Tolstoy and the Russians

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Garnett endures.

I feel the same way about Tolstoy. I finally read him this summer ( Anna Karenina) and I was completely blown away. That set me off on reading some other Russian stuff. I read Lermontov which was pretty good, and just finished Fathers and Sons which was spectacular. I felt some of the subplots were a little conventional and maybe the book was modest as a whole, but I loved the delicate prose and the psychological sharpness of Turgenev's writing. Want to read more Tolstoy, was thinking id go with Ivan Ilyich next

>>8659026
Check out Novel with Cocaine (actual title). Forget the author's name (too lazy to check my shelf upstairs). By an older, obscure Russian author. Late 19th/early 20th century. Very, very good. Short, too.

There's a reason why he's one of the greatest prose stylists in history.

Alexander Solsjenitsyn. You can start with the short book "a day in the life of Ivan denisovitj". One of my all-time favourites.

I've been researching Tolstoy translations lately. The Maudes are the classic go-to for Tolstoy; they knew Tolstoy personally, and Tolstoy said he couldn't wish for better translators. But I compared their Anna Karenina with the Garnett version revised by Leonard J. Kent, and I liked Garnett's better. Finally, though, for Anna Karenina I chose Rosamund Bartlett's recent translation because I liked it even better. The Maudes are a safe bet, though. Get them for the stories, and maybe for War & Peace. McDuff and Briggs are fine, I guess, but I think you have better options in Garnett and the Maudes.

>>8658982
Oh man you gotta read Family Happiness.
Also I think you'd dig Fathers and Sons.

>>8660653
OP here. I was leaning towards either Garnett or Maude for Tolstoy's larger works, it looks like that would be for the best, rather than P&V, who not everybody seems to like.

I am guessing that the cheap Wordsworth/Dover editions use the Garnett translations of Tolstoy, but the production quality wouldn't be great.

>>8659026
I ordered Fathers And Sons last night, after reading a sample, so I'm looking forward to that. After that I could broaden into Dostoevsky.

>>8660683
Dover uses Maude, at least for Anna Karenina.

As for P&V, they're more literal, but you decide if that's what you want.

Garnett
>After taking leave of her guests, Anna did not sit down, but began walking up and down the room. She had unconsciously the whole evening done her utmost to arouse in Levin a feeling of love—as of late she had fallen into doing with all young men—and she knew she had attained her aim, as far as was possible in one evening, with a married and honorable man. She liked him very much, and, in spite of the striking difference, from the masculine point of view, between Vronsky and Levin, as a woman she saw something they had in common, which had made Kitty able to love both. Yet as soon as he was out of the room, she ceased to think of him.

P&V
>After seeing her guests off, Anna began pacing up and down the room without sitting down. Though for the whole evening (lately she had acted the same way towards all young men) she had unconsciously done everything she could to arouse a feeling of love for her in Levin, and though she knew that she had succeeded in it, as far as one could with regard to an honest, married man in one evening, and though she liked him very much (despite the sharp contrast, from a man’s point of view, between Levin and Vronsky, as a woman she saw what they had in common, for which Kitty, too, had loved them both), as soon as he left the room, she stopped thinking about him.

>>8660689

Thank you for the comparison. If this is a good indication, my instincts >>8660683
were correct. P&V seems more modern, when I prefer something that sounds more of the time, like Maude ('taking leave of' VS 'seeing her guests off')

Gotta break it to you OP, Tolstoy basically renounces all his older shit.

Read his Confessions.