A French (Dis)Connection ...or... "Aaa-AAH, the French...!"

"You talk of Bonaparte; but Bonaparte, when he was working, went step by step towards his goal, he was free, he had nothing except his goal - and he reached it. But bind yourself to a woman - and, like a prisoner in irons, you lose all freedom."

- Prince Andrei Bolkonsky (I.1.vi)

Day Count: 7

Page Count: 104

One of the things that has been most challenging about the translation of War and Peace that I've chosen (the Richard Pevear/Larissa Volokhonsky translation) is that the translators have chosen to leave the large portions of French dialogue intact. Having taken Spanish in both middle and high school, I can honestly say that the only French I know (much like the German and Russian phrases that I know) come from plays that I have done or seen, books I have read, or films that I've watched. This means that the limitations placed on my ability to understand the language are myriad.

Tolstoy wrote War and Peace in both Russian and French, which a lot of translations apparently do not allude to. I can see the reasons behind translating the French into English - after all, so few Americans do speak French fluently - but he did write the French there for a reason.

My department head - the one who got me started on the idea of reading War and Peace - says that, in Russia around 1805, Russia was obsessed by French culture, to the point of conversing heavily in the French language. It was evidently not a rare thing to hear a Russian - particularly those of the higher class - making use of French phrases or corresponding entirely in French (as Julie Karagin and Marya Bolkonsky do in I.1.xxii).

I find this obsession with the French odd and ironic, especially considering that much of the dialogue in the book thus far - at least the dialogue spoken at 'social events' like dinners, parties, soirees, and the like - is almost entirely regarding Russia's dislike of France's emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, whose military victories over the neighbors of Russia had gained much attention. Indeed, many of these social figures are cursing Napoleon and his oncoming armies in one breath* and speaking to one another in the man's native tongue the next. The whole thing seems very inconsistent and incredibly ironic to me.

So, I asked my department head: "Is this irony merely something that Tolstoy includes as a way of maintaining historical accuracy or he attempting to bring the reader's mind to the irony inherent within this viewpoint?"

My department called his wife (who is the one who got him interested in reading War and Peace in the first place) who had taken a class on the book and asked her. She likened Russia's obsession with France to many parts of the world being so influenced by American culture. While America is certainly not the most 'well-liked' country in the world right now, aspects and elements of our culture are very influential worldwide. In the same way, France was one of the world's superpowers and, while the Russians did not like their 'foreign policy,' it seems likely that they were still strongly influenced by their culture.

My department head went on to say that, while he doesn't necessarily believe that the irony was intentional on Tolstoy's part (but simply a way of being true to that place and time), he doesn't feel it should be ignored either.

It feels good to have picked up on something like that, even if it wasn't the author's intent. I feel I'm being diligent and perceptive when that kind of thing goes down!

In a way of closing, I'd like to give a shout-out to another new-comer to the literary blogging community. He is one of my colleagues - an English lit teacher at the school where I work - and, in preparation for teaching it next semester, he has started blogging his reading and studies through James Joyce's immortal Ulysses. I applaud his efforts - Ulysses is by no means an easy book to read (maybe I'll get around to it someday) and, I'm sure, even harder to teach.

While we both have similar ideas - blogging our way through a piece of classic literature - I find that the two of us are taking vastly different approaches, which is appropriate given that we are very different people. While my blog is about a quintessential Russian novel and is more loosely focused on my experiences with the book, his blog teems with scholarly insights and teaching strategies on a quintessential Irish novel. He has started roughly around the same time I have and will very likely finish much sooner, but if you enjoy this blog and what it attempts to do, I would recommend checking out Unraveling Ulysses... and tell him Foxy sent you!

*EDIT NOTE (1/8/2010) - This is not to say that all of Tolstoy's socialites are anti-Napoleon. In fact, Pierre Bezukhov (the character many scholars say is closest to Tolstoy himself) is, at this point, an unapologetic Bonapartist, which creates problems for him at Anna Pavlovna's soiree. In fact, many young intellectuals would have been sympathetic to the French and Napoleon despite the coming war.