After many months of training my Russian reading speed, I finally started reading Anna Karenina in Russian. I read The Death of Ivan Ilyich in Russian this past year, but this is my first big Tolstoy in the original. Maybe I’m just older and more perceptive now, but there are so many nuances this time around that I didn’t pick up on my read of the novel in English.

For one, Tolstoy is so judgmental of his characters through delicious irony. I’m not sure that comes through in the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation I read in English. The tone certainly felt more objective.

It’s a shame we don’t take language learning seriously in this country because reading literature in its original language is a magical feeling like no other.