War and Peace: Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

By Leo Tolstoy, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

From Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the best-selling, award-winning translators of Anna Karenina and The Brothers Karamazov, comes a brilliant, engaging, and eminently readable translation of Leo Tolstoy’s master epic. •  Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read

War and Peace centers broadly on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the best-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves behind his family to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman, who intrigues both men. As Napoleon’s army invades, Tolstoy vividly follows characters from diverse backgrounds—peasants and nobility, civilians and soldiers—as they struggle with the problems unique to their era, their history, and their culture. And as the novel progresses, these characters transcend their specificity, becoming some of the most moving—and human—figures in world literature.

Pevear and Volokhonsky have brought us this classic novel in a translation remarkable for its fidelity to Tolstoy’s style and cadence and for its energetic, accessible prose.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Oct 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9780307806581

Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was a Russian author of novels, short stories, novellas, plays, and philosophical essays. He was born into an aristocratic family and served as an officer in the Russian military during the Crimean War before embarking on a career as a writer and activist. Tolstoy’s experience in war, combined with his interpretation of the teachings of Jesus, led him to devote his life and work to the cause of pacifism. In addition to such fictional works as War and Peace (1869), Anna Karenina (1877), and The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886), Tolstoy wrote The Kingdom of God is Within You (1893), a philosophical treatise on nonviolent resistance which had a profound impact on Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. He is regarded today not only as one of the greatest writers of all time, but as a gifted and passionate political figure and public intellectual whose work transcends Russian history and literature alike.

Reviews for War and Peace

[wilwarin_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Oh gosh. This is one of the books that I really, really want to be able to read. It's a classic! But the book is just to heavy, I can't push myself through all that information-packed, slow paced, text over several several pages. Maybe another time...!

[erickibler · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book does two things.

First, it tells a sweeping saga of four interrelated Russian families before, during, and after Napoleon's invasion of Russia, covering the years 1805-1820. You could say that in a way it's the template for the later American novel Gone With the Wind. But the latter book is much more of a potboiler. Tolstoy's book is much more psychologically complex and realistic. Not only in terms of knowing what makes people tick, but in terms of showing how irrational, fickle, and foolish we can be. The big-hearted Pierre is one of the most lovable characters you'll meet in literature, as is the initially tomboyish Natasha. But they are only two of the hundreds of characters you'll meet. Also worthy of mention is the ne'er-do-well Dolokhov, who for all his cruelty, becomes a real asset to his country in time of war.

Some of the characters are really put through the wringer. Those that reach the very border of life and death find therein an unexpected sense of peace. And upon returning to life as they knew it (if they make it) find a new perspective that enriches them. There's a little of everything here. Battle, politics, society intrigue, bucolic festivities in the countryside, and, to be sure, heart-tugging love stories.

The other thing this book is, is a philosophy text. By saying that, I don't want to scare you off, but peppered throughout the book are sections where Tolstoy tells you how he feels about the "great man" theory of history, reserving especial scorn for Napoleon, who he characterizes less as a military genius than a very lucky, and very spoiled man-child. The last hundred pages of the book (the second epilogue) are a treatise, where Tolstoy tears down various theories of history and the concept of free will. He calls for a unified theory of history, which would explain both large bodies (nations and mass movements) and individuals, explaining their actions in the context of their time, place and circumstances rather than dwelling on freely made decisions, which he doesn't believe in. This last section reminded me a lot of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, and made me wonder how much Tolstoy influenced Asimov's creation of Hari Seldon, the great fictional psycho-historian and predictor of future events.

Seriously, a book club could spend a month of meetings on this book. I haven't even touched on other things in it, such as religion, freemasonry, the French Revolution, and Tolstoy's idea of an ideal marriage. I could go on and on.

[marlene9nl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Read this book as a teen and I remember I really loved it. Wanna read again, this tiem in English. (The first copy was translated in Dutch)

[srboone · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Exhaustive account of five Russian families during the Napoleonic and French Wars. Never boring, but hard to absorb at times. Once I got used to the Russian names (and nicknames) it wasn't too bad of an expereince. A lot of details, but intriuging all the way. Not as memorable for it's story as it is for it's massiveness. Finally read it for bragging rights more than interest (even though it was on my TBR forever).

[luli81_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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 when I bought my books, which are often second hand copies. When I pull one of them off my shelves it usually comes loaded with recollections of a certain moment of my life that add up to the mute history of their usually worn and yellow pages.So, War and Peace was also a memory. This one had to do with an unusual cloudless and shiny afternoon spent in Greenwich Park eating the greatest take-away noodles I had ever tasted and browsing through my newest literary purchases, recently bought in one of those typical British second-hand bookshops, where I spent hours besotted with that particular scent of moldy ancient paper.That’s what War and Peace meant to me until I finally shook my sloth off and decided to read it. It turns out I rather lived than read it, or maybe the book read me, but in any case, I curse my lazy self for not having taken the plunge much sooner.This book is an electroshock for the soul. There is no division between Tolstoy’s art and his philosophy, just as there is no way to separate fiction from discussions about history in this novel. Without a unifying theme, without so much a plot or a clear ending, War and Peace is a challenge to the genre of the novel and to narrative in history. Tolstoy groped toward a different truth- one that would capture the totality of history, as it was experienced, and teach people how to live with its burden. Who am I?, What do I live for?, Why was I born? These are existential questions on the meaning of life that restlessly impregnate this “novel”, which also deals with the responsibility of the individual, who has to strive against the dichotomy of free will as opposed to the influence of the external world, in the course of history. Fictional and historical characters blend naturally in the narration, which occasionally turns into a reasoned philosophical digression, exploring the way individual lives affect the progress of history, challenging the nature of truth accepted by modern historians.Tostoy’s syntax is unconventional. He frequently ignores the rules of grammar and word order, deliberately reiterating mannerisms or physical details to identify his characters, suggesting their moral qualities. He uses several languages gradually changing their sense, especially with French, which eventually emerges as the language of artifice and insincerity, the language of the theater and deceit whereas Russian appears as the language of honesty and seriousness and the reader becomes a privileged witness of the formation of a community and national consciousness. In repeating words and phrases, a rhythm and rhetorical effect is achieved, strengthening the philosophical pondering of the characters. I was emotionally enraptured by the scene in which Count Bezukhov asks himself what’s the meaning of love when he glances at the smiling face of Natasha or when Prince Andrey lies wounded in Austerlitz battlefield looking up at the endless firmament, welcoming the mystery of death and mourning for his hapless and already fading life. The book is full of memorable scenes which will remain imprinted in my retina, eternal flashing images transfixing me quite: the beauty of Natasha’s uncovered shoulders emerging from her golden dress, the glow of bonfires lit by kid-soldiers in the night before a battle, the agony of men taken prisoners and the absent faces of circumstantial executioners while shooting their fellowmen, the unbearable pain of a mother when she learns of her son’s death, a silent declaration of love in a dancing embrace full of youth and promise…War and Peace is much more than a novel. It is a vast, detailed account - maybe even a sort of diary or a confession- of a world about to explode in constant contradiction where two ways of being coexist: war and peace. Peace understood not only as the absence of war, but mainly as the so much coveted state in which the individual gets hold of the key to his identity and happiness, achieving harmonious communion with others along the way.Now that I have finally read this masterpiece, I think I can better grasp what this “novel” represents among all the great works of art created by men throughout our venturesome existence: the Sistine Chapel or the 9th Symphony of Literature, an absolute triumph of the creative mind, of the spirit of humankind and a virtuous affirmation of human life in all its richness and complexity.My battered copy of War and Peace and I have fought many battles together, hand in hand. We have been gently soaked by the descent of moist beads in the misty drizzle at dawn in Paracas. We have been splashed by the salty waves of the Pacific Ocean only to be dried off later by the sandy wind blowing from the dunes of the Huacachina Desert. We have been blessed by the limpid droplets dripping down from branches of Eucalyptus Trees in the Sacred Valley of the Incas and scorched by the blinding sunbeams in Nazca. Particles of ourselves were left behind, dissolved into the damp shroud of grey mist falling from the melting sky in MachuPicchu, and whatever remained of us tried to breathe in deeply the fragrant air of those dark, warm nights spent under scintillating stars scattered endlessly down the Peruvian sky.With wrinkled pages, tattered covers and unglued spine, my copy of War and Peace has managed to come back home. I have just put it back reverently on my bookshelf for literary gems, where I can spot it at first glance. An unbreakable connection has been established between us as fellow travellers, as wanderers of the world. Somehow, we have threaded our own unique history; an unrepeatable path has been laid down for us. The story of this particular shabby copy comes to an end though, because I won’t ever part from it. My copy of War and Peace has come back home, where I intent to keep it, now for good. No more war for these battered pages but everlasting peace emanating from my shelves for all times to come.

[schmerguls · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I cannot say I thought highly of this book. It was very 1860ish and I simply don't appreciate the style and mood of those type books. I cannot say I thought the book as good as The Forsyte Saga, e.g., though War and Peace has a much greater reputation. Yet I would be a hypocrite if I said I liked it better. [I started the book in 1953 and then not till March of 1955 did I resume reading in it. I should have read it from beginning to end without such a big gap in the time I spent reading ir.]

[jmoncton_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I've had this book on my shelf for a long time, but have always been intimidated by the length and the reputation of this epic story. I finally armed myself with the audio book, print copy of the book, and a copy of the character map from Wikipedia and began. After 4 weeks (1200 pages and 64 hours of narration), I finished the book... and I loved it.

The book is really two parallel stories. The first is about 4 different Russian aristocratic families, the Rostovs, the Bolkonskys, the Kuragins and the Bezukhovs. The book opens in 1805, when many of the main characters are on the brink of adulthood. Spanning 8 years, the characters grow from idealistic young aristocrats to mature adults who have experienced sacrifice and loss. The second story is about the Napoleonic War in Russia and features not only the main fictional characters, but also many historical figures of the time, such as Napoleon and Alexander I. Covering the complicated relationship between these 2 emperors, the epic story unfolds, from the initial war between France and Russia, to an uneasy alliance between the 2 countries, and finishes with the Napoleon's invasion that leads to his ultimate defeat.

Although the book is LONG, I found the writing descriptive and not overly wordy. I loved the descriptions of Tsarist Russia and the social strata between the aristocracy and the serfs. Even simple events, like a wolf hunt, were captivating and beautifully written. Although many people criticize Tolstoy for his preachy style when he discusses his views on history and the war, I found these diversions from the story very interesting. His philosophy on whether major events are caused by people (like Napoleon), the environment at that time in history, or society was fascinating.

I alternated between listening and reading. The audio version I had was narrated by Neville Jason, and it was superb. Overall, a great experience.

[chrisblocker · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It took Tolstoy five years to write this bad boy. It took me four and a half years to read it. Though massive, size alone is not the reason it took me so long finish one novel. Life sort of got in the way. I started the novel in 2009, knowing it would take some months to complete, but then I started an MFA program and, well, there just wasn't room in my life for War and Peace. I could've jumped right back in once I graduated two years ago, but there were always excuses: it's summer, you can't read Tolstoy in the summer; but I'm right in the middle of such-and-such; I can't read that tome now, it'll hurt my reading challenge for the year. What a whiner I can be. Anyway, I decided this year I was going to bear down, read some of those massive works I've been eager to read, among them War and Peace.I love Tolstoy. I have for some time. My love for Tolstoy is in part a love for the writer and his work, but it probably has just as much to do with Tolstoy the person. I feel Tolstoy and I are in many ways like-spirits: his paradoxical personality, his so-called radical morality, his asceticism. I can identify. Hell, if there's one person I know who's likely to have a fit in the middle of night in the middle of winter and wander off and die, it's me. And when I'm 81 years old, I want to have a beard just like that.So my appreciation for Tolstoy's written work is probably greater than it would be if I didn't consider the man a direct line to the divine. Even so, I love Tolstoy the writer. Yes, sometimes he got lost in his thoughts, taken away by some philosophical rant that in hindsight doesn't seem that insightful. But that's because his thoughts have been ingrained on us in 2013. Radical non-violence is commonplace as we occupy streets from New York City to Pittsburg, Kansas, but to Gandhi and the leaders of the civil rights movement in the US in the 60s, Tolstoy's writings, particularly The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were momentous. So Tolstoy rambled quite a bit, and War and Peace was certainly no exception. Throughout the novel his views of historians were expressed. He ends the novel with a very long rant, presenting his theories of history and historians. It's a horrible ending, grinding down the novel's greatest moments into a blunt and worn thin point. But it's Tolstoy, so first of all, it's expected, and secondly, his epic tale makes up for it.Tolstoy put together such a wonderful cast of characters, weaved them throughout a story that was interesting and beautiful. And I fell for it. All the guys go ga-ga over Natasha, and I'm like WHY? She's shallow, immature, and not even very pretty, but—oh wow, Natasha, I think I'm falling in love with you. There's the impulsive Pierre, whose awkwardness eventually grew on me. And Andrei, he does some jerky things, but through his epiphanies I was eventually able to empathize with him. Then there were the four hundred or so other characters, many of whom I loved. I guess spending nearly five years of my life (granted, off and on) with these characters attached me to them.So Tolstoy rambled and he got wordy and he occasionally showed his own shallow ignorance (that which he had at a tender Tolstoy age of forty), but War and Peace is still one hell of a novel. It's not for everyone, and those not particularly interested probably shouldn't read it; stick with something shorter by Tolstoy (which would be any of this other offerings). I'm glad I got it out of the way first because I'm fairly confident much of Tolstoy's later writing will appeal to me more. In fact, I'm eager to get started. It may have taken five years to read this puppy, but I'm hopeful that I will have knocked out several of Tolstoy's other works by 2018. And if not, I'm sure I'll have many great excuses why I didn't.

[alcracka · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

So, I read this. It took a couple minutes.

Some of it is the same old stuff I remember from Anna Karenina: huge numbers of rich people screwing each other over. But the other stuff - I guess that's the "War" stuff, although it's mostly all war, one way or another - the stuff about Napoleon surprised me because I don't think Tolstoy saw this as "historical fiction." I think he saw it as some fiction parts, and some history parts, and during the history parts he really meant for you to almost switch gears entirely. He did original research: interviewed veterans, visited battlefields. He wrote an enormous novel, interspersed with an enormous history book. Neat, right? It's like a mashup. A really, really long mashup. Holy shit! It's like when Danger Mouse released that album-length mashup of the Beatles' White album (representing history) and Jay-Z's Black album (representing rich people screwing each other)!

Now you know exactly like War & Peace is like. I'm so much awesomer than Sparknotes.

I didn't like this as well as I liked Anna Karenina. Maybe it's because I read AK first, so Tolstoy's tricks - the sprawling casts, the terrifying knowledge of human nature - aren't new to me anymore. Or, maybe it's because W&P is too fucking long. You know this was supposed to be the first of a trilogy? Ha, Tolstoy was such an asshole. And that 40 pages at the end...whew. That's some Ayn-Rand-near-the-end-of-Atlas-Shrugged BS right there (my wife's point, not mine), and you know how I feel about Atlas Shrugged.

That said, though, saying "I liked Anna Karenina better" is like saying "I liked having sex with whats-her-name from Weeds better." The bar is high. War & Peace is a very good book. And I liked the historical stuff, even if it's pretty clear that all that high-minded talk about history's drift could have been summed up as "I totally hate Napoleon."

Translation(s) Review
I read the Briggs and Pevear & Volokhonsky translations alternately. Just swapped back and forth at random. I don't recommend it. They spell names slightly differently, and Briggs has Denisov speak like Barbara Walters for some reason, so the switch is confusing. But here's my verdict: they're both fine. I give the edge to Pevear & Volokhonsky, but only if you don't mind some French; it feels like a lot, but it's only 2%. I do think Briggs can be a bit clunky - and I now know, from P&V's amusingly catty intro, that Briggs wussed out on a bit of Tolstoy's weird tendency to repeat words like six times in a paragraph. (But Briggs' afterword, by Figes, is better.) Really, you're good either way.

[cait815 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I am no longer afraid of the big ass Russian novel.* Who knew it would be so readable? The most difficult thing about it was keeping all of the characters straight, but even that was only in the beginning. By the end of the book, the characters were so fully drawn that I couldn't believe that I'd once had to rely on a cheat sheet remember who they were or what relation they had to one another.

I'm kind of peeved that I can't give this book 5 stars**. Overall, I thought it was fantastic. I even liked the war sections. Well, the "action" war sections that featured our characters, not the "strategy" war sections where Tolstoy basically repeated his views on history and the war over and over and over again. That and the second epilogue kept me from being completely enamored. Come on, Leo! End it with a bang, not a whimper!

By the way, I'm totally Team Andrei.



*Or the big ass French novel, for that matter. I'm still kind of scared of the big ass American novel (looking at you, Herman "whale anatomy" Melville), and I sometimes have PTSD-like flashbacks from my monthlong run in with the big ass Irish novel (you know who you are, James "snotgreen
scrotumtightening sea" Joyce).

**Give me a year and I will forgive you for your whimper of an ending. This book was pretty freaking amazing.

[veeralpadhiar · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Plot Summary - This book is too great to rotate around the lives of some handful of characters. So, let's prod along and talk about the lives of 100 thousand characters.

Tolstoy's wife should get a major recognition for getting this work published as she copied the original manuscript by hand which contained some 460,000 Russian and French words.

She ended up copying the manuscript 7 times before it got published!

[balthazar0lawson · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

War And Peace is not a novel.

I read somewhere that Russian books don’t translate well into English and their style of writing is usually dull and boring to an average English reader. This book is a classic example of this point of view.

This book was dull. It was boring and didn’t know what it wanted to be. It seemed that when Leo Tolstoy sat down to write this he had so many ideas running around his mind and he just had to get them all out and put down on paper. The result was War And Peace.

At times this is an episode of Days Of Our Lives, an essay on the quality of historians, a biography of military leaders or a non-fiction book about war. It just didn’t know what it wanted to be. It ended up being so dull and boring and absolutely ridiculous.

I would not recommend this to anyone. It is just so pointless.

[shanaqui_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

War and Peace was one of those books I always intended to get round to, someday, when I had more time. Since I'm unlikely to find myself with more free time than I have now in the future, it's probably for the best that my dad dared me to read the whole book -- he was quite specific about this -- including the epilogue. The whole epilogue. In translation, obviously, although he did jokingly suggest I learn Russian first and try it then.

I have to say, I loved it. The quote on the spine of my edition is: "It's a book that you don't just read, you live." And to some extent, that's true. I started out reading it intending to read one hundred pages a day -- a pretty easy goal for me, and one I thought I could keep up, even if I found the book boring. Then one day I had quite a bit of free time and... I read three hundred pages in a single day. And after that, the book was virtually never out of my hand, unless I needed both hands to eat dinner or play a video game (or, to be realistic, type -- I live and die a ten fingered typist). It went everywhere with me.

The characters in this book came to life in my head. I loved the Rostovs, aww'd at Pierre, and adored Andrei. I didn't think I'd like the old Prince Bolkonsky, but I ended up loving him too. The characters are written so well. There's so many of them, yet they all stick in my head. Every single one of them had some life, even if they whirled in and out of the story and had only a handful of chapters they even appeared in. Obviously, I'm no judge of the accuracy of the translation, but I liked the way it was written.

The thing I didn't get on so well with was the philosophising about war. I'm not very familiar with the period in history discussed, so I had a little trouble following that. The second part of the epilogue struck me as both unnecessary -- the main narrative got all those points across -- and extremely boring. In fact, I sort of wondered how Tolstoy had got a time travel machine and sat in on my Religious Studies A Level, because a lot of the stuff about free will came right out of my syllabus. (I concluded he was probably a soft determinist, in case anyone wanted to know.)

I'm giving it five stars because it sucked me in so much and made me care so much, despite the bits I didn't so much enjoy.

[nobodhi · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What a master story teller ... and the translation is a delight

[mreed61 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was, indeed, an epic read, but as there always has been more to Tolstoy, this book is no different. In it you find bits of history you would have never known otherwise, full-on societal differences and perceptions, and a statement, whether or not you consider it a little subtle, on government and society as a whole. If you know anything about the governments of the world, you see that this statement applies today just as it did then, nevermind the excesses of the wealthy. One cannot just "read" War and Peace. One who loves literature lives it, becomes it, and carries it with them the rest of their lives. Those who are afraid of it because it's such a large tome are just not willing to read anything that might impact their lives.

[rowena_ · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Worldbuilding leaves something to be desired, thank goodness for footnotes,endnotes, and wikipedia. But good book - loved it.

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Well, seven months later -- I finished it! Not exactly an easy read. Not even a very enjoyable read -- give me Anna Karenina anytime. But it's just one of those books that any student of literature NEEDS to read, so I did. The juxtaposition of the horrors of war and the earlier scenes of gaiety and mindless flirtations (Natasha) work well, but it's just too long. I could care less about the chesslike moves of Napoleon and his Russian counterparts -- those interludes bogged down the narrative far too much. I wanted to know what would become of the characters -- that is what kept me reading. The characterizations were stunning, and the effect of war on the various personalities was believable and compelling.

[kcshankd · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was surprised once I finally read this book. It was much more readable then I expected, and much more of a novel - romantic, even - then I expected. The philosophizing at the end was heavy-handed and detracted from the whole.

[bodachliath · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is an epic masterpiece that defies pithy summary. Before I decided that I had to read it, the size and reputation of the book were somewhat daunting - it is a tribute not just to Tolstoy but to Anthony Briggs that this translation is so eminently readable, and apart from some of the philosophical musings about the meaning and limitations of history, it never seemed like hard work to read.

The story is all-encompassing, covering the epic sweep of the history of the wars between Russia and Napoleon but also a moving family story of the main protagonists and colourful descriptions of Russian life.

I can't do justice to it, but I would recommend it to all intelligent readers with an interest in Russia and its history.

[kakadoo202 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

now I know why this is a classic. War scenes. Peace scenes alternate in this history book. I learned more about history than in school. Easier to read than expected. Not sure if the two epilogs were necessary, but the book itself is just gigantic and awesome.

[vrchristensen · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Yes, it's a LONG book, and yes, it's a bit slow at the start. But what a story! So much complexity, and yet all of it told with the sort of subtlety that makes literature so entrancing for me. A love story, a war story, political intrigue, War and Peace has it all. I little patience is required, as at times the plot lags, but it is so worth the time and effort.

[frizero · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A must-read classic of all times.

[brentcnall · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

No wonder it's a "classic"! I adored it. It's worth every page. Sheer delight. Why did I wait so long? Wouldn't mind reading it a second time. Long, though, no doubt.

[rainpebble_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is written quite different from his Anna Karininan. The is the story of the French and Russian war as told from the Russian front. At the beginning there are quite of few of the social aspects, the balls, parties, parlor visits, etc, but when it get into the war, Tolstoy really puts you there in the war. The logistics of war and wartime are laid right out there. The French were so not prepared for where their Napoleon took them. He didn't fight the war he had planned. And Alexander responded in kind. It very much came to the generals and commanders calling their own plays and battles. I much preferred Tolstoy's "War" to his "Peace". But I also liked how he wrapped up the story.The very wimpy Pierre turns out to be the man after all. We get to see several sides of Alexander and of Napoleon. I had never read of Napoleon and so really found all that quite interesting. All in all, this is a great story and deserves to be read today and has it's place in literature today. I think it has proven and will continue to be proven a timeless epic of "War and Peace".

[daffimere · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I'm never reading this book in 3 1/2 days again. If you want the easy time of it watch the film with Audrey Hepburn then read the last 100-150 pages of the book.

[facucas1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Huge book, in every way. The mix of depth (introspection and complexity of characters) and scope is amazing.

[algybama · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Just finished it. Of course it deserves all the acclaim, five stars, etc. But I'm afraid all the fuss intimidates people to a book that is actually (once you get into it) quite easy reading. The style is so graceful, so simple and nice, that the words nearly disappear. And it's not stuffy as the title Literature makes it seem - it's terribly exciting and fun. There are, admittedly, a few "lags" in the narrative - I found scenes with Natasha sometimes inferior to that of the Pierre/Andrew/Nicholas narratives - but these easily melt away as you rush to the good bits. And they're still very nice. I wouldn't call anything in the novel slow, and for such a huge novel the prose never seems to have any filler. It's all relevant, interesting, and touching.As for what's really amazing about this book: it's deeply moving. I found myself crying in at least five different parts. And this is coming from someone who's only cried at the end of Watership Down. But it's not a cheap tugging at the heart strings. The pain feels real, and matters, and you care about the characters in way I'd never before experienced.Highly recommended to ANYONE. Do not be intimidated by all the talk of high art or the size of the book. The pages turn quickly.

[lisamaria_c · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I actually remember finding Tolstoy's Anna Karenina a good read, although it's been so long I'd have to reread it to relate what I found absorbing. War and Peace is a very different matter. It's a mammoth novel, one of the longest in the Western canon, roughly 560,000 words; it comes to over a thousand pages in the editions I've seen. I was determined to stick it out to the end because this is considered one of the greatest and most influential novels in literature, so I wanted to experience it first hand, and I didn't want to ever have to go back for another try again. I took it in slow steps, reading only one "book" of the 15 each day. Encompassing dozens of characters written in a God's eye omniscient view, it takes hundreds of pages before you get a sense who are the important characters. Among the LibraryThing reviews is an interesting comment by CS Lewis about War and Peace. It's meant to be complimentary, but expresses well exactly what I hated in it as a novel. Lewis talks about how Tolstoy negates what is "dangerous" in the novel form by never invoking the "narrative lust" to find out what happens next and instilling an indifference to the fate of the characters "which is not a blank indifference at all, but almost like submission to the will of God." In other words, you rarely care about what happens or about any of the characters.The novel centers on five interconnected aristocratic families, and if the novel has a chief character, it's Count Pierre Bezukhov. And he's a buffoon. When we first meet him, he's described as a "a stout, heavily built young man" with "natural" manners (meaning none) and he's such a social disaster his hostess follows him around to try to repair the damage of his ill-judged outbursts. He lisps, he stammers. He's easily led yet subject to grandiose delusions, he's absentminded and he's lucky he comes into an inheritance, because he had no idea what to do for a career, and lacks the basic competence to succeed. Soon after the party introducing him, he gets involved in a drunken incident where a police officer was tied to a bear and thrown into a river. Following him and his emo musings around for hundreds of pages wasn't a joy. It occurred to me that if we were in an Jane Austen novel, Pierre would be the comic relief--a Mr Collins or Mr Rushworth--not a character taken seriously. But it wasn't as if any of the characters initially popped out at me as distinctive or sympathetic or complex. Nicholas Rostov struck me as a fool, Prince Andrew Bolkonsky arrogant and callous, Boris Drubetskoy a mercenary social climber and all the Kuragins are despicable. Whenever I started to feel sympathy for some of the characters, such as Prince Andrew or his sanctimonious sister Princess Mary or the flighty Natasha Rostov, before long they'd do something to lose my liking.Pierre and his loves take up a lot the peace part, which contain long drawn-out set pieces such as masonic initiations, aristocratic hunting parties and opera performances. The book does give you a sense of everyday life among the 19th century Russian gentry. But the book is also famously about the Napoleonic Wars, but if anything, I found that part even more wanting. Please understand, I've read and finished and enjoyed lots of weighty 19th century classics, and a lot of them have been very, very long. And I love history, too, having read plenty of books on the subject around as long as War and Peace. This also isn't a girl thing. I was fascinated by Shaara's novel Killer Angels centering on the Battle of Gettysburg. But Tolstoy's battles are on the whole as sleep-inducing as his ballrooms. Despite some gory imagery here and there, and some vivid passages, his battle scenes are rarely exciting except when one of the major characters are in danger of their lives or wounded--a few pages out of many dozens. Tolstoy expressed well the contingent, chaotic aspect of battle, but neither leadership nor the bond between brother soldiers is something his view of war encompasses. Any time there are flashes of brilliance in his battle scenes, you can be sure the momentum will be broken by endless, repetitive digressions on Tolstoy's one-note theory of history (complete with algebraic equations at one point).Despite its reputation as the ultimate historical novel, I didn't feel as if I gained any insight into the history of the Napoleonic Wars and the personages involved. But then Tolstoy doesn't believe that leaders play an important role: "A king is history's slave. History, that is, the unconscious, general, hive life of mankind, uses every moment of the life of kings as a tool for its own purposes." Tolstoy scoffs at the very idea of military science or "military genius" determining outcome. His Napoleon comes across as a caricature. Tellingly, Tolstoy scoffs even at the idea that one can diagnose a disease--"no disease suffered by a live person can be known." Tolstoy at one point indulges in a long paragraph of national stereotypes--I had to shake my head at his characterizations of Russians, because it sounded so much like a description of himself as betrayed in his novel: "A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known." If you can't believe in knowledge, then you can't have knowledge to impart. Ultimately, for me War and Peace was a monstrosity that steamrolls you with its very length. And boy, that epilogue? Tolstoy serves up two, with the second containing no story but only a rant on history and the Theory-Of-It-All (tm.) he'd been constantly expounding upon for hundreds of pages. I guess by the time most people get to the end of over a thousand pages, they want to think it worth it. I can't say I do. Well, except now I have bragging rights. I actually read from cover to cover--actually finished War and Peace! After this, even James Joyce's Ulysses and Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude can hold no terror.

[enaslanham · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Through war, courtship, and marriage Leo Tolstoy leads the reader to explore a more profound existences on earth. As the characters find dissatisfaction with an empty and shallow life I am also challenged to do the same.

[pmtracy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Completing War and Peace was a lifelong goal that I have finally accomplished. After finishing the book and mentally digesting it, I really wish I could read it in the original Russian. While the translation I used was adequate, I think nuances of the story were literally lost in translation.The most challenging part of reading War and Peace is keeping the 500+ characters straight. The task is made more difficult in that Tolstoy often varies names for the same person in different contexts. For example, one character is simply "Rostov" in the first third of the book, but then is referred to as "Nikolay" for the remainder. I'd recommend creating a "cheat sheet" as you go along. The quicker the main characters are cemented in your mind, the easier it will be to enjoy the story.One theme played throughout is the imbalance of power between male and female characters. It only takes a few chapters to realize who wears the "porta" in these families. Most of the male characters have a somewhat thin masculine facade. Once placed in the middle of a losing war, they fall apart and scatter, abandoning their posts. Of course, we need to keep in mind that most of the commanders were only in their late teens, barely no longer children. It's the women that wield the power in War and Peace. Through their social interactions, they manipulate and arrange entire empires. They control their families through the blind obedience offered them as matriarchs and use it to their advantage.Some characters may be perceived differently if the work is read in its original language and in the context of the century in which they were written. For example, Rostov's "man crush" on the Tsar evolves from admiration to an almost homosexual fascination. Rostov remains a tormented character throughout the book. His decline culminates in a loss of a small fortune in gambling debts to his rival which loses his favor with the one person that had remained faithful to him; his father.Tolstoy spent much of his life in pursuit of religious meaning, authoring religious works later in life. His internal conflict is readily apparent in Pierre's discourse with the Freemason. I was surprised by the level of detail provided regarding the society's secret rituals. Not being a Mason, I'm not sure how accurate they were but the descriptions were very thorough.Tolstoy showed his mastery of imagery throughout War and Peace. My two favorite examples are his almost torturously detailed description of the battle of Borodino and his likening of the emptying of Moscow to a dying beehive. The Epilogue (the final 50 pages or so) is actually a historical retrospective and a heavy philosophical treatise on history, man's perception of his place in history and his relationship to emerging scientific thought. This final section of War and Peace can stand on its own as a separate work. Incidentally, it really had no bearing on the story and was the most difficult part of the book to finish.War and Peace was challenging but satisfying. I don't believe it could be appropriately appreciated by younger readers as it requires too much life experience to understand the depth and breadth of emotions. For an experienced reader, it remains one of the great works of literature that simply has to be read in a lifetime.