War and Peace
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- £0.99
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- £0.99
Publisher Description
Contains Active Table of Contents (HTML) and in the end of book include a bonus link to the free audiobook.
Tolstoy's epic masterpiece intertwines the lives of private and public individuals during the time of the Napoleonic wars and the French invasion of Russia. The fortunes of the Rostovs and the Bolkonskys, of Pierre, Natasha, and Andrei, are intimately connected with the national history that is played out in parallel with their lives. Balls and soirees alternate with councils of war and the machinations of statesmen and generals, scenes of violent battles with everyday human passions in a work whose extraordinary imaginative power has never been surpassed.
The prodigious cast of characters, seem to act and move as if connected by threads of destiny as the novel relentlessly questions ideas of free will, fate, and providence. Yet Tolstoy's portrayal of marital relations and scenes of domesticity is as truthful and poignant as the grand themes that underlie them.
The last word of the landlord's literature and the brilliant one at that. —Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The best ever Russian historical novel. —Nikolai Leskov
One of the most remarkable books of our age. —Ivan Turgenev
This is the first class work!… This is powerful, very powerful indeed. —Gustave Flaubert
The best novel that had ever been written. —John Galsworthy
This work, like life itself, has no beginning, no end. It is life itself in its eternal movement. —Romain Rolland
The greatest ever war novel in the history of literature. —Thomas Mann
There remains the greatest of all novelists — for what else can we call the author of "War and Peace"? —Virginia Woolf
Tolstoy is the greatest Russian writer of prose fiction. —Vladimir Nabokov
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
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