And Quiet Flows the Don (Vol. 1), by Mikhail Sholokhov

This is the story of last Cossacks in the Don Region. It is about their daily life in the steppe, with love, hate, betrayal, passion, despair. Each one faithfully fulfills his/her life; this is true when Grigory's wife tries to kill herself in despair. With little thinking and reasoning, it is the heart that leads one, regardless to where. Maybe someone, educated one, feels pity for such an "aimless" life, but experiencing it (without resistance) is the essential meaning of life, right? However, yielding to one's instincts makes one lose himself. On the other hand, with reigned mind, reviewing the past, predicting the future, and calculating the consequence, it looks like we are making "sensible" steps, but what is missed?

This is a masterpiece, and I enjoyed it tremendously. The recurrence of the descriptions of the Don river is touching. The Cossack folk songs included in the book are gems.

Unfortunately, the translation in print is not satisfying, probably because the novel is not fashionable in this modern world. The first translation of the Quiet Don series was performed by Stephen Garry' (pen name of Harry C. Stephens), published in two volumes as And Quiet Flows the Don and The Don Flows Home to the Sea by Alfred A. Knopf in U.S. in 1930's. This translation lacks about 25 percent of the original text. Later Robert Daglish revised and completed Carry's translation. The first revision was done before 1984 (I saw a 4-volume edition translated by Daglish from Moscow Progress Publishing in 1978 on Ebay). The second revision, conducted in 1984, was more successful. In 1996, Brian Murphy from the University of Ulster revised and edited Robert Daglish's 1984 edition, producing "the first complete and uncensored edition". It was published by Carroll & Graf Pub, ISBN 0786703609 (978-0786703609), but already out of print.

The book I read is published by Fredonia Books. ISBN 1589633121. It is said to be "Reprinted from the original edition". From its printing style, I guess it is Daglish's pre-1984 translation.