Best translated versions of Tolstoys books

Scholesy1981

Im looking to get my hands on Tolstoys War & Peace and Anna Karenina, I've been looking online at the reviews of the different versions, some books get rated poorly for material condition and poor translation so im just wondering if anyone can recommend good versions of these books, please??

chasmcb

Scholesy1981 wrote: »

Im looking to get my hands on Tolstoys War & Peace and Anna Karenina, I've been looking online at the reviews of the different versions, some books get rated poorly for material condition and poor translation so im just wondering if anyone can recommend good versions of these books, please??

Though I don't know Russian, and haven't read any other versions, I am currently half-way through the Penguin Classics edition of Anna Karenina, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky and it's very good - it won a 'best translation' prize when it first appeared. I also recently read Elif Batuman's 'Possessed; Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them' and she particularly praises Pevear & Volokhonsky for their translation work (albeit she does so in relation to Dostoevsky, but still it indicates that they are reliable)

I've always liked Aylmer and Louise Maude's translations of his works. They both knew Tolstoy personally, and Tolstoy knew of their translations, of which he had to say, "Better translators, both for knowledge of the two languages and for penetration into the very meaning of the matter translated, could not be invented."

raah!

I'm also in the market for Anna Karenina, almost three times I've gone into a bookstore but left empty handed due to my mistrust of the translation presented. I was aware of the Maudes and I couldn't possibly see what advantage any new translation would have over them.

Having said that, I think it would be insulting to the modern scholar's to think that they haven't taken everything they could learn from the Maude's on board too. I have read the Wordsworth's classics version of War and Peace, and it was translated by some unkown englishman. The book nevertheless has a profound effect on me.

So I think I'm going to wait a while and read a bit about the different translations (hopefully without ruining too much of the book for myself) before commiting. So far I have only seen in a bookstore the Penguin Volokhonsky version of Anna Karenina (this is an Oprah bookclub one too). There is an oxford classics version too: http://www.amazon.com/Anna-Karenina-Oxford-Worlds-Classics/dp/0199536066/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313453126&sr=1-1

To make my decision something as simple as a single non spoiler paragraph with both the translations placed side by side which shows the differences in the translations. I haven't been able to find this yet, but I was greatly disheartened from my many back and forths to the bookstore resulting in nothing.

Kinski

raah! wrote: »

I have read the Wordsworth's classics version of War and Peace, and it was translated by some unkown englishman.

Really? The Maude translation is used for the current Wordsworth Classics edition.

raah!

Hmm, I must have had a rather outdated version:

http://www.amazon.com/Peace-Wordsworth-Classics-World-Literature/dp/1840225556

Mind you, I don't have the book with me here, I based my statement on their saying this version was translated by this Briggs fellow on amazon:

"British scholar Briggs unveils his lucid new translation of Tolstoy's masterpiece-the first in almost 40 years-to a slightly anxious audience, from first-timers who, balking at the amount of time required by this massive yet startlingly intricate work, want to ensure they are reading the best translation available, to purists who worry that clunky modern prose will replace the cadences of earlier translations. But these concerns melt away after the first 100 pages of this volume. Briggs's descriptions are crisper and the dialogue is sharper, with fewer "shall's," "shan't's" and "I say!'s" than the Garnett, Maude, or Edmonds translations, leaving readers free to enjoy the rich and complex plot, vivid characters and profound insights into war and the nature of power. There are some awkward spots: Briggs claims his earthy rendering of soldierly banter is more realistic than earlier, genteel translators', but it reads distractingly stagy: "Give 'im a right thumpin', we did." It's also a shame to have lost Tolstoy's use of French, not only in the mouths of his characters, but also in the essays, as when he plays with Napoleon's famous "sublime to the ridiculous" quote. Briggs will face competition next year when Pevear and Volokhonsky release their new translation, but for now, this is the most readable translation on the market.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition."

Tbh, at this point now I'm not even sure what this refers to. The version I read was certainly the wordsworth classic, and it certainly had that cover. Whether or not it was Maude or this fellow here I don't know. Amazon can be terrible with describing different versions of books on the page.

Edit: Actually the version I read was definitely the Maude version. There was certainly french in it and that one up there sounds awful. That is the sort of thing I would be worried about in modern translations. I would have no problems with "shalls or shants" , or any archaic usages of language as long as they are understandable. I really don't like when people think they can just pop in more modern versions of these words without a care, for example, taking thou's and thy's from shaekspeare I think is completely unneccessary.

I don't know what's going on on that amazon page at all. So anyway, I guess that means that I think the Maude translation was very good, and I think, for the sake of continuity now, I am now going to get the Oxford classics version of Anna Karenina rather than the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation, unless some good argument in their favour or suitable excerpt convinces me otherwise.

Eliot Rosewater

All Norton Critical Editions of Tolstoy's work use revised versions of the Maudes' translations as a basis. The editors "have chosen to edit and annotate [the Maudes'] version to render them more readable and more accessible to an American audience." The fact that the Maudes knew Tolstoy intimately obviously has appeal. The Norton Editions also include lots of literary criticism which may or may not be of use.

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Anna-Karenina-LN-Tolstoy/9780393966428

chasmcb

Here is an interesting review of Pevear and Volokhonsky's translation of 'War and Peace' which discusses in detail the challenges of translating Tolstoy.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2007/nov/22/tolstoys-real-hero/?page=1

spanx

chasmcb wrote: »

the Penguin Classics edition of Anna Karenina, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

This is the edition I read, because of the good reviews of the transtation in particular. Loved it.

Scholesy1981

Interesting debate this. I've read some Doestovsky in the past and never had much trouble, but with a 1000+ page read beckoning I want to make sure its a good version!

I looked up several of those links online, I was inclined to go with this one.....http://www.amazon.co.uk/War-Peace-Penguin-Popular-Classics/dp/0140622691/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1313486393&sr=8-7...but whats the story with Edmonds?? does the Maudes translation lose its natural translation in the process?? I would hope not, but would be wary of it.

if not that one then im also seriously considering this one........http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/0199589143/ref=tmm_hrd_new_olp_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1313486393&sr=8-10&condition=new......

As mentioned above, I also do not mind the, shall we say, old English language and French that is used, just want to get something thats as authentic as possible. The american link has some scathing reviews provided by some people not happy with the translations so would be hoping to avoid such bad experience.

Kinski

Scholesy1981 wrote: »

I looked up several of those links online, I was inclined to go with this one.....http://www.amazon.co.uk/War-Peace-Penguin-Popular-Classics/dp/0140622691/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1313486393&sr=8-7...but

I'd be wary of that Penguin Popular Classics line; I have one of Moby-Dick which omits the text's front matter. The translation by Briggs mentioned above is the Penguin Classics edition. Oxford and Norton editions of classic texts are usually very good.

raah! wrote: »

I really don't like when people think they can just pop in more modern versions of these words without a care, for example, taking thou's and thy's from shaekspeare I think is completely unneccessary.

Who does that? Most contemporary editions of Shakespeare's work feature modernised spelling. We can't even be sure how words were pronounced in Shakespeare's time.

raah!

There are many examples of "modern translations" of Shakespeare, where the intention is to make them more readable. These would be changes of the kind Brigg's inserts like "I'll know 'is block off rather than mere spelling changes. Though granted, many of these Shakespearean alterations are much more consciously changing the text. Things like "Shakespeare in the hood". But there are still normal "translated" renders of Shakespeare out there, which a quick google search will find you.

raah!

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

All Norton Critical Editions of Tolstoy's work use revised versions of the Maudes' translations as a basis. The editors "have chosen to edit and annotate [the Maudes'] version to render them more readable and more accessible to an American audience." The fact that the Maudes knew Tolstoy intimately obviously has appeal. The Norton Editions also include lots of literary criticism which may or may not be of use.

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Anna-Karenina-LN-
Tolstoy/9780393966428

Well I'm going to order my version of Anna Karenina now, and I think perhaps I will change my choice from the oxford classics version to the Norton. I got a collection of Tolstoy's short stories published by them before and the essays and notes at the back were superb. It had me enjoying reading /reading about the book for a few extra days.. They use footnotes rather than back notes a lot of the time as well, and I think this is less disruptive to one's continuity of reading.

And I have to say again that Amazon wasn't very helpful at all. When I clicked on the Norton version preview to see how much there would be by way of literary criticism after the novel, the preview was just of the Oxford version as clearly indicated by "Oxford World Classics" at the top of the table of contents.