War and Peace

Rating:
Summary: A magnificent panorama of life and love and death
Review: Tolstoy towers over the art of the novel like no other author in the history of novel writing (not Balzac, not Dostoevsky, not Dickens, not even Proust), in that he simply holds up a mirror to the reader and allows him to understand himself. Tolstoy's genius doesn't rely on dramatic plots, poetic language or revelations about humanity that nobody else had ever propounded, though all of these elements can be found in War and Peace, but rather in the resounding truth that rings through all that he writes. It is almost irrelevant to think about War and Peace in terms of a novel. For me it is life itself, and the truth that it communicates is never surprising, but the truth that you always knew: it just took Tolstoy's voice to make you realise.

In terms of reducing this magnificent work to the conventions of novel writing: the "plot" focuses on the Napoleonic wars as a backdrop to the lives of the Rostovs, the Bolkonskys and Pierre Bezuhov, among others. The characterisation is everything - Tolstoy's strength lies in his peerless ability to create real people with complex emotional and intellectual make-up, who love and fear and are magnanimous and are petty, who make grand gestures and who fall victim to their own human weaknesses. Throughout the vast panoply, Tolstoy demonstrates his abiding philosophy, that history is the product of the will of the masses and that "a king is history's slave", thereby undermining the popular view of great men shaping great events and bringing about change. Historians and philosophers like to pour scorn on this view, but I think they misinterpret what Tolstoy was trying to achieve - he was not holding himself up as a prophet, he was simply saying to people "look at the world around you and try and tell me that revolution created this!"

As many of the previous reviewers have rightly advised, don't let the size of the book put you off. Tolstoy will not confound you with style - reading him is almost like breathing, it is a necessity. My words cannot possibly do justice to this novel, but just let them convince you of one thing: life would be poorer if you never read War and Peace.

Rating:
Summary: umm
Review: Im 11, thatas probably why i really dont like the book, but my point made is, my mom grounded me and made me read war and peace, and it was the worst punistment i have ever been through, i asked my family to read a page of it, and they all fell asleep, sorry to all the people who like it..

Rating:
Summary: War and Peace (Unabridged)
Review: Leo Tolstoy's vision of Russia form the inside is spectacular. The combination of Moscow and Petersbrug society while the war rages on outside the heart of Russia gives the reader a much more full comprehesion of the events of The Russian and French Armies in The Great War. A Literary masterpiece. Only for advanced readers. People who enjoyed "Crime and Punishment" shcould consider reading "War and Peace"

Rating:
Summary: the flowing of time
Review: I am almost through with the reading of War and Peace. It is a novel which I have been wanting to read for years but which I never did. Now that I am almost to the end of it I would like to stress how incredibly "quick" this book is, and invite a lot of people to read it. What is really amazing about it is the way Tolstoy decided to organize such a long and engaging subject- in short chapters with a lot of dialogue and action. There is no other writer I can think of who has Tolstoy's mesmerizing ability to make so many things happen in two or three pages. And there is no other writer who, like Tolstoy, has the power to capture and fix for ever the very essence of the flowing of time. Think about the whole novel with its representation of Russian life from 1805 to the 1820s but think, especially, of Natasha's winter afternoon at her country home when she longs for Prince Andrej and he is not there. In that passage Tolstoy managed to capture the familiar notion of the flowing of minutes and hours as perceived by the bored and restless soul of lonely and unsatisfied Natasha.

Rating:
Summary: Rosemary Edmonds Translation of Tolstoy Credible and Musical
Review: This translation (forget any attempt at adding to the praise of my favorite novel, as the closest I can say is one must read the book in the way they should attend Handel's "Messiah" atleast once in their life), Rosemary Edmond's masterful and careful version as from its 1963 appearance, may still be the most accessible and, dare one say it, compact. While many from the previous generation become familiarized with the Garnett and still others the later of 1970s, this one offers some clarity while never editing the text down to an ad reducto abridgement. Some day some one will offer a nice compendium to the original manuscripts from their entirety, providing a score which when played whill be something like hearing a newly-discovered Bach concerto. Strongly recommend

Rating:
Summary: It's Not Too Long If It's Good
Review: Few novels have the breadth and scope of detail as "War and Peace". This is a novel that took years to write and may take the average reader up to a year to finish. It is well worth the effort.

Tolstoy has successfully mastered the arts of military and romantic literature. Often times when these elements are combined in a novel the author is not particularly strong in both areas. That is certainly not Tolstoy's weakness. Tolstoy's one weakness is his tendency to engage in long-winded narration about his system of philosophy. I've always believed that if the author wants to bring his personal philosophies into a book, they should be woven into the fabric of the work and not kept as separate parts that break up the flow of the story. Fortunately these narrations do little damage to the overall story.

I have read many non-English language books from German, French, Russian, etc. authors that have been translated into English. "War and Peace" was the first and only one of those books which made me want to learn a foreign language. Translated works, no matter how hard the translator tries, can never stay completely true to the original work. Through the translations of Tolstoy's work one gets the sense that he had a command of the Russian language equal to Dickens' or Shakespeare's command of English.

One piece of advice: if you feel that it may take you longer than six months to finish the novel, you may want to keep track of the families on a separate sheet of paper like a family tree. In can get rather confusing with all of the marriages and child births that occur in the course of these family's lives.

Rating:
Summary: The Eye of God
Review: Ever since I was a teen (I'm 51) I tried reading War and Peace. The furthest I ever got was something like Page 80. Six summers ago, I thought, what the heck, give it another shot. After Page 100 or so, the book picked up steam, and I was absolutely awed as I've seldom been by all the great books I've read in my life. That's what I want to share with potential readers of this great book. Stick with it. It's like a trickling stream that grows and grows from many tributaries into a grand wide raging river. It's got everything in it, as if it were written by God. Tolstoy saw everything. There are so many, many unforgettable scenes in it. My favorite two are the costume party at the country estate (pure magic!) and the great wolf-hunting scene in which the wolf actually takes on a personality under the all-knowing skill of Tolstoy's great pen. In just a line or two, Tolstoy could actually get inside the "soul" of even an animal! I can only imagine how great this book is in the original Russian. After War and Peace, I devoured Anna Karenina, which is in many ways an even greater book. I'd recommend people read War and Peace with Cliff's Notes, as I did, because you get a sense of the historical background and it helps you from getting the hundreds of characters mixed up. War and Peace is more than a novel. It's an Everest of creation. Please stick with it!

Rating:
Summary: Epitome of Western Literature
Review: It's true how often we tend to become oblivious of the plain facts about war and peace. We are simply torn between the two concepts that it is easy to forget, after all, we are either in war or peace; there seems to be no choice. War and Peace by Russian novelist Count Leo Tolstoy, 38, was published in its first installment in 1866-the same year in which Crime and Punishment was completed. What a nice coincidence. History taught us revolutions of swarming intellectuals and conquests of stirring patriots of that particular time period; then perhaps it is not so difficult to distinguish the common route Russian writers of that age were attempting to manifest.

Tolstoy presents us a magnificent epic of three particular aristocratic families: the Bezukhovs, the Bolkonskys, and the Rostovs. As a scenic study of early 19th-century Russian society, War and Peace portrays the impacts of the Napoleon invasion against a vivid background of Russian social life. The theme of war is closely entwined with the theme of family existence, and as Tolstoy introduces hundreds of vivid characterizations, we as readers become forever enthralled to Prince Andrey, Pierre, and Natasha.

Through Tolstoy's lengthy essays on human nature of existence pattern, it's not difficult to come with such an analogy, war to peace: idealism to reality. What Tolstoy attempts to capture is not the simplicity of war and peace's relationship; the complexity lies in our reaction and the decision we come to about our own roles and the stands we take between war and peace. Tolstoy's own ambiguous definition of free will, "In history what is known to us we call the laws of necessity; what is unknown, we call free will," presents another aspect of human nature that is only shaped through consistent existence pattern. The novel itself sets forth such a theory of history, concluding that there is a minimum of free choice; all is ruled by an inexorable historical force. Then it's not so ironic the way Tolstoy ridicules the so-called strategist; he argues that although Napoleon may be the "expression of that age" as a leader, his intellectual activity is simply produced and created by the movement of people. And Tolstoy further argues that Napoleon "genius" comes from sheer chance and his triumph from mere luck. After all, Tolstoy's battlefields are full of chaos as everything is only determined by course of nature itself.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent view of society and political theory.
Review: I would strongly recommend that you begin reading this book with the intention of finishing. At a few points you may need to just stick to it and wade through, BUT IT IS WORTH IT! In my opinion, Tolstoy wrote this book with the intent to explain a point rather than to just entertain. He is very thorough in explaining his ideas and it proves to be very interesting. I especially enjoyed following Pierre's story! Good Luck!

Rating:
Summary: A Challenge for Any Serious Reader
Review: I have to admit--"War and Peace" was not the best book I ever read. It had its flaws, it was certainly a challenge, many parts were entertaining, and now I can say I read it. But it is by no means perfect. I also have to admit that I was Boooored during many parts of the book. I liked the more "personal" side of the story, dealing with the characters' lives, their loves, etc. much more than the long-winded sections describing the battles and Tolstoy's ramblings about history. The second epilogue seemed to take an eternity to finish. I guess what I'm trying to say is that even though I didn't catch every last detail of the novel, it doesn't matter because I still got something out of it and I understood Tolstoy's point. I think he would agree. I'd also like to say that anyone who decides to read this book is in for a long, hard journey, but hopefully they will find some part of it to enjoy.