【英文读书会/每日持续更新】跟我一起读战争与和平 Tolstoy with Me

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疫情之下,因为宅在家,我最近看了不少杂七杂八的书(书单请看楼主单独发的推书帖子,有两个,在英语版块。)
我一直有想法做book club,现在终于找到了一本非常理想的书 -- 战争与和平。等下,先别急着走🤣。我一般也不爱看名著,这名字看起来就特别枯燥,但是,我以前也觉得傲慢与偏见这名字看起来特别枯燥,看了才发现这是言情界霸道总裁爱上我的鼻祖。战争与和平这本书大家应该也是从小就听说过了,作者大家也很熟悉了,是托尔斯泰 (Tolstoy),所以这个帖子叫做Tolstoy with Me。


我在疫情中看到不同的媒体推荐这本书,后来我就想着可以试试,不好看就弃书呗,也没什么大不了,kindle上这本书不要太便宜(也有免费版的,但是那个版本不推荐,关于译者我们之后会说一下),也不亏。开始看了以后竟然觉得非常吸引人,一点都不枯燥,我反而天天看得放不下来 (打脸现场)。这本书虽然很厚,但是每一章很短,几分钟就能看完一章,所以在看的时候并不觉得很辛苦。再加上情节曲折,人物刻画炉火纯青,战争场面壮大,舞会场面华丽,时间跨越十五年,空间横跨欧洲东西两头,真正是一场大戏。看书如看剧,吃瓜吃不停啊。


历时十天,我终于看完。这本厚得能当砖砸人的巨作让很多在艰难时刻中的人们找到安慰和希望。作者的叙述风趣幽默,不紧不慢,是在那个动荡年代中的一个不动摇的声音。所以我决定用这本书做媒介,来开始做读书会。我喜欢重复看书,尤其是很喜欢的书。这次是第二次看,会很慢很慢,想看看我第一次错过了什么,和第二次看是不是有不同的感想。大家可以跟着我的速度(这个速度大概会是三个月看完,所以每天真的读得很少,大概半个小时,大家不要有压力,我们慢慢来。千里之行,始于足下。我之前十天看完是因为我真的每天停不下来,好几个小时都在看🤣)。

形式:我会每天来贴更新笔记,全英文形式。笔记很短,就是我看的时候的一些想法。下面这个第一篇比较长,是我写的一个介绍和第一次读的感想,之后的都会比这个短很多。也很希望大家能跟帖一起分享读书的想法,问题,感慨(中英文都可以)。(就算没人跟帖我也会继续的🤣)



另外,我看的是Penguin Classics的版本,译者是Anthony Briggs。我也是纠结了几个版本,最后选择了这个,挺满意的。下面英文会具体说一下这个问题。


另另外,如果你想听语音的形式,我有个公众号,会发笔记和语音一起,可以当podcast来听。公众号的名字是“姐妹策米国”,里面也有很多关于工作和学习的干货。

There is always a certain aversiveness when we regard great literary works so critically acclaimed by many. Why, they were written long ago, in a time too distant from ours, by people who were long dead, and surely to bore us with phrases out of fashion and events out of touch. However, when we do find ourselves opening one of these volumes, we are always pleasantly surprised and would eventually reluctantly admit that those who came before us, be that the author of these writings or the readers, did have a point.


War and Peace is such a volume. A hefty work of about 1,300 pages (the Penguin Classics version), this is not a book to be taken lightly (literally). Since the pandemic started, I came across recommendations on this book several times by different sources (among them is Yiyun Li’s virtual book club for War and Peace, which is the inspiration of this post, see apublicspace.org), and in the end, I thought to myself: well, when would be a better time to pick this up than right now, when we’re locked up in our homes? Countless times I have heard of this book since teenage years. Hailed as one of the best books of all time, War and Peace was described as “epic”, compared to The Iliad, and its author Tolstoy easily recognized as one of the most influential figures in Russian literature. These praises didn’t move me to open the book. What did move me was reading A Gentleman in Moscow, a story about a has-been Russian aristocrat’s life confined in a luxury hotel in Moscow under house-arrest in the first half of the 20th century. I enjoyed reading this book immensely, and subsequently seeing Tolstoy and his works continuously mentioned in it I thought - one has to read it, and to know what all the fuss is about.


I started reading it at the end of May. It took me all of ten days to finish. And what a book! My first impression was that I couldn’t believe how funny and witty the language is. I didn’t know what to expect before I opened the book - I didn’t read the introduction because I didn’t want to be spoiled. I wanted to have a clean slate when I started, not knowing any of the characters or events, just jumping in cold (and I won’t say anything before you start either, so you can start with a clean slate as well!). But how funny he was! I smiled at the witty remarks he slipped in, you could almost see him winking at you, and you thought - yes, I see what you did there. Throughout the book, never once was I bored. The events, even the ones I knew of (since these were the ones that actually happened in history), I was eager to find out what happened and how it affected the characters. I was invested in all of the characters, major and minor. I wanted to know what their stories were, whether or not they would meet, and what kind of people they would eventually become. I liked the tone of his voice, it was always steady, whether in soirees or in battles, the way he told the story was always unhurried. I enjoyed the small bits of philosophy and history analysis he sprinkled in the story-telling. Far from making it dry, I think it enhanced the story as a whole, and made me think about the connections between the people in the story, the decisions they made, and the events that took place.


The book spans fifteen years between 1805 to 1820, and broad space from east to west, and what better experience to live vicariously through than this while we are all confined indoors? Therefore, dear reader, I invite you to read War and Peace with me and to see for yourself that the great classics need not to be boring or dry, but enticing, entertaining and enduring in the test of time.


What version to get:
Translations: I did some research on different translators of War and Peace. The one I read is the Penguin Classics version translated by Anthony Briggs. This is a more recent translation from 2005. I enjoyed this version very much and would recommend it to anybody. Other versions - Aylmer and Louise Maude translation: this couple worked with Tolstoy in translating his work and got his approval. The only shortcoming I heard about this one is that it can be clunky and doesn’t flow as well as the Briggs version. Another popular one is the Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky translation. Many people liked this one as well, but I heard some people struggled through it and it lost some of the magic in the original work - this of course is subjective. I don’t think you could go wrong in any of the translations, I have read multiple reviews that whatever the version you decide on, it will still be the same fascinating story.
Kindle v. Hardcopy: I read it the first time using Kindle. It helps because I can make the text super big, which was easier on my eyes. However I did miss the opportunity to be able to underscore certain passages and write in the margins. Highlighting in Kindle is never really the same for me. So I bought the hardcopy book as well, and this time, I will read the hardcopy (small text, but oh well), and make my notes.


How much to read each day:
One thing I liked a lot about this book, and maybe part of the reason I was able to get through it so quickly, is that each chapter is very short (it takes only a couple minutes to read one chapter, each average about only 5 pages). So instead of looking at this book as one colossal volume of 1,300+ pages, you can divide it up quite easily into very small pieces.


At the beginning of my every post, I will put what chapters I read. I will write a little bit of my notes to share with you. You can follow the same pace as me, or slow down/skip forward however you’d like. Since this is the second time I’m reading the book, I’m going to go very slowly this time, making notes and trying to reflect on things I might have missed the first time or changes in my impressions of some events/characters now that I know what will happen. I will not put any spoilers in the review, however. I’d love to have discussions/hear questions you have/share insights with you.



补充内容 (2020-6-17 11:20):
关于翻译,有别的楼主做了英译选段对比:instant.1point3acres.cn

补充内容 (2020-6-22 10:37):
( ̄ε(# ̄)☆╰╮( ̄▽ ̄///) 打脸来了:日更好难🤣 我会改成周更,不过一定会更完的(握拳)。是的我立了这个flag,请相信我🤣
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