Anna Karenina is a book best gobbled when one is bound by one’s pubertal angst. It is more painful to swallow once one has tasted real life in great quantity. Funny that a writer like Leo Tolstoy got it so right for both.
Of course, it’s not the only such novel: think of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (for youths it’s an adventure, for adults a metaphor for the British Empire), or almost any of the Jane Austen’s novels (for youths the life’s passion is in the initial burning kisses, adults know that the real life starts only after).
If you havn't read Anna Karenina yet, here is a chance to do it on line. And check, if the most famous clichéd quote from high literature really goes:
"All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way..."Of course, the translators always insert their marks in the original text, after all translators are really interpretors on behalf of those who don't read in many tongues.
No comments:
Post a Comment