Why you should read War and Peace on your phone

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What is the best edition of War and Peace?

I think you have to read it in the original Russian, check back with us after you've done it and let me know if I'm right or not

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

I think you have to read it in the original Russian, check back with us after you've done it and let me know if I'm right or not

After you.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

I think you have to read it in the original Russian, check back with us after you've done it and let me know if I'm right or not

That's what I wanted to write too (until I saw that there was another page where I saw this response )

[graycyn]

So, the reason I first read War and Peace was because Charles Schultz had Snoopy struggling to read it in the 'Peanuts' cartoon. Being that I liked large books, I had to check it out of the library myself to see what the fuss was about.

Didn't find it difficult at all, enjoyed it and went on to read a lot of other books by Russian authors. But not in the original Russian.... 😂


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by graycyn

So, the reason I first read War and Peace was because Charles Schultz had Snoopy struggling to read it in the 'Peanuts' cartoon.

[Tarana]

Here's an article from The Guardian that discusses translations of War and Peace. Seems Tolstoy had his own approved translators.

[ZodWallop]

Wikipedia has a section discussing the different English translations of War and Peace. The academic there, Zoja Pavlovskis-Petit, argues that the Ann Dunnigan translation is the best. That one is available as a Signet Classic for $1.99.

Reading the article Tarana shared, I liked the section of the Anthony Briggs translation they shared.

[JustinThought]

Well, I hate to be the one to bring this up, but the original premise was "Why you should read War and Peace on your phone. But nobody here has come up with a reason you should read War and Peace in the FIRST place.

I have to admit, several years ago, I was going through a bad period of insomnia, and I bought the book to help cure it. It worked perfectly. If just reading it didn't put me to sleep, when I dropped the book on my head out of sheer boredom, it'd put me out for the night.

Finally used it to prop up a coffee table that was missing part of a leg.

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by JustinThought

Well, I hate to be the one to bring this up, but the original premise was "Why you should read War and Peace on your phone. But nobody here has come up with a reason you should read War and Peace in the FIRST place.

I have to admit, several years ago, I was going through a bad period of insomnia, and I bought the book to help cure it. It worked perfectly. If just reading it didn't put me to sleep, when I dropped the book on my head out of sheer boredom, it'd put me out for the night.

Finally used it to prop up a coffee table that was missing part of a leg.

I've seen some wobbly tables in my time but that wins, did something eat the leg?

[colinconner]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Why you should read War and Peace on your phone

I would prefer to read War and Peace on my phone because this book is to heavy to read it in a sub

[Tarana]

The big advantage of having it on your phone is that it's much less intimidating to read this type of book in little bits every day. It would give me a good excuse to get an Iphone... It's bigger than my Itouch which I can't read from any longer.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JustinThought

Well, I hate to be the one to bring this up, but the original premise was "Why you should read War and Peace on your phone. But nobody here has come up with a reason you should read War and Peace in the FIRST place.

Because it’s a wonderful book. There’s an excellent reason it’s regarded as a “classic”.

[drofgnal]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What is the best edition of War and Peace?

Although it can be had free from many sources, my favorite is the latest translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. It's not a freebie, by any stretch, 12.99 at amazon. It is heavily footnoted with biographical (on the military side, where the characters are real people) and Russian Culture information of the time.

War and Peace traditionally had a large amount of dialog text in French, for example in the opening scene in Anna Pavlovana's drawing room. Upper society in Russia at the time spoke a good deal of French. Tolstoy wrote it that way. The latest translation keeps with that tradition, but is footnoted for the proper translation of the French. You will notice that the amount of French decreases with time as French influence with Russia decreases as result of the wars, particularly the Napolean Invasion.

It's best to read on an iPad, which makes navigating the many footnotes and translated French a bit easier. I didn't have my kindle voyage at the time, but might be easy on that. It would be difficult without a touch feature type kindle to quickly navigate the many footnotes and French translations by moving a cursor and hitting enter, like in older kindles.

The other translation I've read is the Signet Translation. It gets around the french problem, by not having all the passages in French, just maybe the first few words. For example in Anna Pavlovana's drawing room, the first words spoken by Anna to Prince Vasily are "Eh bien, mon prince....", the rest of the passage is in English. In the aforementioned translation the whole first paragraph is actually in French, with Pavlovana complaining of the antichrist, Napolean. Signet does it this way so you get a sense of when french is spoken without having to have all the French in it. The Signet translation is 1.99, and was the first translation I read, in paperback. (And I carried it around in my briefcase on many business trips!)

The Signet is an easier read, but if you want to learn about the culture, and the biographical information of the main real characters and some of the military history of the wars, then read the aforementioned version. The footnotes are very detailed, in one instance down to the level of describing that a particular communique dispatched prior to a battle was indeed the actual sent communique. It's a great read in either version, but reading the aforementioned version was an eye opener for me, and that was the third time I read it.

The cover of the signet classics edition says it's the greatest novel ever written. I'd tend to agree. Tolstoy himself didn't classify it as a novel, however, saying Anna Karenia was his first novel, even though he wrote War and Peace first. War and Peace is a story woven around a telling of the true events of the War in 1805, and then Napolean's invasion of Russia, hence Tolstoy's classification of it not being his first novel.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by drofgnal

Although it can be had free from many sources, my favorite is the latest translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. It's not a freebie, by any stretch, 12.99 at amazon. It is heavily footnoted with biographical (on the military side, where the characters are real people) and Russian Culture information of the time.

+1 to this rec. I read the Signet in high school and again in college. I was lucky enough to get one of the first print runs of the hardcover of the Pevear translation when it came out in October of 2007. I promptly threw my back out in December of that year and spent days in my recliner reading the new translation. It was like reading a new book.

[issybird]

Just as an aside on the topic of translation, when you're contemplating reading a difficult and/or long classic, I think it's well worth investing in a recent/decent translation. Nineteenth and early 20th century translations can be a terrific slog even when contemporaneous to the original work, and when it's an earlier work, they can leave a lot to be desired. At least it's something to consider, if you find you can't engage with a text using the public domain translation.

In this particular case, I was enthralled by the Signet Classic translation many, many years ago. Someday I shall read the Pevear.