Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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56 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Give it a go...and keep on going!!, 27 Mar 2007
War and Peace is my favourite novel, bar none! It took me several attempts to read it from start to finish, but it more than rewards the effort. It is a work of understated genius, astute characterisation, and profound insight into what makes us human. Tolstoy's canvas is Russia at the beginning of the 19th century, and more partcularly the life experiences of those who lived before, during, and after the Napoleonic wars with Russia. Rather than inhibiting the appeal of the novel, this setting allows Tolstoy to explore the human condition through the highs and lows of his characters.
Rather than bore you with a plot synopsis or my fairly uninteresting insights, here are some encouragements for those who have an ambition to read War and Peace, or who have started but are flagging in the journey:
1. Don't be put off by the huge amount of characters introduced at the beginning of the novel. This is a little like entering a room full of strangers, and you can feel a little overwhelmed. Eventually, however, you will get to know a small group very intimately, and will be able to recognise them the further you read. A little like life really!!
2. Don't let the dimensions of the book put you off. Perhaps you should read sections (it is divided into four books and an epilogue, which might be a good serialisation).
3. Read other shorter books at the same time, just to remind yourself that you have the capacity to finish things you begin.
4. Go to forums and websites where others are engaged in reading it from start to finish.
5. Know that the further you get into War and Peace the better and more deep it becomes. It is a book which demands effort, but abundantly rewards it's reader. Tolstoy's opus literally changes the way you view the world.
I trust that this is of some help to those who are either wavering or flagging over War and Peace...
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31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What is War and Peace?, 11 Aug 2005
Tolstoy offered his own answer to this question, in "Some Words About War And Peace," but his answer is not very illuminating. Let me try to answer the question in the simplest way possible:It is first and foremost the story of a handful of characters: the Rostovs, the Bolkonskys, Pierre. It is not a book about war or peace in the grand, overarching sense, but about people and how they cope with such times. Tolstoy's view was that there is no point in writing only about the general course of the war - it's the people that matter. But, unlike most other novelists, Tolstoy takes you into the lives of his characters by presenting their stories within a historical context presented with an extraordinary level of detail. From this, the popular misconception arises that War and Peace is the story of the Napoleonic Wars, as thought it were some kind of 19th Century Tom Clancy novel. It is not. As the book goes on and the ongoing war becomes more intense, a great deal of space is devoted to descriptions of the progress of the war and analysis of its causes and effects. It can seem as though Tolstoy has forgetten his characters and readers naturally become confused and wonder what the book is all about. But when that happens to you, persevere. It *is* worth it. At the end of the First Epilogue everything falls into place and the immense value of all that historical detail will become obvious through the way you empathise with the characters.
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25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wonderful translation - and a beautiful object, 11 Jan 2008
Don't listen Dr. Clifford - this is a wonderful translation, faithful and fluent. I don't know the Briggs (whose translation is incidentally not exactly 'new'), but the Pevear is quite fabulous.
In criticising repetition, Dr Clifford has entirely missed the point that the repetitions are Tolstoy's, and quite deliberate. It is previous translators who have sought to 'improve' on the original by adding their own variations. Clifford makes the same old error. Pevear does not.
I am afraid I find Dr Clfford's claim that Pevear's English is poor incomprehensible, as if said of a different translation altogether. This is a wonderfully accessible translation of a nineteenth century novel, which also manages to feel true to its period and to avoid anacronisms.
The use of French in the text is also true to the original. In his own editions/revisions, this is how Tolstoy started and what he came back to. Pevear includes full translations in footnotes (of a perfectly legible size). Nor, incidentally, is the French especially taxing. Why is the French there ? Because that's how Russians of a certain milieu spoke (and, some would say, thought and dreamed) in the Napoleonic era. Why has Pevear not removed it ? Why on earth would he want to ?
But don't take my word for it; read Orlando Figes online on the Pevear translation in the New York Review of Books - the same Orlando Figes who wrote the foreword to the Briggs edition.
Finally - the Pevear is still in hardback, and is a fittingly beautiful and pleasing object in its own right.
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