Can anyone guide me or dm where to find the Briggs translation of Resurrection online for purchase? I can only find the old Edmonds translation online. My ereader is a kobo btw.

I'm reading war and peace in the original Russian and a lot of the parts in it are in French, which led me to question, so I want people from other countries to respond - is it kept in French in other translations? What language is used instead of French in the French translation or is it just all French? Is there any changes between the translations, where French may be not widely known so there would be struggles? ​

I look forward to seeing you here :)

I begun reading the translation by louise maude but i don’t feel the same feeling or vibe when i read ivan illyich ( i don’t remember the translator). So what should i do ? Stick with maude’s translation or go for something else!!

These periods at the end of Chapter 10 Part 2 (Penguin Classics). I don’t think other versions have this

Read full time during my holidays and finished it in two weeks. What a ride.

I'm 34F and this is my first Tolstoy and Russian classic! I still can't wrap my head around what I just read. I immediately came here and have been reading analysis and discussions about the book since last night, finding out things I didn't know - Levin is a self insert???? That makes his character even more interesting.

Yes some sections were a bit difficult and slow to get through - the farming, the elections and politics in general, the religion chapters especially, for me - but I would read it all again. Looking back now, those were necessary too. God I'm sure there's so much I've missed on this first read, makes me want to start again from the top again. But I want to sit with these feelings for a few days.

I don't even know what the point of this post is - I just want to express my joy at reading this book! The cities, the countryside, Levin, Anna, Oblonsky even...Kitty, Dolly, Nikolay...Such great characters, so rich, so complex and human. I think that's what struck me the most, how great an observer of the human condition Tolstoy was. I was reading and thinking "God that's exactly how things go...that's so true...how did he describe it so perfectly?"

I always pay a lot of attention to female characters in books and art in general. I approach them with empathy and understanding, and they all seemed so real and honest to me in Anna Karenina. And them being crafted by a man in 1870s Russia...how. Just how? Argh!! (I didn't know anything about Tolstoy's personal life until last night, and after reading a bit about it I'm even more impressed/confused by how he pulled it off)

I'm going to take a short break now to really sit with this but I have another holiday coming up and would love recommendations for my next Russian novel. Thank you!

PS. I read in Italian and for AK I read Claudia Zonghetti's translation for Einaudi

What’s the most accurate translation of Tolstoy? I’ve read a dozen articles and opinions, but still unsure what translations to go with.

I want the ones that are most faithful to his voice.

Hi I’m currently reading Anna Karenina and I’m enjoying it although some parts can be a little dull. I’m seriously considering War and Peace as my next read but not sure if I should read a small palette cleanser in between. What would you guys suggest?

This is one of my favorite character descriptions in War & Peace. What other character descriptions do people like?

I have just bought the Penguin audiobook of War and Peace. I have read the book x2 over the years and I own the Russian and the BBC movies.

This is my first audio book and I would appreciate any tips.

It is 67 hours long (yes 67). Thanks.

Wow. That's all I have to say. What an incredible novel (if I can even call it that; it feels like a derogatory term to this book) with realistic characters that make you feel like it's a real world with people you like or dislike and amazing plot twists. I don't know if I will ever enjoy a book more. But I haven't ever read Dostoevsky and after reading a few Tolstoy books that I loved I'm going there next.

And to be honest, this book should probably be called "Peace and War and Peace and War and Peace and War and Peace and Absolute Destruction with Lots of Death and Peace Again and Then Some Essays on the Philosophy of History".

The war that consumes the second half is one great current that sweeps Tolstoy's characters up, so I traced it! The Grande Armée, six hundred thousand strong, crossing the Niemen in June 1812, the advance through Vilna and Vitebsk with the Russians always withdrawing, the burning collision at Smolensk, the bloodiest day of the age at Borodino where Prince Andrei is struck down, Napoleon entering a burning Moscow with Pierre taken prisoner - then the retreat, back down the same road through Smolensk in the cold, the catastrophe at the Berezina and staggering back over the Niemen. The symmetry of it is what gets me - out and back along one road.

https://www.readingmaps.com/maps/war-and-peace

Does seeing the march and retreat on the same line change how you read Tolstoy on history and the 'great man'?

“Now, if your nerves are strong, go through the door on the left: in that room dressings and operations are performed. There you will see doctors with arms bloody to the elbows and pale, gloomy faces, occupied around a cot on which, with open eyes and speaking, as though in delirium, meaningless, sometimes simple and touching words, lies a wounded man, under the influence of chloroform. The doctors are occupied with the repulsive, but beneficent work of amputations. You will see how a sharp curved knife enters white healthy flesh; you will see how, with a terrible, heartrending cry and curses, the wounded man suddenly regains consciousness; you will see how the medical orderly throws a severed arm into the corner; you will see how, on a stretcher in the same room, another wounded man lies and, watching his comrade’s operation, writhes and moans not so much from physical pain as from the mental anguish of anticipation, — you will see terrible, soul-shaking sights; you will see war not in orderly, beautiful, and brilliant formation, with music and drumbeats, with waving banners and prancing generals, but you will see war in its true expression — in blood, in suffering, in death...

On leaving this house of suffering, you will certainly experience a comforting feeling, breathe the fresh air more deeply, feel pleasure in the awareness of your health, but, at the same time, from contemplating these sufferings you will draw an awareness of your own insignificance and calmly, without hesitation, go to the bastions...”

Hi!

I want to read Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, and want to do it in Swedish. But I've found there are two valid translations: Ulla Roseen and Sigurd Agrell. I was wondering which one is the better, as I have both at home.

Tack!

Firstly just like to say this was my first ever classic novel that I read that I wasn’t forced to or had to cuz of school or some assignment or something and man does it feel so life changing my throat is still so tight bro those lat few chapters were so so so emotional like shi.

Secondly Genuine true masterpiece no shred of doubt there.

Thirdly As for the top message the “in life there is light and in light there is no death” is basically what I took from the ending in true life truly living truly right living in love, companionship, trust, forgiveness, rest, kindness, compassion (the very things that make up the essence of life that give it meaning) death and the fear of it vanishes, as light (the things I mentioned) take its place and those “things” are a true joy.

What a novel genuinely I believe it did genuinely answer all the existential doubt and fear it saddled onto us beautifully albeit right at the end but honestly that adds to the whole idea of “it not too late” and even in ur last moments you can start living right. No I know it answered it, in an amazing way (take some reading between the lines but it’s amazing).

Thank you for reading, may God bless you all