War and Peace.

I'm really into it again. Chs. 27-32 of Part 3 were excellent.

I think I might like the "big" farming section. I actually find the question of whether Russia should adopt more "western" practices an interesting one (a theme common in Tolstoy).

The Maudes translation.

I love them both and have read War and Peace twice and Anna Karenina 3 times. I give the edge to AK - it just keeps me engaged more thoroughly and I love Kitty and Levin. I even love the long farming passages. Actually, you’re making me want to reread it. Which translation are you reading? I read Constance Garnet first and I have a soft spot for it, even though I know she’s a little out of favor. I HATED the P&V translation - stopped part way through it was so clunky.

AK is by far the better book. Proven by the fact that Tolstoy ended up totally hating it.

Someone once famously said that Tolstoy was a fox that wanted to be a hedgehog — the fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows just one. Tolstoy wrote complicated messy people but he really only wanted to write simple morality plays (at least at the end of his life).

Or some people think his wife wrote some of it….she did all his transcribing and editing for him.

I read War and Peace a few months ago and am reading Anna Karenina now.

I read War and Peace at a faster pace than I'm reading AK, in part because it was just so big and daunting. I felt it took 200 pages before it really engaged me but after that it was superb. Most interesting to me was the history and Pierre was my favorite character. I underlined passages I particularly liked and put post-it notes on those pages (when a book is more than 1000 pages you'll never find those passages again!) I do plan to read again though, I'd read the second epilogue first.

I'm now 300 pages into AK. Interestingly I found it really enjoyable at the beginning (first 100 pages or so) but it's a bit more sluggish now I'm not sure when the 100 page treatise on farming methods comes in). This time no markups. I'm also listening to the Librivox recording (Mary-Ann Spiegel) which is very good while following along with the text. It slows down the pace but also keeps you focused and more likely to savior it (I'm a very fast reader and I'm trying to break that habit).

Curious to hear from those who have read both. Which do you prefer, and how did you read?