Comments on: Anna and Vronsky

By: solidgoldcreativity

solidgoldcreativity — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 04:32:38 +0000

Imagine Philip Roth or John Updike dissected under that school.

By: jenny

jenny — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 02:14:39 +0000

Yes, I think you’re right about Levin and Lev.

I also think that you may have discovered a new direction in literary theory: Peeved with Husband.

By: solidgoldcreativity

solidgoldcreativity — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 22:59:31 +0000

For me, AK is about Virginia Woolf’s question: how to live. I mentioned it in this other post here: http://solidgoldcreativity.com/2009/07/05/goodbye-levin/ (warning, genial references to Levin the dork).

Vronksy is a bit of a cipher to me, a foil for A and L (the real lovers/livers of the piece). Only his face touched me, and after the fact as it were.

What say you to the view, put about by I don’t know whom, that Levin=Lev T? That the vain/gauche/risky proposal and the vain/gauche/idiotic pressing of the diaries on Kitty was all as Lev T himself had done with Sophia?

You’re way ahead of me with Elif, reading the book and all. Is it good? Re Elif’s mother … am wondering if she was feeling peeved with her husband at the time? :)

By: jenny

jenny — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 10:35:02 +0000

I love the form of this post!

I recall a moment in Elif Batuman’s book “The Possessed” where she and her mother are discussing the “meaning” of Anna Karenina. Her mother says that it is a book about a man who loves women (Vronsky) and a man who does not (Levin).

Am I misremembering this?

By: solidgoldcreativity

solidgoldcreativity — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 23:14:47 +0000

So right that “too many are mezmerised with the sound of their own voice, thereby neglecting the content or the substance of their intended message.” In contrast, Tolstoy’s ruthlessness with his message is wonderful. Very pleased that you’ll continue reading ;) SGx

By: Kassandra

Kassandra — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:04:43 +0000

I will definitely look into Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky’s translations – I think it is a very good strategy to work with language experts from both cultures so as to maximise the accuracy of the meaning conveyed by the author in his own work.
I will also read your subsequent post on the same subject, it should be interesting to see what Nabokov’s comments are on this.
In turn, I must apologize for my misunderstanding of your intended meaning in your description of the book. You are absolutely right, as is Nabokov, regarding “false elegancies” because in literature, just like in oral communication, too many are mezmerised with the sound of their own voice, thereby neglecting the content or the substance of their intended message.
I have just dabbled in some of the themes discussed in your blog and it seems very interesting what you write about, I will definitely continue reading.

By: solidgoldcreativity

solidgoldcreativity — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 21:38:35 +0000

Hello Kassandra and welcome to Solid gold creativity. Thanks for your insightful comment. How I would love to be able to read Tolstoy in Russian!

I would be very interested to see what you make of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky’s translations. They’ve been raved about by literary critics fluent in both languages. Even The Man himself, Nabokov — that ultimate connoisseur of language — seems to have given his stamp of approval as I discuss in this later post here: http://solidgoldcreativity.com/2009/07/05/goodbye-levin/

What I meant by the novel feeling more like an animal is that it’s so alive, so pulsing, as if blood were running through its pages rather than ink. I used to feel like it was breathing when I laid it on my desk. So it was meant as a compliment. So too was my clumsy remark about sentences that are smooth but without perfection. Nabokov puts it much better than me (as I note it the later post) when he talks about Tolstoy’s “rejection of false elegancies.”

By: Kassandra

Kassandra — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:07:02 +0000

Judging by the exerpt that you have included of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, it sounds, that for once, there is a relatively good translation of a Russian classic. Everytime I have tried to read an English translation of a Russian novel, I would practically flung it from myself in horror, as if the book was hot coal that was burning my hands. Since then, I read Russian works only in the original because the specificity of the English syntax and the distinguishing particularities of its expression, practically butchers the cultural meaning that is specific to the Russians. Very often it also effectively alters the intended meaning of the author. As a native Russian, I can only say this: English readers lose immensely when they read translations – the feeling created by a specific language, its intended meaning, the cultural inferences that a native speaker draws from a novel in the original are all lost to a foreign reader. What the foreign reader does obtain in the majority of cases is the ‘gist’, as they say, the bare quintessence of the events conveyed in the novel.
It is for this reason, I assume, you say that the novel feels more like an animal with sentences that are smooth but without perfection. This is the common ailment of a translation, I am afraid.

By: solidgoldcreativity

solidgoldcreativity — Thu, 21 May 2009 05:50:39 +0000

I think you would love this book, one of the world’s greatest. Thank you for stopping by.

By: Mulberry

Mulberry — Thu, 21 May 2009 03:57:31 +0000

I think i am going to pick up this book and read. Sounds very interesting. Followed a tag on ur post and now definitely will read. Your posts are great for the expansion of my reading horizon :)