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On Tolstoy's “War and Peace”

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Re: On Tolstoy's “War and Peace”

#21

Post by xefer »

I read the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation about 10 years ago. There were a lot of good references and footnotes.

But way into the novel, as the Russian army is about to crush the last remnants of Napoleon’s army retreating from Moscow, Field Marshall Kutuzov first tells his gathered troops to consider that the French are human too and have suffered along with them. Then, after a dramatic pause he continues:

    “But, that said, who invited them here? It’s their own doing, f… th… in the f…”, he suddenly said, raising his head.”
But there was no footnote indicating what the redacted text was, which I found odd. I went to various other online translations and all had the phrase redacted in a similar way.

I even found an original Russian version online and even that was redacted. (I don't know a lick of Russian so it took a bit to find it.)

The original text had:

— А и то сказать, кто же их к нам звал? Поделом им, м… и… в г…. — вдруг сказал он, подняв голову.

I asked some of my Russian-speaking colleagues what this was and even they were a bit stumped but after some searching they found the redacted text was

м[ать] и[хъ] в г[узно]

Which they said was some crude old-fashioned way to say to basically screw their mother in the ass.

Re: On Tolstoy's “War and Peace”

#22

Post by byproxy »

xefer wrote: post #21

I read the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation about 10 years ago. There were a lot of good references and footnotes. But way into the novel, as the Russian army is about to crush the last remnants of Napoleon’s army retreating from Moscow, Field Marshall Kutuzov first tells his gathered troops to consider that the French are human too and have suffered along with them. Then, after a dramatic pause he continues: “But,…

I recently read 'The Idiot', translated by Ignat Avsey (I enjoyed his 'Karamazov Brothers' translation), and it contained a few similar redactions with no notes as to why. I thought it was maybe just a stylistic device.

Re: On Tolstoy's “War and Peace”

#23

Post by lstodd »

_4gzn wrote: post #6
lstodd wrote: post #5

it's "War and Society", not "War and Peace" ah, whatever.

No. http://gramota.ru/lenta/news/8_784

If you had read the thing, you wouldn't be throwing useless links around. Since you do and thus obviosly didn't read it, why you even consider commenting here?

Re: On Tolstoy's “War and Peace”

#24

Post by beloch »

War and Peace reminds me of David Lynch's "Dune". Aspects of it are utterly brilliant. Perhaps unsurpassed. As a whole though, it suffers from the effects of poor decisions.

Tolstoy famously said that he didn't even consider War and Peace to be a novel, but something else that sort of passes for one. Where another author with an axe to grind would tell a story that leads the reader to the desired conclusion, Tolstoy spends entire, insufferable chapters hammering home his message, sometimes in seeming contradiction to the plot. His portrayal of Napoleon in particular is comically ham-fisted, perhaps intentionally so.

One of his central points, on which he expounds endlessly, is dealt with in the first part of the article. Namely, that society and war are impossible to understand or predict. They just are. On the battlefield, it's not the army with the better strategy or equipment that prevails, but the one whose soldiers simply decide it's their time to win. It reminds me of Japan's "Shikata ga nai" (It cannot be helped) saying. While this is a valid coping mechanism for the incompetent or someone caught up in the heat of the moment, it's hardly a productive approach for those with the time to tackle tough problems. Kutuzov ends a strategy meeting on the eve of battle recognizing that it's too late for further revelations in understanding to be implemented, which is sane, but Tolstoy does indeed take things further and state such solutions are impossible to come by in the first place, which is unfounded. Complex systems can be understood. Just because they don't immediately surrender to analysis doesn't mean there is no solution. War and society are hard nuts to crack because they change based on the current understanding of them, like self-modifying code. That doesn't mean they're fundamentally impossible to understand.

This, at least, is my belief. Holding this belief made reading War and Peace a bit of a chore. Tolstoy creates wonderfully nuanced and realistic characters, but in War and Peace he hammers you over the head with his own philosophy and it's an unpleasant experience if you happen to disagree with it. The book would be better if he'd been more subtle, and could still benefit from having entire chapters (you know which ones) excised completely.

Re: On Tolstoy's “War and Peace”

#25

Post by pound »

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #19
billfruit wrote: post #3

I do think though Russians do get a bit too much press for their novels, in a way that isn't, I think accorded to the French. For example dealing with events from the same period of time is Hugo's "Les Miserables" (it has a description of the battle of Waterloo lasting around 12 chapters), perhaps captures more of the variety of human experience.

> Russians do get a bit too much press for their novels Russians get a bit too much press for most everything, from nukes to unstoppable social progress to foreign election meddling. Curiously, but possibly related, not for https://www.google.com/search?q=largest+country+on+earth

could you please tell a bit more about social progress? I'd appreciate it.

Re: On Tolstoy's “War and Peace”

#26

Post by mistrial9 »

beloch wrote: post #24

War and Peace reminds me of David Lynch's "Dune". Aspects of it are utterly brilliant. Perhaps unsurpassed. As a whole though, it suffers from the effects of poor decisions. Tolstoy famously said that he didn't even consider War and Peace to be a novel, but something else that sort of passes for one. Where another author with an axe to grind would tell a story that leads the reader to the desired conclusion, Tolstoy…

"On the battlefield, it's not the army with the better strategy or equipment that prevails, but the one whose soldiers simply decide it's their time to win."

whoa- things people say .. here's a chance to reconsider that line ..

Re: On Tolstoy's “War and Peace”

#27

Post by cafard »

msviss wrote: post #12
billfruit wrote: post #3

I do think though Russians do get a bit too much press for their novels, in a way that isn't, I think accorded to the French. For example dealing with events from the same period of time is Hugo's "Les Miserables" (it has a description of the battle of Waterloo lasting around 12 chapters), perhaps captures more of the variety of human experience.

I haven’t read Les Miserables. I’m sure its great. But depicting battles scenes is not what makes W&P, W&P. 12 chapters of Waterloo for waterloo’s sake is meaningless.

Victor Hugo was born to make Tolstoy seem laconic. Tolstoy can be prolix, but Austerlitz and Borodino are critical to the action of the novel. Waterloo has a minor plot justification inn Les Miserable, but most of the twelve chapters on Waterloo are just Hugo's excuse for spinning his theories.

Re: On Tolstoy's “War and Peace”

#28

Post by int_19h »

pound wrote: post #25
B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Russians do get a bit too much press for their novels Russians get a bit too much press for most everything, from nukes to unstoppable social progress to foreign election meddling. Curiously, but possibly related, not for https://www.google.com/search?q=largest+country+on+earth

could you please tell a bit more about social progress? I'd appreciate it.

I think it's a reference to the early days of USSR, when many in the West were gushing about the "new and better" society that it was supposedly building.

Re: On Tolstoy's “War and Peace”

#29

Post by coolspot »

xefer wrote: post #21

I read the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation about 10 years ago. There were a lot of good references and footnotes. But way into the novel, as the Russian army is about to crush the last remnants of Napoleon’s army retreating from Moscow, Field Marshall Kutuzov first tells his gathered troops to consider that the French are human too and have suffered along with them. Then, after a dramatic pause he continues: “But,…

As Russian, can confirm that translation of the last phrase is correct and fits the context.

Re: On Tolstoy's “War and Peace”

#30

Post by dang »

lstodd wrote: post #23
_4gzn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. http://gramota.ru/lenta/news/8_784

If you had read the thing, you wouldn't be throwing useless links around. Since you do and thus obviosly didn't read it, why you even consider commenting here?

You can't attack another user like that here. We ban accounts that post uncivilly. Would you please be respectful from now on?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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