Well, last week's attempt to read Fanny Hill was a complete bust.
Granted, I'm not quite sure I could follow, much less understand, all the physics behind the 18th century bawdy frolicking going on throughout so much of the novel, but I am pretty sure a lot of it was wishful thinking on the part of a man (John Cleland) with a very wild imagination. I'm not well-versed in erotica from any century, but I'm also quite sure love scenes ("love" being used loosely) should not sound like something from Gray's Anatomy (the medical text, not the tv show.)
I don't know why I pick up much older books when I can't sleep, but tonight I'm going for War and Peace (which it probably goes without saying is much cleaner and far better reading.) What surprises me is how funny the beginning is, though that could be the slap happy sleepiness inside me right now and the 21st century insight that "forty years" is hardly old age.
I think before I get into reading it any more, though, I need a good history refresher on Napoleon and his invasion of Russia.
Also helpful is this:
Another great source is this link from Amazon where someone breaks down which translations to read and why:
I'm reading the Ann Dunnigan version, but I also downloaded (for free from Google Books) the Nathan Haskell Dole one.
War and Peace (Signet classics)
-- (UNABRIDGED) Ann Dunnigan was born in Hollywood and here she has presented us with a very nice contemporary (1968) "American English" version of Tolstoy's Magnum opus. I call this one the "doctor's office version" because, even though it is 1,456 pages long (Signet paperback/Penguin), a busy errand-runner can still reasonably carry it around without backache. I found the translation itself to be quite competently rendered and most of the text reads straight through with no footnotes to deal with for the French language parts. If you're an American, and plan to read "War and Peace" only one time, and you're a really busy person who likes to read during windows of time, then this is likely your top choice.
-- (UNABRIDGED) Ann Dunnigan was born in Hollywood and here she has presented us with a very nice contemporary (1968) "American English" version of Tolstoy's Magnum opus. I call this one the "doctor's office version" because, even though it is 1,456 pages long (Signet paperback/Penguin), a busy errand-runner can still reasonably carry it around without backache. I found the translation itself to be quite competently rendered and most of the text reads straight through with no footnotes to deal with for the French language parts. If you're an American, and plan to read "War and Peace" only one time, and you're a really busy person who likes to read during windows of time, then this is likely your top choice.
2 comments:
Oh gosh, War & Peace. It's so dauntingly big! I tried Anna Karenina and I made the mistake of stopping halfway through, leaving it for a year or more, and then having to re-read it all because I'd forgotten a lot of the plot points D: I did enjoy it in the end, but Tolstoy really demands commitment.
I wonder if it will have the power to put you to sleep? :P How offended would Tolstoy be do you think?
It _is_ dauntingly big and yet I'm still somehow reading it on and off this long weekend. I must have started and stopped it at least half a dozen times in my life, but this time it appears to be sticking. :)
Anna Karenina is actually one of my favorite novels of all. But War and Peace is so different in many ways. I read this not too long ago:
"As Tolstoy himself famously declared, War and Peace was “not a novel” and “still less a historical chronicle,” but “what the author wanted and was able to express, in the form in which it is expressed.” Without a unifying theme, without a plot or clear ending, War and Peace was a calculated challenge to the genre of the novel and to narrative in history."
My copy is over 1400 pages long...I'll be reading it for ages, I'm sure, with other books in between.
I think what surprises me most about it is how fresh it still feels...and how little human behavior has changed over the centuries.
I actually put it down when I found it didn't help me fall asleep yesterday morning. But I don't think Tolstoy would have been offended if I had. :)
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