Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (trans. Edmonds)

The Times is raving about a new English translation of War and Peace by A.D.P Briggs. Strangely, it makes no reference to the Rosemary Edmonds translation that Briggs’s appears to be replacing in the Penguin Classics series. Yet Edmonds’s fast paced and unfussy prose has been the window through which hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of English-speaking readers have watched the ebb and flow of Tolstoy’s great ocean of characters—the Bolkonskys and the Rostovs, Napoleon and Kutuzov, Pierre and Natasha—over the past 50 years. Just typing the names makes me itch to read it again, but when I do I suspect I will slide into the comforting familiarity of the Edmonds translation rather than transferring my affections to the upstart Briggs, however good he or she is supposed to be. (There are also well known translations by Garnett and Maude and Maude, the merits of which are discussed here.)

I would, however, be very interested to read Briggs’s introduction and explanation of why a new translation was necessary. Is it because Edmonds’s translation (first published in 1957) is felt to be dated in some way? Or otherwise flawed? Or is it merely because A.D.P Briggs wants to make his or her mark on the literary world and an editor at Penguin Classics wants to make a reputation by “freshening up” the list? I’d be interested to know.

One practical reason for preferring the Edmonds edition is that it is published in two volumes (at least my 1969 edition is) whereas the new edition is one massive book of more than 1,400 pages. That is so obviously putting the interests of economy above reader convenience that it deserves to be boycotted.

I can’t let the subject of War and Peace go by without a brief plug for Bondarchuk’s astonishing 8 hour movie, which cost $100 million to make in 1967 and “borrowed” several battalions from the Soviet army to shoot the vast battle scenes. The number of decent films of books could be numbered on the fingers of one hand with plenty left over to make a rude sign to all the unimaginative film directors too lazy to take a chance on an original screenplay, but this just has to be the best adaptation of all. I saw it again about a year ago here in Manila and it entranced me almost as much as when I broke out of my boarding school to watch an overnight screening at an Edinburgh cinema over 30 years ago. Got caught too.

I could quite happily rattle on about War and Peace all night to be honest, but I’ll end with this nice paragraph from the Times review.

Tolstoy has an extraordinary clarity of expression — a quality that A. D. P. Briggs has happily maintained in this superb translation. Tolstoy might write longer novels than anybody else, but no other writer can recreate emotion and experience with such precision and economy. There are scenes in War and Peace — the unforgettable depiction of the Battle of Austerlitz, for example, or the ball where Natasha Rostova meets Prince Andrei — in which Tolstoy manages in a few words to sketch the mental images which allow us to picture ourselves at the scene and seemingly to feel the emotions of the protagonists. There are passages, like the death scene of Prince Andrei, in which Tolstoy may give to his readers the extraordinary sensation that they too have felt the experience of death; and moments, like the wonderful description of the hunt, when Tolstoy lets them imagine what it is like to be a dog.

Comments

[John]

I agree with you about the Edmonds translation. I did hear an interview with the new translator on Front Row. His main argument for a new translation seemed to be that he had made the dialogue more 'natural' - he gave some reasonably convincing examples. To be fair to him, he was very careful not to criticize the other translations - in fact, he praised them. He came over as a decent sort, not as some arrogant upstart. His main point was that there was scope for modernizing the language and putting more appropriate words in the mouths of the working-class characters (soldiers etc). I think you are probably also right in assuming that the impetus came at least partly from Penguin - they are producing new editions of a lot of their Classics titles now and this may be part of that revamp. Whether it was worthwhile or not - well, we'll have to suck it and see.

Peter France has an interesting comment on the need for a new translation at

http://www.oup.co.uk/academic/humanities/literature/viewpoint/peter_france/

There's a para on War and Peace about two-thirds of the way down the article.

[Mila]

One of my childhood memories was watching a tv version of War and Peace, and knowing at the age of 5 that I wanted to read the book. I had my own copy by 6 but didn't complete the book until I was 13, when I chose to do a book review for my 7th grade english class (I think I got an A just because I finished the book and the review, but I probably murdered the synthesis.). A few years back, I found myself re-reading it for an online book group, something to do with massive classics. And when I read the review of the new Briggs translation, I started to get that yearning to re-read it again.
Looking forward to buying the new translation to compare to my Edmonds copy.

[mandel]

The old Penguin is based too much on Constance Garnett and the Maude's works to be called a fresh translation. Thus a new translation is sorely needed, at least now.

[torn]

John — As I mentioned in an e-mail, making Russian working-class characters sound more authentic in English is a project fraught with difficulty I think -- will the Muskovites start saying "cor blimey mate" and the cossacks talk with a Somerset burr? But I take the point. Part of my defence of Edmonds is that I once heard a radio program about how she translated so much Russian (and Italian and other) literature into English -- thus making an enormous contribution to many readers' lives -- and yet lived in penury. I think she eventually went blind, though I am not sure about that. There is something very tragic about that. Couldn't find anything about her on the internet apart from all the books she translated. Let me know if you know/find out anything about her.

Mila — I agree that there is something about getting into War and Peace at a young age that just can’t be beat. Perhaps it’s the character of Natasha, who (more than almost any character in literature) epitomizes youth and freshness. Perhaps it’s because the subject matter—-war, balls, the royalty, country estates—makes it a grown up fairy tale. If you do read the new translation please drop me a line to let me know what you think of it.

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