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An Essay: War And Peace "The Original Version"

Last April, the UK imprint Fourth Estate published War and Peace: The Original Version by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Andrew Bromfield.  Ecco will publish this version in the US in September (coinciding with a new Knopf translation--as noted by PW).  In the months preceding its release, Mitzi Angel, editorial director of Fourth Estate, wrote an essay detailing the historical relation of this draft to the 1,300 page juggernaut that many of us first encountered as undergraduates.  She kindly allowed me to reproduce the essay here.  As you'll see, it's an interesting story.

War & Peace
The Original Version
By Leo Tolstoy
Translated by Andrew Bromfield

By Mitzi Angel

     In September 1865 Dostoevsky, wrote a letter to a publisher in Moscow outlining his plans for the story of Crime and Punishment, suggesting that the monthly journal Russkii Vestnik publish his prospective novel in installments. It is perhaps the most famous pitch in literary history. ‘This will be a psychological study of a crime,’ he wrote; ‘It will be a novel of contemporary life and the action takes place this year.’ It so happened that Katkov, the publisher, was in a position to be able to accept – new installments of Leo Tolstoy’s 1805, later War and Peace, were slow to appear, and he was grateful for some new material. Dostoevsky, paralyzed by gambling debts, having lost the money that Turgenev had lent him, close to starvation and unable to pay his hotel bill in Wiesbaden, had begun his work on the novel. ‘Later I found out’, Dostoevsky wrote of Katkov’s purchase of the serial rights (the money incidentally was not enough to keep his creditors away) ‘that he was only too glad to accept my offer because he had nothing else for that year. Turgenev has not written anything and he has quarreled with Lev Tolstoy.’

     So it is that one journal, in one year, nurtured the messy beginnings of two masterpieces whose lives were to extend well beyond their monthly incarnations. The first part of Crime and Punishment was published in January. It was then followed by some more installments of Tolstoy’s 1805, published in February, March and April of that year. More of Crime and Punishment then appeared. Tolstoy wrote a letter to his friend, the poet Afanasij Vet, and explained that he was thinking of a new title for this work in progress – All’s Well That Ends Well. That year he also began to explore the possibility – urged on by his wife Sofya Andreyevna – of publishing the novel in volume form, which was to cause consternation for the journal’s publisher, who was by now well aware of the public’s enthusiastic response, and reluctant to see the work appear in any other form.

     There were other reasons for the strain in the relationship between Tolstoy and Katkov, his publisher. The fact is that whatever this novel was finally to be called, it was still work in progress. Despite publication of the initial sections in February 1865, he had begun extensive revisions to the book. From April to November, he had temporarily withdrawn his involvement with the journal and was busy reworking vast swathes of it, unresponsive to the journal’s demands. Life too, and history with it, provided its own interruptions. In 1866, there was a birth – of his son, Ilya – and a death. The death was that of a young soldier whom Tolstoy had agreed to defend against being court-martialled and executed for slapping a bullying battalion commander. His attempt, which he later looked back on with regret and embarrassment, failed, and the boy was sent to the firing squad. He visited the battlefield at Borodino, and no doubt had cause to reflect on one of his greatest themes in the novel; the ordinary confusion of human affairs and its complicated and problematic relationship to the making of history. This was to culminate in one of Tolstoy’s greatest scenes in War and Peace; Pierre Bezukhov wandering about on the field, looking futilely amongst the chaos for a scene which might capture history in the making.

     And just as pinning down history in the making proves so elusive, so perhaps is the genesis of War and Peace. More than any other writer before or since, Tolstoy was living through the novel as it developed, adapting and changing it as his ideas matured, the book undergoing transformation for a period of 6 years, until it was finally published in 1869, in a four-volume set. What had originally been envisioned as a book about the Decembrists, the members of the nobility who had staged a revolt on the death of Alexander 1 in 1825, evolved over time into the historical epic we know. War now demanded more attention; the half-centenary of Borodino in 1862 had given rise to debate among the Russian intelligentsia about the nature of history. Tolstoy, a man thoroughly engaged with the ideas of his time, was by the late 60s struggling to reconcile a sense of historical purpose with the simultaneous conviction that the truth was likely to be found in haphazard and untidy human behaviour. The book arose from ceaseless questioning; a restless mind grappling with problems which were gaining in urgency for Tolstoy as the years went by and as the Napoleonic wars were being replayed and endlessly discussed in Russian society.

More of the "Best Poems..."

Final copies of The Best Poems of the English Language are in.  They won't be readily available for another week or so.  The on sale date is August 7th.  I may have a copy or two (or ten, or none) as it goes on sale.  Since the purpose of this collection was wondered about in the comments, I thought I would include an excerpt from the "Introduction" and let Mr. Bloom speak for himself:

Though arranged chronologically, this vast book is intended for every kind of personal use, so that literary history is essentially irrelevant to its purposes, as are all considerations of political correctness and incorrectness.  The best poems published by women before 1923 are here, chosen entirely on the basis of their aesthetic value.  Poetry is in the first place poetry, a high and ancient art.  It raises your consciousness of glory and of grief, of woe or wonder, as Shakespeare phrased it.  Shakespeare spoke of "wonder-wounded hearers": they are the readers this volume seeks to serve.

My chronological limits are set by Geoffrey Chaucer, born around 1343, and Hart Crane, born in 1899.  If poets born in the twentieth century were included here, many would be from Canada, the West Indies, Australia, New Zealand, and Africa, but because of the span covered, everyone here wrote in Great Britain or the United States.

I have included no poem or excerpt from a longer work that does not meet (in my judgment) the highest aesthetic and cognitive standards that poetry can exemplify.  There are 108 poets represented in this book (aside from Anonymous), with about 24 given in something like their full abundance.  Essentially, this is the anthology I've always wanted to possess.  It reflects sixty years of deep and passionate reading, going back to my love of William Blake and Hart Crane, of William Shakespeare and John Milton, that vitalized my life from my twelfth year onward.

Those may seem like cut and dry guidelines, but Bloom writes in the "Author Note" that his "introduction explains the concept and purpose of this book, but the center, for me, of my commentaries here is to be found in the essay "The Art of Reading Poetry."

As the on sale date nears, I'll share some choice selections from his commentary.

The Heat

Usually there's at least a breeze, some coolness left in the trees when I walk to the subway.  Not this morning: the trash-flavored city summer is upon us. 

Pictures from ALA are slowly wending their way into my inbox.  I only documented the first day, and since I was setting up the whole time, my pictures really don't stand on their own.  Before my train left, I sauntered about Washington D.C. for a few hours.  I forgot how beautiful the capital is.  Really, it's right up there with anything else I have seen.

Now to the blogging, Nick DiMartino, a playwright, noveliest, and veteran bookseller, writes a tremendous blog called Novel World: The Best New Novels On This Planet.  While he does evaluate the best of what's new, his penchant for the classics is plain to see.  Among others, he has written an essay boldly titled "The Greatest Novel Ever Written."  And would you believe that I'm reading the very book he names supreme?  Oh, you don't care.  Well, it's a nice feeling all the same.  I wonder if there are any dissenting views.

Here's another interesting website, Razorpages.  Described as a "community for independent and small press authors where authors can connect with authors and readers can connect with authors."  This interweb of likeminded people is facillitated by blogs, podcasts, video podcasts, and more.

And Silliman is reviewed in the Philly Inquirer (link via Poetry Hut, thank you!)

"Annals of Poetry"

Well, the fashionable debate over the Chicago-based Poetry Foundation continues with David Orr's essay, "Annals of Poetry," appearing in this Sunday's NYTBR.  The essay comes in response to the lengthy New Yorker article by Dana Goodyear ("The Moneyed Muse") that criticized the policies, or public manifestations, of the Poetry Foundation in view of the $200 million donation it received from Ruth Lilly in 2001.  Orr cites some interesting facts not mentioned in Goodyear's article, namely that Goodyear's poetry has appeared in the New Yorker more often than a bucketful of venerated masters (Czeslaw Milosz, Jorie Graham, Derek Walcott, and "every living American poet laureate except for W.S. Merwin").  This would speak volumes for Goodyear if one ignores that she was David Remnick's assistant.  While that can stand as is, Orr raises issue with the poems themselves:

And then there’s the question of the poems the magazine chooses to run. Granted, picking poems for a national publication is nearly impossible, and The New Yorker’s poetry editor, Alice Quinn, probably does it as well as anyone could. (Quinn is also liked personally, and rightly so, by many poets.) But there are two ways in which The New Yorker’s poem selection indicates the tension between reinforcing the “literariness” of the magazine’s brand and actually saying something interesting about poetry. First, The New Yorker tends to run bad poems by excellent poets. This occurs in part because the magazine has to take Big Names, but many Big Names don’t work in ways that are palatable to The New Yorker’s vast audience (in addition, many well-known poets don’t write what’s known in the poetry world as “the New Yorker poem” — basically an epiphany-centered lyric heavy on words like “water” and “light”). As a result, you get fine writers trying on a style that doesn’t suit them. The Irish poet Michael Longley writes powerful, earthy yet cerebral lines, but you wouldn’t know it from his New Yorker poem “For My Grandson”: “Did you hear the wind in the fluffy chimney?” Yes, the fluffy chimney.

In general, I never turn to the New Yorker for the what's new in poetry.  They were keen enough to run a few of Herbert's poem--were they some of his stronger ones?--I'm not qualified to comment.  Orr sees no reason to relent, however, and ends with the following question:

Poets may get frustrated with the Poetry Foundation; they may complain; they may disagree with certain projects. But the Poetry Foundation, however misguided or impolitic, hasn’t given up on poetry. The question is: Has The New Yorker?