum edition of 1942. And it wouldn't hurt to augment that with the 1922 Oxford Maude.