War and Peace

If you look up pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis in the OED (and let's face it, who hasn't?) then you'll discover that it is "a word invented in imitation of polysyllabic medical terms, alleged to mean ‘a lung disease caused by the inhalation of very fine sand and ash dust’ but occurring only as an instance of a very long word."

I used to think of War and Peace in much the same way. While ostensibly it's a book about Napoleon's invasion of Russia and his eventual retreat, really it's just used as an example of a very long, difficult book. I went home to visit my family while I was reading the book and my dad, seeing me sat in the garden with a hefty tome in my hands said "What's that, War and Peace? Ha ha ha." Except of show more course it was War and Peace, which rather deflated his lit-wit. So I told the one about the giraffe with the grand piano going into a bar and we had a good old laugh about that instead.

Much as it's difficult to think of aforementioned lung disease as just a long word once you've inhaled enough ash dust and started coughing up your epiglottis, so too it's difficult to think of this novel as just a long book once you've enjoyed (most of) it's historical delights.

Tolstoy is a wonderful storyteller, zooming in and out of nineteenth century Europe like the video for Will Smith's Miami. Admittedly, some of Anthony Briggs' translatory choices leave something to be desired. A lot of the characters speak French in the original, and at times the use of language is rather important to the plot. Briggs deals with this by ending speeches where this is the case with "said Steve in French" or "said Bob, mangling his words because he was rubbish at Russian." It always feels clumsy, but to be honest there's probably no good solution to this problem. He also has one of the characters, Denisov, talk like Jonathan Ross, turning all his 'r's into 'w's. I can only assume this is taken from the original text, but Briggs Anglicises all of the characters' verbal quirks - peasants turn into cockneys, posh men say "old chap", and so on. Briggs mentions that his translation studiously avoids sentences that would raise an "inappropriate smile" such as "he ejaculated with a grimace" and so on. Alas, Denisov's speech impediment does lead us to hear about the "wank of Germans." Damn you, inappropriate smile.

So yes, it turns out the book isn't really outrageously long, I read the Night's Dawn trilogy a couple of years ago and that clocks in at the best part of four thousand pages. War and Peace's length is also alleviated by the fact it's well written and really not that difficult. While [b:Les Misérables|2225130|Les Misérables|Victor Hugo|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1222130242s/2225130.jpg|3208463] is three hundred pages of plot with a thousand pages of Hugo's ruminations on France and nunneries and the Parisian sewer system, here we have mostly plot with roughly one chapter from each part of each volume thrown over to Tolstoy's thoughts about history and his ideas on what amounts to historical calculus. These thoughts are both interesting and illuminating, if a little repetitive, and do nothing to detract from the book, which - once you set to it - is a rollicking read.

Except for the last fifty pages. Sweet monkey Tuesdays, those last fifty pages. show less

I actually remember finding Tolstoy's Anna Karenina a good read, although it's been so long I'd have to reread it to relate what I found absorbing. War and Peace is a very different matter. It's a mammoth novel, one of the longest in the Western canon, roughly 560,000 words; it comes to over a thousand pages in the editions I've seen. I was determined to stick it out to the end because this is considered one of the greatest and most influential novels in literature, so I wanted to experience it first hand, and I didn't want to ever have to go back for another try again. I took it in slow steps, reading only one "book" of the 15 each day. Encompassing dozens of characters written in a God's eye omniscient view, it takes hundreds of pages show more before you get a sense who are the important characters. Among the LibraryThing reviews is an interesting comment by CS Lewis about War and Peace. It's meant to be complimentary, but expresses well exactly what I hated in it as a novel. Lewis talks about how Tolstoy negates what is "dangerous" in the novel form by never invoking the "narrative lust" to find out what happens next and instilling an indifference to the fate of the characters "which is not a blank indifference at all, but almost like submission to the will of God." In other words, you rarely care about what happens or about any of the characters.

The novel centers on five interconnected aristocratic families, and if the novel has a chief character, it's Count Pierre Bezukhov. And he's a buffoon. When we first meet him, he's described as a "a stout, heavily built young man" with "natural" manners (meaning none) and he's such a social disaster his hostess follows him around to try to repair the damage of his ill-judged outbursts. He lisps, he stammers. He's easily led yet subject to grandiose delusions, he's absentminded and he's lucky he comes into an inheritance, because he had no idea what to do for a career, and lacks the basic competence to succeed. Soon after the party introducing him, he gets involved in a drunken incident where a police officer was tied to a bear and thrown into a river. Following him and his emo musings around for hundreds of pages wasn't a joy. It occurred to me that if we were in an Jane Austen novel, Pierre would be the comic relief--a Mr Collins or Mr Rushworth--not a character taken seriously. But it wasn't as if any of the characters initially popped out at me as distinctive or sympathetic or complex. Nicholas Rostov struck me as a fool, Prince Andrew Bolkonsky arrogant and callous, Boris Drubetskoy a mercenary social climber and all the Kuragins are despicable. Whenever I started to feel sympathy for some of the characters, such as Prince Andrew or his sanctimonious sister Princess Mary or the flighty Natasha Rostov, before long they'd do something to lose my liking.

Pierre and his loves take up a lot the peace part, which contain long drawn-out set pieces such as masonic initiations, aristocratic hunting parties and opera performances. The book does give you a sense of everyday life among the 19th century Russian gentry. But the book is also famously about the Napoleonic Wars, but if anything, I found that part even more wanting. Please understand, I've read and finished and enjoyed lots of weighty 19th century classics, and a lot of them have been very, very long. And I love history, too, having read plenty of books on the subject around as long as War and Peace. This also isn't a girl thing. I was fascinated by Shaara's novel Killer Angels centering on the Battle of Gettysburg. But Tolstoy's battles are on the whole as sleep-inducing as his ballrooms. Despite some gory imagery here and there, and some vivid passages, his battle scenes are rarely exciting except when one of the major characters are in danger of their lives or wounded--a few pages out of many dozens. Tolstoy expressed well the contingent, chaotic aspect of battle, but neither leadership nor the bond between brother soldiers is something his view of war encompasses. Any time there are flashes of brilliance in his battle scenes, you can be sure the momentum will be broken by endless, repetitive digressions on Tolstoy's one-note theory of history (complete with algebraic equations at one point).

Despite its reputation as the ultimate historical novel, I didn't feel as if I gained any insight into the history of the Napoleonic Wars and the personages involved. But then Tolstoy doesn't believe that leaders play an important role: "A king is history's slave. History, that is, the unconscious, general, hive life of mankind, uses every moment of the life of kings as a tool for its own purposes." Tolstoy scoffs at the very idea of military science or "military genius" determining outcome. His Napoleon comes across as a caricature. Tellingly, Tolstoy scoffs even at the idea that one can diagnose a disease--"no disease suffered by a live person can be known." Tolstoy at one point indulges in a long paragraph of national stereotypes--I had to shake my head at his characterizations of Russians, because it sounded so much like a description of himself as betrayed in his novel: "A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known." If you can't believe in knowledge, then you can't have knowledge to impart.

Ultimately, for me War and Peace was a monstrosity that steamrolls you with its very length. And boy, that epilogue? Tolstoy serves up two, with the second containing no story but only a rant on history and the Theory-Of-It-All (tm.) he'd been constantly expounding upon for hundreds of pages. I guess by the time most people get to the end of over a thousand pages, they want to think it worth it. I can't say I do. Well, except now I have bragging rights. I actually read from cover to cover--actually finished War and Peace! After this, even James Joyce's Ulysses and Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude can hold no terror. show less

Only in our conceited age of the popularization of knowledge – thanks to that most powerful engine of ignorance, the diffusion of printed matter – has the question of freedom of will been put on a level on which the question itself cannot exist.

Tolstoy is a much better storyteller than a thinker; in other words, no matter how hard he wants to be Borges, he's much better off gamboling in the bucolic glories of his beloved Russia. Part Two of this book's Epilogue cemented that in stone, forty pages of Tolstoy destroying any denunciation he had made of the horrors of war with redundant, solipsistic, and inconclusive meanderings on freewill and power. Had he stuck with a simple 'Well we just don't know so how about we keep thinking and show more not killing each other in those horrible massacres known as war that we shouldn't be lauding as much as we do' and ended it there, it would have been a good, sensible end. Instead, he went on. And on. And on. I've heard this paradoxical thinking is part of his appeal and his later works tell a different story but I just finished 1440 pages of the reputably nineteenth longest work in the history of novels and I am NOT going to do the 'Oh but you read the wrong one now this work is the one that is the true best of the author...' dance. Right now, enough is enough.

I recently ran across a bundle of reviews condemning Hugo for overt egotism in his [Les Misérables], and while I see the truth in that, I'll take boundless hope for empathetic humanity over thought experiments culminating in either religion or endless gnawing of ones' leg in efforts to escape any day. All authors are completely full of themselves to some degree of thinking their compositions are worthy of an audience, and while I promised to not let this review commit itself to Hugo vs. Tolstoy time, I like writers that offer a backdoor, who give an opinion/story/whatnot without spending endless paragraphs quibbling over its immutability and/or not. You like what you think? Stay considerate, consistent, and somewhere along the line concise, and I'll probably like it too.

"He could not disavow his deeds, lauded as they were by half the world, and so he was obliged to repudiate truth and beauty and all humanity."

That line sums up everything I find great in Tolstoy, that utter rout of Napoleon and putting in his place a conjuration of ineffable worth that is in no way encompassed by military might. Unfortunately, Tolstoy's very much a Hemingway, and I can only hope some of that humanity he names rubbed off on him in the eight years between the publications of W&P and [Anna Karenina], for every time a woman shows up he has no time for anything but lazy characterization, patronizing hypocrisy, and insipid similes such as how the effort to achieve women's rights is like the effort to cook the perfect meal and has no consideration for the holy sacred "family" that constitutes the only reason for matrimony. The irony is that, like many men and women of both that time and this one, he doesn't see that the patriarchy he is so horrified by, leastwise in massacres committed in the name of king and nationalism, is birthed in every situation where a woman is expected to take on all of empathy and a man is refused the slightest share. This is a given I usually don't mention due to its ridiculous ubiquity, but seeing how much time Tolstoy spent trying and failing to write women, it deserves explicit mention.

In light of that, if I do the usual thing and focus on the thoughts of male characters while keeping only a cursory eye on those of women, there's some good stuff to be found. Proust does the rich people screwing each other over in petty politics and gainful one-ups better, but Proust never went to war. Between the psychological discourse of varying levels of insight and the constant relations of history to physical laws that range from intriguing to utterly laughable, we have breathtaking sketches of natural landscape and its humans, a sleigh ride in particular being one of my favorite scenes in literature of all time. Sentiment abounds, but was made bearable by the few moments when real value was found in empathy and the bonds of humanity. I would've been happier had I forgone the epilogue, but I also wouldn't have the right to evaluate it, and of all of Tolstoy's attempts to pin down the nature of power, I favor knowledge above all others.

In short, I thought I'd get more out of this than I did, but that moment six years ago when I had to return W&P unfinished to the library has now been vindicated. Also, that Russian film adaptation looks mighty appealing. show less

War and peace
A flawed masterpiece if ever there was one.
The story is full of sensory detail about people, their skin colour, hair arrangements, breath, finger pressures. From the Tsar down to the humblest peasant, characters come alive as complex contradictory people, both their behaviour and their inner lives. Both estate life and the salons are real; the war too ,especially the lower ranks and the suffering and resilience. “Dann commit die Moral” , as Brecht might put it. In the first half or so, just the occasional short chapter where Tolstoy analyses the big picture, with some interesting comments on the foibles of Napoleon, Alexander and others. Then in the later parts of the book the story is gradually abandoned and he holds show more forth about the emptiness of the “Great Man Theory of History”. He fails to make a very convincing case (I occasionally thought of how Marx might argue that we are bubbles in the tide of economic forces), but perhaps because of that he goes on and on, repeating himself, trying to find another way to say the same thing, trying to show he’s read some books on the matter. His fictional characters come so alive and seem to show some kind of free will as they cope with the pressure of events; but by the later part of the book he’s left them behind, mostly in rather dreary domesticity, and the whole sermon is a yawning bore.

On Audible, narrated by Jonathan Keeble (not Th Newton) it’s lively though, as so often, let down by pronunciation of foreign lingos. His French is really shaky and the opening chapters are famous for the aristos speaking French. So I’m then unsure about his pron of all the Russian names, which we all know can get quite complicated. We get Kututsov instead of Kutuzov, for example.

And did the Reds abolish all those matronymics? We don’t hear them these days. show less

I've had this book on my shelf for a long time, but have always been intimidated by the length and the reputation of this epic story. I finally armed myself with the audio book, print copy of the book, and a copy of the character map from Wikipedia and began. After 4 weeks (1200 pages and 64 hours of narration), I finished the book... and I loved it.

The book is really two parallel stories. The first is about 4 different Russian aristocratic families, the Rostovs, the Bolkonskys, the Kuragins and the Bezukhovs. The book opens in 1805, when many of the main characters are on the brink of adulthood. Spanning 8 years, the characters grow from idealistic young aristocrats to mature adults who have experienced sacrifice and loss. The second show more story is about the Napoleonic War in Russia and features not only the main fictional characters, but also many historical figures of the time, such as Napoleon and Alexander I. Covering the complicated relationship between these 2 emperors, the epic story unfolds, from the initial war between France and Russia, to an uneasy alliance between the 2 countries, and finishes with the Napoleon's invasion that leads to his ultimate defeat.

Although the book is LONG, I found the writing descriptive and not overly wordy. I loved the descriptions of Tsarist Russia and the social strata between the aristocracy and the serfs. Even simple events, like a wolf hunt, were captivating and beautifully written. Although many people criticize Tolstoy for his preachy style when he discusses his views on history and the war, I found these diversions from the story very interesting. His philosophy on whether major events are caused by people (like Napoleon), the environment at that time in history, or society was fascinating.

I alternated between listening and reading. The audio version I had was narrated by Neville Jason, and it was superb. Overall, a great experience. show less

Yay, finished!!!! So happy! Like, I have reached a milestone!

War and Peace is all that - battles, privations and illogicality of war on one hand; balls, romances, and a giant soap opera on the other.

The soap opera is hugely enjoyable, with excellently drawn characters. Contrary to popular belief, Tolstoy has a flowing, mildly humorous, well-paced writing style that is easy to read. His observation of character, feelings, and power of bringing everyday events into a living, breathing picture is unparalleled. The characters are complex, grow and develop during the books, as they go through life challenges that change them. There are tragedies, heartbreak but also happy endings, all drawn in exquisite detail. There is no one like Tolstoy show more when it comes to human observation.

The war parts were less enjoyable. The description of soldier’s encampments and their experiences in battles were moving and clearly from first hand. However when it came to the description of high command, or battle strategy, my eyes were glazing over.

There were entire chapters and a complete epilogue where Tolstoy was having an ongoing, repetitive argument about what drives historical events - the will of the leaders, chance, God’s will, or an unwitting flow of historical trends. At first this was mildly interesting, but after a while a total slog. I set aside the book a number of times and sat on it for weeks. Finally I have figured out that the sloggy philosophy was confined to separate chapters, and I ended up skimming, then skipping those. Much better, and finished with a very satisfying ending.

Soap opera - 5 stars. Soldier’s life - 4 stars. Philosophy - 1 star. Luckily, The first two is about 95% of the book. And luckily, the sloggy parts are easy to skip.

Overall I preferred Anna Karenina - all the good soap opera without any sloggy parts. show less

Rarely has a novel with such a thumping thesis (Tolstoy’s rejection of the so-called great man theory of history) been so affecting, so charming at times, and so brutally honest at others. Once you give yourself over to it, it is engrossing and the pages (the many, many pages) seem to fly by. And perhaps not surprising for such a long and complex work, your allegiances to characters develop and shift over the course of the novel. Whether it is the moral development of the seemingly dense Pierre, or the reclamation of the overly proud Prince Andrei, or even the dizzying excitement of Natasha and its aftermath, the care that Tolstoy takes with his fictional characters helps humanize the necessarily violent battle sections of the novel. show more Despite the frequent authorial disquisitions on the impossibility of the will of one man, be that man Napoleon or Alexander, directing the outcome of huge events, Tolstoy regularly brings the focus down to single individuals in the midst of a battle and we see how personally meaningful their individual actions are for them.

There is no need for me to recommend this novel. It stands as one of the bulwarks of imaginative fiction and for that reason alone, if no other, it deserves to be read. But what I would say is how surprisingly funny and charming and at other times heart-poundingly tense it can be. So as well as being an important, possibly a necessary, read, it is also a good read. Enjoy! show less