War & Peace 3

From the massive amount of comments I have received over my on-line, live, daily updated review of War and Peace I can tell that I have the ears (or eyes?) of the blogsphere. However, since I am fairly certain no one reads my blog I can do whatever I want. Right now that means another blog on War and Peace.

As I said in my first post about the book. This is the first English translation of War and Peace done exclusively by a male. I said that it will probably not mean anything will be substantially different, and mostly that's true. But there are little things here and there that ring different from other translations, (of course I also don't roll out the fact that I might just be picking up on more of Tolstoy's subtleties that I missed before). Here is an example that has changed completely how I understand Prince Nikolay Bolkonsky. I think Briggs shows much more feeling in the scene where Princess Marya is taking her geometry lesson. Here is how he translates it.

The Princess got one of the answers wrong.

'How can you be so stupid?' he roared, pushed the book away, and truning from her sharply. But then he got up, paced up and down, laid a hand on the princess's hair and sat down again. He drew close to the table and went on with his explanations.

'No, no, you can't do that,' he said, as Princess Marya took the exercise-book with the homewrok in it, closed it and made to leave the room. 'Mathemmatice is a great subject, madam. And you, being like the silly young ladies of today is something I do not want. Perservere and all will come clear.' He patted her on the check. 'This will drive the silliness out of your head.' ...

'Go on then, run along.'

He patted her on the shoulder, and went himself to close the door after her.

Compare that reading, which shows a tyrannical and dense father tempered by true paternal love, with this reading from another translation, which shows only a tyrannical father.

The princess gave a wrong answer.
"Well now, isn't she a fool!" shouted the prince, pushing the book aside and turning sharply away; but rising immediately, he paced up and down, lightly touched his daughter's hair and sat down again.
He drew up his chair. and continued to explain.
"This won't do, Princess; it won't do," said he, when Princess Mary, having taken and closed the exercise book with the next day's lesson, was about to leave: "Mathematics are most important, madam! I don't want to have you like our silly ladies. Get used to it and you'll like it," and he patted her cheek. "It will drive all the nonsense out of your head."...
"Well, now go. Go."
He patted her on the shoulder and himself closed the door after her.