War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
I am writing this review of the 2007 "second printing before publication" Knopf version of War and Peace, originally written by Leo Tolstoy, translated from Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.
I think it's fair to say that War and Peace has a mythic reputation amongst massively enormous tomes. First there is the fact that the book is 1,265 pages long. Very few books reach this kind of size. It's split into four volumes of about 250 pages each, plus an epilogue and other notes. Yes, certainly some other books are this big. If one big book of the Harry Potter series came out, it would be 4,182 pages long, and Phoenix alone was 896 pages.
So it's not just the length. Many people have made it through the Harry Potter series with great enjoyment.
The next challenge here is that it is notoriously dense. Even Tolstoy's Anna Karenina at 864 pages is thought to be an "enjoyable read". You get sucked into the story just as much as Potter lovers get sucked into their Harry Potter stories. They want to keep reading. In comparison, many people who start in on War and Peace feel as if they are trying to climb a huge mountain without a top. For most people, rather than a sucking-in feeling, there is a feeling of a solid brick wall. There are tons of names thrown at you. Confusing names. Peoples' names change based on context so you have to remember multiple names for many people. You aren't brought into the world in a way that lets you connect emotionally with a few key characters and then grow from there. Instead, you are plunked in the middle of a maelstrom and have to keep going.
I know many, many people who got about 50 pages in and gave up in disbelief. I know others who tried multiple times, getting a little further each time, and finally gave up. I do of course know a few who did that technique, reading and re-reading the beginning and who did eventually get through the whole thing. But in no case that I know of was it "easy". It was always a serious investment of time and effort for some sense that they wanted to "achieve the end".
Then on top of all of this, you have the fact that it was originally written in Russian and French together. So readers had to know both languages. There were multiple versions of the novel that differed from each other. So translators who turn this into English have to know Russian and French, convey the lyrical meaning in the word choice from both languages, and make it meaningful to an English reading audience. And figure out which version of the novel they want to translate.
I freely admit that I haven't read all the different translations of War and Peace, so I can't speak to how well this one holds up against the others. But I can say that I greatly enjoyed this translation, and I trust my friends who have more tenacity than I do and who say this offers more of a sense of beauty and immediacy than some of the older translations do. I also admit that I was a keep-trying-again-and-again person who had to take notes to try to get through this.
The binding for this version is red cloth with gold letters on the cover and spine. The pages themselves have almost a hand-made feel to them, with "rough" edges that are not all perfectly in line. It's the type of book one would display on a nice bookcase, or leave out on a stand to page through and find a meaningful passage. In terms of reading it, you definitely want to read in a way that the book is being supported :) Or your bicep muscles would build up fairly quickly, trying to hold it up.
Well recommended.
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