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Loading... War and Peace (1868)by Leo Tolstoy
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. War and Peace is one of those books which can be placed in almost any section of a library. Writer Leo Tolstoy refuses to call this book a novel, so what is it really? For me, this book is simply the most perfect example of preservation of history. It is a time capsule containing remnants of the years 1805-1813, and one could get a very detailed insight of life in the various sectors of the two Russian socioeconomic centers, Moscow and Saint Petersburg. The book mainly serves to educate the reader about Russia's civil and military state during the years that it covers, and fills up the narrative spaces with fictional characters and events that end up defining the soul of this book. War and Peace is a great history lesson, but it also has some of the best characters ever written. The way the fates of its protagonists intertwine with the historical events and with each other over the course of this book makes the reader go through the entire emotional spectrum. War and Peace is destined to make you smile, sob, hold your breath, and be inspired. If you're a fan of war stories and epics, this book will give you one of the best literary rides of your life. I'm giving the translation 1 star, with a bonus star because it is Tolstoy after all. I slogged through it in 2007 or so when this highly touted translation came out. But recently I have figured out that the Maud translation is widely considered to be the best and specifically the Norton Critical Edition. What a difference! This Pevear/Volokhonsky translation includes all the French, with translations down at the bottom of the page in tiny type - very distracting - and explanatory endnotes rather than footnotes - too awkward to consult. For a true scholar, this may be the best way to go. For a casual reader like me, it just throws up obstacles to enjoyment. Here is an example from the translators' introduction, which shows their approach and has convinced me to reread War and Peace again in a different translation: "The children were riding to Moscow on chairs and invited her to go with them." Huh? They then give examples from previous translations, which make it clear to me what this sentence means: "The children were sitting on chairs playing at driving to Moscow." "The children were playing at 'going to Moscow' in a carriage made of chairs." They claim that these miss both the rhythm and the point (what point? it seems to be to see things naively from the children's point of view). For me, the less slavishly literal translations explain what the children were doing so I can get on with reading. I think Emily May, Matthew and Lyn did a better job of reviewing this book than I ever could. I can understand why this is seen by many as the greatest novel. It literally has everything in it in regards to methods of telling a story in a novel. The title of War and peace can apply to the war with Napoleon, but also for society, relationships, and even within the lives and minds of the characters. All of it is in constant turmoil and rest. Tolstoy is quite observant of humanity, and does an excellent job of exploring those observations in this novel. For such an exceptional novel, the only drawback I would have is Tolstoy's exposition on history in the second epilogue. You can skip that. The rest of the novel is fantastic. There are not many novels that give such a detailed account of a time period, place and character development over a long period of time. A very long novel that most of the time didn't feel like it at all. If it is on your to do list, then I recommend diving in. It will go by faster than you think.
The title Tolstoy finally settled on was taken from the political theorist Pierre-Joseph Proudhorn's book La Guerre et L Paix (1861) a title which means what it says and no more. But when Tolstoy completed and published the final version of his novel Voyna i mir in 1869, the word mir carried a number of connotations and meanings, including a slightly obsolete one referring to society, mankind. In this case the word could mean, roughly speaking, humanity. Tolstoy's novel is concerned not merely with war and the cessation of war, it is about human beings, for whom war is a vast muddle, which is the curse of society. It is about the triumph of the human spirit in time of war; and the side that wins the war is the side that displays the stronger spirit. Natasha's dance and Andrey's sudden understanding of what matters are triumphant leaps of the human spirit; each results in an inner joy, a peace. The novel is not just a masterclass in fiction, Ms Li believes, but a remedy for distress. At the most difficult times in her life, she says, she has turned to it again and again, reassured by its “solidity” in the face of uncertainty. I had it on my desk for about a year, and now I've given up and put it back on the shelf. Tolstoy’s singular genius is to be able to take the torrent of conscious experience and master it. There are countless moments in the book where this happens ... ...lacking realism...cruel and rough...mentally stoned...morally depraved...the philosophy of stagnation... Belongs to Publisher Series — 20 more Great Books of the Western World (Volume 51) Modern Library Giant (G1) La nostra biblioteca Edipem (65-66-67) Os Grandes Romances Históricos (21-24) Penguin Clothbound Classics (2016) Is contained inGreat Books Of The Western World - 54 Volume Set, Incl. 10 Vols of Great Ideas Program & 10 Volumes Gateway To Great Books by Robert Maynard Hutchins (indirect) GREAT BOOKS OF THE WESTERN WORLD--54 Volumes 27 volumes 1961-1987 GREAT IDEAS TODAY (Yearbooks) 10 volumes GATEWAY TO THE GREAT BOOKS 10 volumes GREAT IDEAS PROGRAM. Total 101 Volumes. by Robert Maynard Hutchins (indirect) I capolavori (Anna Karenina - Guerra e pace - La morte di Ivan Il'ič- Resurrezione - La sonata a Kreutzer e altri racconti) (Italian Edition) by Lev Tolstoj International Collector's Library Classics 19 volumes: Crime & Punishment; Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea; Mysterious Island; Magic Mountain; Around the World in 80 Days; Count of Monte Cristo; Camille; Quo Vadis; Hunchback of Notre Dame; Nana; Scaramouche; Pinocchio; Fernande; War and Peace; The Egyptian; From the Earth to the Moon; Candide; Treasure of Sierra Madre; Siddhartha/Steppenwolf by Jules Verne ContainsIs retold inHas the adaptationIs abridged inHas as a supplementHas as a commentary on the textHas as a student's study guideAwardsDistinctionsNotable ListsThe 20 Most Popular Books Throughout History (15: 1869)
Classic Literature.
Fiction.
HTML: Napoleon's turbulent history with Russia including his doomed 1812 invasion provides the setting for Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. Often referred to as the greatest novel of all time, Tolstoy's classic follows the tumultuous personal lives of two aristocratic families touching on all of the great human epochs; youth, matrimony, age and death. .No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)891.733Literature Literature of other languages Literature of east Indo-European and Celtic languages Russian and East Slavic languages Russian fiction 1800–1917LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. Penguin Australia3 editions of this book were published by Penguin Australia. Editions: 0141025115, 0140447938, 0451532112 Urban RomanticsAn edition of this book was published by Urban Romantics. |
Good:
It's about Russia during the reign of Alexander I. I didn't know anything about Russia, and for that sole reason this book was interesting to read.
The book reads like a movie.
There is variety in the text. Some parts are a bit Jane-Austen-like (salon-situated satire), others more like philosophical musings on the workings of men and war and some parts are like an episode of the BBC-series Sharpe, when Tolstoy follows officers during the Napoleonic wars.
Tolstoy sketches brilliant psychological portraits of his characters. Eventually you can relate to any of them (or at least you'll have a friend that is a lot like that character).
Tolstoy describes phenomena in human interaction that are still applicable today (and probably always will be), such as what we (at my office) call Weasels: people that behave in such a way that they earn the rewards for the work and suffering of other (lower-ranking) people.
Bad:
Some parts are slow and a bit boring.
Some characters are introduced with great care only to be mentioned in later books with the greatest indifference.
In the first part, you cannot but hate all the characters in the salon. Tolstoy described their faults in great detail and no one is left to like which makes reading on difficult.
Pierre varies between a hero and an anti-hero.