Archive for category: Mr. Pogreba Blog

I'm just beginning another read through War and Peace, this time the latest translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, published this year. Given all the great books in the world, who has time to read War and Peace three times? It's a fair question, but I find Tolstoy's writing so powerful that I am often drawn back into his works, particularly War and Peace, Anna Karenina, and Resurrection. It's probably also true that more people lie about reading War and Peace than any other book, so I guess my third crack is a partial effort to make up for them. 🙂

I suspect I will write more about this issue as I continue to read, but this translation is interesting. I lack the knowledge to know how accurate my translation is, so I am left evaluating it as a reader. P and V are interesting to me; their work often feels a bit less polished than other translations, which occasionally makes the reading a bit more challenging, but on the other hand, I can feel the difference between their Tolstoy and their Dostoyevsky, something that was not always true with the Constance Garnett translations. I have to say, though, through the first fifty pages, I am missing my favorite translation of War and Peace, by Aylmer and Louise Maude. I guess we'll see.

In the early reading, one of the elements that really seems to stand out is the tenderness with which Tolstoy describes the relationships between the young lovers at the beginning of the novel. This is not the older Tolstoy, railing against sexuality and sinfulness, but someone sympathetic to the struggles of adolescent love. On page 44, he describes a scene between Sonya and Nikolai, after Nikolai had been flirting with another young woman at dinner:

"So you know, and that's wonderful, and so go to her."

"So-o-onya! One word! How can you torment me and yourself so because of a fantasy? said Nikolai, taking her hand.

Sonya did not pull her hand away and stopped crying.

Natasha, motionless and breathless, with shining eyes, watched from behind her ambush. "What will happen now? she thought.

"Sonya! The whole world is no use to me! You alone are everything," said Nikolai. "I'll prove it to you."

It's a small section, but what makes it stand out is Tolstoy's ability to reveal so much about his characters through simple dialogue. These are authentic young people, full of passion about the smallest things, and this little scene will come back to us later in the work, with these little character details having increased significance.

One of the other elements that stands out for me in Tolstoy's fiction is his ability to demonstrate contempt for a character, using no more than a small physical detail. His description of Vera, the eldest daughter of the Rostovs, is a perfect example (pg. 43):

But the smile did not embellish Vera's face, as usually happens; on the contrary, her face became unnatural and therefore unpleasant.

It's perfect. I know who Vera is already, after one sentence.

Read War and Peace. Seriously.

I've recently finished my favorite book by Leo Tolstoy, Resurrection, and once again, have been struck by how powerfully Tolstoy's critique of the banality of evil resonates today. There are so many powerful passages in this novel, but I wanted to highlight a few that I thought were especially thought-provoking.

On Rounding Up Prisoners or People Suspected of Crimes

These people were dealt with like fish caught with a net; everything that gets into the nets is pulled ashore, and then the big fish which are required are sorted out and the little ones are left to perish unheeded on the shore. Having captured hundreds that were evidently guiltless, and that could not be dangerous to the government, they left them imprisoned for years, where they became consumptive, went out of their minds or committed suicide, and kept them only because they had no inducement to set them free, while they might be of use to elucidate some question at a judicial inquiry, safe in prison. The fate of these persons, often innocent even from the government point of view, depended on the whim, the humour of, or the amount of leisure at the disposal of some police officer or spy, or public prosecutor, or magistrate, or governor, or minister. Some one of these officials feels dull, or inclined to distinguish himself, and makes a number of arrests, and imprisons or sets free, according to his own fancy or that of the higher authorities. And the higher official, actuated by like motives, according to whether he is inclined to distinguish himself, or to what his relations to the minister are, exiles men to the other side of the world or keeps them in solitary confinement, condemns them to Siberia, to hard labour, to death, or sets them free at the request of some lady.

They were dealt with as in war, and they naturally employed the means that were used against them. And as the military men live in an atmosphere of public opinion that not only conceals from them the guilt of their actions, but sets these actions up as feats of heroism, so these political offenders were also constantly surrounded by an atmosphere of public opinion which made the cruel actions they committed, in the face of danger and at the risk of liberty and life, and all that is dear to men, seem not wicked but glorious actions. Nekhludoff found in this the explanation of the surprising phenomenon that men, with the mildest characters, who seemed incapable of witnessing the sufferings of any living creature, much less of inflicting pain, quietly prepared to murder men, nearly all of them considering murder lawful and just on certain occasions as a means for self-defence, for the attainment of higher aims or for the general welfare.

On The Treatment of Prisoners

His duty was to keep political prisoners, men and women, in solitary confinement in such a way that half of them perished in 10 years’ time, some going out of their minds, some dying of consumption, some committing suicide by starving themselves to death, cutting their veins with bits of glass, hanging, or burning themselves to death.

The old General was not ignorant of this; it all happened within his knowledge; but these cases no more touched his conscience than accidents brought on by thunderstorms, floods, etc. These cases occurred as a consequence of the fulfilment of regulations prescribed “from above” by His Imperial Majesty. These regulations had to be carried out without fail, and therefore it was absolutely useless to think of the consequences of their fulfilment. The old General did not even allow himself to think of such things, counting it his patriotic duty as a soldier not to think of them for fear of getting weak in the carrying out of these, according to his opinion, very important obligations.

Certainly interesting sentiments to have been written over one hundred years ago, aren't they?