War and Peace (Vintage Classics) Paperback – December 2, 2008

.ロシアが「ソビエト連邦」であった時代（１９６０年代）の映画作品「戦争と平和」・・・セルゲイ・ボンダルチュク監督・主演（ピエール役）の各場面を想起しながら、読ませて頂いた。翻訳者ご夫婦の ロシア語⇒英語の翻訳は、他作品の翻訳を見ても大変に水準が高く、信頼できる素晴らしい出来栄えであり、米国amazonのレビュアー諸氏の評価も高く又、私も同様に感じた。トルストイの壮大な物語の構想力・構築力は、大作曲家による交響曲を思わせ、戦争と平和の織りなす さまざまな人間模様が丹念に、ドラマチックに描かれるその筆致は、まさに ”世界文学史上における歴史的大作” の名にふさわしい。休日などに、落ち着いて、じっくりと名作を読みふけるのも なかなか愉悦のときである。

I read ‘War and Peace’ four times. Whenever I re-read it, strangely enough, I am more attracted by the gorgeousness of the aristocratic society. For example, Natasha, who was so sweet, so unpredictable, so delightful when she was a queen of the aristocratic society, appears as a fussy, exacting , shrewish housewife in the last epilogue scene. The same thing can be said about Pierre and Nicholas Rostov. One is inclined to think that the aristocracy and the war were necessary to make them attractive. But at least you understand why it came about that Tolstoy did not easily take the action which he had long wanted to take. As you know, Tolstoy had long wanted to renounce his estate, his title and his copyrights and escape from his privileged position and live a life of a peasant. But Tolstoy hesitated just as long in putting the idea into practice although his conscience and his followers had urged him to do so. Of course his wife and family strongly opposed to it and tried by all means to stop him from doing it, but I don't think that their objection is enough to account for his hesitation, because judging from his personality we know, Tolstoy would have found in himself the strength to do what he sincerely thought right, if he had only intended to do so.I think the real reason for his hesitation was in Tolstoy himself. Anyone who has studied 'War and Peace' in detail will have noticed that contrary to the image the society had of him, he had the most aristocratic tastes. He was so much soaked in the aristocratic atmosphere that he didn’t quite enough want to leave it. Otherwise he could not have written the world of the aristocracy so intimately and so beautifully.