War and Peace
Ratings255
Average rating4.1
This one deserves more attention and dedication from me and sadly I'm more focused on reading fantasy books this month so leaving this for another time.
A NEW TRANSLATION BY RICHARD PEVEAR AND LARISSA VOLOKHONSKY Tolstoy's enthralling epic depicts Russia's war with Napoleon and its effects on the lives of those caught up in the conflict. He creates some of the most vital and involving characters in literature as he follows the rise and fall of families in St Petersburg and Moscow who are linked by their personal and political relationships. His heroes are the thoughtful yet impulsive Pierre Bezukhov, his ambitious friend, Prince Andrei, and the woman who becomes indispensable to both of them, the enchanting Natasha Rostov.
To say I love this book would be an understatement.
“Oh, how that note had thrilled, and how something better that was in Rostov's soul began thrilling too. And that something was apart from everything in the world, and above everything in the world.”
“Yes, love, ...but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved him. I knew that feeling of love which is the essence of the soul, for which no object is needed. And I know that blissful feeling now too. To love one's neighbours; to love one's enemies. To love everything - to Love God in all His manifestations. Some one dear to one can be loved with human love; but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. And that was why I felt such joy when I felt that I loved that man. What happened to him? Is he alive? ...Loving with human love, one may pass from love to hatred; but divine love cannot change. Nothing, not even death, can shatter it. It is the very nature of the soul. And how many people I have hated in my life. And of all people none I have loved and hated more than her.... If it were only possible for me to see her once more... once, looking into those eyes to say...”
I liked some of the characters, so I liked following their story throughout the book but I didn't enjoy it as much overall. The historical and political aspects were long and rather dull, although they were interesting as they were commentary on the events and society.
En lang bok det er vanskelig å fordøye. Jeg setter pris på den personlige, lokale vinklingen Tolstoy har på viktige hendelser. Det er fint å følge de ulike karakterene i tiden de lever i, og hvordan de takler endringer, utfordringer og muligheter. Det skal sies at forfatteren bruker mye tid på å kritisere historiebruk og -fortelling i hans samtid, og selv om jeg er enig i noe av kritikken er store deler av den veldig utdatert, og dermed ganske frustrerende å lese. For å sette det på spissen kan boken tolke som at det er nyttesløst å trekke linjer eller se på årsaker og virkninger, da alt like gjerne kan forklares av rene tilfeldigheter. Det blir etter min mening for enkelt.
"Once she had a talk with her friend Natásha about Sónya and about her own injustice towards her.
‘You know,' said Natásha, ‘you have read the Gospels a great deal – there is a passage in them that just fits Sónya.'
“What?' asked Countess Mary, surprised.
“‘To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken away.” You remember? She is one that hath not; why, I don't know. Perhaps she lacks egotism, I don't know, but from her is taken away, and everything has been taken away. Sometimes I am dreadfully sorry for her. Formerly I very much wanted Nicholas to marry her, but I always had a sort of presentiment that it would not come off. She is a sterile flower, you know – like some strawberry blossoms. Sometimes I am sorry for her, and sometimes I think she doesn't feel it as you or I would.'
Though Countess Mary told Natásha that those words in the Gospel must be understood differently, yet looking at Sónya she agreed with Natásha's explanation. It really seemed that Sónya did not feel her position trying, and had grown quite reconciled to her lot as a sterile flower. She seemed to be fond not so much of individuals as of the family as a whole. Like a cat, she had attached herself not to the people but to the home. She waited on the old countess, petted and spoiled the children, was always ready to render the small services for which she had a gift, and all this was unconsciously accepted from her with insufficient gratitude."
You see, Sonya is poor, so she doesn't have any feelings.
This book is mostly about Pierre Bezukhov, his thoughts, adventures, friends and marriages, and about the war with France. That bit is OK. What is not OK is Natasha. She is a f-ing spoiled drama queen. In this book she manages to fall “unconditionally and irrevocably” in love with three different guys, get engaged four times before she's 20, get her heart “unconditionally and irrevocably” broken 2 times, tries to kill herself because of it, and everyone loves her, tries to save her, coddle her, comfort her... and... I just hate her. I f-ing hate her!
After having read this book I am convinced Tolstoy didn't much like women.
teljesen kizárt, hogy ezen szemmel át bírtam volna rágni magam. az utolsó kb. 10 órát már háromszoros sebességgel is marhára untam. (sajnos csak akkor jutott eszembe fölfedezni, hogy nemcsak dupla sebességgel simán érthető a komótos előadás.)
nem fekszik nekem tolsztojnak ez a filozofálgatásnak álcázott pökhendi okoskodása. a karaktereidről írjál már, ember!
Whew! Let me start by saying that is one long and complex novel. I started it on January 1st and here I am at the end of the year and I've just finished it. That's 1,225 pages of love and hatred, new life and death, marriage and separation, sickness and healing, friendship and animosity, and, yes, even war and peace. Everything is in this book.
I was most taken (and this was a surprise for me) with the war scenes. These scenes that take place during the war were not what I thought about war at all. War leaders give instructions to soldiers for battle plans and nothing is carried out as planned. Soldiers go running, many for home, when the battles begin. These war scenes felt true to life.
The other thing about War and Peace that I found to be very true is the depiction of relationships in the book. Love sparks and fades. Some relationships grow slowly over time, and some grow overnight.
This has been a remarkable experience for me, reading this complex book over a long period of time, giving me time to reflect upon it, reread parts, and think about it carefully. I have a deep respect for Tolstoy as a writer after reading this book.
Phew... this is a very long book. It took a while to get into the story but by the end I found myself connecting with the characters and intrigued with the plot.
I reviewed Napoleon's invasion of Russia on YouTube's epic history TV channel and it really helped me understand the war sections. I really enjoyed the wrap up of the characters at the end but the second epilogue took me out of the story with Tolstoy's reflections about the war.
War and Peace is a glorified romance. At times, the book presents itself as a historical drama, but Tolstoy's frequent philosophical asides and all the love stories detract from that significantly. There are many excellent historical novels that do much more justice to the genre than War and Peace. Particularly, I think Les Miserables was much better in this aspect.
For me at least, I finished this book only because I started reading it, and I don't like leaving books halfway read. It was quite a bore to read. Some characters are fascinating (I particularly liked Prince Andrei), but this doesn't make up for the lackluster plot.
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, Dramatized by Mike Walker and Marcy Kahan, Directed by Eoin O'Callaghan and Janet Whitaker, BBC Radio 4 Program is very nice audio program with fantastic performance and enjoyable sound effects which I went through.
This novel have a lot to say and it is not gonna be easy to write review for. Drama is all over the story, war, peace, family, love, loyalty, betrayal and a lot more have been placed beautifully within the novel. The novel do not let you get board by staying too long in a seen neither get lost by moving so fast. I love the pace to the novel.
Another aspect of the novel I loved were philosophical and educational parts which appears every now and then and bring the novel to educational level while it is entertaining at the same time.
I am very happy I read this, but phew am I also happy to be done with it. Because this book is heavy, because it took me about an hour to read only 30 pages and because Tolstoy needed to tell us a lot about his thoughts on history and historians.
But, there is so much good too :)
Tolstoy's descriptions of characters, how he goes so seamlessly into their heads and shows us what drives them to their sometimes heroic sometimes cowardice actions, is grand. Nikolai's reverie at seeing the tsar and pretty much falling in love with him and going into battle for him, was such a vivid and slightly scary description of extreme patriotism, and it stuck with me.
There's a lot of talk of the many many characters in W&P, but it wasn't as confusing as I feared it would be. After a while you figure out the central ones and realise it's not that important to keep track of all the generals and side characters. Also, a warning, it's not particularly easy to like the characters, with Prince Andrei being the only exception for me. Pierre with his ignorant naivete, getting pulled into the freemasonry, or Natasha the charming yet spoiled adolescent with her exuberance, are hard to root for. My compassion was more with the quiet women side characters, poor forgotten Sonya, and passive yet intelligent Marya.
The main narrative follows a group of connected characters and families through the years 1805-1812, from the high society events in Moscow and Petersburg to the battlefields in Europe, up until after Napoleon's invasion of Russia. The book is also interspersed with Tolstoy's musing on history. Which at the beginning are quite interesting in relation to his characters, as he sees humans as just cogs in the machine of history. From the smallest foot soldier to the highest generals - none of them truly in control of how a war is fought and won and lost. Even though historians assign the outcome of wars to the genius of the men in power, Tolstoy multiple times makes a point of highlighting how Napoleon's or Kutuzov's commands have little impact on outcomes. As fights are won and lost due to circumstances that have been in motion for a long while already. If only he wouldn't have quadrupled these thoughts on history towards the end of the book. It just made it a bit of an uphill battle to finish the book. (and I absolutely skipped the second epilogue)
Nice surprise: Tolstoy's funny. Occasionally the text has a very sharp and dry humour. Plus, I also enjoyed the bilingual nature of the book, with Russian high society conversing in French.
Finally! I did it! I can't say anything about this behemoth of a book that hasn't already been said by countless others, so I”ll just say this - it is worth all the hype it gets. No wonder Tolstoy is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time!
This book is incredible monotonous. All the characters feel the same and there is too much of them. They're introduced by name and given a police sketch-up artist description. Something I've felt also in Anna Karenina is that all characters are aristocratic, many are princes or princesses. Overall the prose is too descriptive, it feels very stereotyped Russian.
Read 1:43/60:49 3%
If one wishes to get a sense of the seemingly never ending senseless pain and drudgery of the French retreat from Moscow in 1812, read this book!
Damn epilogue. Much of the book is glorious but I need to wait a bit to give the epilogue time to sink out of view.