anna karenina. 2012 film

if you are an avid reader of this blog, you know i read "anna karenina" last year in anticipation of the film. you also may have noticed i never got around to seeing it in theaters. i was disappointed with myself for not seeing it on the big screen but am now quite pleased with myself for only spending $1.20 via redbox versus $12.00 at the landmark because it was atrocious. oddly enough, it was so bad it made me appreciate tolstoy's work so much more.

i was really excited for the film but 10 minutes into it, knew i was going to hate it. i absolutely hated how it was filmed as a stage production. i get that the theater was an important setting for the novel at the end but it made no sense as the setting or style of the entire film. if it was a movie based on a play or musical ie "les miserables" then i would have thought joe wright a genius. instead i thought joe wright was pompous and idiotic. "anna karenina" is a beautifully tragic story and does not and did not need bells and whistles. "anna karenina" simply needs to be told.

and don't get me wrong. the film was beautiful. the scenes with the fields of flowers were like a van gogh painting. the scenes with anna with her son in bed were like an art deco building. and of course, loved our first introduction to kitty which was framed in accordance with the novel. i loved how the train was introduced via anna's son's train. but everything else was pointless and excessive. oblonsky's work scenes and the switching of his coats? the beginning scenes with levin walking around? any scene that involved climbing up and walking among crowds in the risers. these scenes did not help the storyline and could have been replaced with parts that could have demonstrated the depth and beauty of tolstoy's work.

i mean levin is an amazing character and an important part of the novel and he was so one dimensional in the film. i also hated how they cut out the whole
kitty being lovesick and meeting levin's brother during recovery. i did love levin's little speech on love and adultery at dinner but he had so many great moments in the book that were edited out of the film. (btw: when i saw levin's home i thought to myself i would marry him and live in the middle of however, mother russia.)

and i must add i still hate anna. her love was not true love because it was filled with selfishness, she only thought of herself which was demonstrated in all of her actions. and sadly people were devoted to her and she just took advantage of her love. think of her poor son. he loved anna more than his father but anna did not love him more than vronsky. what a horrible woman!

but back to the film. the actors were good. knightly's underbite as always is distracting. i pitied jude law which was ironic considering his adulterous affairs. vronsky was hot. and oblonsky reminded me of kevin kline with a mustache. and whoever played princess betsy had weird lips but oddly it worked.

all in all a horrible adaption of a beautiful classic.

war and peace. movie version.

after finishing, "war and peace" i decided to see if there was a mini-series to check out. didn't find one but found the 1956 movie starring audrey hepburn.

i will say that once i saw the cover i knew that audrey would do well as natasha. she did make a lovely natasha. she had the beauty and the spunk of tolstoy's character. she was everything i imagined natasha to be. another great casting was mel ferrer as prince andrei. he was handsome, noble, loving and at times oddly cold. all of the casting was great, helene was beautiful, mayra was not as pretty, kutuzov was fat and old, and all of the men were handsome!!

but i didn't agree with all of the casting. i envisioned old prince bolkonsky fatter. napoleon was way too tall, he needed to be shorter. sadly, i did not like henry fonda as pierre. he just didn't seem like pierre to me, there is vulnerability and uncertainty to pierre that fonda did not project. i have no idea who would do better as pierre, i just didn't see fonda as pierre.

so when i first saw the cover, i assumed that hollywood probably condensed tolstoy's epic into a two hour romance, focusing on the pierre, natasha, prince andrei love triangle. however they didn't! it was actually 208 minutes and the whole novel was covered. some things were cut out or edited but for the most part the whole book was covered. all of the major story lines were there. i will admit that toward the end i started to get bored but that was because it was the war part.

there were some parts that i wished would have stayed true to the book.

-countess rostov's disapproval of nikolai and sonya's romance. they sure did a lot of kissing in front of his family.

-dolokhov's storyline needed to include the fact that he was living with pierre and pierre's close friend when he had his affair with helene.

-pierre's uncertainty about his love for helene. it seemed as if pierre was in love with helene. also it needed to be shown that her family forced him to marry her.

-natasha needed to be more sickly and grief-stricken after her incident with anatol.

-prince andrei's kid was way too young.

-natasha and pierre's ending was way too hollywood.

-and since i loved it so, the nikolai and marya meeting and story.

all in all, i think it is a good adaptation and individuals who don't read or don't want to read the book should check it out.

war and peace. leo tolstoy. (77)

in claire messud's "the emperor's children", one of the character's julius was a bit of a hot mess when it came to love. he was constantly pondering if he was a natasha or pierre and this pondering lead to my reading of "war and peace". also "anna karenina" sparked a interest in russian literature, so i decided to read more tolstoy.

as you may recall i had translation problems with "anna karenina" and in my search saw that tolstoy endorsed the maude one. however, i found out that was a bunch of hoopla. but thanks to read russia's great translation chart i went with dunnigan translation because academics endorsed it. (though i wish i read the ecco press version with more peace and less war because let's get serious i could have done without all the battle and retreat talk). the chart was right with its description of it being a small fat book. it was 1455 pages, well 1425, there was about 30 pages of intro, though i didn't realize how thick it was until anyone and everyone who saw me reading commented on its thickness. see below:

and with its 50 million pages it took me an eternity to read. or what felt like one, especially at the end, those last 50 pages were torture. it actually took me 3 months to read but i took breaks to read 7 other books that came in for me at the library and needed to be returned within the three weeks allotted for checking out. luckily for me, "war and peace" wasn't a popular library book because i was able to recheck it out after having it for 9 weeks. (you only get two renewals but if when you turn it in there are no request you can recheck it out.)

so where does one start for a blog entry on a book that was 1400 pages long. i will say that i believe that this work is better than "anna karenina". it had it all war, romance, scandal, philosophy, historical theory, political science, and religion. i think the reason it is not called "the greatest novel ever" is the fact that no one ever has the time to read it. though i wonder if it was split up and called it a trilogy with a prequel if it would do better? the book is already divided into four books. like i told grandma bea, it's not a lot of pages if you think about how many pages the harry potter series is. publishers should give this idea a spin, cash in on the trilogy trend.

so the novel:

"war and peace" is the story of five families in russia during the war of 1812 and the napoleonic invasion of moscow. i think a testament to tolstoy's great writing is that he creates such great characters. and just like with "anna karenina", i became invested in their lives. i admired all of the families with the exception of one, the kurágins. (btw it was so confusing to keep track of all the russian names so make sure you read a version that has some kind of family tree or listing). the kurágins are kind of like kardashians, you love to hate them. and though they are horrible people, they are a great source of drama so you look forward to their appearance in the book. plus they are stupid and vain, are wealthy but not as a result of hard work, and trick the world into worshipping them. (for kurágins its the russian elite, for the kardashains its america.) the family member i abhorred the most was hélène. she would be the kim, down to the point where they both tricked men into marrying them and both of their marriages ended up in fatty paychecks. i hated hélène because of what she did pierre. it made my blood boil how she looked down upon him when he had his bastard status but once he surprisingly received his father's inheritance, her family forced him to marry her! then she cheated on him not only once but twice! she even remarried even though he was still alive! and poor pierre risked his life for her, when he challenged one of her lovers, dolokhov (who was pierre's friend), to a duel. she died in the end, i forget from what, but that is partially because i imagine it being syphilis, the whore!

and then her father (who is definitely kris due to all of his plans to make his kids wealthy by forcing rich people to marry them) tried to have her brother anatól marry princess mayra (who i loved) because he knew his son was idiot and would have no great income of his own. but then he made a pass at this french lady that was mayra's BFF and thank god princess mayra was smart enough to know once a cheater always a cheater. and then anatol goes on to ruin natasha's engagement to prince andréi by attempting to kidnap her so he could marry her! and to top it off he was married at the time! what horrible people, but what good scandals! (seriously though someone should make a primetime drama based on these storylines!)

but aside from those black souls, everyone else is extremely lovable. due to "the emperor's children", i anticipated pierre and natasha being my favorites, but that was not the case. i did love pierre and felt bad for how his story started out and could not believe all he suffered especially during the invasion. all of the turns and twists in his story, had me on the edge of my seat. i constantly worried about him and wished he had a friend to help him out.

natasha was a great character as well. in fact one of my favorite quotes was about her as a girl: "natasha skipped back and jumped up and down one spot like a goat". i can just see her young and full of joy jumping like a goat. lol. nastasha keeps the reader entertained with all of her lovers. however, at times she was such a silly girl that i couldn't handle her. but thankfully in the end she did mature.

but of all the characters, my favorites were nikolai rostov and princess mayra. i don't want to give too much away but i thought they both had such sweet spirits. their love was boundless that one can not help but love them. they both put their family first and made sacrifices for their loved ones. as i read, nikolai reminded me of levin (who i absolutely loved in "anna karenina") with his admiration of peasant life and dedication to his family. their storyline was one of my favorite but do not want to give too much away.

the "peace" storylines were great and kept me glued to the book. during those parts the pages just flew by. but the "war" part not so much. it was like pulling teeth. i enjoyed the "war" parts when it included the storylines of the characters i knew, prince andrei, and the rostovs, especially nikolai's lispy friend, denisov. however, all the talk about the generals and tsar bored me to death to be completely honest. i was tried of reading about kutuzov and people's opinion of him. i think it was because it was so repetitive, especially the discussions about the retreat. it just seemed like every chapter involving that part of history seemed to be the same thing over and over. even as a history major it became too much for me. i like a little bit of history mixed in my novels but not entire textbooks excerpts. i hate to admit it but my eyes glossed over some of the war talk because it wasn't that interesting.

i did gloss over the ending. i almost didn't finish the book. the last 50 pages are tolstoy's analysis of napoleon's invasion and legacy plus and theories on history: what is power and what is power that moves nations. again even as a history major, reading it was tedious. i was tempted to not read the last 50 pages because in all honesty who would know if i didn't. but i had to be true to myself so i read the words though nothing truly stuck.

and let me clarify, tolstoy made interesting points in the last section of the book. he did pose very thought provoking questions but lacking knowledge of the war of 1812, napoleon and tsarist russia, i couldn't contextualize his theories. and though his theories were about history in general, i was wanted to finish the book and not think. he did raise questions of where does power truly lie among the masses or within leaders. (he discusses this within the book pointing out how the people who have the least prestige in armies are ironically the ones that armies are reliant upon, the soldiers. he also discussed how the courses of the battles were not directed by those in charge but by individuals on the battlefield when they were seeking immediate solutions. soldiers directed the course based on what was occurring at the moment. and furthermore, if there is no existing deity what is will and thus the will of god in the context of history? i remember in high school, impressing my history teacher with my question of "but how do we know the king was actually chosen by god? how do we know that god gave him power?" it's true most of history is explained via fate or destiny but what is this greater force? interesting stuff but not what you would expect to see in a novel, especially after 1400 pages so hopefully my glossing can be forgiven.

religion played an important in this book. pierre became a freemason and was on a search for spiritual peace. (random note while i was reading about his freemasonry, i was shocked at that this secret society was discussed. i wonder if tolstoy got in trouble for revealing secrets? i for one am not that interested in the freemasons but liked their whole finding someone to give gloves part). princess mayra was über religion to the point of letting pilgrims stay with her. even prince andrei found god toward the end of the book. however, even with all the talk about god and christianity. my theory is that tolsoy was a buddhist. i wikipedia'd it and it looks as though he was a christian and was a big promoter of non-violence. however, from what i read, he still sounded more of a buddhist. are there christian buddhists? i googled it but it looks like there are buddhist christians.

here are some examples of tolstoy's buddhist thought:

while imprisoned in the shed pierre learned, not with his intellect but with his whole being, that man is created for happiness, that happiness lies within him, in the satisfaction of natural, human needs, and unhappiness arises not from privation but from excess . . .

(buddha realized his suffering came from excess and promoted an abandonment of worldly possessions.)

in the last he had been unable to see the great, the unfathomable, the infinite, in anything. he had only felt that it must exist somewhere and he has been seeking it. in everything near and comprehensible he had seen only what was limited, petty, commonplace, and meaningless.

[. . .] now, however, he learned to see te great, the eternal, the infinite in everything, and therefore in order to look at it, to enjoy his contemplation of it, he naturally discarded the telescope through which he till then been gazing over the wads of men, and joyfully surveyed the ever-changing, eternally great, unfathomable and infinte life around him. and the closer he looked, the happier and more serene he was. the awful question: what for? which had shattered all his intellectual edifices in the past, no longer existed for
him. to that question: what for? a simple ander was now always already in his soil: because here is a god, that god without whose will not one hair of man's head falls.

(buddhism prompts this notion of looking for god in everything.)

and lastly on his deathbed, prince andrei thought to himself:

"love? what is love?" he thought. "love hinders death. love is life. all, all that j understand i understand only because i love. everything is, everything exists only because i love. all is connected by love one. love is god, and to dies and that i, a particle of love, shall return to the universal and eternal source."

(i know that christians believe in love and returning to god, but this passage implies a spirit returning to be part of a higher being, versus being human form
in heaven.)

there is a lot more to be covered from this book but instead of going in depth just thought i would highlight some of the random thoughts i had as i read:

is bulkwinkle's boris and natasha named after tolstoy's boris and natasha?

did natasha's nursing of prince andrei's remind anyone of kitty's nursing of levin's brother?

what is with all of the female taking lovers in tsarist russia?!?!

what did the painting of the king of rome look like? (i googled and that event really did happen.)

why did pierre let himself be forced into marriage?!?!

and how clever of the russians to burn their own city. i would rather leave ashes for invaders than riches for them to loot.

i think julius from "the emperor's children" was more of a natasha. he wasn't pure of heart enough to be pierre.

(that was just some of them.)

all in all, tolstoy's "war and peace" is truly a great novel. there were so many surprise twists that i literally gasped or shook my head in amazement of how life worked out for the characters. if you have time, i highly recommend it and good luck on the war parts.

anna karenina. leo tolstoy (62)

(please note: this is a long blog, but in my defense it is a long novel.)

as i mentioned in my previous post, i was inspired to read "anna karenina" because it was listed as one of the greatest novels of all time.  people are crazy about this work.  even after i finished reading it, i came across another list via flavorpill in which "anna karenina" was on top.  brainpicking's greatest books of all time (i'll discuss "madame bovary" in another post. i don't get the appeal of that book, but i may have read the wrong version.)

so would i list "anna karenina" as the greatest of all time? i'm not too sure.  i will say that i loved tolstoy's style of writing.  i enjoyed how the eyes of his characters seemed to talk on their own.

"that only proves you have no heart," she said. but her look said she knew he had a heart and that she therefore feared him."

". . . and every time they met kitty's eyes said: 'who are you? what are you? surely are the delightful creature i imagine you to be?"

 i loved how he shared the thoughts of everyone, even the levin's dog. 

and his descriptions were so picturesque and clever. one of my favorites was this description of karenin's anger:

"he dressed in haste, and as if he were carrying a cup brimful of wrath and was afraid of spilling any . . ."

i have been that angry before where you don't want to lose any steam before confronting the person you are upset with.

  i did enjoy the storylines. i rooted for levin thoughout the whole book. and his characters had such depth that i felt as though i knew them. i worried about dolly, became frustrated with oblonsky, felt bad for serezha and was proud of kitty. yet there was still something that prevented me from falling completely in love with this work.

i think what stopped me from absolute love was anna.  if tolstoy had named his work "Constantine Dmitrich Levin", i probably would have been head over heels like everyone else, but having anna as the title and thus lead character, my heart couldn't give its all. sorry romeo but a rose by any other name would smell sweeter. and gertrude stein a rose is not a rose is not a rose.

i did not believe in anna and vronsky's love. i may have said this before in another blog but i am really not one for love stories. there have been a handful that i have read and in the end (and also during) questioned this is love? and the odd thing is that i am totally one for romantic comedies. i was just in tears over "celeste and jesse forever" yet there are some literary works i just can't fall for. i will be the first to admit that my lack of a love life results in me not relating. but even then its not that i don't believe in love, i just find some things insincere. anna is an example of this. when anna gave up her son and life for "love" i couldn't understand why because it all seemed illogical and silly to me.

i understand that it was a different time but regardless of society's standards then, anna was not completely bound by them. though it was frowned upon, divorce was initially an option for her. so she doesn't get any sympathy from me in regards to that. and the whole issue of her avoiding a divorce so she could would not lose her son was illogical. if she truly wanted to be with her son she would have snuck off and found ways to be with him just has she had found ways to be with vronsky at the beginning. i guess growing up with an absent father has reared me incapable of sympathizing with anna. if she really wanted to see and be with her son, she would have found the means. furthermore, her neglect of her daughter further demonstrated her selfishness when it came to parenting.

another reason i was not invested in their romance was because i don't understand infidelity and adultery. i know it may seem contradictory to not believe in love and be against adultery but adultery is not an issue of love but respect. have the decency to let the other person know you fell out of love with them (please know that i am not biased and disliked oblonsky throughout the novel as well). i get that love can be fluid but don't cheat on a person; end the relationship and get on in life. and i get it was all the rage in certain segment of russian society but it was still a horrible and dishonest act. i am all for free love and being with you who you want but if you are married, please be monogamous (unless your partner is okay with it.)

[random current politics rant: seriously adulterers are actual destroyers of "the sanctity of marriage". god was pretty explicit when it came to the ten commandments. yet society does not marginalized those individuals or prevent their rights and access to marriage like gays. seriously christians please stop being so wishy washy when it comes to upholding your bible.]

and what annoyed me more was anna's justification for her affair. she said there was never any love in her marriage to karenin. but what did she expect, when her aunt tricked karenin into marrying her. if she wanted to be upset with someone it should be her aunt!

in the end i could not sympathize with her. her love affair was tragic because she made bad decisions throughout life. i believe she made her bed and she had to live in it. fate did not curse her but she did it to herself. i was shock by the ending to her story but at the same time understood why she did it, she was such a sad soul.

(this just occurred to me: my frustration with anna reminded me of my frustration with real housewife of beverly hills, taylor armstrong. i can not handle weak women that complain and do nothing to make a difference. anna complained about her uncertain position in life but when vronsky suggested a divorce to help her back into society, she avoided the issue. it's like do something or don't bitch.)

my indifference to anna is actually a testament to tolstoy's writing. and just as he created a character that repulsed me, tolstoy also created a character that enchanted me, levin.

it's interesting because by nature levin was an introvert but he is the one that readers become invested in. i found it endearing that he was a little rough and cold yet at the heart of it simply wanted to be a good family man.

i found his love for kitty sweet. i was sad that he was rejected by her but was happy that he did not lose hope. (see i am one for romance, it's just that levin and kitty were actual love versus the mess that was anna and vronsky). i loved how tolstoy told the birth of levin and kitty's first child from his perspective. childbirth is dangerous and scary and it was interesting to see the fear and responsibility that levin felt if kitty died during childbirth. it was even more interesting to see how levin did not connect instantly with the child. women have carried that child around for 9 months and with nursing and everything so connections are established. but for men it is different. it's like "juno" quote "women become mothers during pregnancy but men become fathers when they see the child." granted it took levin a couple of looks but it makes sense.

this is not to say that levin was insensitive but just needed to learn lessons of life. i could relate with levin when he had to deal with death. i always feel that awkwardness when someone i know has a relative that passes away. one wants to do and say the right thing but it's not always innate. and it doesn't mean that your intentions are poor just that you don't have the means of expressing them. death is a scary beast so it is fine that one does not always know how to interact with it.

last but not least it would not be a russian novel if it did not have some peasants in it! and there was some! i appreciated how levin toiled in the fields with the peasants (though he was not that good). and his inability to manage his land reminded me of my high school world history course when we discussed communism and russia. from what i remember from that class was that the intelligencia tried to apply the theories of marx but being an agricultural based economy and not industrialized like the west, it did not succeed. and i think this is what tolstoy was trying to demonstrate? he did expose how excessive bureaucracies can be. what is the point of a committee when it's doesn't regulate that segment of society? as oblonsky demonstrated it was simply to keep the rich, rich. i do not know anything about russian politics so can not go into too depth with this. however history never changes, only repeats itself so their is definitely a metaphor for america's current politics and economy.

last but not least, the incident with the clairvoyant reminded me of a 19th century class i took at ucla. one of things we discussed was how clairvoyance and séances became the fashion. so it was interesting to see both in this novel.

i think the problem for me was that going into this i expected a great love story and to me there wasn't one. there was an honest portrayal of how lives fall apart when infidelity rears its ugly head. they was also a demonstration of what hard work and dedication can get one out of life. it's funny because as i read anna, vronsky, golebishchev poke fun at the french for
their realism, i realized that tolstoy was being a ironic. what made this work great was that it was honest. he did not make his characters braver, smarter or more noble when confronted with issues, they reacted as many of us would, as people do. so i guess in this light than yes it is a great work but i do need to re-read it one more time before it gets the title of greatest of all time. (light bulb: actually that is the issue, i haven't read all the classics so i can't make that call!)

quotations:

“i think . . . if it is true that
there are as many minds as there
are heads, then there are as many
kinds of love as there are hearts.”

"just when the question of how to live had become a little clearer to him, a new insoluble problem presented itself--Death."

". . . but he knew his soul, it was dear to him, and he guarded it as the eyelid guards the eye, and never let anyone enter his heart without the key of love."

" . . . if one loves, one loves the whole person as he or she is, and not as one might wish them to be."

anna karenina. #translationproblems

before i start, i would like to clear up any confusion about the title. surprisingly, i was never that person who corrected people that mispronounced the title but now i will be that person and . . . with a great vladmir nabokov quote,

"her name was anna karenin.  she was not a ballerina."

cute. clever. and very tongue in cheek. so why is there an a on the end? the a signifies that she is a female. ie my russia-fied name would krisha mendozaa. (though maybe that a is excessive. a better example: keira knightlya)

keira knightly and the new movie were only a small factor in my decision to read "anna karenina". another factor was that on twitter i found an article (but could not find again to link here) which listed that the two greatest novels of all time were "anna karenina" and "lolita" (yes but russkies!). but the biggest factor was that my social life in LA was going on a break so i had time for the 1,000 pages. therefore on my next visit to the library, i checked it out.

as i sat reading it, i was surprised that it was a fairly easy read which got me wondering if my translation was watered down. i then looked at the other copy of it at the library; it was also constance garnett's translation so couldn't do a comparison. i then decided to go home and do some research (aka google) and sort out which translation to read.

i googled "best anna karenina translation" "scholar endorsed translation of anna karenina" "nabokov recommended translation of anna karenina" and came across a lot of info.  though there was no solid answer.  i really wanted to read the version that nabokov liked best cos he did share greatest novel title with tolstoy. there was so much debate about which verison is best that i wish a) i knew russian so that i could read it in the original russian and b) that maybe i would read at least two versions to decide for myself.  (i would have done this but seriously, the book is 1,000 pages.  that is back to back readings of 2,000 pages in total. i read alot but even this seemed too much for me.)

i learned that there are 3 major translations: constance garnett, lousie and aylmer maude, and richard pevear and larissa volokhonsky. majority of people avoid garnett's translation because she was too victorian and interjected a word or two of her own. plus nabokov absolutely hated her. so i instantly ruled that one out.

the next was deciding between maude and pevear/volokhonsky. so here's the deal. i hate oprah and according to my google searches, P/V's translation became very popular due to her book club. i mean no where did i see an article about oprah's great translation woe but only about how P/V got a lot of money cos their translation which was published by penguin which was picked by oprah.  and we all know about oprah's midas touch when it comes to books.  though in my opinion, it was prolly some intern that chose it cos the cover was the prettiest (i actually think the cover is boring, which is sad cos i normally like penguin covers.) i mean seriously does oprah even read? i am going to say no because if she did she would have deeper insight to the human experience and would not have asked her tv guests such insensitive questions. so i initially ruled out P/V's translation on oprah alone.

but it was not that easy to disregard the P/V's version cos everyone recommends it (like gushing recommends). my friend emily endorsed it and told me that their translation was award winning, which made me reconsider.  i mean awards count for a lot in my eyes. i had two other friends recommend it after seeing my fb photo about trying to decide which one to read (the above photo). and lastly james wood of the new yorker was all about it! (not that i seriously read the new yorker but strive to one day do so.) should i let my hatred of oprah stop me from reading the best translation?!?!?

well it wasn't oprah that stopped me but actually an article by gary saul morson (i have no idea who he is, i just came across his article thanks to google, i did google him and he seemed pretty legit.) but he wrote an article called the pevearsion of russian literature which explained why the pevear/volokhonsky translation is not all that its cracked up to be.  as he explained in the article:

[P and V] who are married, work in an unusual fashion.  She, a native Russian speacker, renders each book into entirely literal English.  He, who knows insufficient Russian, then works on the rendering with intention of keeping the language as close to the original as possible.  What results from this atttempt at unprecedented fidelity is a word-for-word and syntax-for-syntax version that scarifices tone and miscontrues overall sense.

he then gives examples from other works in which their translations appear simple and unrefined as compared to others.  there is a tone that is lost because they tend to use very mundane words.  (click on the article to see for yourself.) 

this dealt the blow to p/v as a contender, but to make my final decision, i decided to check out both versions and read the first chapters myself to see which one i would read.  i will admit that the blog entry tolstoy vs. tolstoy did make me slightly biased, i wanted to feel a nostalagic connection to the maude translation like the blogger.

after reading the first couple of chapters, i decided to go with maude. just because i found some of p/v word choice uninteresting.

maude:
"All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

p/v: 
"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

(i like the use of resemble versus are alike.  i think the novel as a whole dealt with the appearance of happiness versus actually being happy, which would make maude's line a better introduction.)

i randomly flipped to chapter 12 of the part 1 perferred maude's:

"Levin's arrival at the beginning of winter, his frequent visits and evident love for Kitty gave rise to her parents' first serious deliberation as to her future, and to disputes between them."

over p/v's

"Levin's appearance at the beginning of the winter, his frequent visits and obvious love for Kitty, gave rise to the first serious conversations between Kitty's parents about her future and to disputes between the prince and the princess."

and lastly, when reading tolstoy's beautiful description of levin's first encounter with kitty, maude read best again:

"He stepped down, avoiding any long look at her as one avoids long looks at the sun, but seeing her as one sees the sun, without looking."

p/v:
"He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun even without looking."

i will admit that maude isn't perfect but p/v just seemed too simplistic at times.  there were times when the syntax of maude was confusing and when i looked up the sentence in p/v found it more readable.  also p/v had footnotes which helped contextualize the story.  (i used the footnotes when anna and the count visited the russian painter when aboard.) but in the end, i am glad that i chose maude.  they are sometimes sited as having their translation of "war and peace" approved by tolstoy, but as the great translation blog entry explained that is not true.  also check out the great translation chart. it was hilarious and helpful and i suggest you check it out for giggles and to help you chose your next russian lit read. (i used it to help me choose the the anna dunnigan's translation of "war and peace".)

and to be perfectly honest in a year or so, i will pick up the p/v version of "anne karenina" and see for myself which one is better.