Eustrabirbeonne: Well, Henri Troyat is no Tolstoy of course, and he did not pretend he was : he would describe himself as a mere "storyteller". Yet some of his fiction is really good, and this "cycle" is certainly his best. And of course, Russian-born Lev Aslanovich Tarasov had in mind the never-written sequel to "War and Peace" about the Decembrist uprising, which Tolstoy initiates in the final chapters with his hints at Pierre's active participation in a "society". Would Natasha, already a mother of four in 1820, have left her children behind to follow Pierre in Siberia, as other convicts' wives did?… (more)