Product Description
This is an award-winning new translation of the great Russian novel. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (38)

One of the best novels I've ever read.
One of the best novels I've ever read. There was only one part that dragged a bit for me--the account of the provincial election in part 6. I rather loved the detailed descriptions--especially Tolstoy's habit of describing the little idiosyncrasies for each character. I love that each character was allowed to grow and change from the beginning to the end of the book, the book more than any other I've read flows like real life--the characters react and grow make decisions and change with what is happening and not vice-versa. Because of it's length, you get to see what sometimes other books don't show--that the Earth doesn't cease to keep spinning because of someone's actions. And Tolstoy allows us to see what happens when "life goes on" after choices are made. The prose was beautiful, especially Levin's insight and reflections (not that I think I comprehended all of his philosophical musings). In fact, I think I loved Levin's story even more than Anna's--though to compare their stories is compelling. As I was reading about 3-400 pages in, I started wishing I had begun with a pencil in hand to underline particularly beautiful or insightful passages. I told myself I would next time--and for me if I already have plans to read it again before I'm through the first time that means it's a pretty fabulous book.

Book advertised as NEW, sent as a USED copy
I ordered what I believed to be a NEW copy, and received a USED copy. Not in bad condition, but not what I ordered.

A challenging masterpiece
I liked:
A very rich story about a relatively large number of very well drawn, detailed characters
A good balance between action, characters considering their situations, social commentary and social philosophy
That, while it's firmly set in a relatively distant past and foreign culture, its themes are timeless
I would have liked:
A little less detail in some places; in the 21st century we're accustomed to briefer, tighter tales
Summary:
It's easy to see why this is regarded as a masterpiece
I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to explore literature's high points; though perhaps not to fans of modern, popular novels - it's one for the dedicated readers

Recommended by Russians
I bought this translation of Anna Karenina because it was recommended by a friend born in St. Petersburg who knows the importance of proper word selection.If I'm going to read this great classic, I want to get as close as possible to the original language.

Tolstoy's bitter struggle
In the Introduction to this publication we read ... 'And the main idea, the one he [Tolstoy] struggled with most bitterly and never could resolve, was that Anna's suicide was the punishment for her adultery'.

For me this is exactly where this novel fails. After all, Anna is the central character, directed to us by the name of the novel (although she does disappear for long stretches - especially the last section of the novel). If the logic of Anna's changes and final collapse fails to convince then, for me, all the characters and situations that are the framework of the novel - no matter how spectacularly written - are like a wonderful building constructed without a foundation. In the end it is just a morality tale! Tolstoy had to 'punish' Anna because she dared to flaunt convention, even though, for me anyway, I could see no rational reason why her life - or Vronsky's - should so disintegrate. Why did she pine so much for her son? Because he was 'lost' to her? Why did she so disregard her daughter? Because she wasn't lost? She made a monumental decision to leave her husband, for Vronsky - there had to be positives and negatives in that. Tolstoy does not paint her as a depressed person who is unable to focus on the positives, push aside the negatives. Vronsky may well have been a disappointment to her, and there are things implied that may have been an impact of her daughter's birth, but many couples face these realisations and challenges without suicide being the outcome 'to make someone sorry' - such a childish reason. And Vronsky responds by heading off to a futile war as if he were still in love with Anna - why could he not show it, why could Anna not see it, if it had been there.

Turgenev (my favourite of the Russian novelists) apparently didn't like Anna Karenina because it is so much about the elite, the priveleged classes. It did seem to me that a lot of what is described in the novel could not have taken place in 'ordinary' folks lives. Not being a 'Count' myself, not functioning in that strata of society, I did find the story a bit remote.

Other recommendations:

'Torrents of Spring', 'Fathers and Sons', 'Virgin Soil' - Turgenev
'The Idiot' - Dostoevsky
'Chance' - Conrad (for another spectacular central female character)
... Read more

Product Description
In the winter of 1854 Tolstoy, then an officer in the Russian army, arranged to be transferred to the besieged town of Sebastopol. Wishing to see at first hand the action of what would become known as the Crimean War, he was spurred on by a fierce patriotism, but also by an equally fierce desire to alert the authorities to appalling conditions in the army. The three "Sebastopol Sketches" - December', May' and August' - re-create what happened during different phases of the siege and its effect on the ordinary men around him. Writing with the truth as his utmost aim, he brought home to Russia's entire literate public the atrocities of war. In doing so, he realized his own vocation as a writer and established his literary reputation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

The education of a pacifist
When, in 1854, the Crimean War broke out between Russia and an alliance that included France, Britain, and the Ottomans, Leo Tolstoy (then 25) was undecided as to his career, with writing and the military exerting the strongest claims.In October 1854 the Russian forces won a significant victory at Balaclava (site of the "Charge of the Light Brigade"), but a month later they suffered a major defeat at Inkerman, and they withdrew to the Black Sea port of Sevastopol, to which the Allied forces laid siege for almost a year.Within Russia, the defense of Sevastopol became the focal point of the nation's attentions, with many would-be patriots volunteering to go there and serve the Tsar and Mother Russia and in the process win glory for themselves, Leo Tolstoy included.

Between December 1854 and September 1855, when Sevastopol finally fell to the siege, Tolstoy spent much time in and around the city as an artillery officer.What he saw and experienced further inflamed within him two strong sentiments that he already harbored -- "a fierce and aggressive patriotism" and a correspondingly intense critical despair over the inefficiencies and deficiencies of the Russian military organization.Those impulses spurred him to write, while still serving in the army, three separate "sketches" of the Siege of Sevastopol as it played out over time - the first set in December 1854, the second in May 1855, and the third in September 1855.The first two were published anonymously but the third was published over Tolstoy's name.On the whole, the Sketches were well received within Russia and their favorable reception and the process of writing them convinced Tolstoy that his true vocation was as a writer.He later remarked, "I failed to become a general in the army, but I became one in literature."

THE SEBASTOPOL SKETCHES correspond closely to actual events, but they are fictionalized, in an increasingly greater degree from the first to the third.(Curiously, to me their intrinsic merit or quality declines slightly from first to third.)According to the Introduction to this volume, "Tolstoy has sometimes been called the first modern war correspondent," but the overt fictionalization is at odds with what we currently think journalism to be.Nonetheless, the SKETCHES - especially the accounts of the soldier's ordeal under relentless bombardment and the descriptions of the blood, gore, and amputated limbs of field hospitals - convey to the reader (even one of today but surely more so to the Russian reader of the 1850s) the horror, atrocities, and ultimate senselessness of mechanized war."[Y]ou will see war not as a beautiful, orderly, and gleaming formation, with music and beaten drums, streaming banners and generals on prancing horses, but war in its authentic expression - as blood, suffering, and death."At one point Tolstoy writes about a soldier unable to recall the details of his fighting at the center of a successful repulse of a French assault because the entire time he had been "lost in a fog of oblivion" -- and is that the first such metaphoric use of fog?

But what most intrigues me about THE SEBASTOPOL SKETCHES is the strong undercurrent of pacifism, Tolstoy's fierce patriotism notwithstanding.He opens the second sketch with the thought experiment, "what if one of the warring sides were to propose to the other that each should dismiss one soldier from its ranks?", with each then continuing to reduce its forces one by one until each had only one soldier left."[I]f it still appeared that the really complex disputes arising between the rational representatives of rational creatures must be settled by combat, let the fighting be done by these two soldiers: one could lay siege to the town, and the other could defend it."After all, Tolstoy goes on to note, settling a dispute with tens of thousands killed and maimed on each side has no more logical force behind it than settling it based on the death of one of only two combatants.As appealing as this proposal might be, it is of course overly simplistic in several respects.But Tolstoy follows it up with an observation that cannot be easily dismissed, whether in 1855 or now:"One of two things appears to be true: either war is madness, or, if men perpetrate this madness, they thereby demonstrate that they are far from being the rational creatures we for some reason commonly suppose them to be."

Occasionally melodrama and cliché creep into the SKETCHES, but on the whole the writing is quite distinguished (especially for a writer still in his twenties) and it is surprisingly modern for something written over 150 years ago.It is understated, relatively informal, often lyrical and often gently ironic, and it abounds with some wonderfully descriptive passages.SKETCHES doesn't quite strike me as a 5-star work, but it is a noteworthy early effort of one of the greatest of writers.

A Vital Prologue to War and Peace
For readers who enjoy War and Peace, The Sebastopol Sketches provides interesting insight not only in the military career of the author, Count Leo Tolstoy, but gives ample evidence of where he found the human experience to make such a classic novel.The book is set during the Crimean War in 1854-55, when Tolstoy was a 25-year-old artillery officer. A 31-page introduction by David McDuff lays out the background of Count Leo Toltsoy's life, his entrance into the Russian Army and the beginning of the Crimean War. This introduction is well-written and informative. The sketches are divided into three chapters.

December 1854
This opening section is the shortest, at only 16 pages, and covers a brief visit that Tolstoy made to Sebastopol in search of supplies for his battery on 5 December 1854. Tolstoy was a very keen observer of detail and although brief, this section acts as a "you-are-there" sort of tour of the city, from the harbor quays out to one of the bastions. Here, Tolstoy makes several interesting observations, such as noting the conversations of several gunners and remarking that, "a feeling...of savage hatred for the enemy, and a wish to have revenge on him, a feeling that lurks in the soul of every human being." Tolstoy was also impressed with the Russian character, claiming that, "the strength of the Russian people cannot possibly ever falter, no matter in what part of the world it may be put to the test." This is the kind of tough talk of a chauvinistic young officer in love with his country, but one wonders what Tolstoy thought of his earlier writing when he lived long enough to see Russian arms humiliated in Manchuria in 1905.

May 1855
In Tolstoy's second visit to Sebastopol, he initially focuses on a card game between several Russian officers (Tolstoy was an inveterate gambler, himself). This provides a useful literary device for sketching several "types" of Russian officers of the period. For example, one snobbish noble officer exclaims, "I really don't see how men in dirty underwear, suffering from lice and not even able to wash their hands, can possibly be capable of bravery." This is interesting commentary on how Russian upper-crust officers viewed the enlisted men who doing most of the fighting and dying (this theme appears again in War and Peace). Then, Tolstoi shifts as the card game ends and several officers make their way by a casualty dressing station, with them witnessing the suffering of these "dirty" enlisted soldiers. Later, Tolstoy notes the removal of dead Russian soldiers, and one of the characters says, "What a God-awful stink! That was all that remained of this man in the land of the living." Tolstoy makes interesting comment along the way, noting that "once fear has found its way into the soul, it does not readily give way to any other emotion." Indeed, there are no heroes in this account (Tolstoy says, my hero is truth), and Tolstoy describes junior Russian lieutenants as, "each is a little Napoleon, a little monster ready to start a conflict and kill a hundred or so men simply in order to obtain another star or an increase of a third in his pay." The second section is 50 pages long and begins a shift towards a more critical view of warfare.

August 1855
This 73-page section is told through the eyes a Lieutenant Kozeltsov, a seasoned officer who returns to Sebastopol after being wounded. Kozeltsov is a common-sense fellow, not high-born and is the kind of protagonist Tolstoy enjoys using as his narrative vehicle and to demonstrate the true Russian warrior (similar to the artillery captain in War and Peace). Sebastopol has changed greatly in the past eight months, with heavy damage from artillery fire and "all the pubs are closed ...its as cheerful as a morgue." This suggests a change from the carefree, adventurous view of war in the opening sections to a sober, war-is-hell-and-carnage' view. Kozeltsov is eventually sent out with his unit to one of the bastions under fire and we see that his relationship with his troops is quite good. He is up front with them in a bunker, not back in the rear playing cards and bad-mouthing them. Not all the officers up front are of the same caliber and Tolstoy notes those who display fake bravery, or stupid conceited bravery and those who are apathetic - sort of the bell curve of warfare. This section ends with a major French attack on the bastion, with dire consequences for the inhabitants (similar to the defense of the Raevsky Redoubt in War and Peace).

Penguin provides two maps in this edition, one of the Crimea and one of Sebastopol itself. Overall, the Sebastopol sketches is an excellent literary and historical effort and clearly written by someone who has experienced both the giddy exuberance and horror of war firsthand.

Everyone is spelling the name of the city wrong!
It is great that so many people are interested in the history of this city, but you are all spelling it wrong! The correct spelling is "Sevastopol", and "Sebastopol" is just a crazy American adaptation of it. The actual word is pronounced with a soft "L".

P.S.This is an AMAZING city to visit! I went there the summer before last, and had a wonderful time.
[...]

Tolstoy at War
The young Tolstoy took part in the defence of Sebastopol (1854-55) during the Crimean War, and these sketches (parts of which were written under fire) record his impressions of the drama and tumult of war. The first sketch, "Sebastopol in December" was published anonymously and attracted the attention of Tsar Alexander II and Turgenev. It is a short, emotionally patriotic piece recording the author's empathetic reaction to the bravery of the ordinary soldiers and sailors during the siege. "Sebastopol in May" is more ambitious and more ambiguous, recording the experiences of a group of Russian officers during an attack by the Allies on the 4th bastion of the defences, a position dreaded by everyone on the Russian side. There are no heroes in this piece, says Tolstoy, except "truth," as he depicts flawed human beings struggle to reconcile their petty vanities with the "higher" duties that have brought them to that terrible place. The final sketch, "Sebastopol in August," records the fall of Sebastopol through the eyes of the doomed Kozeltsov brothers and features some of the finest battle descriptions I have ever read. Tolstoy published it openly under his own name, and it seems to have helped him finally to choose literature rather than the army for his future career. "The Sebastopol Sketches" is a marvellous book not only for its own merits but also for the insight it gives us into a literary master trying out his wings for the first time.

a witness to many atrocities.
In 1855, Tolstoy was a soldier in the Crimean War and a witness to many atrocities. One that would stay with him was the image of two children killed in a shelling. His experiences during the war made up the contents of his work The Sebastopol Sketches, many of which he drafted on the battlefield.

The book is divide in three short stories stem from Tolstoy's military experience during the Crimean War: "Sebastopol in December," "Sebastopol in May," and "Sebastopol in August 1855."

During this time, the young Tolstoy gave himself over to the decadent life that was common for men of his class, catching a venereal disease as well as drinking heavily and sustaining enormous gambling debts which included the loss of some of his prized property at Yasnaya.

I really enjoy reading this book,Tolstoy's reactions to the fighting at Sebastopol are really crude, if you are interesting in The Crimean War but from the Russian side you may find what you are looking for in this great book ... Read more

Product Description
To anyone for whom Leo Tolstoy's masterpieces War and Peace and Anna Karenina have stood as giants too daunting to scale, and equally to the many readers who have devoured those novels and are hungry for more, we offer The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (81)

Face to face with dying
While Tolstoy is known for writing lengthy epics, so much so that his "War and Peace" is shorthand for that long book everyone wants to read but never does, his less than one hundred page punch to the metaphysical gut "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" may be his most important and powerful work.
Ivan Ilyich is, in many ways, the ideal man of society.Born with an even temper and pleasant disposition, though not charismatic, Ivan goes through life with the outlook of a protestant work horse.Study hard, work hard, apply yourself completely to your job, and direct your own goals towards those of society's- Ivan does all of these things, and while doing so, finds a wife, has children, and continues to advance his own life while constantly doing what he knows he is supposed to do.He is undoubtedly driven, but even when he finds himself working a job with immense power, he uses this power judiciously and thoughtfully, never once abusing it.Even when his wife turns into a jealous, spiteful woman, Ivan makes the best of this situation, and maintains the marriage out of respect for the institution.
Then, one day, Ivan becomes ill.Pain slowly creeps into his life, and steadily over a period of months, his health declines until he has no choice but to take to the bed and essentially stop living.It is at this point that the book begins to pack an emotional wallop as Tolstoy takes his carefully crafted portrait of a man and begins tearing it to pieces.Ivan, as it turns out, is not happy and faced, for the first time in his life, with the inevitability of death, falls to pieces.
The spiritual and metaphysical crisis Ivan confronts is devastating, and undergoing the same crisis himself while writing this book, Tolstoy conveys it with an immediacy and intimacy that almost makes it too much to read.Tolstoy also glimpses into the thoughts of those surrounding Ivan and what he reveals- the uncomfortableness of his family, the impatience of those tired of waiting around for Ivan to die- lend an even more disturbing yet sadly realistic tone to the drama.
Only 82 pages in length, "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" manages to address numerous issues, both personal and societal.Unsettling yes, but Tolstoy has created a masterpiece that captures the complexities and at times horrors of humankind's mortality.

page turner
I enjoyed the book very much, even though at first it was just for a class assignment I found myself reading ahead and finishing the book

Darkly compelling
Leo Tolstoy has managed to write a novella rich in language, imagery, and the theme of death.Read it once years ago in college and I was so moved by it that I read it again just recently.It's a haunting piece of fiction.And the final and haunting scene will stay with you forever.

Deep...
A real classics and a must read for anyone. What if we all lived our whole lives wrong...?

A Kiss For Russia
These sentiments, how antediluvian they are: that childhood, blissfully ignorant of society and responsibility is pure, joyful; that the further we drift away from that state, the more we find ourselves in the construction of society, the mask that hides authenticity.And that is what it's about: authenticity.Is it not easy to claim childhood as authentic, natural?In literature, how common it is to find an author exploring this idea of truth in an environment of illusion, yet how fresh and enjoyable Tolstoy is in THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYICH.Our protagonist, Ivan Ilyich, is not unlike many others: he lives a life of propriety, is wealthy, and has a family but finds himself woefully unhappy.He attempts to smother misery by focusing on work and happens to stumble upon contentedness.That is until the presence of death makes itself known.Ah how it changes it all.A familiar plot, true; a familiar character, sure.I cannot say it enough, though: how fresh and enjoyable Tolstoy is.

Through excellent pacing, we are introduced to details and characters allows us to view in our mind's eye scenes so vivid, so fascinating.I cannot help but adulate the talent displayed in achieving this effect.Whereas other writers either describe too much--we are forced to imagine more than necessary--or too little--we are given a vague setting--Leo Tolstoy manages to balance the exterior of a scene with the interior in a way where the power of words is attested.Excuse me, but films will never triumph over the strength a skilled writer has when he or she properly navigates our imaginations, make the foreign unique to ourselves, special.

If you wish to experience happiness, do not read this story.The beginning of the tale affirms that each individual must experience his or her own epiphany; Piotr Ivanovich looks at Ivan Ilyich and thinks, "Not me," as Ivan Ilyich thought of Caius and said, "Not me."However, it is a book I would wholly recommend to anybody.Its prose is not ostentatious and its themes are easy to identify with.As a nice surprise, the book cannot help but swerve into the emotional mind of the protagonist as it did in ANNA KARENINA with Anna.And like ANNA KARENINA, the result awesome.Again: the power of words.Again: read it. ... Read more

Product Description
These four novellas--Family Happiness, The Kreutzer Sonata, The Cossacks, and Hadji Murad--each unique in form, show Tolstoy at his creative height. This edition uses the acclaimed Maude translations, (except for Family Happiness, translated by J.D. Huff), modernized and corrected against modern Russian editions to create this English language version. While the Afterword to The Kreutzer Sonata appears for the first time in English with the story. The explanatory notes and substantial introduction use the most recent scholarship in the field to further illuminate Tolstoy's works of shorter fiction. ... Read more

Product Description
The year is 1910. Anna Karenina and War and Peace have made Leo Tolstoy the world's most famous author. But fame comes at a price. In this fascinating look at a tortured genius on the eve of death, Jay Parini presents Tolstoy's autobiographical writing alongside letters from loved ones to paint a portrait of the great author's final year. Desperate to find respite from his troubled marriage, Tolstoy ventures into the wilderness in search of isolation, only to find a battle for his soul and legacy that offers no peace. Last Steps puts a literary giant's life and work in perspective as it bears witness to his struggle to reconcile the two. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Last Steps is a collection of essays, letters, diary entries and short tales by the world's greatest novelist Count Leo Tolstoy
Last Steps is an excellent collection of short works by Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) compiled by Dr. Jay Parini and other editors. Parini has an excellent introduction to Tolstoy. Parnini has written a fine novel "The Last Station" dealing with the final days of the Russian master; the novel has been turned into a fine film starring Vanessa Redgrave as Mrs. Tolstoy and Christopher Plummer as Tolstoy.
In these final flashes of genius from Tolstoy's pen we see his views on a variety of topics. Tolstoy was excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church since he hated church ritual, tradition and superstition. His letter to the Church following his excommunication and advice to the clergy is contained within these pages. Tolstoy believed in Christ as a great teacher who taught humanity to live together in peace and brotherhood. Tolstoy's letter to Gandhi regarding the importance of nonresistance is included in the volume. Tolstoy also was against war and government. While an aristocrat he, nevertheless, championed the cause of the Russian peasant and felt land should be redstributed to them. He was against the use of tobacco and the eating of meat. His description of a visit to a slaughterhouse is vivid and one grieves for the plight of the poor beasts suffering under knout and knife. Tolstoy advocated chastity and kindness to one's fellows.
The longest piece in this book is his analysis of Shakespeare focusing on the play "King Lear." Tolsoty thought Shakespeare was wrong to turn the attention of the audience from topics of morality to secular themes. His opinion while influential is very controversial. His letters to George Bernard Shaw are of interest. He thought Shaw was too facile and entertaining a playwright; drama should be devoted to exploring topics of serious interest to the human soul.
Tolstoy's short story about the life of a simple peasant is included in the book as well as letters he wrote to several of his family members. Tolstoy had 13 children; he admonished his sons to avoid wine, women and song. Letters to them are included. Tolstoy and his wife of 50 years did not get along and he fled his estate dying in a railroad station on November 7, 1910. Pages from the diary he kept in old age reveal him as growing distant from his wife as he disliked her materialism and quarrelsome behavior. He sought refuge in matters of the spirit. His family was often a source of misery to Tolstoy. In his own youth he had been wild frequenting brothels, drinking to excess and carousing far into the night. He forsook this life in his final years becoming a spiritual mentor to followers.
Count Leo Tolstoy is a giant in world literature and his radical Christian vision calling for peace, brotherhood and love are worth listening to and thinking about. He was not only a great author of such classics as "War and Peace"; "Anna Karenina"; "Resurrection" but a great and good Christian soul!
A short but excellent collection well worth your money and time! Spend time with one of the giants and learn his lessons of faith, hope and love! ... Read more

Product Description
Written over a period of more than half a century, these stories reflect every aspect of Tolstoy's art and personality. They cover his experiences as a soldier in the Caucasus, his married life, his passionate interest in the peasantry, his cult of truth adn simplicity, and, above all, his growing preoccupation with religion. Ranging in scope from novellas like The Kreutzer Sonata and Hadji Murad to folk-tales only a few pages long, they provide a marvelous opportunity to become closely acquainted with Russia's great novelist. Aylmer and Louise Maude's classic translations are supplemented by new translations by Nigel J. Cooper of six stories, including two that have never before appeared in English. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Leo Tolstoy 's Collected Shorter Fiction: Volume I
This book by Leo Tolstoy is great for reading in installments. I like reading several books at a time and switch back and forth. So short stories works great! His writing is like photography. This edition is from Everyman's Library and I am quite pleased.

classic read
A gift for the classic reader.The pages are thin which makes reading difficult for the older reader.

Wonderful Stories
Both these volumes are a treasure.Volume 2 contains much of Tolstoy's later short works that emphasize a Christian simplicity.The Stories incude the famous "Where Love Is, God Is" sometimes refered to as Martin the Cobbler, as well as "How Much Land Does a Man Need?", "The Kruezer Sonata", and "The Death of Ivan Ilych", among many others.These stories are thought provoking and a joy to read.

Tolstoy's Collected Shorter Fiction-Vol. 2
This is an excellent translation of some of Tolstoy's shorter fiction.The binding is also excellent, which makes this particular collection a wonderful gift to someone who enjoys Tolstoy, or a delicious treasure to savor for oneself.For those who can be intimidated by the longer (much longer) works, this is a fine introduction to Tolstoy's voice and worldview.I recommend this edition unreservedly.

TOLSTOY, THE IMMORTAL STORYTELLER!!!!!
What a beautiful set of volumes!! All of Leo Tolstoy's great, great shorter works all in one two volume set! Leo Tolstoy was a perfect storyteller. When you look at a photo or portrait of Tolstoy in his later years, you see that lovable, wise old man who, when he is not helping others, sits on an old chair in the corner of the tavern, attracting all that pass by with his beautiful tales. He has touched many with his two great novels, War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1878), he has touched even more with his wonderful short stories. When you start reading these lovely short stories, you can just see that lovable image of the wise old Tolstoy telling a story, with his shaggy, long white beard, and his friendly eyes with a laughing fire in them burning out from beneath the bushy eyebrows smiling down at you, a small child, laughing on his knee.

He was the perfect novelist, reveared by many, equally great and legendary. In his time, Dostoyevsky called him, "The greatest living novelist." Virginia Woolf referred to Tolstoy as follows, "There remains the greatest of all novelists, for what else can we call the author of War and Peace?!"

Tolstoy's short stories usually have a moral in it such as the lovely short story, "Where Love is, God is." In that, there is a lonely old cobbler named Martin who finds God in the good deeds he does and is reminded of God's love for man.

This two volume set is not perfect as it does not have Tolstoy's early 1862 masterpiece, The Cossacks. I guess that was just too big to fit into the Collected SHORTER Fiction.

That is only a minor quibble. The beauty and marvel frothing and bubbling from the other stories in this precious set dwarf that complaint and make this reviewer forget of having even thought about mentioning it at all.

Buy this set. You will treasure it for the rest of your days and will always look forward to pulling out one of these two volumes off your shelf, blowing off the dust and partaking in the magic of Tolstoy, the wise old storyteller. ... Read more

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i Full Title 9781605208114_INTF iiCopyright9781605208114_INTF iii Quote9781605208114_INTF ivBlank(s) 9781605208114_INTF v - 236 Text 9781605208114_INTM, from CD to come237 Cosimo Ad9781605208114_INTB 238 Blank(s) 9781605208114_INTB ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Tolstoy - a must read.
In my opinion, his writtings aren't for everyone; but I feel everyone is ment for his writtings.

Riddled with Typo's
The first page of this edition kindly asks the reader to "forgive any spelling mistakes [and]missing or extraneous characters."This edition is riddled with errors.A sentence on page 7 reads "I understand that Jesus in-noj$a$ commands me to turn the other cheek and to give upmyC(Jat, for sheer sufFering-'s sake; but commands me not to resiStrevil, and warns me that my obedience may entail suffering."I strongly encourage you to buy a different edition of this book that is readable.

Apology for Pacifism
Tolstoy complains theologians transformed the commands of Christ into meaning commands that could be practically followed by men in the world.

Out of respect for the same theologians he then goes on to downgrade Christ's command to "love one's enemies" into his practical doctrine of pacifism that man is able to follow.

Tolstoy confidently asserts that his liberating work, "What I Believe", has corrected eighteen centuries of misinterpretation of Christ's teachings by Christendom.His hubris knows no bounds by going on to deny the divinity of Christ.One gets the impression that Tolstoy thinks his book is a better Gospel of Christ than what is offered in the Cannon.

Practically speaking, Tolstoy would have been more productive to mankind completing War and Peace, leaving theology to those who study it.

Eye opening
If you love learning about world religion and looking for insight into why religion today is what it is, this is a wonderful comparative literature that is truly well researched, though out, and controversial.It was a really hard book to find, banned for many years.It is the book that inspired Gandhi to become the man that changed India.It explores the personal stuggles of Tolstoy and is not his characteristic writing style.Easy to read and very understandable.It is a thought provoking and wonderful book. ... Read more

Product Description
Widely considered the greatest novel ever written in any language, War and Peace has as its backdrop Napoleon’s invasion of Russia and at its heart three of the most memorable characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, a quixotic young man in search of spiritual joy; Prince Andrey Bolkonsky, a cynical intellectual transformed by the suffering of war; and the bewitching and impulsive Natasha Rostov, daughter of a count. As they seek fulfillment, fall in love, make mistakes, and become scarred by battle in different ways, these characters and their stories interweave with those of a huge cast, from aristocrats to peasants, from soldiers to Napoleon himself.

In this first English translation in more than forty years, Anthony Briggs faithfully reveals Tolstoy’s art in stirring prose, clearing up ambiguities that have plagued many modern translations. This volume also includes an afterword by eminent historian Orlando Figes, a list of characters, descriptions of the three main battles, chapter summaries, and notes. Both epic and intimate, a compassionate portrait of humanity and an engrossing read, this is the War and Peace of choice for a whole new generation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (23)

Recently re-read. Timeless.
I'm more than satisfied with the new translation of Tolstoy's War and Peace. While I have grown up with the Garnett and Maude translations, I am pleased by the clear, smooth style of this new version, especially in the use of dialogue by the soldiers and the conversations in general. The publishers have also given us a clean type style and the pages have wide gutters for reading ease. It's a huge edition of over 1400 pages, but it's easy to hold and read. Long live Leo Tolstoy!

Classic
This is a great translation of the book.This is the first copy I have purchased, but the language is fantastic - not sure how accurate it is compared to the original, but it reads great.Definately not a book for the average reader - its massive.Over 1300 pages.If size scares you, this probably isn't the book for you. :)

Modernized Tolstoy Incredulous
Briggs translation desecrates the hallowed masterpiece. To modernize Tolstoy's text does more injustice to him than if his work had never been popularized. Why not just say, "Woo Hoo" and be done. Tolstoy is to be savored as literature, not popularized for the masses of high school students who will never read him anyway -- there are no witches or draculas. Do not degrade art - or should we just have fill-in-the-blank versions so it sounds however we would like? Do not read this version.

Briggs translation: complete, unabridged, and superbly rendered
This review of the Briggs translation of "War and Peace" is broken down into two segments, a Descriptive Summary and an Evaluative Summary. If you're already very familiar with the story, you may wish to skip directly to the latter facet of my review which is essentially the critique of this particular volume/translation.

DESCRIPTIVE SUMMARY:

In 1805, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Austria to expand his European empire. Russia, being an ally of Austria, stood with their brethren against the infamous Emperor. Napoleon prevailed and a treaty was ultimately signed at Tilsit. In 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia, again in an effort to expand his empire. The end result of this tragic war was that Napoleon's army of about 600,000 soldiers was reduced to roughly 60,000 men as the defamed Emperor raced from Moscow (which he had taken), back across the frozen Russian tundra in his carriage (leaving his troops behind to fend for themselves) for Paris. That encapsulizes the military aspect of this work.

But the more intricate story involves both the activities and the peccadillos of, primarily, three Russian families of nobility: The Rostovs, the Bolkonskys, and the Bezukovs. The continual thorn of "The Antichrist," Napoleon, really just provides the wallpaper for this story of romance, riches, desolation, love, jealousy, hatred, retribution, joy, naiivety, stupidity and so much more. Tolstoy has woven an incredibly intricate web that interconnects these noble families, the wars, and the common Russian people to a degree that would seem incomprehensible to achieve -- but Tolstoy perseveres with superb clarity and great insight to the human psyche. His characters are timeless and the reader who has any social experience whatever will immediately connect with them all.

In his Epilogue, Tolstoy yields us a shrewd dissertation on the behavior of large organizations, much of it by way of analogy. It's actually an oblique, often sarcastic, commentary on the lunacy of government activities and the madness of their wars.

"War and Peace" is a fictional, lengthy novel, based upon historical fact.

EVALUATIVE SUMMARY:

Anthony Briggs, the translator of this edition, is a former Professor of Russian at the University of Birmingham, (Edgbaston, 26,000 students), coupled with the fact that he has previously translated many other literary works from their original Russian language. Overall, his 2005 translation is a fluid, easy-to-read version of "War and Peace".

Having previously read the stalwart Maude translation (twice) and the new (2007)Pevear-Volokhonsky translation I feel compelled to state that that I'm very pleased and impressed with Briggs' smooth, modern-language translation, (which is also devoid of any anachronistic or modern "buzzwords"), and, I'm even more copasetic with the book's straightforward layout. The main text of the Viking Adult version is nicely supplemented with 4 detailed maps, a list of principals (both fictional and non-fictional), and 2 commentaries, all at the rear of the text. There is NO introduction by the translator and it's a direct read -- rendered entirely in English with almost no footnotes to bother with. There are historically-oriented endnotes but, as they are at the finale of the work, I found them useful, yet not distracting. The book is almost exactly the same size and weight as the P-V translation, (3.8 pounds, pretty hefty), with a beautiful white sewn binding and with a white dust jacket. (Penguin offers two alternative bindings of the Briggs translation as well).

One of the few early complaints I heard on Briggs is that he "British-ized" the dialogue, using words like "mate" as soldiers address one another... so it's not written in "American" English. This fact, too, probably doomed him a bit in pecuniary terms, at least in the USA. But that is a very small caveat and I was not in the least distracted by this actuality. As Briggs pointed out in his commentary, (paraphrasing), he had to choose an English dialect to translate it TO and, since he himself was English, that was the vernacular which he chose to utilize. This makes total sense to me and the actual instances of these "British-izations" of the language are actually few and far between.

Some others have criticized Briggs for eliminating the French entries (Briggs renders the entire work, unabridged, in English), thus eliminating the need for footnotes that we see in other translations which yield the English translation of the French script. Briggs does, however, shrewdly let us know, (by working it into the text), when a particular dialogue or letter was originally written by Tolstoy in French where this fact is either relevant or important for the reader to know. Honestly, the "straight English" text is much of the beauty of this volume for the casual reader because it's notably less distracting. Those who wish to read "War and Peace" for some academic or scholarly purpose would be better served by reading either the Maude or P-V translations since both maintain the French entries, with English translations in the footnotes, the French being roughly two percent of the entire book.

In summary, if you are looking for a complete and unabridged, easy-to-read version of "War and Peace" which features modern language, the Briggs translation would be a fine choice.

Best translation for first time reader
For the first time reader, Brigg's translation is the one to get. I just taught an adult Lifelong Learning class on this novel and neither my class nor I had read it before.The Briggs' translation has an elegant straightforwardness that helps make this novel a pleasure to read.

War & Peace is difficult to read because of its length and number of characters.With the unfamiliar Russian names, my class found it hard to keep track of who was who.The Briggs' book has a section on characters to help this problem.There is also a summary by chapter that is very helpful.When my students started to falter because of the length, I told them to read the section "On War and Peace" by Briggs in the book to inspire them to finish it.It inspired me. ... Read more

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Drama / Continental European; Drama / General; Drama / Continental European; ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

One sin leads to another, such is the power of darkness
The women in this five act morality play have problems with their men and are determined to outwit them and get their ways by any means. (1) Ansya is married to Peter who is much older than she, is sickly, and unable to work. She is in love with their laborer Nikta, who does not work hard because he knows that he is protected because his mistress loves him, but he plays around with other women, and has gotten a girl, Marna, pregnant. (2) Nikta's mother knows about his relationship with Ansya and wants it to continue, figuring that Peter will soon die and her son will marry Ansya and become master of Peter's large estate. She gives Ansya pills to kill Peter. Nikta's mother detests her husband Akm who is mentally challenged, who works with manure, and smells badly. Her husband believes that Nikta impregnated Marna and wants Nikta to marry her. Nikta denies he did anything wrong. (3) Marna is hurt and angry because Nikta abandoned her for Ansya. (4) Ansya step-daughter, Peter's daughter Akoulna also wants to marry Nikta and is also angry with Ansya because of Nikta's relationship with her.
As Tolstoy likes to say, One sin draws another. This is what he meant by the "Power of Darkness," the title of the play. Peter dies from the pills and Ansya marries Nikta. Nikta's mother tells him how to control Ansya's inheritance. Nikta turns into a drunken brute who beats or ignores his wife, takes up with her step daughter Akoulna, buys Akoulna expensive clothing and says he loves her. Meanwhile, Marna, who was carrying Nikta's baby and who did nothing wrong, other than being seduced by Nikta, marries a rich landowner and is happy.
In the fourth act, about a year later, Akoulna has a baby by Nikta. His mother and Ansya decide to kill it so that Akoulna's reputation would not be ruined and she could marry another man and be taken away from Nikta. Tolstoy tells about the murder of the baby in two versions; one reads like Edgar Allan Poe's Tell Tale Heart. The fifth act describes more about the horror-filled "darkness" into which Nikta fell.

"One must not forget God"
Tolstoy's 1886 drama is true to the nature of the later works which adhere to his own particular reading of Christian thought and his interest in educational reform, but, typically for Tolstoy, that doesn't mean that there is anything at all comforting or idealized about the events that take place in The Power of Darkness, a drama that recounts the corrupt and depraved activities of one godless family.

The wife of the family, Anisya, has been carrying on with one of the servants, Nikita, who is a bit of a ladies man.Nikita's father knows however that his son has been seeing a girl who works as a cook at an inn, and wants to marry him off to do the decent thing and "cover the sin".Nikita's mother however knows of his dealings with Anisya and knowing that there is money and a rise in position if her son can take the place of her husband.Knowing Anisya's weakness for Nikita, she provides her with some powders to add to his tea to clear the way towards this end.There are however worse horrors to be enacted as the sins become compounded by other perverse unions.

Tolstoy doesn't hold back from depicting the kind of corruption that occurs in those who have forgotten God - lust, debauchery, drunkenness, usury (the denunciation of bankers and their ill-gotten gains is tackled here long before it became fashionable to do so in the current economic climate) - all of it leading to the most heinous of murders and crimes.The worst transgressions however are those that are instigated by women, their lusts and machinations truly knowing no bounds.The fault, Tolstoy would seem to say, lies not in their nature, but in their poverty, upbringing, lack of education and the absence of God in their lives.The depths of depravity that follow from this lack of moral direction is depicted in a way that is realistic and true (one need only look at the recent press for many similar shocking child abuse and mortality cases), but Tolstoy offers the hope that the cycle can be broken and forgiveness can be achieved.

Tolstoy's Memorable "Peasant Tragedy" Of Poverty, Ignorance, and Murder
Today Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) is best known for his novels WAR AND PEACE and ANNA KARENINA; during his lifetime, however, he was also noted as a playwright, and in this direction he is best recalled for the dramas REDEMPTION (also known as THE LIVING CORPSE) and THE POWER OF DARKNESS.Of the two, REDEMPTION continues to be performed to present day; while it is occasionally performed in fine art and academic circles, THE POWER OF DARKNESS is more often read than staged.

Written in 1886, DARKNESS was and is considered remarkably gruesome, and it was almost instantly banned in Russia.It fell to the New York stage to give the drama its best known success, first in a 1904 Yiddish version and then in a 1920 English translation.The story, usually described as "a peasant tragedy," concerns Nikita, who works as a hired man for a wealthy peasant and who has an affair with his employer's wife, Anisya.Frustrated by her husband's task-master attitude and stinginess, Anisya poisons her husband, assuming that she and Nikita will enjoy the future together.But Anisya has miscalculated in her estimation of Nikita's character; she has merely traded one unpleasant husband for another, and when Nikita seduces Anisya's stepdaughter another murder--a particularly ghastly one--is the result.

Tolstoy's portrait of poverty, ignorance, and cruelty foreshadows two plays which would cast a very long shadow over western theatre: Gorky's THE LOWER DEPTHS and, most particularly, Eugene O'Neill's DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS.As might be expected of Tolstoy, who was something of a philospher and whose writings tended toward the diadactic, a good portion of the play deals in issues of right and wrong, Godly and ungodly, and the need for personal repudiation of evil, redemption, and forgiveness.But while heavenly forgiveness might be a possibility for the characters of the play, human forgiveness is not, and the play ends on the darkest note imaginable.

THE POWER OF DARKNESS is generally thought of as one of Tolstoy's minor works, and truly it pales in comparison with his obvious masterpeices; it is also worth pointing out that Tolstoy's great gift was no so much for dramatic literature as it was for the narrative form.Nonetheless, THE POWER OF DARKNESS is a memorable playscript; any one interested in Russian literature, dramatic literature, or Tolstoy in general will find it compelling.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer ... Read more

Product Description
Classic Russian short stories. According to Wikipedia: "As a fiction writer, Tolstoy is widely regarded as one of the greatest of all novelists, particularly noted for his masterpieces War and Peace and Anna Karenina. In their scope, breadth and realistic depiction of 19th-century Russian life, the two books stand at the peak of realist fiction. As a moral philosopher Tolstoy was notable for his ideas on nonviolent resistance through works such as The Kingdom of God is Within You, which in turn influenced such twentieth-century figures as Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A wonderful story
I am surprised when I read such a straight forward, small book by such a famous author.The lessons in this book are worth knowing, and it is very easy to read. ... Read more

Product Description
This work is bound to influence the readers due to its splendid collection of heart-touching tales. Revolving around the themes of human psyche, history and social values, the work depicts Tolstoy's interest in genuine and praiseworthy family values. His brilliance is evident from his portrayal of the situations and circumstances. Impressive!

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Customer Reviews (5)

The Forged Coupon

This edition has quite a few typos, run-on words, even a paragraph that was divided by another paragraph in just the first 20 pages that we have read so far.

Temptations of purity
vgraine's summary of the novella's plot line doesn't have to be repeated, but the collection as a whole is very nicely done for a free download, and even if one disagrees with Tolstoy's premise, as I do, his metaphysical pushback against material gratification is somehow necessary, at least for the Russian soul. I have my issues with Tolstoy, and do not care for the message of Anna Karenina in its entire, but this quiet collection in his maturity asks us, I believe, not to be so grounded in certainty--and here the woman with the child out of wedlock survives, as opposed to throwing herself under a train--perhaps Tolstoy's realization that on balance, Levin and Anna were not given the same opportunities to pull themselves through.

More than anything else, The Forged Coupon reconciles me, in small doses, to Tolstoy's stubborn insistence that a Christianty based on humbled peasant simplicity is somehow incorruptible. All religions are human systems, and he comes closest to remembering that here.

for every action there is a reaction
This brief novel, which does rather diminish into a sermon, nevertheless introduces a rich and varied range of characters. All of them are shown in terms of what they do or what happens to them. In either case there may be good, there may be evil. Regardless of which, there will always be reactions, responses, outcomes. And it's not necessary that evil actions beget evil responses, or that good actions have fortunate outcomes.

The story also spreads across the continent and, like the famous butterfly flapping its wings on the other side of the world, the impacts are far-reaching and unanticipatable.

A perhaps greater novel slopped out here in 88 pages
After reading THE FORGED COUPON, I concluded that Leo Tolstoy would have me believe that if I cut off some other motorist on the freeway tomorrow, the anger I generate in that other driver could reverberate from individual to individual and eventually cause someone halfway around the world having a bad hair day to push the Nuclear Button. Thank goodness I'm not paranoid!

The premise of Tolstoy's last short novel, written in 1904, is that the effects of individual actions, whether good or bad, ripple through society causing unexpected consequences far removed in time and place from the original deed. THE FORGED COUPON begins with a father angrily denying his son an advance on his allowance, causing the latter to forge an inflated value on the coupon he's given instead. (In the storyline's time and place, coupons clipped from interest-bearing documents were commonly used as money.) The eventual repercussions of this act provide the background against which Tolstoy lashes out against the flaws he perceived in pre-Revolution Russian society: upper class greed, the oppression of the peasant class, the spiritual and moral bankruptcy of the Russian Orthodox Church, the unfairness of the justice system, and the intellectual banality of the political leadership up to and including the Tsar. As a solution to his societyís ills, the author proposes a return to Christian fundamentalism based solely on scripture, and fictionally illustrates how acts grounded in such can be just as influential in the long term as those generated by mankind's baser motives.

The reader will perhaps find truths in THE FORGED COUPON depending on his/her personal value system. But is the book well done? The front cover of my edition calls it "a classic tale of crime and guilt". Well, it's certainly a tale of crime and guilt, but it misses being classic simply because it's too short. It's as if Tolstoy, who died in 1910, realized his life was coming to a close and thought he'd better crank this one out in a hurry. Had he taken the time to expand the novel to several hundred pages and develop the characters and storyline more, it perhaps would have had more impact. THE FORGED COUPON comes across as a rush job. Indeed, the CliffsNotes version is probably longer than the 88 pages of my edition of the original. Its greatest value was to provide me with some small insight into Russian social structure of the period - a structure swept away forever in the next decade by World War One and the revolutions of 1917.

What goes around...
Short, simple, and yet truly profound, The Forged Coupon reads like Tolstoy's last wish for humanity; compassion, kindness, and responsibility toward our fellow man/woman.

Young Fedor Mikhailovich needs money to repay a debt.After his father angrily refuses to give him any more money, Fedor simply changes a $2.50 note to read $12.50.What follows is an intricate tale of how one evil deed, one selfish act, affects the lives of dozens of others.Tolstoy wrote this novella in his last years, after his excommunication, and he relishes the chance to unveil the pseudo-piety and hypocrisy of organized religion.Yet, his belief in the individual's capacity to find truth is unwavering.Regardless of the theological overtones, however, this novella is priceless for its Aesopian message...that every act, good or bad, goes out into the world like so many ripples.

I give The Forged Coupon four stars only because The Death of Ivan Illych is superior.Still, I wouldn't want my bookshelf to be without this work from the master. ... Read more

Product Description
The works of Tolstoy in one giant collection with an active table of contents.

Anna Karenina
The Awakening
Bethink Yourselves
Boyhood
The Cause of it All
Childhood
A Confession
The Cossacks
The Death of Ivan Ilych
Family Happiness
Father Sergius
The First Distiller
The Forged Coupon
Fruits of Culture
Kingdom of God is Within You
A Letter to a Hindu
The Light Shines in Darkness
The Live Corpse
Master and Man
On the Significance of Science and Art
The Power of Darkness
Redemption and Two Other Plays
Resurrection
Thoughts Evoked By the Census of Moscow
Tolstoy on Shakespeare
War and Peace
What Men Live By
What to Do?
Youth ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Fantastic
Munch munch munch. So much to read, so much to digest. 1 lifetime is not enough to read, understand, and apply what is contained in this book. A brilliant mind, clear writer and sensitive conscience. Bang for buck and thought per page, you are not going to do much better than this.

Table of contents NOT active
The table of contents is NOT active as the heading suggests. There is no way to navigate from one book to the next. The only way I was able to find the second book was to tediously play around with the "go to location" function. I spent 20 min. doing so. I would have much rather been reading the book.I would not recommend this title for that reason. The description should be changed.

After writing the above review I played around a bit more and found a table of contents immediately after the title page.This table of contents was active and made the book very readable. The problem is that when you access the book from the home page for the first time it takes you to place after the aforementioned table of content. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description
Often called the greatest novel ever written, War and Peace is at once an epic of the Napoleonic Wars, a philosophical study, and a celebration of the Russian spirit. Tolstoy's genius is seen clearly in the multitude of fully realized and equally memorable characters that populate this massive chronicle. Out of this complex narrative emerges a profound examination of the individual's place in the historical process, one that makes it clear why Thomas Mann praised Tolstoy for his Homeric powers and placed War and Peace in the same category as the Iliad: "To read him . . . is to find one's way home . . . to everything within us that is fundamental and sane." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Wonderful
Tolstoy is a great writer.

If awards were given out for really long books this one would do well.But if you are enjoying a good book, you appreciate it being long!

War and Peace...a lucid commntary on the 20th and 21st Centuries
The Library Classic is avery handy, readable and clear edition of this classic.I had never read the Tolstoy's War and Peace until I made this order.The translation from Russian to English is so clear and real.1400 pages in length but it is not a slog or slow read.It does take time.It is a wonderful novel.

awesome
Awesome, much more enjoyable than Anna Karenina in my opinion. Don't get put down by the high number of pages as it is an easy read and it is like a great movie, you will be sad to finish reading it so soon no matter how long it will take. Classic reviews point to the number of characters and the use of their different patronyms as a difficulty. This may be an issue to some, but I have not minded or even noticed it as such. Movies that have been made on this novel make it appear as stuffy as an old valse. Don't be mistaken by this false impression, it is a very modern novel. The historical background and the position that Tolstoï takes on the war are fascinating. I am sorry that I did not read this novel sooner. As an old classic it is available for free on the internet. My review applies to the French edition downloaded from gutenberg.org, by the way quite an excellent translation. Read it today !

One of the greatest novels ever written
Count Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828 and died in 1910. He gave up his university studies, became a soldier among the Cossacks, traveled abroad and experimented along Rousseaesque lines with education. He was a seeker after truth and ultimate meaning as a justification for existence, a moralist with a great love and appetite for life. Apart from War and Peace he wrote a second novel, Anna Kerenina, selected esays, two short novels and a collection of short stories.
Perhaps if Adolf Hitler had read War and Peace, he would never have invaded Russia because he suffered the same fate that befel Napoleon's armies at the gates of Moscow, when they were trapped by the onset of the severe Russian winter and forced to retreat - and ultimate ignominous defeat by the Russian forces under General Kutuzov. Hitler's armies lost 300000 men in their retreat from Stalingrad in 1942, defeated by The Red Army under the command of General Chuikov.
At the time War and Peace was written Russia was ruled by Alexander 1, grandson of Catherine the Great. It was a feudal, religious and mystical society, controlled and managed by landlords and the aristocracy, to which Tolstoy belonged.
The main characters in the novel are these aristocrats, Princes and Princesses, who discuss and deal with political, social, familial and religious matters at soirees and in the drawing-room, where the story begins. The tone is set by Prince Vassily, affecting nonchalance, discusses the appointment of a Baron Funke by empress of Austria as first secretary to the Vienna legation. "He is a poor creature . . ."
We meet P1erre, along with Natasha are the main characters in the novel, Pierre is a seeker after truth, patterned it seems on Tolstoy himself. His troubled love for Natasha is a wonderfully envisaged and developed parallel theme.
Translated by Constance Garnett in the three parts, complete and unabridged in one volume, War and Peace is impossible to summarize due to its immensity and grandeur, the huge cast of characters, the interplay of personal relationships and their involvement in the inexorable historical and cataclysmic events that took place between 1812 and 1813.The Learning Process: Some Creative Impressions

The Garnett Translation, "The Woman's Touch!" (Modern Library ed.)
This review is broken down into two segments, a Descriptive Summary and an Evaluative Summary. If you're already very familiar with the story of "War and Peace," you may wish to skip directly to the latter facet of my review which is essentially the critique of the Constance Garnett translation.

DESCRIPTIVE SUMMARY:

In 1805, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Austria to expand his European empire. Russia, being an ally of Austria, stood with their brethren against the infamous Emperor. Napoleon prevailed and a treaty was ultimately signed at Tilsit. In 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia, again in an effort to expand his empire. The end result of this tragic war was that Napoleon's army of about 600,000 soldiers was reduced to roughly 60,000 men as the defamed Emperor raced from Moscow (which he had taken), back across the frozen Russian tundra in his carriage (leaving his troops behind to fend for themselves) for Paris. That encapsulizes the military aspect of this work.

But the more intricate story involves both the activities and the peccadillos of, primarily, three Russian families of nobility: The Rostovs, the Bolkonskys, and the Bezukovs. The continual thorn of "The Antichrist," Napoleon, really just provides the wallpaper for this story of romance, riches, desolation, love, jealousy, hatred, retribution, joy, naiivety, stupidity, and so much more.

Tolstoy has woven an incredibly intricate web that interconnects these noble families, the wars, and the common Russian people to a degree that would seem incomprehensible to achieve - but Tolstoy perseveres with superb clarity and great insight to the human psyche. His characters are timeless and the reader who has any social experience whatever will immediately connect with them all.

"War and Peace" is a fictional, lengthy novel, based upon historical fact.

In his Epilogue, Tolstoy yields us a shrewd dissertation on the behavior of large organizations, much of it by way of analogy. It's actually an oblique, often sarcastic, commentary on the lunacy of government activities and the madness of their wars.


EVALUATIVE SUMMARY:

The Garnett translation has probably come under more fire than any of the others, purportedly for inaccuracies of what Tolstoy supposedly actually said. This is possibly true, but as I do not speak Russian, I can neither confirm nor deny this allegation. But I will point out that there are two types of translations -- the one is rigid and runs word for word correctly, and the second type focuses more upon manifesting the essence of a story... The Big Picture, so to speak. The Garnett translation falls into the latter category.

I can make one particular and certain observation regarding this volume: Garnett's handling of the more poetic and epic events in the novel is masterful. Even if her translation is not word-for-word correct, I'm sure that she was very plugged into the vision which Tolstoy was trying to convey. You'll see this actuality blossom in the following places, for instance: "Petya's dream"; the view of Moscow on the morning of Napoleon's approach; the "scrying" episode between Natasha and Sonya; The wolf hunt... and so on. I think it's "The Woman's Touch," coming through, which is a good thing.

Constance Garnett published her version of "War and Peace" in 1904, so this was one of the early ones. Other translations into English include:

Clara Bell (from a French version) 1885-86
W. H. Dole 1889
Leo Wiener 1904
Louise and Aylmer Maude (1922-3)
Princess Alexandra Kropotkin (1949)
Manuel Komroff (Abridged) (1956)
Rosemary Edmonds (1957, revised 1978)
Ann Dunnigan (1968)
Anthony Briggs (2005)
Andrew Bromfield (2007), (translation of an early draft, approx. 400 pages shorter than other English translations.)
Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (October 16, 2007)

Wikipedia cites this information about Garnett [edited]:

"She was initially educated at Brighton and Hove High School. Afterwards she studied Latin and Greek at Newnham College, Cambridge on a government scholarship, where she also learned Russian (partly from émigré Russian friends such as Felix Volkonsky [Rubenstein]), and worked briefly as a school teacher.

In 1893, shortly after a visit to Moscow, Petersburg and Yasnaya Polyana where she met Leo Tolstoy, she was inspired to start translating Russian literature, which became her life's passion and resulted in English-language versions of dozens of volumes by Tolstoy, Gogol, Goncharov, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Turgenev, Ostrovsky and Chekhov. The Russian anarchist Sergei Stepniakpartly assisted her, also in revision some of her early works.

By the late 1920s, Garnett was frail, white-haired, and half-blind. She retired from translating after the publication in 1934 of Three Plays by Turgenev. After her husband's death in 1937, she became quite reclusive. She developed a heart condition, with attendant breathlessness, and in her final period had to walk with crutches."

In summary, if you happen to end up with a Garnett translation for your first reading of "War and Peace," I would say that you have been lucky. Some English translations yield the French entries (2% of the book) as Tolstoy entered them, with the English translation of the French following in footnotes. Garnett translated the entire work, with a very few minor exceptions, as a direct read in English, so it's easy to read.

I have read the following translations to date: Maude (twice), Pevear/Volokhonsky, Briggs, and now Garnett. (The others will be read soon!) So I feel that I can say with some authority, highly recommended! ... Read more

Product Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. Translated from Russian title: Detstvo ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Timeless descriptions of childhood and feelings
This is Tolstoy's first novel, published in 1852. It is written from the point of view of a boy age 10. It could be Tolstoy himself but it is fiction, although Tolstoy had some similar experiences. There is great character developement, conversations and thoughts, a hunt with horses and hounds, beautiful girls, dancing, childhood love and happiness, death and deep sadness. The dictionary built into the Kindle 2 was great to use in that it provided definitions for archaic words or words that also had special or old meanings. I found 8 typographical errors, but I was able to guess the correct words and make a note of this at each location using the wonderful Kindle 2 note feature. There is no table of contents but as you read through there are 28 chapters marked by roman numerals with headings in capital letters. ... Read more

Product Description
One of the greatest novels ever written, Anna Kareninasets the impossible and destructive triangle of Anna,her husband Karenin, and her lover Vronsky against themarriage of Levin and Kitty, thus illuminating the mostimportant questions that face humanity. The secondedition uses the acclaimed Louise and Alymer Maudetranslation, and offers a new introduction and noteswhich provide completely up-to-date perspectives onTolstoy's classic work. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (254)

Bad Romance
"Anna Karenina" is Leo Tolstoy's masterwork. "War and Peace" comes in as second best--but it reads more like a Russian soap opera without baby switching and amnesia. "Anna Karenina" is a richly realized quintet of characters- Anna Karenina, unhappily married, her dull emotionless husband Alexei, her passionate young lover Vronsky, the reflective Levin, and his young bride Kitty. While "War and Peace" reflects the majesty and pageantry of the Napoleonic era, "Anna Karenina" was contemporary;it fits the rhythms of everyday life. No wonder it even inspired Anna Karenina (1948) with the former Scarlett O'Hara as the lead. Dostoevsky deemed "Anna Karenina" his favorite of Tolstoy's works. It managed to make Oprah's list.

"Anna Karenina" is an emotionally powerful work. Anna suffers not so much for her adultery (Alexei condones it),but for being inappropriate. Levin happily welcomes his newborn son, yet is constantly tempted to suicide. Leo Tolstoy put himself in his characters-he could be cold like Alexei to his wife, and Levin's feelings for Kitty are conflicted. An interesting sidenote is that BOTH Alexei and Levin are old enough to be the fathers of their wives. Levin's first fond feelings for Kitty were when she was in the cradle (and he was a teen),so there is a strangeness when she herself gives birth to HIS child.

The Maude translation is superb. The essays at the end are worth reading. There is a debate contrasting "Anna Karenina" with DH Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover: Cambridge Lawrence Edition (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (an equally stimulating one could involve Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary (Penguin Classics)) Matthew Arnold sees the novel in terms of life instead of literature. George Steiner analyzes the beginning and ending of the work, while MS Gromeka analyzes the epigraph. Donna Tussing Owen links Tolstoy with Arthur Schopenhauer (The World As Will and Representation, In Two Volumes: Vol. I) There is even an essay about Russian views on guilt by Fyodor Dostoevsky himself.

"Anna Karenina" is one of the most HUMAN of Tolstoy's works. Read it, experience it, discuss it, share it. It is timeless! It is about a bad, a bad romance.... and universal themes.

One of the best books I've read
Anna Karenina is the first Tolstoy book I've read and I fell in love with his style of writing and the characters he created.Yes, if you are accustomed to reading 200 page brain-candy modern novels, this seems very long and complicated, but in my opinion, THIS is what novels should be like!There are so many interesting ideas and concepts, and so many different types of people that the books jumps around and moves forward in a way that makes you care what happens to each person.I was actually sad when the novel ended.I thought that this translation was good, but I haven't read any other translations, so I can't compare.

Embarrassment of riches
It's not necessary for me to repeat the high praise heaped upon ANNA KARENINA, which although slow-going in spots is nonetheless highly recommended by practically everyone, a world class read.But an argument is handy among those who would argue the merits of various translators and translations.Below are four of them with four representative passages from the opening paragraphs of this novel:

Constance Garnett (1901, with many revisions by others, many available for sale here, also for free online):
"the wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl,..."

(Introducing Prince Stephan Arkadyevich):
" -- Stiva, as he was known in the fashionable world -- "

"He turned over his stout, well-cared-for person on the springy sofa,"


Louise and Aylmer Maud (1918), available here as an Oxford World Classic:
"His wife had discovered an intrigue between her husband and the former French governess,..."

" -- Stiva, as he was called by his set in Society[note cap. "S"] -- "

"He turned his plump, well-kept body over on the springy sofa,"


David Magarshak (1961), Signet(Mass Market) Paperback:
"The wife had found out that the husband had had an affair with the French governess,..."

"(Stiva, as he was called by his society friends),"

"He turned his plump, well-cared-for body on the springy sofa,..."


Peavar/Volokhonsky, 1991 (Penguin Classic and [same pagination, fancier cover] Oprah's Pick):
"The wife had found out that the husband was having an affair with the former French governess . . . "

" -- Stiva, as he was called in society -- "

"He rolled his full, well-tended body over the springs of the sofa,..."


The first thing to say is that these four quotations have a great deal more in common with each other than not.Nonetheless, there are differences:note that only two of the four mention that the object of Stiva's affection was a former employee.Despite several layers of revision, Garnett's translation, nearly a century old, at times slips into archaism:note the reference to high society as the "fashionable world," a term for which modern readers could be excused for construing something along the lines of couture, high fashion in clothing.Both the Garnett and the Maude version maintain the euphemism "intrigue" for "love-affair," while the two more recent translations keep to the more contemporary and less euphemistic "affair."In the Magarshack translation (1961), the use of the pluperfect in "the husband had had an affair" is technically correct, even today, but the P&V version with its "was having" just rolls by better to me.

Overall, though, of the four my personal favorite is the 1961 Magarshak trans-lation, also the cheapest (but smallest in trim size).If I had to conduct a group discussion of ANNA KARENINA, though, I would almost cetainly gravitate to the much-better-distributed Peaver/Volokshonky edition because the differences or any presumed demerits, to me, are not as significant as granting the easiest accessibility to a group of individual readers.I could probably muddle through the archaisms in the Maude version -- it is the most reworked and in many respects the most solid, despite its age -- but I know I would have problems with the Constance Garrett.

The important thing to remember is that ANNA KARENINA is a book that demands to be read, and the reader who takes the time to read it fully will be well rewarded in vivid characterization, deft plotting, romance, social insight, and history, despite how one feels about the (sometimes exasperating) agrarian-political theorizing of Tolstoy's stand-in, Levin.

All good books are alike
What I call a good book is one that when you read it again later, you find things in it you didn't see the first time.

And so I'm re-reading my ancient copy of Anna Karenina in Russian and suddenly got hit in the face by what I think is the real core of the tragedy.

Aleksey Aleksandrovich Karenin was raised properly but without emotion and without the wanderyahr or social season that many of his contemporaries got.He had to plunge directly into work.As a result, he had no education at all in how to behave in women's society and he had no concept of emotional relationships.So after spending some time with Anna Arkadievna Oblonskaya in social situations, he wasn't in love with her and didn't know the meaning of love, but he got maneuvered into marrying her by her aunt without being able to laugh off the claim that he had compromised Anna.

The irony is that when Vronskij did compromise her, Aleksey finds all kinds of reasons not to let her go.First it's because she's his wife and even though she breaks her promise to observe the proprieties, he refuses to consider divorce.Then after Vronskij and Anna go the whole way, after she gives birth to an illegitimate child, after Karenin offers to let Anna continue living in his home and even takes a liking to the baby, after she leaves, after she lives with Vronskij for years, Karenin lets the weeny clairvoyant Landau/Bezzubov tell him to refuse a divorce.

This book at least in part is about three men who think the whole world revolves around them: Karenin the government official; Vronskij the wealthy playboy; and Oblonskij the dissipated wastrel.The women caught in their toils all suffer, even Countess Lidiya Ivanovna who takes physical, mental and moral possession of Karenin, who will never love her no matter how often he takes her advice.

Although the theme of female emancipation is touched on in the novel, it is Kitty Levin who speaks for Tolstoy in rejecting the concept.Konstantin Levin is essentially Tolstoy himself, and Kitty is to some extent Tolstoy's wife, Sofiya, nee Behrs, who wrote in her journals how much she hated Tolstoy's punishment of unfaithful wives in his literature, including the Kreutzer Sonata.She felt it hypocritical given his physical appetites after marriage as well as before, appetites he failed to arouse in her.But the good wife forgives the man's past since he is faithful to her in the present, and the man has a right to all the wife's attentions.

Even the children have no claim on her, as is clear from Kreutzer Sonata.Because of his own jealousy, Tolstoy made Sofiya end her childhood friendship with a very musical man who was a friend of her family, because it took her attention away from him. Then later in his life he abandoned his family, forcing all the financial responsibilities onto Sofiya, and finally actually leaving home, to die at "the last station."

But at least Anna has a name, unlike the wife in Kreutzer Sonata.It's just that none of the men in her life expect her to actually have a life.Karenin can't love her but expects her to be a pattern of wives in high society -- where she meets a number of women who have affairs but at least don't break up the family.Oblonskij sends her to his wife to heal the wounds caused by her _discovery_ of his infidelity -- not by the infidelity, but because Dolly, the pattern wife, never conceived of her husband having an affair or even kissing anybody else.Vronskij says he loves her but he can't understand her love for her son and disses her affection for his horse trainer's family after the father drinks himself into the DTs.

It's all wrapped up in the tragedy of society's expectation that if you have a nice house and clothes and go to parties and do what everybody lays down as the rules, you've achieved the summit of how people should live, regardless of the signs that something is broken.Nobody in Anna's life pays attention to her continuing use of morphine, which I think has to be at the bottom of her increasingly erratic behavior and ultimately her suicide.

Yes, they're all sorry when it's too late, as Anna says to herself at one point.And not one of them is capable of doing anything to avert the tragedy, I think because they believe that in their social circle, _and because Anna is part of their lives_, nothing like that would ever happen to disturb them.

And isn't that what we hear in the news every day?"She was such a nice person!""We lived next door for years..."Because the person in the news was part of our lives, it's impossible they could be living their own life, and that it could turn out so tragically.

That's what a great novel does.If you pay attention, you'll hear echoes of it in the news involving people who never heard of the book or even the author.That's reality in writing.

Something for Everyone
Like many people who begin reading Anna Karenina, I was intimidated by the size of the novel. As I'm a slow reader, I took it at my own pace. It's 900+ pages took me just under 2 months to read.

Now that the story is over, I miss my window into Tolstoy's world. I loved the array of characters in this novel and while I found that I identified with certain characters more than others, I think there's something for everyone in one story line or another. I did find that there were parts of the novel that bored me, such as Levin's confusion at the election process and the hunting trip that took place in the later part of the book. However, I was captivated by Levin's struggle to find meaning in life and his consideration of what it means to have morals without religion.

I enjoyed getting into Anna's head, but also appreciated understanding the feelings of her husband as well as her lover. Tolstoy's ability to write from different perspectives and opposing points of view, male and female, was my favorite aspect of the book.

Oblonsky was, without question, my favorite character. You meet him right away, and though he's not always a key player in the novel, Anna and Levin's lives always intertwined with Oblonsky just enough to leave me wanting more. His character is larger than life, and one I will keep with me as a literary favorite. ... Read more

Product Description
THIS 30 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: The Dramatic Works of Leo Tolstoy, by Leo Tolstoy. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1417923202. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A clever moral tale
This is a comedy by Tolstoy in six acts. An imp is assigned by the chief devil to draw Russian peasants from God and capture them for the devil. This imp is unsuccessful but other imps are victorious, such as those assigned to bedevil lawyers and married women, especially the latter.
The chief devil is very angry at the imp who promises that he will find a way to ensnare the peasants. The imp disguises itself as a laborer and helps a peasant plant and harvest enormous amounts of grain. The peasant does not know what to do with the abundance and the imp shows him how to distill the grain into alcohol. As readers could foresee, the idea of distilled alcohol soon becomes rampant among the peasants from that day until the time Tolstoy wrote this comedy, and the drunken peasants are captured by the devil.
... Read more

Product Description
A treasury of timeless wisdom that the great author of War and Peace considered to be his most important and lasting contribution to humanity.During the last years of his life, Leo Tolstoy kept one book invariably on his desk, read and reread it to his family, and recommended it to all his friends. This was his compendium of wise thoughts gathered over the course of a decade from his wide-ranging readings in philosophy and religion and from his own spiritual meditations. It was banned under the communists, and only one volume, A Calendar of Wisdom, drawn largely from the writings of other famous thinkers, has been published before in English. Now, for the first time, Arcade will publish Tolstoy+s Wise Thoughts for Every Day, the volume comprising his own most essential ideas about spirituality and what it is to live a good life. Designed by Tolstoy to be a cycle of daily readings, this book offers thoughts and aphorisms for every day according to a succession of themes repeated each month-such as God, the soul, desire, our passions, humility, inequality, evil, truth, happiness, prayer, and the blessings of love. At once challenging, comforting, and inspiring, this is a spiritual treasure trove and a book of great human warmth. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

A must have, must read
This is the classic that should be on every nightstand, or near your desk. Tolstoy's unorthodox re-take on Christianity is incredible. He places the simple and straight forward message of Jesus in the proper perspective for all time - no need for miracles, no need for fancy dogma -the message comes through in a timeless fashion (as it should).

J. Forrest Young

I like the size
It is a very good book. Everyone can understand it. It contains 365 days of writing. I recommend it to anyone.

Great book to have around by the coffee table
This adds some good quality conversation, very ironic sometimes like how when you read the stuff for the day and you're like holy crap that is so true.

Tolstoy's wisdom still Wow's me
A wonderful collection of wisdom from a man who never ceases to amaze me.

Wise
Easy to read, profound thoughts that take just enough time to start the day. Wise reminders of how to live. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (11)

What did I expect?
I love a good story that's a thousand pages, but I really expected much more out of this book.Because it was a Tolstoy, I thought it would be an automatic great read. Anna was sooo frustrating, caught up with her beauty and always needing reassurance of that beauty got old.Also her self destructing mind and determination to be unhappy, drove me nuts.Vronsky and Anna set themselves up into a no win situation - together but not accepted by society, at least the woman wasn't.As usual, in those times, the man gets a free pass.I had a real problem with Kitty and her shallowness and found it really hard to believe that after months of feeling sorry for herself because Anna stole Vronsky, she suddenly was supposed to love the paranoid what's his name.He wasn't good enough before but now she is the perfect wife to him?I would rather he had found a nice peasant girl to marry.The Russian social world was fun to tap into, after tons of British and Chinese books, but as a whole, I thought the characters were unlikeable.

Effort Unrewarded
I struggled with this book.I had expectations of the greatest novel ever written.What I got was a laboriously worded love story with shallow characters that tested my patience to the limit.This is far from the pinnacle of novels.I am well aware that in expressing my views, I am in the minority.I am yet to find a fellow traveller.

No one can say I didn't give it my best shot.I worked my way through some 800 plus pages but, at the end, wondered why I made the effort.It was no easy going.The plot is convoluted and the characters encourage little empathy or interest.Whatever was Anna's end was of no interest.Indeed, the only portion of the whole book that managed to gain firm hold of my attention was a digression into grass being cut with scythes about a quarter of the way through the book.If this was its highlight for me, the book is simply not working.

I shan't provide a synopsis of the events with the novel.This would take a short story in its own right.My advice is not to attempt this book.The rewards are small and the effort is herculean.

Great late night read... rather, many nights
Absolutely great read. Dark and light at the same time, with wonderful historical precursors and lots of material to think on.

Two different books!
Anna Karenina is the classic tale of a married 18th-century Russian woman who falls in love with another man, leaves her husband and child for him, then has to face the consequences of those actions. This was my first Tolstoy to finish (been reading War & Peace on and off for a little while now, but am not even close to finishing) and even though the English translation was choppy, I liked the basic story and admire Tolstoy's determination to write about a subject so controversial at that time and so far removed from his own life, in that he's trying to tell what is very much a uniquely woman's story (a married person falling in love with someone else is not unique to women, of course, but the consequences are certainly different, particularly in the era in which Tolstoy is writing).

I enjoyed this book and it held my attention throughout, but it has some major flaws, the main one being that it's like flipping back and forth between two entirely different novels. One is the story of Anna and her torment over her love for Kostya; the other is the story of Lev, a familial connection of Anna's who spends many, many pages giving us every detail of his conflicting emotions over various philosophical, political and sociological points, none of which have anything whatsoever to do with Anna's story. How are these two plot points related? Good question! I see NO real connection between Lev and Anna's stories besides the very thin one of their being related by marriage. Supposedly, the character of Lev is based largely on Tolstoy himself, and if so, he should have saved it for his autobiography and not used Anna's story as a platform for his personal ramblings. It's not that Lev's story wasn't interesting. It was just a different book.

The parts that did relate to exploring the actions and emotions of Anna, her husband and her lover were fairly well done. Aside from the fact that there was too much of Lev's story and it detracted from Anna's, it also seemed like Tolstoy had to struggle to try and get into a woman's head and heart to speak for her. For a man of any generation and culture to try and convey the emotions of a woman is a feat in and of itself, though (and the same goes for women writers who try to write from a male point of view) and he did it as well as can be expected.

I won't give anything away, but let me just say that I'm also a little conflicted about the famous ending. On the one hand I can genuinely appreciate it as the outcome of one particular story that is not necessarily how someone else's story with the same events would have ended, but I also can't help but feel that it's an almost misogynistic conclusion one might expect from a man of that generation and culture. That sounds so militantly feminist but I can't help it! That's just how it struck me. Still, one can't deny its dramatic effect.

There is a new translation of AK out written by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, and it's been getting a lot of attention via Oprah's Book Club and book reviewers. I'm not likely to re-read AK anytime soon, but I might pick up their translation of War & Peace to see if it flows better than the one I have. At any rate, everyone is saying that if you're planning to read English translations of either Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky, the Pevear/Volokhonsky versions best capture the original feel.

Painful story of the results of making poor choices
I love the account about Teddy Roosevelt that David McCullough gave at a commencement speech:

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. . . Once upon a time in the dead of winter in Dakota territory, with the temperature well below zero, young Theodore Roosevelt took off in a makeshift boat, accompanied by two of his ranch hands, down-stream on the Little Missouri River in chase of a couple of thieves who had stolen his prized row boat. After days on the river, he caught up and got the draw on them with his trusty Winchester, at which point they surrendered. Then, after finding a man with a team and a wagon, Roosevelt set off again to haul the thieves cross-country to justice. He left the ranch hands behind to tend to the boat, and walked alone behind the wagon, his rifle at the ready. They were headed across the snow covered wastes of the Bad Lands to the rail head at Dickinson, and Roosevelt walked the whole way, 40 miles. It was an astonishing feat, what might be called a defining moment in that eventful life. But what makes it especially memorable is that during that time, he managed to read all of Anna Karenina."
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Then David said: "I often think of that when I hear people say they haven't time to read."

Well I did it. I finally read Anna Karenina.

The story displays life in Russia in the 1870s. There are broad strokes taking place in at a variety of places, with a wide range of characters. One of the main characters is Anna Karenina. Anna falls in love for Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky. Vronsky falls in love for Anna. Anna leaves her husband and runs away with Vronsky.

While reading this I often thought that so many problems would be avoided if people just did the right thing. Anna ended up destroying so many lives.

I can't say I enjoyed the book. I found it interesting. I'm glad I finally read it. But it wasn't a fun book. It wasn't uplifting. It was a class Russian novel and most everyone suffers.

... Read more