Question for those who likes "War and peace"

[kkersey_austin]

Zigurnius, while musing about the purpose of the French dialog in War
and Peace, wrote:
> I wonder how this is handled in French translations...

So does Umberto Eco, who seems to be in agreement with zgirnius that
the content of the French dialog isn't nearly as important as the fact
that the characters are speaking French as opposed to Russian:
http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_guardian94.html

Great article, by the way, for anyone who is interested in translation
issues in general. And to pull it back to an HP topic, JKR has
remarked about the weirdness of the Italian translation of the books
renaming Dumbledore "Professor Silencio" - completely misreading the
authors intent, which was for Dumbedore's name to echo the idea of a
bumblebee humming as he goes about.  Eco talks about similar issues
that have come up in translations of his own books.

In answer to Alla's question, yes, there is a very recent translation
of War and Peace which translated all the French dialog into English. 

I can't remember which translation I read several years ago - or make
that translation*s*, as we changed books at some point because the
baby was working from the front tearing off pages just a bit faster
than we were progressing toward the end... what with my constantly
falling asleep mid-chapter and having to go back and re-read parts I
missed (my husband was reading it aloud to me) our pace was a bit slow. 

In any case, the French was there; some of the phrases of French
dialog at the front were footnoted but I don't think it was completely
translated; I think there may have been longer passages that were
translated into English in their entirety. I believe that was the case
in both editions we were using, which were different translations
although I don't remember which.

For the record, War and Peace was one of the greatest reading
experiences I've ever had. I just wish I'd been more awake for it all.
 :-)

Elisabet, who wants to read War and Peace again soon