Rating: 
Summary: yes its long..
Review: But every chapter is short. Unlike some "Classics"(ehem Ulysses) which are long on style and short on substance, Tolstoy is ALL substance. This is a very important book that will change your live.
Rating:
Summary: yes its long..
Review: But every chapter is short. Unlike some "Classics"(ehem Ulysses) which are long on style and short on substance, Tolstoy is ALL substance. This is a very important book that will change your live.
Rating:
Summary: yes its long..
Review: But every chapter is short. Unlike some "Classics"(ehem Ulysses) which are long on style and short on substance, Tolstoy is ALL substance. This is a very important book that will change your live.
Rating:
Summary: Novel or Epic?
Review: Can't afford to travel to Russia to explore historic St.Petersburg, Moscow, and the beautiful rural villages? Then give War and Peace a try. It took me a couple of weeks to read this. I chose to start it in the dead of winter and found that the novel transported me delightfully in time and place from the warmth of my hearthside recliner. I had been reading quite a bit about the Napoloenic era so this novel was a very nice twist in perspective from the French to the Russian. Tolstoy was at his best when writing about war. His writing can be very tragic, but isn't steeped in as much Romanticism as the French writers of the time. I enjoyed reading Tolstoy's fervent religious views. My only complaint is that the book lacked a cohesive plot, protaganist and that the ending was trite. Don't worry about the length or the huge cast of characters as you read. You will get accustomed to all of the many characters and you will begin to see the book as an old friend waiting to be read daily. The social exploits of the characters are vividly interesting and intriguing. I feel like I have been to Russian drawing rooms, wars and theatre. Although I prefer War and Peace to Anna Karennina, I would recommend Anna to anyone who wants a bit more philosophy and less history from Tolstoy. It may also behoove the reader to purchase a book or two that explains the historical info regarding Napoleon's march into and out of Russia as a companion to the reading of War and Peace. I used one with biographies of French and Russian generals as well as battle maps and understood the war scenes much clearer.
Rating:
Summary: Novel or Epic?
Review: Can't afford to travel to Russia to explore historic St.Petersburg, Moscow, and the beautiful rural villages? Then give War and Peace a try. It took me a couple of weeks to read this. I chose to start it in the dead of winter and found that the novel transported me delightfully in time and place from the warmth of my hearthside recliner. I had been reading quite a bit about the Napoloenic era so this novel was a very nice twist in perspective from the French to the Russian. Tolstoy was at his best when writing about war. His writing can be very tragic, but isn't steeped in as much Romanticism as the French writers of the time. I enjoyed reading Tolstoy's fervent religious views. My only complaint is that the book lacked a cohesive plot, protaganist and that the ending was trite. Don't worry about the length or the huge cast of characters as you read. You will get accustomed to all of the many characters and you will begin to see the book as an old friend waiting to be read daily. The social exploits of the characters are vividly interesting and intriguing. I feel like I have been to Russian drawing rooms, wars and theatre. Although I prefer War and Peace to Anna Karennina, I would recommend Anna to anyone who wants a bit more philosophy and less history from Tolstoy. It may also behoove the reader to purchase a book or two that explains the historical info regarding Napoleon's march into and out of Russia as a companion to the reading of War and Peace. I used one with biographies of French and Russian generals as well as battle maps and understood the war scenes much clearer.
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 this review grants? Indeed, I toyed with the idea of trying to encapsulate this epic work in 100 words, but failed. I do know of 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 (unusually so, given his general mystical sentiments in life). 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. The Modern Library Edition is just such a translation.
Rating:
Summary: Classic
Review: I read this book in a month whilst travelling and could not put it down. It was difficult to get into with all the characters and subplots but once I started well into it I was enslaved.
Rating:
Summary: The covers of this book are not too far apart!
Review: It is too bad that so many people are intimidated by the 1500 pages of this book because once you get started, its deterring volume becomes irrelevant. I was immediately drawn into the fast-paced story and to its characters like the dysfunctional Bolkonskys, the oh so wonderful Rostovs (some members of both families were based on real-life Tolstoys) and the confused yet loveable Pierre Bezuhov. An edition with an index, list of all characters, footnotes and maps would be preferable. I don't know if one exists, but this edition offers no assistance, so you're on your own. I added to my own list of characters as I advanced through the book. The battle descriptions were quite confusing at times, especially since I am not familiar with Russian geography (where exactly do they go when they retreat by way of the Kaluga road?), and I referred to my "Dictionary of Napoleonic Wars" (Pope) for maps and to "The Age of Napoleon" (Herrod) for more information about the individual campaigns. I had the best intentions of dissecting this book but was soon swept away by its compelling story, barely stopping to underline the most brilliant sections before moving on (but not before re-reading out loud my favorite paragraphs to my ever so patient dog). The images left in my head are countless and priceless, such as the description of the sledge horses kicking up the snow, "hard and glittering like sugar", and the snowy plain that, "glittering like a diamond with bluish lights in it, lay stretched out on all sides, all motionless and bathed in moonlight." [p.597] Unforgettable the moment when young Rostov, wounded in battle, sees soldiers coming toward him: "What are they running for? Can they be running to me? And what for? To kill me? Me, whom every one's so fond of?" [p.207] Later it's Prince Andrey's turn: wounded on the battlefield he blends out the commotion and noise around him: "But he saw nothing of that. Above him there was nothing but the sky - the lofty sky, ... with grey clouds creeping quietly over it. 'How was it I did not see that lofty sky before?'" [p.313] This timeless book will broaden your mental horizon in regards to life and death, material and spiritual aspects of life, humankind and its individuals' daily struggles within the movements of the masses. Looking for the numerous polarities (war and peace, life and death, love and hate, movement and stillness, age and youth, heat and cold, individual and masses) was a lot of fun. Be prepared for the many questions that pop up throughout the novel: "What for?" "Why me?" "Can it be so?" Please give this book a try, it's mindblowing.
Rating:
Summary: IT'S NOT DEBATABLE:THIS IS THE GREATEST NOVEL
Review: It took me close to six months to read it all(this within my very tight schedule)but it was worth it.Tolstoy,in these pages,
set a standard for creative writing which has never been beaten.
My favourite characters were Prince Andrei Bolkhonsky and Count
Pierre Bezuhov.Reading the philosophical debates of these aristocrats was very uplifting and life-changing.The Russian
demand for the writer as philosopher was more than satisfied by
Tolstoy in this book.What I found myself at variance with though
was what feels like Chomskyist anarchy in some of Tolstoy's questioning of historical events..He's not wrong in having a difference of opinion,but he must also be open to other views(though I found nothing I disagreed with;just his attitude). Napoleon is accurately reduced to the opportunist that he was.He was never a genius,for genius does not exist in military science
as indeed it does not exist in any other aspect of life.That having been said it becomes easier to understand the military defeat of the Wehrmacht at Stalingrad,Kursk and other fronts of the Great Patriotic War,a.k.a World War Two.If the likes of Hitler,von Paulus,Rommel,etc had read this book maybe history as
we know it would be something else entirely(not that I condone Nazi politics and racial attitudes). Many of the most basic lessons from this book,concerning human relations,particularly the love of a man for a woman,are very much relevant in the 21st century as they were in the early part of the 19th.Nelson Mandela,a fellow African,has criticised Tolstoy for basing his plot mostly in aristocratic surroundings.
This does not,however,give a different picture of the lives that most of us lead.True,aristocrats have more to eat and drink at more frequent time intervals in Tolstoy's book,but they also go through times of deprivation that ordinary Africans like us experience much of the time.The Rostovs go through financial dire
straits and poverty,which is only remedied by the hard work of the younger generation. This book is not just "a chronicle of the Russia of that day",but
as has been aptly said,"a complete picture of human life".It is a must read for anyone contemplating a leadership role in the politics of any nation.Maybe politicians would become a better species of human beings;not to mention the military "geniuses",
who would definitely prosecute their wars more humanely.
Rating: 
Summary: Dull Read, Why Bother, Get Cliff Notes
Review: What kind of simpletons have to use the constant phrase, "The Best Book of All Time"? Truly, Tolstoy's work is nothing but a meager, self-sustaining, turgescent waste of time examining the life of reckless, debauched aristocrats who sit around and drink tea all day and call Napolean an "anti-christ". I was forced to read it in school and I dread the fact. There's only so much of this one can stomach before passing it off as an "old man's delusion".
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