"The first thing a reader today must overcome is the notion of War and Peace as a classic, the greatest of novels, and the model of what a novel should be."
- Richard Pevear, from his Introduction
"[War and Peace] is not a novel, still less an epic poem, still less a historical chronicle. War and Peace is what the author wanted and was able to express, in the form in which it is expressed."
- Leo Tolstoy; "A Few Words Apropos of the Book War and Peace" (1868)
It is officially time to start! The waiting is over and the time to begin reading one of the great works of world literature. While the lack of updates to the blog in the last couple of months may seem to bespeak a lack of enthusiasm toward the project, those appearances are incorrect. Though life since the planning stages of this enterprise has been hectic (to say the least), my excitement has by no means diminished in the interim.
I received my copy of War and Peace for Christmas from my parents (see photo above) and, after finishing the two books I had been working on prior to the holiday (This is Orson Welles by Orson Welles & Peter Bogdanovich and The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington), I took to reading the introduction, waiting for 2011 to actually begin the work itself. I opted for the latest translation of the work for this reading (the 2007 Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky translation), having read somewhere that it was best to work from the latest possible translation. While I don't know if this is always the case, I do know that Pevear and Volokhonsky have been widely acclaimed for their recent translations of Russian texts - from Tolstoy's Anna Karenina to Gogol's Dead Souls, from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment to Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. Indeed, this acclaim and recognition was certainly part of the appeal of this version.
Pevear's introduction to Tolstoy's work was helpful from the standpoint of context. As one who teaches Bible in a Christian school, I know the importance of understanding the context of a given piece of writing and how vital that context is in understanding what that writing is attempting to say. Pevear establishes this wonderfully, first by laying out Tolstoy's personal history - specifically with regard to the writing of War and Peace - then describing both the historical context and the critical reception of the work. Reading the introduction, it was all I could do to stop before opening up the first chapter to begin reading!
I am excited to begin this enterprise, excited to chronicle my experiences here for all (some? few?) to read, and excited to have the opportunity to engage one of the greatest pieces of writing ever conceived and completed.
It's going to be a great year!
