35 Comments
Mar 10Liked by Simon Haisell

As always I love these weekly summaries! Love Ellie’s little painting and her reaction, love the tangents about the ice, the fish and found learning about Dr. Larrey so interesting ,but most of all I love this quote -

“This is War and Peace. Over a thousand pages, but with a world on every line.”

which says it all…

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Well, I now calculate my reading schedule in terms of “knitting nights”. I am currently two knitting nights away from catching up. Or one Sunday dog walk and one knitting night, if I want to actually leave the house. Which I generally don’t, except on Sunday. 🫣🤣

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Mar 10Liked by Simon Haisell

Knitting + audiobooks is my holy grail! The only problem is that with the two audiobooks and my other reading/listening, I'm knitting too much too fast and it's becoming a financially unfeasible hobby 💸💸💸

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I recommend the Libby library app!

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Mar 10Liked by Simon Haisell

I‘m a frequent Libby user, so the (audio-)books aren‘t the issue. The yarn is 😩

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Is there such a thing as too much knitting??? 🤔😁

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Oh….yes!!! 😂

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Agreed 100% on the joys of audiobooks and knitting, but now I'm in trouble! I am a novice knitter working on a challenging project (perhaps too challenging 🙄) and I was so caught up in the audiobook that now I have to unwind several nights worth and start again! I made so many errors from paying more attention to the book than the pattern! 😕

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I understand completely! I’ve started a new cardigan tonight and to save my sanity while I cast on 106 stitches, I paused the audiobook. Listening to audiobooks probably works best when you’re knitting something that doesn’t demand your full attention. Luckily this cardigan is a basic stockinette stitch. I can’t imagine trying to knit cables while listening to War and Peace…. But I’ve never mastered cables 😂

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Happens to all of us. Practice makes perfect!

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Loving this thread about knitting and W&P. I’m a lapsed knitter who’s trying to get back into the game (and a half-done pair of socks) and I’ll need a very simple audiobook while I try to remember what I was doing last time I handled the needles. Happy listening and knitting to all of you!

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Belatedly joining this audiobooks & knitting party!

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Mar 10Liked by Simon Haisell

So, I couldn't get ''grebeshki'' (which would also translate as rake) out of my head and since my mother is Slavic, I wondered if we had cock's combs to eat when i was little and indeed we had. Also, my Milanese partner has said that his grandfather, who was a virtuoso in the kitchen cooked up some amazing recipes with cock's combs. I also did some digging on my own, which led me to a beautiful essay by Richard Pevear about translation work he did with Larissa Volokhonsky. It's full of spoilers, so I had to be really careful, but to my surprise there was indeed mentioned, how grebeshki was a really hard nut to crack in terms of translation. I'll copy and paste the part of the essay which pertains to the subject below. But just to answer the question, yes, I think Tolstoy means the comb of a rooster.

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author

And thanks for the clarification about the roosters. Pevear seems to assume this is unambiguous, which I found quite odd.

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Mar 10Liked by Simon Haisell

I know, right? But I think in three years spent translating and then reading the book five times, for him the cock's combs were as natural as they can get.

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author

I think it might be the same essay I link to in the post, Carina?

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Mar 10Liked by Simon Haisell

Indeed it is Simon.

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Can’t believe we ended the week on such a big moment. Tolstoy was so strategic with his chapter breakdown, seemingly aiming for optimal suspense almost all the time.

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Mar 10Liked by Simon Haisell

Wonderful weekly summary as usual, thanks for enriching our reading Simon. I find it fascinating to learn that the character Dolokhov was based on a family member of Tolstoy’s!

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Mar 10Liked by Simon Haisell

And an excerpt from the Pevear essay:

... finding words for them in English has been one of the most rewarding aspects of our work. Here is a very different and rather amusing example of the search for fidelity. Count Ilya Andreich Rostov, Natasha’s father, is giving a banquet in honor of General Bagration. Ordering the menu, he insists that "grebeshki" be put in the "tortue." I assumed that tortue was French turtle soup, but what about grebeshki? The Russian word can mean either "cock’s-combs" or "scallops." Which would you put in a turtle soup? I did research into the uses of cock’s-combs, but with rather unappealing results. I looked at previous translations: one has "scallops" and thinks the soup is a "pie crust"; another has "cock’s-combs" but in a "pasty"; in a third the "cock’s-combs" are in a "soup"; the fourth agrees about the soup, but puts "croutons" in it. Going by my own taste, I decided to put scallops in the turtle soup. This reading got as far as the first set of page proofs. Just then we met by chance (at a dinner in Paris) a woman who used to run a cooking school. We asked her which it should be. She, too, was puzzled. A few days later we received a long email from her. She had become so intrigued by our question that she went to the French National Library the next day and looked up the history of the culinary use of cock’s-combs. She was happy to inform us that they came into fashion precisely around the time of the Napoleonic wars and were a key ingredient in turtle sauce. Suddenly the whole passage made sense, because the chef replies to the old count’s order: "Three cold sauces, then?" The other translations have "three cold dishes" or "entrees," with no relation to sauces at all. Thanks to Mme. Meunier, we were able to make the correction in the second set of proofs. But does such a small thing really matter? Well, it certaintly did to Tolstoy. What this seemingly trivial detail reveals is the extraordinary accuracy of his memory, even in the smallest things. Cock’s-combs had gone out of fashion by his time, but he knew where to place them and in what. Tolstoy’s prose is a rich, fluid, multivoiced artistic medium.

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author

Ah yes, thanks! This is the same essay I link to in the post.

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Mar 10Liked by Simon Haisell

I am loving these weekly summaries and how they enhance the reading. It was fascinating/horrifying to read the linked piece about Dr. Larrey and the mastectomy. And like Jennifer S, I too love this quote from you Simon, “This is War and Peace. Over a thousand pages, but with a work on every line.”

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We should post our WIPs! LOL!

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Mar 15Liked by Simon Haisell

I‘ve just caught up on the article about Larrey. Fascinating! I‘d read before about him being the doctor immortalised in Burney‘s harrowing, clear-eyed letter, but the Waterloo and Berezina stories are equally good.

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Mar 11Liked by Simon Haisell

Oh, this review made me realize that I forgot to comment on how really god-awful the poetry in Bagration's honour was. Such an 18th century, classical reference heavy, ode! But then again, Pushkin, the father of both modern Russian prose and poetry, was only 6 at the time, so maybe there was no way around it. Poor Bagration 😕

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Mar 11Liked by Simon Haisell

also, I love the entire "grebeshki" discourse, fascinating rabbit hole, as it turned out :D

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author

Oh grow up, Pushkin! Fast! We need you.

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Mar 10Liked by Simon Haisell

Really wonderful, @SimonHaisell! Thanks so much!

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Perfect Sunday night listening. Enjoying this so much.

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The young Tolstoy wrote one of his way-ward old uncles into his book! I just love all these details!

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Thank you for the tangent on Larrey- enjoyed exploring that !

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Mar 11·edited Mar 11

What a weekly reading! From one deeply emotional journey down the lofty sky, to another warming bash in Moscow.

If Andrei survives, how is he going to be welcomed back home? Who is going to kiss his shoulder?

Where is Pierre heading into? I'm troubled at his behavior. So far it seems to be a spoiled heir, nepo baby. At some point I feel he liked and choosed to be manipulated and be lead into life without the trouble of making his own choices. If it ever happens to wake up from his numbness and detachment from the reality going around him, who/what is his lofty sky going to be?.

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I guess "grebeshki" is scallop

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author

That's what Richard Pevear thought initially, but apparently it is more likely to be cocks' comb, the crest of skin on a rooster's head.

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