Sarah Bagby's book
reviews can be heard on alternate Mondays on KMUW 89.1. Here's a transcript
of her most recent review. Listen at:
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kmuw/.artsmain/article/16/59/1310200/Sarah.Bagby's.Book.Review./Sarah.Bagby's.Book.Review/
"War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Richard Pevear & Larissa
Volokhonsky (Knopf, ISBN 9780307266934, $37.00)
"War and Peace" is a perfect summer read. Filled with indelible moods and
characters, this epic novel will transport even skeptical readers to the
aristocratic society of nineteenth century Russia and to the battlefields of
the Napoleonic wars. The new translation by award-winning translators
Richard Pevear, an acclaimed American Poet, and his Russian wife, Larissa
Volokhonsky, restores many hallmarks of Tolstoy's original style. Earlier
English translations sadly diluted Tolstoy's language, obscuring his
inventive use of repetition and elaborate metaphor.
"War and Peace," through its myriad characters, shows us what it is to live:
to dream and to regret; to experience both new and waning love; to take
pride in a family and a nation, swaying to their idealism and power. In just
one forty-page stretch, the reader watches a duel, witnesses the induction
of a Freemason and the birth of a child, and attends a dinner set party for
300. Each scene is so rich in physical and psychological detail that it
holds the reader spellbound.
Forget whatever preconceptions you may have about picking up this
substantial novel: Pevear and Volokhonsky's translation will amaze,
enlighten, and delight you.
Review by
Sarah Bagby,
July 17, 2008
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