I am now the proud possessor of the sexy new hardcover edition of War and Peace , a translation hot off the press by Anthony Briggs, with nobody called Andrew in it, you'll be pleased to hear.
It features the usual headless woman image on the front cover, so you know it's historical fiction (which it is, even when first published) and a gold sticker on the front that screams: "A life changing NOVEL a must read NEW translation". Will people really only buy it if it has gold sticker that promises life changes, like Oprah?
Best of all, there are blurbs by Flaubert, Woolf, Updike, AN Wilson, John Bayley (of course) and Simon Schama.
This cracks me up.
"Love and battle, terror and desire, life and death. It's a book that you don't just read, you live." Thank you Mr Schama.
If it wasn't my favourite book I'd never read it in a million years with that wrap. Normally I'd believe Simon Says, but that makes it sound like Bernard Cornwell's latest.
She was a timid princess, trapped in her own home by a tyrant father - he was a reckless but penniless hussar ... etc
Which reminds me, I have long believed people can be classified according to which plotline in War and Peace they consider most romantic:
- Natasha and Andrei
- Natasha and Pierre
- Marya and Nikolai.
[drum roll] Your votes please.
I don't know what it means, but it's a theory I hold dear and will one day form the basis of a doctoral thesis.
I'm a timid princess/reckless hussar person myself, and the only one I know. Hence the theory, half-baked though it may be.
I wish they'd asked me for a blurb. Imagine being so famous you can blurb Tolstoy. Even if you're dead.
Anyway, silence will now descend upon us as I have completely screwed up my schedule and now have to do a month's homework in a week.
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