Before I turned the last page of this massive volume, which had been neglected in my bookshelves for more than six years, War and Peace was a pending task in my mental reading universe knowing it to be one of the greatest Russian or maybe simply one of the greatest novels of all times.Well, in fact, it was something else. I have a selective memory, I don’t know whether it comes as a blessing or as a curse, that enables me to remember the most insignificant details like for instance, where and wh...

(Book 857 from 1001 books) - War and Peace, Leo TolstoyWar and Peace is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, which is regarded as a central work of world literature and one of Tolstoy's finest literary achievements.Tolstoy said "War and Peace is not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less a historical chronicle." Large sections, especially the later chapters, are philosophical discussion rather than narrative. Tolstoy also said that "the best Russian literature does not conf...

In this frightening, isolated time, let me direct you to War and Peace. People resist this book - they do it because it's something of a punch line as a monolithic, difficult novel. But this is one of the frothiest soap operas of a novel that I know of, with far more narrative propulsion than the excellent (but sometimes slow) ANNA KARENINA. Two nations at war - great world leaders and generals, yes, but also trench life, and even more so, relevantly, now, the way war alters lives at home. The t...

Holy cow! I am done! Not sure what to say . . . I feel like I should write a 1000 page review, but I will keep it short. I finished the book while a passenger in a mini-van stuck in horrible Atlanta traffic.The book was not quite as readable as some other BIG books I have read, but still pretty good. What amazed me is how few specific events occurred during the 1000+ pages - Tolstoy was just really detailed in describing the events. Only a few times, though, did I feel like it was too much.This

we* did it girls *we = me and my multiple existential crises

So, I know you've all been on edge these past two months, and since I should be studying for the social work licensing exam tonight, it seems like the perfect time to put an end to your suspense.After all my agonizing and the thoughtful suggestions below about whether I should mutilate my gorgeous hardcover Pevear and Volokhonsky translation in the interest of less hazardous subway toting.... Readers, I carried him. All 1272 pages. Every day, across five boroughs and three states, for nearly two...

This is one of those books that can be life-changing. I read this as a teenager and I remember exactly where I was (sitting on my bed, in my grandmother's house, in southern Germany) when I finished it. I must have spent an hour just staring out the window, in awe of the lives I'd just led, the experiences I'd just had.****I'm now re-reading this, enjoying it immensely and no doubt appreciating it much more than I did the first time. Tolstoy has the most amazing ability to make us feel, when he

All the stars in the sky are nowhere near enough stars I could give this book! ✨Give me every word from every language in the world, and I still won't be able to express my everlasting love for the words of Leo Tolstoy! 📖🌷💕So, I'll let Tolstoy speak for himself...❤️"Pierre was right when he said that one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and I now believe in it. Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be happy."❤️"The whole world is divid...

War and Peace is a complex, composite, multi-layered, messy, lumpy novel. It is a multilingual book, 90% Russian, 10% French, with traces of German. It is an epic-scale chronicle covering the history of Russia from 1805 to 1820 and, more specifically, the Napoleonic invasion of 1812. It is a panoramic picture of a whole society with its cities, dvoryanstvo, muzhiks, political leaders and military campaigns. It is an enormous volume that focuses on massive historical events and a myriad of tiny,

Read as part of The Infinite Variety Reading Challenge, based on the BBC's Big Read Poll of 2003.I read this in tandem with the spectacular BBC adaptation and I will say now that my enjoyment of this piece of literature has been heavily influenced by that wonderful piece of televisual art. It just has. It's the same story, just told a different way. I will refrain from telling you to get over it.Now, the book. It was written well, very well, in terms of all the stuff that should be done well: pu...

This was a lengthy read but worth it's weight. To put it simple: there's war, there's peace, and there's human spirit set in early 19th century Russia. The foreground plot follows multiple key family-characters (Bezukhov, Bolkonsky, Rostov, and various historical figures) their interactions and interpersonal conflicts. The background plot is Napoleon's invasion into Russia. Tolstoy can paint a picture in his storytelling. There was a romantic troika ride written a snowy-winter landscape: Nikolay...

LoveThat was the one thing I thought was missing from Leo Tolstoy's title, War and Peace. I was wrong. Love is in the title, you just have to look for it. Certainly there is love in peace. It is the time of children, serenity, growth. The mother peacefully raising her children. The farmer lovingly tending his fields. The elderly passing their final days in comfort surrounded by family.But there is love in war as well. The love for one's country. Such is a person's violent attachment to their mo...

2009 review: Despite all the jokes about the size and density of this classic, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Originally written in Russian and with and a fair amount of French (as a literary device), this gargantuan work looks at the multiple effects of the Napoleonic Wars on Tsarist Russia via five Aristocratic Russian families. Despite a fair amount of philosophical discussions at times, the book was surprisingly engaging and hats off to Tolstoy's writing and his amazing research centred around act...

"Who is right and who is wrong? No one! But if you are alive - live: tomorrow you'll die as I might have died an hour ago. And is it worth tormenting oneself, when one has only a moment of life in comparison with eternity?"

When I was growing up, the conventional wisdom was that War and Peace was the sine qua non of difficult books: the scope, the length, OMG the length! Conquering this Everest was The Test of whether you were a Man/Reader. I have now read it. Thump chest and make Tarzan yell. Actually, you know chump, big deal. The mountain really wasn't so large after all. There are love affairs, there is a war, peace eventually returns to the Shire Russia. Sorry, got confused there for a minute with Lord of the

Whatever else I am, I am the type of person who reads classic novels out of a sense of obligation. Also, I must admit, out of a sense of vanity. My ego, after all, is as fragile as a goldfish and requires the constant attention of a newborn baby. Every once in awhile, it needs a little boost, and the intellectual challenge of Dostoevsky or Dickens can really work wonders. Now, I’ve been told that forcing myself to read books I don’t necessarily like is a fruitless waste of time (and that the rev...

So... I did it. I finally convinced myself to read War and Peace, partly because it's just something everyone wants to say they've done, and partly because one always needs a good excuse to procrastinate during the exam period when I should have been studying. And, you know what, I really enjoyed most of it. The novel is far less taxing than I imagined, I don't know if that's because the English translation goes easy on us non-Russians or because Tolstoy wrote it in a quite light-hearted fashion...

The strongest of all warriors are these two; Time and Patience.War and Peace ~~ Leo TolstoyMuch earlier in this year, I was speaking to my friend, Srđan. I had not come up with a reading goal for 2021. It was during that conversation that I decided I would make my 2021 goal to read big classics, delving into my bucket list of books unread & inhabit a new world each month. During January, I read all four books of The Little Women Series . In February, I took on WAR AND PEACE. I have found trem...

The holidays always remind me of this book and the snow falling out my window onto the trees is the perfect backdrop for thinking about everything that goes on in Tolstoy's big epic. When I finished this book I found myself missing the characters as one would a friend. It's been a decade now and they haven't called, so maybe I should pick this up and visit them again. A pretty much perfect book, Tolstoy brings his narrative to life from so many angles and opinions that you feel like you've been