Rating: 
Summary: Happiness
Review: Oh how I love this book! "Why do I love it so?" I've been asking myself. I think I know. The central character, the young Pierre Bezukhov, says: "In order to be happy, one must believe in happiness" -- and this is exactly what the book does: it makes one believe in happiness. The ending is joyful and
life-affirming, but not in the superficial and facile way of, say, Jane Austen or Dickens (or opera buffa for that matter!).
"No, no a thousand times no!" (to quote Pierre again), the happiness seems to have been inevitable from
the novel's very start; it could *never* have been otherwise! (to paraphrase Pierre yet again!) How I love this book. Let me count the ways -- no no, that would be impossible. What episode do I love the most? Is it when it only a serious wound on the battlefield can allow Prince Andrei, for the first time, to (as he lies upon his back on the ground) come face to face with the heavens and the infinity contained therein? Is it when Platon
Karatayev, in the French prison, offers Pierre a potato and then seasons it with salt from a rag? Is it when Prince Andrei overhears Natasha exclaiming, from the balcony, how she could just fly off into the night??! But what nonsense it is speak of a favorite episode. There are as marvelous passages as there are stars in the infinite heavens to which Tolstoy's heroes are always casting at least one eye.
Rating:
Summary: The best book in my library
Review: Absolutely could not put it down! A must have for all libraries.
Rating:
Summary: Sweet perfection!
Review: I picked up this book as a joke, seeing how far I would get into it before I gave up. And, darn me, but didn't it end up to be the best novel I have ever read!The cast of characters is very large, and the time scale in the book is also huge, covering around 10 years, but this complexity never troubles the story after you have got past the first 100-odd pages, and you have got used to the characters. I expected the style to be burdensome and slow, but in fact it was very easy to read, and the convoluted plot went along quite nicely. I do not mean "convoluted" in a bad way - far from it. The way the disparate plot strands were intertwined was nothing short of genius. Although some of it did read like a soap opera occasionally, the lives of the characters were almost invariably written sensitively and in great detail. The one character I was disappointed in was Sonya, because Tolstoy started out with her as a main protagonist, but she ended up sinking into oblivion, eclipsed totally by Natasha, on whom Tolstoy lavished many plot points. (However, that said, I could live with this because Natasha was probably my favourite character.) I do have one complaint with the book though, and that is the essays on political and philosophical thought that Tolstoy slipped in in increasing quantities towards then end, culminating in the huge 30-odd page discursive essay at the very end. At best these bore only tangential similarities to the plot, and at worst they spoiled the tone of that part of the book. I was especially annoyed at the last 30 pages. I mean, Tolstoy could have left the ending at the poignant decision of Prince Andrey's son to attempt follow in his father's footsteps to try and emulate him.........instead of following it up with a cumbersome essay on historical laws and the like. I read the Constance Garnett translation, and would probably hesitate in recommending it to a first time reader, if only because of the principal character list at the front. This sounds petty and irrelevant, but the name "Denisov" was spelt "Denison" which caused me some confusion, and also characters such as Platon Karataev, Ippolit Kuragin and Princess KATISH! were listed when others such as Kutuzov were not, which seemed a trifle inconsistent. But still, these minor imperfections were drowned out in the stunningness of the rest of the book. Whenever people ask me what it's about, I always say, "Life," because it seems to cover the whole kaleidoscope of human emotion, love, hate, despair, envy, anger......and it's just amazing, everyone should read this book NOW!
Rating:
Summary: Epic proportions
Review: How does one do justice to a work as monumental and vast as Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' in the short space that Amazon grants? Indeed, I toyed with the idea of trying to encapsulate this epic work in 100 words, but failed. I believe there was one review of 'War and Peace' that was even shorter; it read: 'Napoleon invaded.
It snowed.
Napolean failed.
Russia won.' Perhaps that does encapsulate it. Tolstoy would have probably respected such as description, for, as verbose as he and other Russia novelists seemed to be (given a purely page-count analysis), he appreciated brevity and essentialism in the description. This holds true for 'War and Peace'. I was amazed at the lack of what one might hold to be extraneous detailing in the text -- I would have expected long, drawn out and tedious renderings of situations, emotions or events, but such is not the case. In Tolstoy's following of the Rostovs (poor country gentry) and the Bolkonskis (higher society), and a hero Pierre Bezuhkov, he illustrates basic truths in the way life is lived, and the way it ought to be lived. Tolstoy was a moralist, but no mystic in his writing. He felt it absolutely essential that the novelist should tell the truth, and mystical digressions lead away from that. His characters grow as we watch, and he recounts details that are important (such as Natasha and her doll as a child, and then later Natasha going to church -- these are two ages of the same person, to be sure, but not a simple updating of the character, as if an actress wearing a different costume). Each circumstance, the day-to-day conversations and events, the family interactions, their dealing with life and success and death and defeat, all have an uncanny ring of truth about them. The family resemblance of characters leap off the page: the Rostovs all have a common element (beyond the basic social class attributes), and likewise there is and intangible similarity between Prince Andrei and his father. 'War and Peace' has been described as the Illiad and the Odyssey of the Russian people, with just cause. This is a work that speaks to the meaning and hope of life. His realism forced him to strip away much of the glorification of war and show the realities. Yet Tolstoy presents the events of 1812 as a moral crusade, and that the Russians won against the Napoleonic onslaught because of their adherence to simple, good and true virtues (as much as they relied on the snow to come to their defence). Even the upper classes, the urbane, wealthy and sophisticated Russians in 'War and Peace' have an underlying simplicity (contrasting to the French, and other foreigners', complexity and slyness) that gives them the moral upper hand. One almost hears the echo of Simple Gifts in this Russian epic: 'Tis a gift to be simple...' Yet this is not a stupid or ignorant simplicity. It is a wise state of being. One could imagine Tolstoy being at home with the philosophies of Emerson and Thoreau, and while he might sympathise with Thomas Carlyle in moral and political terms, he would be opposed to his historical hero-worshipful stance, preferring to think of the collective of humanity as the true agent and mover in history. 'War and Peace' is often held up as an example of a long book that nobody can read. This is rubbish. I have three editions, each of which is fewer than 1500 pages (yes, I know that is quite a lot), fewer pages than the Bible, fewer pages than some anthologies of modern novelists. It is long, there is no denying that. But it can be read, and I contend, given the right translation, one might become so enthralled that one might wish it were longer. I commend to you the Greenwich House translation, by Rosemary Edmonds, which goes a long way toward simplfying the name game, and the Louise and Aylmer Maude translation, contained in the Britannica Great Books collection.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Translation Available
Review: "War and Peace" is one of those mammoth behemoths of a novel that everyone aspires to read and few manage to finish. This is a shame, because its reputation as the Ultimate Big Massive Tome has, unfortunately, obscured the fact that it tells a very gripping story and is infinitely rewarding and re-readable. I'm in a position to say this because I've read this book anywhere from half-a-dozen to a dozen times (to be honest I've lost count). For many years I would read one of Tolstoy's big novels every year, alternating between "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina." Along the way I've read three of the four major translations of the book multiple times. The four translations, in order of appearance, are: 1) Constance Garnett
2) Louise and Alymer Maude
3) Rosemary Edmonds
4) Ann Dunnigan Of these four translations, I would recommend either Edmonds or Dunnigan. Here's why. The Garnett and Maude translations date from the first three decades of the 20th Century. Edmonds' translation was originally published in 1957, and Dunnigan's in 1968 (for some reason, no one has tried to come up with a new translation of "War and Peace" in the past 35 years). The definitive (to date) Russian text of the novel was published in the early 1960s: Edmonds revised her translation in 1978 to take into account the new version. In general, unless you're reading an older translation, not for the sake of its putative author but for the translator (which is the only reason to read, for example, the Urquhart-Motteux Rabelais or Chapman's Homer), you're almost always better off sticking with a modern translation. And that's the case with "War and Peace." It's either Edmonds or Dunnigan. It's a close call. You really won't go wrong with either one of them. If I prefer Dunnigan, it's because Edmonds' translation is a wee bit too English for my taste. Having Russian peasants sound like Cockneys just doesn't work for me. Can you really read such a lengthy book? Keep in mind that it's not all that long -- it's only around 800,000 words and both Proust and Gibbon are much longer. Plus, when you get past all of Tolstoy's interpolated essays on History (which you can easily skip the first time around, although they are interesting), what you're left with is a stirring story about a few Russian families struggling for survival during Napoleon's invasion of Russia. Tolstoy put into the book thinly veiled versions of his parents and relatives (and they are very thinly veiled -- the Volkonskys become the Bolkonskys), and there are quite a few inside jokes that will go sailing over your head the first time you read it. (I'll only give away one -- when Princess Maria sticks her head out of her room while the Little Princess is about to give birth to Prince Andrei's son, she sees some servants carrying a leather sofa into the Little Princess's room. Tolstoy never says anything else about it, and never explains it. The fact is that Tolstoy himself was born on a leather sofa, and he insisted that his wife give birth to all of his many children on the same sofa.) So don't be afraid of this very long novel, which Henry James once unwisely referred to as a "loose baggy monster." In fact it is nothing of the sort. It takes quite a few readings of "War and Peace" before you realize how brilliantly structured it is -- how something that seems at first glance as natural and casual as water flowing downstream is really meticulously and artfully plotted. I hope I've talked you into at least taking a crack at this book. Unlike Proust, who has to be read incredibly slowly if you're going to get anything at all from him, "War and Peace" can be taken at a gallop. And its a lot of fun -- not at all the grim heavy tome it's made out to be. So what are you waiting for?
Rating: 
Summary: War and Peace
Review: While our Lord said the meek will inherit the earth did He really mean reverse Darwinism would play out leaving our globe popuated by cockroaches? The French version of the Bible translates the word "meek" as "debonnier," the later meaning implies one who accepts Creation with some modicum of grace. Tolstoy's characters alas just accept it wih a detestable resignation and comtemptable passivity.
Rating:
Summary: Entirely Presumptuous For Me To Add Anything New
Review: This book is a classic and after reading it I see why. The richness of the characterization and psychology of the characters is wonderful. I do not wish to add much more, because I feel this book has been reviewed and discussed so much that whatever I add has already been said, thought, or written. Read this book.
Rating:
Summary: In my opinion the greatest novel ever written
Review: I've read War and Peace 4 times, and I aim to soon read it a fifth time. No book I've read before or since gives a better portrayal of life than War and Peace (I haven't read Anna Karenina, which some say is even better). Some moments of the book have stayed with me as memories almost as if they had been a part of my own life, rather than mere fiction. Don't be put off by the length of this book, it is not a difficult read at all.
Rating:
Summary: Worth the Effort
Review: I expected to find War and Peace difficult to read and to understand. I was surprised and pleased to find the story very readable. The three main characters, all young, lovable men with wealthy but very different fathers, follow their own paths through life and the horrors of war. Their hopes, dreams, disappointments and fears are so vividly portrayed that at times I dreaded turning the page and at other times I stayed up much too late, unable to put the book down. It was certainly worth the little extra time it took to read.
Rating:
Summary: Literary litmus test
Review: War and Peace is a litmus test. If you gave it fewer than five stars (OK, I'll be generous and say fewer than four stars), then the problem isn't with the book -- it's with you. You need to understand this. Everyone else does.
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