War and Peace

[fox-c.livejournal.com]

So, I've been in something of a Napoleonic kick recently, and thought I would finally attempt to slag through War and Peace. My question - Is it worth it to try to do it in Russian? I've read a bit of Tolstoy (short stories mostly) and some other classic authors in Russian already, so I'm sure I could do it, but the book is seriously massive, so I'm afraid it would be a bit too big of an undertaking.

Would I be better off reading the majority of it in English and only doing certain bits in Russian? If so, which passages should I pick out? Is there a "reader" out there for students of Russian trying to tackle the infamous tome?

Comments

[hound-lancer.livejournal.com]

Why, it's common practice for Russian schoolboys to skip the Love scenes and for schoolgirls to skip the War scenes. Most my classmates did that a dozen years back.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. I'd say I was the only one in the class who had read the whole thing. Girls were tracing the love stories, boys enjoyed the battlefield scenes. That's normal.

[sverb.livejournal.com]

Maybe... I didn't learn War and Peace at school yet and maybe that's why I didn't think about it...