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War and Peace


Jim Naseum

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Yet Dostoevsky doesn't seem so sensitive to translation. Fascinating. Tolstoy just needs the right interpreter.

I honestly think Tolstoy needs deep patience. You have to slowly savor much of the thought bubble talk and really ponder it rather than keep marching along. Sometimes is ponder one of those thoughts for half an hour! Well OK, part of that was actually a nap, but you get the idea.

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Thanks, I am going to pick it up this afternoon.

Here is an article you reminded me of re: the translation of the Russians, including Garnett and your reccomendation. Back when I read it I suspected that I had missed out on a lot of what both Tolstoy and Karamazov were trying to say. I think you will enjoy it.

Now I will find out.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/11/07/the-translation-wars

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Thanks, I am going to pick it up this afternoon.

Here is an article you reminded me of re: the translation of the Russians, including Garnett and your reccomendation. Back when I read it I suspected that I had missed out on a lot of what both Tolstoy and Karamazov were trying to say. I think you will enjoy it.

Now I will find out.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/11/07/the-translation-wars

 

 

A very interesting piece for sure. And certainly paints a good picture of the difficulty of translation. When I picked up the Pevear W&P I browsed several reading forums and was surprised to find out how very many people have read all the translations. And then of course, there are those who said they learned Russian just to read Tolstoy and Dostoevsky in the native. That's real commitment. 

 

I hope you all will report back on how you like the Pevear W&P. I gave it to my sister who is not wont to read the Russians, and she is loving it so far. I have now stacked the Pevear A.K. I finished not too long ago right behind it, so she will be reading Tolstoy for a long time! Life could be worse. 

 

Tolstoy knows his farming like Melville knows his whaling, and it is one of my favorite reasons for enjoying both. 

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The six part mini series is running on a couple tv networks currently. It's really very good. Although much of the interior passion and mental life of the book is necessarily impossible to put in a short series, it still manages to hew very close to the storyline of the "greatest novel ever written."

I can't say the acting is up to say, "Downtown Abbey," but it's not too far behind.

Check it out.

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Is this a new version of W&P, or is it the 6 1/2 hour Russian version of 1968 chopped up into 6 pieces?

 

The Russian film worked for me, although one had to go to the theater two nights in a row to see both parts.  I'd love to see a new print struck from the 65 mm Sovscope 70 negative (S70 was the Russian response to 70 mm Todd-AO) ... or it could be scanned at 8K, the way David A. Harris did Lawrence of Arabia.  That would probably be cheaper.

 

The philosophical/historical epilogue to W&P, is interesting, as I remember.

 

"Without law, no man receives justice ... where there is law, no man receives justice."

 

And

 

"The deep sky is my soul."

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