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Archive 1Archive 2

Language

This section is for discussion of the article section, Language, including whether it needs to be in there at all (I think it should stay at present, but it has some major problems). I'm reading the Pevear translation, which preserves the French intact, and I've gone so far as to count French words in the text, and it does not seem true at all that French diminishes as the novel increases. Indeed, Pierre's competence in French becomes one of his major "weapons" in dealing with the French, although as is typical to Pierre, it doesn't give him all that much of an advantage. But, his entire interaction with Ramballe (which happens in the last 1/4th of the novel, so I'd say it's "near the end" is in French) and that so it is wrong to say that Tolstoy diminished the use of French. Perhaps what is meant is that Tolstoy tries to show that Russians in Moscow become self-conscious about speaking the language of the enemy (they are also puzzled by the fact that the "enemy" was such an admired nation just weeks before), but in Petersburg, I believe Tolstoy is at pains to show that not only are the aristocrats still speaking French (and of course he is sharply critical of their insouciance regarding the state of affairs further south), and yes, that it is superficial (Hippolyte is ridiculous, actually), but it is still the language of the Tsar and his closest circle. Is the Tsar supposed to be seen as superficial? I just can't see it that way, Tolstoy is so poetic about the Tsar's lovely face and sincerity - unless of course, this is all irony. If so, some literary critic who is a specialist in irony needs to be cited.Levalley (talk) 17:34, 19 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley

One suggestion. I believe someone has rewritten large parts of this article, but at this point much of the English now does not sound native. It should help if the article writer collaborates with an English native here. Some parts of the new stuff are not so easy to understand, and if my advice is anything to go by, he or she could go to the literature portal to request for copyediting help. DORC (talk) 14:45, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
This is a main reason I am reluctant to/having trouble fixing even minor problems in the article. There's a template somewhere regarding overall article balance for articles on novels (too much plot summary in relation to other things about the novel is discouraged for example) but I don't know how to add templates. The secondary literature on War and Peace is vast and goes beyond "religion and politics." I suppose the religious aspect of Tolstoy is so frequently discussed that it bears mentioning here, but it is a tricky area to edit. I'm going to focus on getting other pages developed (characters, for example; and place names/maps). The more I look at other articles on novels (not just in Wikipedia but, for example, in Britannica), I realize that the purpose is to aid a reader in understanding a novel in depth - not to give a Cliff's notes version (which is what I think has happened here).Levalley (talk) 21:04, 22 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley

Proposing to move the section on "language" to "crafting the novel," where it seems to belong and can be made to flow more naturally, and to reduce the size of the section. It seems a rather lengthy, two paragraph long section on one small aspect of the novel, and many other aspects of the novel do not receive such treatment, even though they are perhaps more important than this one. Further, as the links section strongly points readers who come to this page to the Maude translation, they will not be seeing the French, as they would in other translations - so when a section on translations is finally written, perhaps the language issue could be mentioned again as an issue of which translation of W and P one might wish to read.Levalley (talk) 17:51, 28 March 2009 (UTC)--LeValley

The 'Language' section should be dropped, rewritten, or deprecated. The fact is the Russian aristocracy spoke French in everyday conversation. This is reflected accurately by Tolstoy; interpretations thereof are thus largely modern projections... While there is irony of the use of French given war with France, Napoleon, etc., Tolstoy is far too nuanced and brilliant a writer to simplify this into a 'progressive elimination of French from the text as a means of demonstrating that Russia has freed itself from foreign cultural domination.' (There is no evidence of this.) It is ironic the aristocracy would gravitate to Russian too (in a fit of jingoism), so this course of reasoning is, in my humble opine, a woefully sophomoric analysis. While certainly the influence of French on Russian culture could be construed as a (minor) theme in the novel, it is dealt with via the relationships and (varying) ideas of the characters, not in some quantitative easing of the language itself! Agree wholeheartedly that of the myriad of subjects one might discuss regarding this novel, the focus on 'use of French' is a simplistic, distorted, and virtually nonexistent one. My $0.02. (Wintertanager (talk) 17:22, 5 November 2010 (UTC))
The first paragraph of the section appears to be useful. The second has a reference, so we would need to decide 1) the reference is not reliable, 2) the reference does not support everything said or 3) decide undue attention is being paid to this interpretation. I tend to lean towards #3. Its not clear if paragraph 3 is still covered by the same source or is original research. . . --John (User:Jwy/talk) 18:25, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
Paragraph 3 is also covered by the same source. --Garik 11 (talk) 20:49, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
Relative to all the other far more interesting and frankly complex aspects of this novel that are not even mentioned on the page (explorations of faith, a major theme, or say, a more comprehensive analysis of Tolstoy's view on history, to which he devotes hundreds of pages), yes #3! undue attention. The whole bit about the characters taking Russian lessons is meant to be ironical, where they scold one another for interjecting phrases, etc., revert back to the French, and so on. As someone mentioned above there is no "steady decline in the use of French" as the novel progresses! And 'source' aside, Tolstoy himself has written about his own use of language in the novel, which it seems to me, considering he is the author, should be definitive. While it is true that after the Napoleonic wars Russian aristocracy did indeed begin to deprecate the use of French and embrace more warmly aspects of traditional Russian culture, nowhere is that reflected in this novel... Wintertanager (talk) 13:06, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Expression

Somebody staying up all night to read or study something really heavy is said to be "reading War and Peace." It's a colloquial expression. Maybe worth mentioning? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.193.112.62 (talk) 03:04, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

source of Tolstoy's title

I have added some links and info. One "fact" which I added is the sentence that Tolstoy took his title from a similarly titled [in French] 1861 work of Proudhon. I can link this to many citations, but when I try, as a footnote, a huge space opens up between that sentence and the next. So, there is some code I do not know. Help. MKohut (talk) 20:01, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I haven't had any trouble with footnoting. Are you using the last button (<ref/ref>) is its marking? It properly inserts a footnote with the right number, and you just put your citation inside the indicated space, and the citation shows up beneath the article. I am fascinated by the huge number of books Tolstoy read and referenced in War and Peace and think that this is an area that the Wikipedia article should have already covered - his influences. Indeed, it should be the "context" of the book - rather than some of the plot oriented stuff previously described as "context." Thanks for trying - perhaps it will work next time or someone else will come along and help. --Levalley (talk) 20:06, 15 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley
I agree with you and will slowly work on that. The footnote works, I do it properly, I've done them before, but something with the Index and Picture formatiing gets changed and the sentence after the one I footnote then drops way way down if I close the preview.MKohut (talk) 23:33, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I am quite sure that the real meaning of the title is "War and World", becuse the word Мир has double meaning in russian and in old Russian for each meaning was established it's own spelling: Мир and Mip. It must be reviewed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.168.29.136 (talk) 16:14, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

A social graph of the book

This great work of world literature is enriched by the complicated network that mutually links its characters. Modern theories of social graphs based on mathematical graph theory could help new readers navigate the novel.Lee De Cola (talk) 23:36, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Title page in the infobox

The title page pictured in the infobox has carried a self-description as being from the "first edition". In fact, the date at the bottom is 1909, and the title page is for volume six, assuming that matters. I went looking through Google Books, and while I had no trouble finding first editions, using the Cyrillic from the infobox, but apparently it's a matter of Russian National Security or something to actually read inside.

Can anyone fix this? On the image page, I recommended that the existing image should be left alone until a correct image is found and uploaded as a replacement, because a dozen or so articles link to the image. And apparently have done so for a few years without harming anyone.

I note that our Russian friends at Война и мир uses the Pasternak illustration in the infobox. Choor monster (talk) 15:23, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

length of the novel--not seventh longest

The article currently says: War and Peace is well known as being one of the longest novels ever written, though not the longest. It is actually the seventh longest novel ever written in a Latin or Cyrillic based alphabet and is subdivided into four books or volumes, each with sub parts containing many chapters.

The word longest is a hyperlink to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_novel which lists it as the 16th longest book. I do not know enough about the alphabets used in the longer books, although eleven books are longer as English or English translations.

I do not intend to edit the article since my expertise is too limited in this area, but I wanted to point out an apparent inaccuracy. Jfehribach (talk) 23:45, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

audio in Russian

I found this with War and Peace read aloud in Russian. All Russian; the French, Italian and German are not reproduced. http://finz.ru/music/%D2%EE%EB%F1%F2%EE%E9+%C2%EE%E9%ED%E0+%C8+%CC%E8%F0+%D2%EE%EC+1 71.163.117.143 (talk) 20:06, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

There is another version here: https://archive.org/details/Tolstoy_Lev_-_Voyna_i_mir_Klyukvin_Aleksandr_2013 108.18.136.147 (talk) 13:07, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Comparing translations

I am sure that there must be dozens of academics, scholars and critics with views on the relative merits of the various different translations of War and Peace into English but, at the moment, the 'Comparing Translations' section contains just one person's opinion. If this represents a general consensus then some evidence of this should be provided, if not then I feel there should be a wider discussion RichWA (talk) 19:28, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Plot Summary and Book Structure

I am having trouble following this article's plot summary and how it describes War and Peace is structured. As someone reading this book, I have two main problems with the Plot Summary section:

1. The article records four volumes, not three. Both copies of War and Peace that I have seen - the 1982 Penguin's Classics (might be 1978, my memory is a bit fuzzy on that) and the 1993 Wordsworth Classics editions - are organized into three volumes split into fifteen books and hundreds of chapters total, not including the two epilogues. Unsurprisingly, because of this there are parts of the summary in the incorrect places compared to my copies. For example, for me Nikolenka Bolkonsky is born in Volume I, Book IV and Pierre joins the Freemasons in the next book after, but the article implies both are well into Volume II. Are there more qualified alternative versions of this book that I'm unaware of that have the article's version?

2. The Plot Summary seems to focus on introducing characters and their personality over the novel's actual plot/action. Now, granted, I'm new to Wikipedia and War and Peace has lots of characters to know. But I have a feeling that this is a bit anomalous to most other novel summaries here.

I haven't made any edits yet for several reasons. It feels like too big of a change without establishing any kind of agreement or consensus first. And like I said, I'm also new here and I haven't finished the book yet, so I don't feel too qualified to do anything like this by myself yet. - Borderlandor (talk) 05:46, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

EDIT: This whole page's structure is pretty irregular too. I went ahead and made a few small changes to the plot summary section. Borderlandor (talk) 03:25, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi, the standard critical edition in Russian is divided into four volumes, not three (the Zaidenshnur text I think). I've reverted it to a 4-book format. Your editions, the Penguin and the Wordsworth, are based on outdated editions of the novel. DORC (talk) 15:40, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

¶ I have very deliberately deleted an altogether unjustified "citation needed" immediately after the comment, in the summary of Book 4, that Pierre's wife, the Countess Helene, died of an overdose of an abortifacient, expressed in an unambiguous euphemism. The reading of the text of the novel itself shows that no citation is necessary. This from the beginning of chapter 2 of book 12 ("1812"):

Officially, at large gatherings, everyone said that Countess Bezukhova had died of a terrible attack of angina pectoris, but in intimate circles details were mentioned of how the private physician of the Queen of Spain had prescribed small doses of a certain drug to produce a certain effect; but Helene, tortured by the fact that the old count suspected her and that her husband to whom she had written (that wretched, profligate Pierre) had not replied, had suddenly taken a very large dose of the drug, and had died in agony before assistance could be rendered her. It was said that Prince Vasili and the old count had turned upon the Italian, but the latter had produced such letters from the unfortunate deceased that they had immediately let the matter drop.

Res ipsa loquitur. Sussmanbern (talk) 07:47, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Is Berg Russian or German? The article is contradictory as to this point.

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Different chapter beginnings in Garnett translation

Does someone know why the chapters in the Garnett translation start a slightly different points?

In the Garnett translation the beginning of chapter IV is "Anna Pavlovna smiled and promised to look after Pierre".

In the version on Wikisource and literature.org chapter IV starts with "Just then another visitor entered the drawing room". "Anna Pavlovna smiled and promised to take Pierre in hand" comes half a page later.

Are these translations of different version of War and Peace, or did Constance Garnett take the liberty to move the headlines around? The article does not mention anything special about the Garnett translation. Watchduck (quack) 13:50, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

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