posted
I started reading this novel for the third time. The first time was in sixth grade, because someone told me it was the best novel ever written, and so I read it, and I didn't agree. It seemed to me like a big soap opera. It was a really GOOD soap opera. Don't get me wrong. I didn't find it unpleasant. But it just didn't seem important in any larger way than as the admittedly interesting story of a bunch of characters toward whom I felt varying interest and sympathies.
So years later when I was getting my engineering degree, for respite from the endless problem solving, I discovered the shelf in my university library of 19th century Russian novelists, and man was I smitten! It became a full blown addiction for me, my Russian novel phase, (that still continues only slightly abated today). So I decided okay a 6th grader is too young to get lots of things. Let me try old Count Leo again and see if I like him. Anna Karenina was wonderful, I thought, as well as the novella Family Happiness and the haunting Death of Ivan Ilych. So I read War and Peace for a second time, in one 24 hour sitting during finals (though this time I skipped over some of the battle scenes), and what did I think of it with all the maturity gained in the intervening years? Exactly the same. A really interesting soap opera about people that I cared about in general but wasn't passionate about in particular. Prince Andre, for instance, this time I garnered a real dislike for, though I had found him sympathetic enough on my first reading. I was really surprised, but tended to trust my 6th grade opinions more from that experience. Other books that I had read and loved, I still loved. I'm one who likes to read favorite books over and over. This one that I only liked, I still only liked. So I learned something about myself, I guess, and about the constancy of my literary tastes over time.
But again and again through the years I kept reading other people who think this novel is like world class, one of the best ever. So lately I happened to acquire a new edition, and idly started reading the first few lines. Somehow this time, I'm riveted! Suddenly this is all so fascinating and I can't stop reading it! What has happened?
Did I finally hit upon a decent translation, and are bad translations quite common? I do remember that the last one I had simplified the names so that we English speakers could understand. I detest that idea, since Russian names aren't that hard, and it robs much of the flavor somehow, making it bland and non-Russian. Perhaps many such choices were badly made in my two previous translations.
Could it be a maturity thing? Is there something about the people and situations that is more interesting to me now that I've seen a couple of more decades of life?
Is it just that the conditions of people in wartime touches me more now that I've had a bit more experience with wartime myself?
What can it be? I have since read Tolstoy's Redemption and disliked it greatly. I decided he was more or less whacked out toward the end of his life, and while I admire his idealism, I am not all that impressed with the wisdom of the courses he chose. Perhaps that is rude of me, for dear Count Leo undeniably had an amazing heart.
Anyway, I'm posting this to ask everyone on Hatrack what you think of the book. Do you think it's one of the best or the very best novel ever written? How many times have you read it? Did it change for you on each reading? What translators have you read and do you think they did a good job? What do you think of the various characters? Do you think Prince Andre was a hero or a haughty jerk? Is Pierre's good-hearted sincerety more important than the sometimes extreme unwisdom of his choices? What about Petersburg society? Were they frivolous and unscrupulous wastrels or the valiant upholders of time-honored principles? I'm so curious as to what everyone else thinks.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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I first picked it up in 2001. I was working a (usually) boring security job and was out of good books to read. There it was...sitting like it had always been for 30 years on the shelf. I figured... eh, why not?
I had NO idea what it was about. I thought it was actually about the Revolutionary War was going to be all dry and boring.
I was SO wrong. Russia...Napolionic Wars...decriptions going from huge epic scale to the second by second thoughts of the characters. Wow. The realationship between Prince Andrew and his dad was really moving for me.
Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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Oh yeah, they just took leave of one another (Andrew and his dad) and it was a great scene. I just have so much affection for all these people now. His dad was such a great 18th c. Age of Reason type dude, you know? They understood each other so well, and you can tell how much they love each other despite their differences, and their formal and even brusque manners.
I love Andrew's patient humble religious younger sister so much this time, too. And his little sweet silly wife, whom I remember is not long for this world. I wonder what it would have hurt him to have indulged and cosseted her some, since obviously at one point he thought he wanted to be married to her. Would that have made him so unhappy?
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
So far I think the best part is the characters. I'm not sure how Tolstoy manages to capture people so well so quickly. His characters definitely feel like real people.
I think this translation must be far better than the two I read before. There are a lot more notes than I remember, explaining the things that don't make much sense. But it's more than the notes, just the text is fascinating this time and it was much duller before, to my recollection.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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