Anna Karenina

内容は言うまでもなく、英訳（Bartlett）も編集も、★5ですが、残念ながら造本で減点です。 800ページもの大冊なので、弁当箱のようなペーパーバックよりもハードカバーのほうが手に馴染むと考えて、あえて値段の高いほうを選びました。それはそれでよかったのですが、本文用紙に横目の紙が使われているため、違和感があってページがはなはだめくりにくい（2017年改訂版の第13刷）。 ボリュームの関係で束の出ない紙を使うのは当然としても、あえて横目の紙に印刷して薄い紙の腰の弱さを補おうとするのは、いささか邪道ではないでしょうか。電子書籍を選べってか？

Bartlett’s translation is extremely faithful to Tolstoy’s original prose. She maintained the structure and rhythm of Russian without oversimplifying or modernising. She also avoided embellishing or over-interpreting the original text, and maintained the same simplicity and directness that is the hallmark of Tolstoy’s writing, especially in conversations and inner monologues. This is what those who know Russian have said about her translation. I don’t speak Russian. Hence I cannot attest to that. But having read four translations of AK (Garnett, Maude, P&V being the others), what I could definitely say is that besides being the most easy read, Bartlett’s translation has a great level of sophistication and nuance. It feels the most smooth and accessible among all translations I have read. It doesn’t appear too literal or too liberal, and maintains a balance between readability and fidelity (I can say this by comparing it with the P&V translation which is said to be word-by-word). Most importantly, it seems to have rendered Russian idiomatic expressions and cultural references in a way that is understandable in English without compromising the text. That is why it reads more like a modern mix of Garnett and Maude translation, but without the Victorian embellishments. Also, all the philosophy that Tolstoy inserted into this book is more palatable in Bartlett’s translation than in any other. Unless you are studying Russian, you are mostly a casual reader of Anna Karenina. This novel is really long and has longer sentences that meander for several lines with a lot of repeating phrases after every fourth word. So, pick a translation that is less confusing and easy to read. For an academic translation, Bartlett’s feels very simple, yet it is very elegantly written. You won’t regret choosing this one if you can afford it. Or else, Garnett or Maudes float freely online. This book is a hardcover from Oxford University Press. The text is printed in sufficiently large letters and used the most lovely fonts I have come across in a book. I like it so much.

Great translation (went for it after comparing the first chapter across translations), good size and not printed to small

Nicely organized with helpful notes which clarify terms in text. I like that the translator allowed single Russian words to appear in text. Overall, a delightful read about family life in Russia in the 19th century and a good escape from our daily pandemic worries.

The charming and very beautiful Anna Karenina leaves her husband and young son in Petersburg and arrives in Moscow on a mercy mission to help her brother, Stepan Oblonsky, and his wife Dolly, who are encountering difficulties in their marriage. When Anna arrives in Moscow, she meets Count Vronsky, a handsome young officer, who has been paying court to Dolly's sister, the very pretty and naive Kitty. However, when Vronksy sets eyes on Anna, he forgets Kitty - who has just turned down an offer of marriage from her devoted admirer, Konstantin Levin, in the hopes of an offer from Vronsky - and transfers his attentions to the lovely older woman. In response, Anna soon finds herself becoming very attracted to Count Vronsky and consequently she leaves Moscow having helped her brother with his marriage difficulties, but goes away with problems in store for her own marriage. As Anna and Vronsky spend more time with one another, the pair of them fall in love and begin a passionate and, for Anna, an all-consuming love affair, but when Anna's husband learns of the seriousness of their relationship, he ensures that Anna will be made to pay for her betrayal. There is a huge amount more to this novel than the story of a love affair and its repercussions, where Leo Tolstoy looks at Russian society and social class; at politics and religion; at morality and relationships, including Russia's relationship to the land; at gender and inequality; at people's search for a meaningful life and the quest for personal happiness, and a whole lot more. It says on the sleeve of my edition that 'Anna Karenina' is one of the greatest novels ever written and combines penetrating psychological insight with an encyclopaedic depiction of Russian life in the 1870s, and I would certainly agree with that comment. Leo Tolstoy writes with such attention to detail, intricately describing not just his characters' outward appearances, the clothes they wear, the houses they live in and the places they frequent, but he also delves into their inner thoughts and motivations and he describes everything with such detail that even reading about workers scything the land on Levin's estate becomes quite fascinating. Rosamund Barlett's new translation of this classic novel is a pleasure to read, the writing feels fluent, fresh and immediate; she comments in her introduction that she has sought to preserve the idiosyncrasies of Tolstoy's inimitable style and that although he was occasionally a clumsy and ungrammatical writer, there is a majesty and elegance to his prose that needs to be emulated in translation wherever possible. Her aim, Ms Bartlett states is to "produce a translation that is idiomatic as well as faithful to the original, and one which ideally reads as if it was written in one's own language." I would say that she has been successful in her aim and although I have to admit that I haven't read all of the previous translations of this novel, I have no hesitation in recommending this one. 5 Stars.