The little white attic

1/ The opening chapter of this part is brilliant and uncomfortably, if not painfully, relatable.  “How horrified [Pierre] would have been se...

I’m still reading the translation by Aylmer and Louise Maude, revised by Amy Mandelker.  1/ Often Tolstoy picks a feature or an image for a ...

1/ I can see more parallels between Tolstoy’s novel and Vanity Fair. “The unsolved problem that tormented [Pierre] was caused by hints given...

Whilst rereading War and Peace , I thought of a passage in Proust’s Swann’s Way about reading, so I want to share it:  “... Next to this cen...

1/ In the previous blog post, I said I was reading the Anthony Briggs translation (the same as the first time). As I’m not at all impulsive,...

1/ I’m rereading the same translation I read last time: by Anthony Briggs. Not knowing Russian, I can’t compare the translations I have look...

This is the 6th adaptation of Anna Karenina that I’ve seen so far. For years, I had an inexplicable obsession with the story and watched it...

1/ Vanity Fair is a long novel, spanning about 18 years, with lots of characters. The star, everyone would agree, is Becky Sharp, one of th...

The two women at the centre of Vanity Fair are Rebecca (Becky) Sharp and Amelia (Emmy) Sedley, who are later Mrs Rawdon Crawley and Mrs Geo...