Bookshelf Essentials: War and Peace!

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[@jordanthomas4379]

I think it would be fascinating to go to each country to find the greatest novel of the 19th century, Russia, America, France, Spain, Germany, Italy etc

[@RyanLisbon]

Read W&P last year and found it amazing. It gets a bad rap for its size but it's an easy, entertaining and incredibly engrossing story. Don't let the size scare you (can skip 100 paged essay at the end).

[@bigaldoesbooktube1097]

Yes! I’ve been waiting for this 😃. I think about this book all the time it is living rent free in my head. The characters and the authors inner soul searching are like an acid trip in my subconscious 😅.

[@philtheo]

1. Speaking of finding a translation that works for you, even if it's a bad translation, War and Peace has the Maudes and Garnett, both of whom are freely available to download and read. I use the Standard eBooks website for many of my classics including War and Peace. It has a far smaller library than Project Gutenberg, but their eBooks are far more aesthetically pleasing to me. (Personally I most love the Oxford World's Classics translation which is an updated and revised version of the Maudes done Amy Mandelker, but you have to buy or borrow that one. The original Maudes is still wonderful, and Standard eBooks has a wonderful version.) 2. Regarding translations of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The free translation on Standard eBooks is from F. P. Walter, and Walter is actually considered one of the best translations of 20,000 Leagues (along with William Butcher and perhaps David Coward). Walter was one of the founding members (I think) of the North American Jules Verne Society and he has decided to release his translation for free. I think it's awesome to read the Walter translation via Standard eBooks. 3. As for The Three Musketeers, Lawrence Ellsworth has a good one. What's more, he's working on the rest of the Three Musketeers series or cycle. Last I heard, and as I understand it, Ellsworth plans for the series to be a total of 9 books once finished, but don't quote me on that! Best to check out the work on his website instead.

[@bigaldoesbooktube1097]

Totally agree that your way of moving from the domesticated to the period accurate is a very efficient mode and likely the most effective for most people. I tend to cheat and read a lot of blogs explaining why people chose a particular translation and pick by gut feel 🙈.

[@GraveyardShift-tl6ri]

Steve, this is such a good video, but I truly cannot help but always think of that time you mentioned in one of your old videos (I think it was about The Brothers Karamazov), you said that while you were still teaching, you had a clueless student joke about Karamazov along the lines of: "Wow, it's like War and Peace but for Russian literature!" 😂

[@LaurieInTexas]

Long video or not, I loved this topic. It makes me feel much better when I don't like the "best" translation of a classic that others insist must be read.

[@christinaalvarez332]

That was a lot of fun! Thank you Steve!

[@DebMcDonald]

The very first Russian novel I read was The Brothers Karamazov with the translation by David McDuff. It was the perfect translation for me because it felt like a Victorian novel and I was comfortable in that style. I loved it. I agree with you that it’s important to be able to relax and enjoy a book before you branch out into a more accurate form.

[@Thecatladybooknook_PennyD]

I just ordered this based on this comment because I love Victorian lit!!🎉❤

[@davidhall8656]

The Ann Dunnigan is my favorite translation. Just want to flag her less often touted but still great version, which is available in the signet mass market. Of these, I suppose hers is a bit like less Edwardian, more mid 20th century Americanized english version akin to the Rosemary Edmonds. FWIW, i believe it is also the fav of Prof Morson (who is generally a constance garnett cheerleader and has written widely referenced articles severely critical of the PV).

[@oneviewcornwall8200]

Thank you Steve - you are a booktube hero for me (this video is one mere justification) greetings from Cornwall, England 🌅

[@brettzicari5233]

Great video, Steve. For a first time reader PV is pretty daunting, however, there are subtleties that their approach unlocks that Garnett and Edmonds gloss over. On the other hand, I think the overall quality of PV’s prose is lower. There are a lot of trade offs in expressing the universal aspects of the work in the best English possible and trying to capture its peculiarity.

[@gtm604]

That impression at 10:20 lol spot on

[@michaelgliddenforteski6576]

Perhaps this is my 2024 Mammoth. I can read Russian and Portuguese, but this one is too daunting. I love your take on translations. I totally agree with you.

[@meto2854]

DId I just catch a Guys and Dolls reference somewhere in there?! :D

[@tommonk7651]

I started the P & V translation some months ago and got through about 50 pages and bogged down and left the book. Trying to find a better translation for me.

[@stretmediq]

I went to college on an ROTC scholarship and we spent a lot of time studying the evolution of military organizations which is where Napoleon's genius lay. For instance he broke his army into combined arms corps which were highly mobile self contained mini armies. He also pretty much invented the general staff as we know it today, established the first dedicated medical corps with trained medics and wagons called "flying ambulances" from which emergency medical services is a direct descendant, the merit system for advancement for command positions where social standing didn't matter, logistical specialists who introduced the first rations using old wine bottles to store pre-cooked food, etc... and I must disagree with you about his campaigns which were mostly successful (he couldn't have conquered most of Europe if they weren't), e.g. Austerlitz, Borodino. It was only when he let his ego get the better of him, i.e. Egypt, Russia, that he stretched his resources too thin and he failed. Oh yeah I agree War and Peace is a bookshelf essential. One of the greatest books ever written

[@PatriciaCrabtree-wm8xd]

An average reader can finish/love this within a month. It is unputdownable.

[@michaelchandler490]

Never say “‘ever”. We all love the lectures. To answer your question. I enjoy the first version. My question is, did I mishear, or did you misspeak, but I believe the “fete” was happening at the English embassy in 3 out of 4 of the versions you read and in the third one it took place in the French embassy. If that is how the various versions read, I’d be curious as to why such a change would be made by a translator?

[@dorothysatterfield3699]

Perceptive! I have that translation (by Anthony Briggs), so I looked it up. His reception is also at the English Ambassador's. Just a little blooper on Steve's part. I also have the P&V translation, but this exercise has convinced me Rosemary Edmunds' is best. Dammit.

[@michaelchandler490]

Thanks for that, I could not see any reason for a translator to arbitrarily make such a change. I'm slowly making my way through the Rosemary Edmunds translation and haven't seen the rest, but from the small snippets Steve read, I think I would enjoy hers the most.@@dorothysatterfield3699

[@dorothysatterfield3699]

I wonder why P&V, after all that French, chose to translate "la grippe" as "the grippe," which is far less funny. All the others kept it as "la grippe." That's the sort of thing that makes me wonder if Pevear and Volokhonsky aren't tone deaf.

[@Tolstoy111]

Napoleon’s military reputation comes from him winning battles against vastly larger forces. Lots of them. From the Italian campaigns even to Waterloo where he was winning before even more opposing forces showed up.

[@saintdonoghue]

Hee. I appreciate the loyalty, but this is nonsense.

[@Tolstoy111]

@@saintdonoghueI mean that’s what he’s famous for: tactical maneuvering to overcome being outnumbered. It’s what he did in Italy and most famously at Austerlitz. Invading Russia (and Spain) were poor executive decisions on his part that lacked foresight. But on the ground, in the fight, he was one of the all time greats. How else did he keep winning? Incompetent opponents?

[@stretmediq]

​@@Tolstoy111I agree his military tactics were so innovative they became standard dogma for a hundred years afterward. Both the Union and the Confederacy in the American civil war used Napoleonic tactics because they worked. Though he did have major failings such as not being able to keep his ego in check and not putting the emphasis on his navy he should have. If he had done that he may have not lost in Egypt

[@Tolstoy111]

@@stretmediq he didn’t seem to care much about naval power.

[@stretmediq]

​@@Tolstoy111you're right. He was an army guy who knew next to nothing about naval warfare and how it affected overall strategy. Personally I think that was his greatest failing. If he had put as much into his navy as he did his army the Napoleonic wars may have had a very different outcome

[@PatriciaCrabtree-wm8xd]

Is that Erasmus over your shoulder? Should I read The Praise of Folly?

[@jesuisravi]

In one of your video series you did some kind of read along of The Road by McCarthy. I think the format was tripartite. Anyway, it struck me that that read along thing is a great way to review a book. You read a passage and say why you like or dislike it. This gives the viewer something to go on, puts "some meat on the bones" of what your take is. I wish you and others reviewing would do that kind of thing more often. As for Tolstoy...if I were maybe 20 years younger I might try to learn Russian just for the sake of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekov. But even if I did learn to read Russian, never would I get out of the book what a native gets...ever ever ever. Same goes for any second language that a native English speaker learns, at least those languages learned somewhat later in life.

[@beckyfair3934]

I "read" this in college, due for a "reread".

[@ethanschneider2711]

Do you ever do unhauls?

[@GrammaticusBooks]

I'm currently watching the Russian film version ..........Hmmmmm.

[@saintdonoghue]

Oh no! You're becoming a FILM-BRO!

[@GrammaticusBooks]

@@saintdonoghue Research!

[@Tolstoy111]

It’s not very good - state cinema. The director (mis)cast himself as Pierre.

[@GrammaticusBooks]

@@Tolstoy111 Agreed. So far the battle scenes have been epic (looks like a cast of 1,000s) but the acting and directing could be better.

[@martins1964]

i'm not a fan of how P&V handle the french. having to constantly go up and down repeatedly on each page was annoying (i read the P&V translation in 2023)

[@jshaers96]

I know what you mean, but there are multiple other translations and this was the only one to try to show how the Russians were aliens in their own culture, much more comfortable speaking in French than their native language.

[@battybibliophile-Clare]

Only the French have this worshipful view of Napoleon, oh and a few "Woke" British historians. I say hooray for Wellington and the Spanish and other allies.

[@mattkean1128]

I've grown tired of P&V translations. I usually recommend the Maude version.

[@battybibliophile-Clare]

I am not a fan of the overly publicised P & V translations, they are clunky, and often the English is awful. I have several, but they are not favourites. Their Brothers Karamazov makes a difficult book almost unreadable, Katz is better, and has a friends comment on the cover. 'Ever ' is a long time, dont make promisses you cant keep, giggle.

[@jshaers96]

From reading interviews with them, their intention was to give Tolstoy in as unvarnished a way as possible. He's pretty scruffy in Russian, with lots of repetition, and if it read poorly to you in English I can only think it was deliberate on their part.

[@battybibliophile-Clare]

@@jshaers96 that is true, but a translation should be good English, ie understandable, they aren't and other translators have said so. Their publisher has a big advertising budget, that doesn’t mean I have to like them. I pay my money and take my choice, my choice is not P&V.

[@jshaers96]

Absolutely. Fortunately there are plenty of translations to choose from, that's why I don't get too heated about P and V, although I understand why some feel differently.​@battybibliophile-Clare

[@battybibliophile-Clare]

@@jshaers96 yes, like Steve says, choose the translation you feel comfortable with, fortunately in most cases there are alternatives. Good luck with your reading.