Tolstoy in Uniform
“Все счастли́вые се́мьи похо́жи друг на дру́га, ка́ждая несчастли́вая семья́ несчастли́ва по-сво́ему.”
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
New post goes up each Wednesday at 8:30 pm ET.
Third in a Series of 3 on e+ the enhanced e-book.
Anna Karenina / Анна Каренина
CAN THE NOVEL BE AN ENHANCED E-BOOK?
THE CHALLENGE OF AN E+ NOVEL
The Novel is the most challenging to convert into an e+ book. It is also the most rewarding. We have chosen the classic, Anna Karenina, and specifically, the first time she meets Vronsky at the Moscow Train Station to illustrate how rich the novel can be as an e+ book. For simplicity, and by way of example, we have limited each enhancement to just one link.
Anna Karenina can be enhanced in the areas of History, Politics, Art, Music, Film, Fashion, Graphic Arts, The Position of Women at the Time, Translations, and Audio Pronunciations of foreign names, such as “Anna Karenina” in Russian , and many others, as appropriate. Moreover, as demonstrated by the superb syllabus to such a course by Prof. Peter Holquist of the University of Pennsylvania, (below), Anna Karenina can be the basis for a complete, multi-disciplinary course.
THE BENEFITS
The major benefit of an e+ novel of Anna Karenina (or any other novel) is that the links are not a distraction from the text – the story still flows. Yet, the reader has the option on clicking on any topic of interest to explore that topic whenever s/he wishes. For our purposes here, we have given only one example for each link, but the possibilities are limitless.
The second major benefit of an e+ book is that the reader can also chose the dept s/he wishes to go into a particular topic. The reader can read the entire book through and consult the links afterward, either as a whole or for specific topics of interest. The reader can come back to the e+book any time, and again to explore the links and to study the topics. Thus, the value of an e+book is always there.
AND NOW TO OUR STORY …
Анна Каренина / Anna Karenina
ANNA KARENINA
Part I
Chapter XVIII
“VRONSKY followed the guard to the carriage, and at the door of the compartment he stopped short to make room for a lady who was getting out.
With the insight of a man of the world, from one glance at this lady’s appearance Vronsky classified her as belonging to the best society. He begged pardon, and was getting into the carriage, but felt he must glance at her once more; not that she was very beautiful, not on account of the elegance and modest grace which were apparent in her whole figure, but because in the expression of her charming face, as she passed close by him, there was something peculiarly caressing and soft. As he looked round, she too turned her head. Her shining grey eyes, that looked dark from the thick lashes, rested with friendly attention on his face, as though she were recognising him, and then promptly turned away to the passing crowd, as though seeking some one. In that brief look Vronsky had time to notice the suppressed eagerness which played over her face, and flitted between the brilliant eyes and the faint smile that curved her red lips. It was as though her nature were so brimming over with something that against her will it showed itself now in the flash of her eyes, and now in her smile. Deliberately she shrouded the light in her eyes, but it shone against her will in the faintly perceptible smile.”
The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, 1917.
TRANSLATED BY CONSTANCE GARNETT
NEW YORK: P.F. COLLIER & SON, 1917
NEW YORK: BARTLEBY.COM, 2000
See also, The Pevear/Volokhonsky translation, and the Maude translation. The Pevear/Volokhonsky translation (2000) is generally considered the best and most up to date. For example, the last sentence reads: “She deliberately extinguished the light in her eyes, but it shown against her will in a barely noticeable smile.” Also, the Garnett translation has been edited and updated by others, but we’ve chosen to use the faintly archaic 1917 version because of its mood.
HOW THE NOVEL CAN BE ENHANCED
Click on each of the live links below.
FILM & THEATER ARTS: AN ANNA FOR THE AGE
ANNA KARENINA AS A MULTI-DISCIPLINARY COURSE
WOMEN IN RUSSIA AT THE TIME OF ANNA
THE QUALITY IS IN THE EDITORIAL TEAM
The quality of an e+ novel depends on the quality of the editorial team. What will distinguish an exceptional e+ book from others will be the level of scholarship and expertise contributed by each topic editor. Thus, for each topic, recognized experts will research and authenticate the material and each link.
For example, in Great Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings, an e+ book published by Artepublishing and reviewed in this blog on October 10, 2012, the book’s audio commentaries and texts are by Dr. Charles F. Stuckey, one of the world’s foremost scholars on Impressionist Art. Dr. Stuckey held senior curatorial positions at The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. He has organized major exhibitions on Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists including exhibitions on Monet, Gauguin, and Toulouse-Lautrec, and written monographs on Monet, Gauguin, Morisot, and Toulouse-Lautrec. The book has over three hours of original audio information about the artists and their paintings; and more than 500 hyperlinks to some of the best sites on the Internet to learn more about the artists and their work. Also, Great Impressionist, has between 10 and 30 links for each artist and featured painting. These include biographies of the artist, articles about the artist, works by the artist in other museums, artist quotes, videos and even free e-books about the artist. Similar enhancements can be done with the novel.
THE DIM FUTURE OF THE STATIC E-BOOK
The e+ book will have been “vetted,” or “curated,” if you will, giving the reader a great degree of confidence in the quality of the book. The overall benefit is that the reader will get a thing of value which cannot be gotten from the printed or static e- version of a book. As the reader of e-books comes more and more to realize that an e-book is merely a static reproduction of the print version, at a higher price, it is the added value of an e+ book that the customer will be looking for and will be willing to purchase.
E+ = EXCELLENCE
The e+ book will meet all of the criteria of The Book in the New Media from the Purpose Page of this blog:
1. The e+ book will be accessible, that is able to be read in any format and by any device (Amazon offers a Kindle Reader app for iOS and Android devices, allowing you to read books on either an iPad or an Android tablet).
2. It will be interactive.
3. It will be viewer directed.
4. It will be able to be manipulated, enabling the reader to use their creativity to examine, adapt, and experiment with the content.
5. It will be be comparative , enabling the viewer to array the work of different writers side to compare and contrast literary styles.
6. Lastly, the e+ book will be able to be viewed as a continuum of man’s effort for expression.
Whither the Book 