/lit/ - Literature

>farming bad

Tolstoy retroactively refuted urbanites

crush the urbanite

>>14476439
> reading P&V
i hope you don't do this

Wanted to get into more sophisticated literature and bought this along with the count of Monte cristo,which I read first and loved, and now I know I have to read this and I'm dreading it

Levin is the only silver lining in this novel.

>>14476580
not a refutation actually

>>14476580
>>14476587
tolstoy larping as a farmer at the end of his life doesn't make him a woodsman

farming bits were the best

>>14476622
It's a good book. A bit lengthy, but that shouldn't mean it's bad. I would encourage you to read it!

>>14476439
>poetry about shepherds and farming
>not a classic

>>14476591
I’ve read Garnett and P&V and really don’t get why it gets so much hate, it’s simpler and more modern for sure, but I don’t don’t see any “show me a complicated man” shit.

>>14476622
>count of Monte cristo
teens read that garbage

Anna Karenina is an overall masterpiece. Some parts are awful though and you'll just have to push yourself.

>>14476439
Did you also hate Moby-Dick? I unironically enjoyed the several hundred pages of whale specifications because it was interspersed with nice prose passages and they immersed you in the era. Haven't read Anna Karenina but does Tolstoy not intersperse with prose? Is it really just hundreds of pages about farming? I doubt that to be honest.

>>14476719
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-pevearsion-of-russian-literature/
> Pevear and Volokhonsky, who are married, work in an unusual fashion. She, a native Russian speaker, renders each book into entirely literal English. He, who knows insufficient Russian, then works on the rendering with the intention of keeping the language as close to the original as possible. What results from this attempt at unprecedented fidelity is a word-for-word and syntax-for-syntax version that sacrifices tone and misconstrues overall sense.

>>14476762
this is why translations will always be water downed

>>14476591
I read Bartlett but what's the difference in translations? Nothing of what I read seems very difficult to translate. Is the prose just worse in P&V?

Tolstoy is just based and I would read him whatever he wrote about. Incredible characters, unbelievable understanding of human emotions and themes that almost seamlessly and effortlessly tie into the narrative.
Currently reading War and Peace and maybe that's more to the taste of people who find the whole "russian society" deal with princesses and counts a bit boring, though it's still there and the book itself is like twice as long
>>14476722
I literally can't think of any awful parts in the whole book. The most boring parts were when Anna was traveling abroad and then living with Vronsky

>>14477019
I agree and disagree. The farming parts were not that good but not boring. The parts with the painter were just a drag.

>>14477145
The farming parts were my favorite

>>14476439
>Hey babe, is your name by any chance Anna Karenina? Because my friends and I wanna run a train on you heheheheheh

>>14477019
>>14477145
wtf i loved the whole subplot with the artist

>reading about bitchy romance and sexual frustrations of some woman falling for Chad
>not reading based Hadji Murat or War and Peace

>>14477705
it felt half baked desu and like bad Dostoevsky spouting opinions

>>14477145
>The parts with the painter were just a drag.

I even forgot those were there lmao

>>14477257
No, they were not.
Your favorite part was when Dolly wanted to act as the matchmaker and everyone was staying at Lev's rural home and having fun in general with jams and walks in the forests

..super max comfy

>>14478424
>>14477705
see what i mean?

>>14478446
>>14478454
a girl i knew really liked the mushroom shenanigans that occur at Lev's as well

i personally am not the biggest fan of Anna Karenina, perhaps because I grew up in Russia and everybody knew how it went and how it ends - such that it wasn't particularly interesting

Do you really think these men have the ability to write hundreds of pages of pure excellence? Reading was monotonous sometimes because people needed that book to last awhile. People paid for lots of content back then.

>>14478491
i am not a girl but i absolutely love how feminine Tolstoy can be
maybe he was gay

Levin cutting the grass is legitimately the best part of the book. You guys have such bad taste.