1. It is worth noting that the Russian original of War and Peace starts as follows:
Eh bien, mon prince. Gênes et Lucques ne sont plus que des apanages, des ????????, de la famille Buonaparte. Non, je vous préviens que si vous ne me dites pas que nous avons la guerre, si vous vous permettez encore de pallier toutes les infamies, toutes les atrocités de cet Antichrist (ma parole, j'y crois) — je ne vous connais plus, vous n'êtes plus mon ami, vous n'êtes plus ??? ?????? ???, comme vous dites ??, ????????????, ????????????. Je vois que je vous fais peur, ???????? ? ?????????????.
There are a few quips left in French, but I will admit that it is annoying to learn that most of those were translated, as it does ruin the effect, as you note.
The fact that the upper classes in Russia were fond of French is expressed far better by the fact that long, extended passages in the book are written in French. There are a couple of letters in German as well.
There was a bit of German in the Maudes' translation, but like the French, it was too truncated. I just got tired of harping on the lack of quality in these Easton Press translations. If I weren't nearly halfway to collecting their set, I would have switched over to the Franklin Library set and see if theirs is any better.
This Francophilia is juxtaposed in the way that Natasha Rostova dances a traditional Russian dance (effortlessly and as though it is in her blood) when, in Part II, the Rostovs are at their hunting lodge. Tolstoy shows that, despite the surface appearance, even the nobility is really Russian, and not French. This ties in with his Russian patriotism and religious-philosophical ideas.
Agreed, although I think some of this is not quite as apparent to an outsider such as myself until the second volume.
2. Anna Pavlovna Sherer drops out of the novel after Tolstoy uses her as a plot device for Chapter I of Part I. I think she appears in one or two minor episodic moments after that.
Yes, but since I was quoting that little bit from the very beginning (to be juxtaposed with the quote from the beginning of the second volume), I had to mention her.
3. Tolstoy's take on the meaning of the war ties into his (to my mind repulsive) maniacal obsession with the Russian peasant and the mythical attributes that Tolstoy bequeaths to the Russian peasant. Salvation, in Tolstoy's mind, comes from this class of people. His heresy (for which he was excommunicated from the Orthodox Church) helped to fuel a lot of the delusions that would characterize the role of the peasantry in the Bolshevik state, and the idealization of the lower classes that led to the absurd conclusions that streetsweepers and ditchdiggers were qualified to govern nations.
Not only that, but his assertion that the individual (in this case, Napoleon) is meaningless is patently absurd. Individuals shape history in ways that Tolstoy seems unwilling to recognize. I would love to see Tolstoy try to explain how someone like Hitler or, to take the other extreme, Gandhi, was insignificant. He not only discounts the individual as such, but also the individual as being capable of directing masses of people. His own country was to show him just how wrong he was, with Lenin and Stalin annihilating most of his propositions (including regarding the peasantry) and making him an irrelevant relic from an ideological perspective.
Not for sure if I want to agree with the thrust of your comments (seeing how I think popular and later mass culture shape world-views of individuals more than individuals ever shape cultures by themselves), but I can accept that Tolstoy does get a bit too fervent at times with his idolization of the peasantry. However, I think it's precisely this overdoing on his part that adds some of the power to this story.
4. I wasn't aware that any translations made Prince Andrei "Prince Andrew". It sounds very non-Russian and removes the stark, jarring and out-of-place sound of the name "Pierre" for Pierre Bezrukov (actually, he's Pyotr, but he goes by Pierre since he is the representative of the most Westernized, Russia-renouncing wing of the nobility). Princess Marya, Nikolai Rostov, Andrei Bolkonsky (I almost wrote Volkonsky, since all the people are based on real noble families and the Volkonskys are the basis for the name, just like the Trubetskois for the Drubetskois and the Kurakins for the Kuragins) - these are the way the names are supposed to look. I think that any translation that Anglicizes the names is doing a major disservice to the book.
What makes it worse is that it's inconsistent. I just grew weary of it all and just let the passages hint at this.
5. Why don't you talk about or cite the "big moments" of the book? Andrei looking at the sky at Austerlitz, Natasha dancing, Pierre at Borodino - these are the big moments.
True, but one thing I like to do in reviews (as opposed to the critiques that I also write on occasion) is to only hint at what is there so as to not risk analyzing overmuch those moving scenes. That being said, Andrei being almost literally at Napoleon's feet at Austerlitz was a memorable scene that not only displays the carnage, but also gives a nice early glance at Napoleon as seen by Tolstoy.
6. Nothing about the Epilogue? Nothing at all? The Epilogue is perhaps the greatest crime committed by Tolstoy, the most odious thing perpetrated in the history of Russian literature.
Some things I try to forget. That Tolstoy wanted to project "ahead" is one of those things.
Illusions fall like the husk of a fruit, one after another, and the fruit is experience. - Narrator, Sylvie
Je suis méchant.
Je suis méchant.
Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
- 21/02/2011 01:05:49 AM
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Some thoughts on the book
- 21/02/2011 02:49:33 AM
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Translation was by Louise and Aylmer Maude (1920s)
- 21/02/2011 03:11:25 AM
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Without knowing anything about the translation, it already sounds terrible.
- 21/02/2011 05:06:53 AM
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It's readable, provided you know so little of Russia and its court circles of the time
- 21/02/2011 05:34:56 AM
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Re: It's readable, provided you know so little of Russia and its court circles of the time
- 27/02/2011 01:04:50 AM
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I read it when I was 19 (Jesus Christ, that is almost 10 years ago)
- 21/02/2011 01:48:16 PM
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When I first visited wotmania, I was 25. I turn 37 in less than five months 
- 21/02/2011 06:40:07 PM
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- 21/02/2011 06:40:07 PM
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Hey ya know what I read the most unbelievable thing about Tolstoy the other day ...
- 22/02/2011 12:46:37 AM
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