War and Peace: 2019

Am I on my own reading the Oxford version?

Is the ‘Maude translation’ different from the Penguin one?

Maude is the Gutenberg.

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i’m on the ‘modern library’ version. i guess that’s the penguin one? :penguin:

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I’m reading this version with a picture of Princess Lise on the front:

W%26P

(I think it’s actually more likely to be Natasha, but not gonna let that get in the way of a good edit)

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My name is Mrs Yksnoklob…

What version you reading?

  • Penguin
  • Guttenburglar
  • Other

0 voters

I’m reading a copy on Kindle which is called “War and Peace (Complete Version, Best Navigation, Active TOC)”. It has a picture of Saint Basil’s Cathedral on the cover.

I think it lines up with the Penguin one so far.

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I read it when I had two months spare whilst teaching in Botswana. It was good. Probably worthwhile skipping over the bits where he goes off on one about modernising 19th century Russian agriculture though.

Alright, I’m caught up now. Found the descriptions of teenage girls a bit off tbh

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Up to the end of chapter 12 now (Gutenberg edition) so I think I’m now up to where the Penguiners are and should stay on pace with them reading one chapter a day.

Bunch of new characters to keep in line now, the ol’ Rostovs, just when I thought I had a grip on everyone and their bear banter.

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Yeah, no doubt it was entirely socially acceptable at the time but it doesn’t read as any less like a creepy old man rubbing his thighs when he’s going on about the “charming age when no longer a girl and yet not a woman” and comparing them to kittens etc.

Also, I pretty much immediately forgot who every character in those chapters was because those chapters were - to use the parlance of Tolstoy’s time - mad boring.

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Oh god yes, so interminable. I just finished chapter 14 / your chapter 11 and FINALLY there is some meat to this section.

Also I’m with @hip_young_gunslinger with too many new characters. I completely lost my way a couple of chapters back with all the back and forth and even in Chapter 14 I was still going back to try to establish which character was where.

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that’s a good 50% of all russian literature

Come on and tell us why Boris’s mum is knee deep in a lawsuit already, Tolsters!

I’m quite enjoying it now. Chapter 15 on the Steve version done.

I’ve lost track of everything.

Powdered wigs fell off

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No idea where I’m supposed to be with this by now but I’m up to chapter 19 of the Gutenberg and it’s back to boring Russian parties again. Don’t like many of the new characters; Anna ‘lend us a tenner’ Mikhaylovna, Marya ‘she tells it like it is!’ Akhrosimova and the boring Rostovs. The military types are all fairly interchangeable as well. Bring on the WAR!

This has done me

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Today’s chapter in my version ended with Lend Us A Tenner and one of the Rostov’s(?) crying, and the sentence “but both of the women’s tears were sweet” or something.

Toltoy’s really a bit weird about women eh?

Also what was up with boring Rostov Dad. He has a collection of Turkish pipes but he doesn’t smoke them himself?