War and Peace

By Leo Tolstoy

War and Peace is a vast epic centred on Napoleon's war with Russia. While it expresses Tolstoy's view that history is an inexorable process which man cannot influence, he peoples his great novel with a cast of over five hundred characters.

Three of these, the artless and delightful Natasha Rostov, the world-weary Prince Andrew Bolkonsky and the idealistic Pierre Bezukhov illustrate Tolstoy's philosophy in this novel of unquestioned mastery. This translation is one which received Tolstoy's approval.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wordsworth Editions
• Release date: Oct 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781848703827

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.

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War and Peace

Leo Tolstoy

Translated by Louise

and Aylmer Maude

Introduction and Notes

Henry and Olga Claridge

WORDSWORTH CLASSICS

War and Peace first published by Wordsworth Editions Limited in 1993

New introduction and notes added in 2001

Introduction and notes © Henry and Olga Claridge 2001

Published as an ePublication 2011

ISBN 978 1 84870 382 7

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General Introduction

Wordsworth Classics are inexpensive editions designed to appeal to the general reader and students. We commissioned teachers and specialists to write wide ranging, jargon-free introductions and to provide notes that would assist the understanding of our readers rather than interpret the stories for them. In the same spirit, because the pleasures of reading are inseparable from the surprises, secrets and revelations that all narratives contain, we strongly advise you to enjoy this book before turning to the Introduction.

General Adviser

Keith Carabine

Rutherford College

University of Kent at Canterbury

Introduction

This introduction is in two sections. The reader might want to read the first section initially in order to familiarise himself with the background to Tolstoy’s novel; the second part, which is critical and interpretive, is better left until the reader has finished the novel.

1. Historical Background to War and Peace*

[* footnote: further material of an historical nature will be found in the Notes at the end of the novel.]

War and Peace begins with a conversation between Anna Pávlovna Scherer and Prince Vasíli Kurágin at a reception in July 1805. Anna Pávlovna comments on Napoleon’s recent seizure of Genoa and Lucca (the former in 1805, the latter in 1797) and later, on page 13, she refers disparagingly to Napoleon’s crowning himself King of Italy at Milan in May 1805; only a few months before, in December 1804, Napoleon had crowned himself Emperor of France in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. Three years earlier, in 1801, Alexander had succeeded to the throne of Russia after the assassination of his father Tsar Paul. A young man not lacking in ambition and vanity, he regarded Napoleon as his chief rival for influence in continental Europe and much of the drama of central European history in the first two decades of the nineteenth century was consequent upon this rivalry. Napoleon and Alexander vied for influence in the eastern Mediterranean where Alexander was suspicious of Napoleon’s policies towards the Turkish Empire. Napoleon’s annexation of Genoa, in breach of the treaty signed at Lunéville in 1801, seemed, moreover, to confirm Russian suspicions that his intentions were to deprive Austria of her influence in northern Italy. Austria’s response was to join the Anglo-Russian coalition that had been effected between Great Britain and Russia in April 1805, precisely at that point when Napoleon had been contemplating invasion of England. Austria’s action prompted Napoleon to march La Grande Armée, his most brilliant fighting force, into the Rhineland in the hope that he would be able to eviscerate this new coalition at birth. The French army swept swiftly eastwards with the devastating aggressiveness that marked Napoleon’s military strategies when he was at the height of his powers. The army moved at about fourteen miles a day and by late September 1805 was encamped in Bavaria, ready to strike into the Grand-Duchy of Austria. Austria had mistakenly assumed that Italy would be the chief theatre of war and with too many men committed to the protection of the southern Alps and only 60,000 troops available under the command of General Mack (le malheureux Mack, ‘the unhappy Mack’) encamped at Ulm on its northern borders, Austrian defences against Napoleon stood desperately in need of reinforcement from Austria’s allies. Alexander sent Russian troops under the command of Marshall Kutúzov to Austria’s aid. But Napoleon was able to dictate the terms of combat and he engaged with Austrian and Russian forces ahead of major Russian reinforcements that were some two weeks’ marching time away. The Austrians expected Napoleon to advance on Ulm from the Black Forest but he wheeled his army around to the rear of the Austrian forces in a spectacular flanking movement. Mack found himself surrounded and surrendered his army of 33,000 men at Ulm on 20 October. The Russo-Austrian force under Kutúzov, however, escaped, engaging in several delaying actions as they fell back, notably at Lambach, Amstetten, Melk and Schön Grabern (Hollabrünn); (Tolstoy describes these in Book Two of his novel). Napoleon entered Vienna where he replenished his supplies from Austrian stocks and from here he moved his army against the com-bined Austrian and Russian forces positioned around Brünn (now Brno in the Czech Republic). By the beginning of December, Napoleon’s army was encamped some five miles west of the village of Austerlitz with the Russo-Austrian forces on his eastern flank. Kutúzov advised caution in the hope that in the now unavoidable engagement with the French all his forces would be at his disposal, even though his 87,000 men already outnumbered Napoleon’s 73,000. But Alexander and Francis II, Emperor of Austria, were eager to engage the French and at the council of war at Ostralitz (during which Tolstoy has Kutúzov falling asleep as the troop dispositions are read to him) the allies decided to advance on Napoleon’s forces. The battle of Austerlitz, also known as ‘the Battle of the Three Emperors’, took place on 2 December 1805 (20 November in the Gregorian or old-style Russian calendar). Napoleon roused his troops to battle by talking of his enemies as ‘these hirelings of England’ (see p. 208) and of the honour of the French infantry and the French nation, and with a series of breathtaking manoeuvres defeated an army superior in numbers in little more than twelve hours. Twelve thousand allied soldiers were killed or wounded and 15,000 taken prisoner; French losses were around 8,000 killed or wounded. Most military historians consider Austerlitz Napoleon’s supreme achievement as a commander. Austria sued for peace, the Anglo-Russian coalition with its Austrian ‘wing’ collapsed, and Napoleon’s forces seemed invincible. Napoleon granted an armistice to the Austrians on condition that Russian forces withdrew from Poland, and at the Treaty of Pressburg that followed the conclusion of hostilities Austria was deprived of her possessions in Germany and Italy.

The skirmishes before Austerlitz and the battle itself occupy Tolstoy for much of Books Two and Three (Volume One) of War and Peace.

With Austria subdued Napoleon turned his attention to the north. In August 1806, the Prussian army mobilised in the expectation of further war with the French. A Prussian ultimatum requiring the French army to withdraw to positions west of the Rhine by 7 October was ignored and Napoleon marched La Grande Armée into Saxony, one of Prussia’s allies. On 14 October the French engaged the Prussians at Jena and Auerstädt and reduced the army of Frederick William III, the King of Prussia, to a mere shadow of its former self. The Duke of Brunswick, the Prussian commander-in-chief, was killed in the battle. The French continued to march north and east towards Königsberg. In January 1807, the Russians launched a winter offensive against Napoleon’s forces and on 8 February an army of some 80,000 men under the command of General Bennigsen faced a somewhat smaller French force at Preussisch-Eylau in East Prussia. The resulting contest was one of the most terrible of modern battles: nearly a third of Napoleon’s soldiers were either killed or wounded and Russian losses, though lower, were still very heavy. Neither side had won, though both claimed victory. Benningsen’s winter offensive, had, however, been beaten back. The two armies met again at Friedland, in East Prussia, on 14 June 1807, but this time the Russians were more decisively defeated and now Napoleon was, as he saw it, in a position to impose his terms on Tsar Alexander.

Napoleon and Alexander met at Tilsit on 25 June 1807. The treaty concluded there deprived Prussia of all her territories west of the River Elbe (the King of Prussia was not allowed to attend the meeting), a puppet Grand Duchy of Warsaw was created and Russian control over Finland, Sweden and Turkey was extended. More significantly, in secret clauses Alexander promised war on Great Britain if she refused peace with France. Tolstoy describes the meeting between the two Emperors at the end of Book Five (Volume One) of War and Peace

The treaty signed at Tilsit was never likely to survive Napoleon’s and Alexander’s ambitions, and Napoleon’s seizure of the Duchy of Oldenburg (the Duke of Oldenburg was Tsar Alexander’s brother-in-law) in 1810 violated the agreements reached at Tilsit. Tsar Alexander protested but Napoleon was increasingly irritated by Alexander’s actions in allowing neutral shipping to enter Russian ports in defiance of the ‘Continental System’ by which Napoleon hoped to starve Great Britain of its access to foreign markets. Indeed, maintaining the Continental System as a whole was proving impossible, given the hostility and resentment it generated, and many Europeans saw it as evidence of Napoleon’s despotic character. Both Great Britain and Prussia actively supported Alexander’s actions, thus prompting Napoleon to seek ways in which he might isolate Russia diplomatically. By November 1811, Alexander had to all intents and purposes freed himself from the shackles that bound him to France, and Napoleon, in turn, had decided that the only way to deal with his uncooperative neighbour was by force. French troops were withdrawn from Spain and transferred to Marshal Davout’s army in Germany and by the spring of 1812 an enormous army (under half of which was native-born French) faced Russia across her western frontier. At ten o’clock on the evening of 23 June 1812 Napoleon’s forces crossed the River Niemen into Russia. Kovno was quickly taken but at Smolénsk, in August, the French encountered stiff resistance. The French eventually overwhelmed the Russian defenders but at the cost of in excess of 10,000 casualties. The city was captured but not before it had been evacuated, and Napoleon had the dubious pleasure of entering a conquered city, now reduced to rubble by French shells and the fires started by the departing Russians. The loss of Smolénsk was attributed largely to General Barclay de Tolly’s strategy and Tsar Alexander removed de Tolly and appointed Field-Marshal Kutúzov to supreme command of the Russian army.

Tolstoy’s account of the ensuing battles takes up much of the second half of the novel: the battle of Borodinó ends Volume II and the evacuation of Moscow and the subsequent actions at Tarútino and Málo-Yaroslávets occupy the early books of Volume Three.

Though the French army won a technical victory at Borodinó, Kutúzov withdrew a combat-ready force of in excess of 90,000 men from the battlefield and Borodinó was an empty triumph for Napoleon’s cause. The French entry into Moscow lay open but Rostophchín, the civilian Governor General of Moscow, ordered the complete evacuation of the city and, before his own departure, issued instructions that the city be set afire. Much of Moscow was destroyed, though Napoleon still found adequate lodgings for his army of a little under 100,000 men. Even with the fall of Moscow, however, Tsar Alexander refused to make peace and by mid-October 1812 Napoleon, with no alternative but withdrawal, was beginning preparations for retreat. In its famous retreat, La Grande Armée crossed the field of Borodinó still bestrewn with bodies from the battle of some seven weeks before. In early November the snow began to fall on the retreating army, and its increasing state of disrepair was compounded by regular Cossack attacks on its rear and the horrors of its chaotic crossing of the Berëzina river, west of Smolénsk, at the end of November. By March 1813, La Grande Armée was finding it increasingly difficult to maintain its hold in East Prussia and the French domination of western Russia was at an end. Napoleon now found himself fighting the combined forces of Austria, Prussia and Russia simultaneously.

Books Fourteen and Fifteen of Volume Three describe the French flight from Russia.

2. The Genesis and Composition of War and Peace

War and Peace was concluded, and published in book form, in 1869 but the idea of a novel dealing with a significant aspect of contemporary Russian history had occupied Tolstoy since the beginning of the decade. In his ‘Drafts for an Introduction to War and Peace’, Tolstoy writes, ‘In 1856 I started writing a tale with a certain direction, the hero of which was to be a Decembrist returning with his family to Russia.’ The Decembrists were so-called after the December 1825 uprising against the increasingly illiberal and autocratic Russian state; many of those involved were army officers who had fought against Napoleon. Tsar Nicholas I, Alexander I’s successor, suppressed the movement mercilessly: many of the conspirators were executed, others sent to Siberia. Tolstoy found himself moving imaginatively into the world of 1825 but concluded that in order to understand his hero he needed to take him back to his youth, a youth ‘that coincided with the period of 1812, so glorious for Russia’. Thus, by a kind of historical logic (the very ‘logic’ he was to be so dismissive of in his great novel), Tolstoy found that the fortunes of his hero, his very involvement in the events of December 1825, were intimately bound up with Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. He had written some three chapters of his work but now put them aside. In their place he began work on a novel ‘covering the years 1810 to 1820’, but in fact he had gone back to 1805, the year of Austerlitz. A different kind of novel, therefore, began to take shape, one that partook of the features of a national epic in which the lives of individuals and various families are set against the context of Napoleon’s war against Russia. By March 1865 he was writing in his diary that he had become ‘absorbed in reading the history of Napoleon and Alexander’ and ‘the idea caught me up of writing a psychological history of Alexander and Napoleon. All the meanness, all the phrases, all the madness, all the contradictions of the people around them and in themselves . . . ’ During the two months before Tolstoy committed this entry to his diary, the Russian Messenger had published thirty-eight chapters of a work (he instructed his editor not to refer to it as a novel) called 1805, chapters that describe the family life of the Bolkónskys, the Rostóvs, the Kurágins, Pierre Bezúkhov and other members of St Petersburg’s noble families. By the middle of the year, however, this material had been significantly amplified and when further instalments (entitled War) appeared in the Russian Messenger in February, March and April of 1866 Tolstoy’s plans seemed to encompass the critical seven years between 1805 and 1812 when France and Russia rewrote European history. Through 1865 and 1866 he did extensive research on his novel, reading and rereading the extant military accounts (many of these figure in the Notes at the end of the novel) and, in September 1866, visiting the site of the battle at Borodinó to study the terrain and the topography so as to ensure that his account of the battle had the necessary naturalistic authenticity. The final title had been decided upon by March 1867 when in a draft agreement Tolstoy had deleted 1805 and replaced it with War and Peace. That same month a notice of impending publication of the complete work appeared. In fact the first four volumes were published in book form but Tolstoy still had material to add, and a second printing in 1869 reprinted the first four volumes along with the new volumes five and six. It is this complete second edition that constitutes the text as we know it, though, as will be seen in the Note on the Translation (p. xiv), subsequent editions divided the work into four volumes.

The fate of the work in Russian and Soviet history is instructive. As R. F. Christian and other commentators have remarked, the writing of War and Peace is almost certainly connected to the patriotic spirit that swept through Russian literature in the 1860s. This, in part, finds its source in the Crimean War, for Russia’s defeat by Great Britain and France was not entirely ignominious and the war rekindled interest in Russia’s military might and thus, by extension, its role in subduing Napoleon earlier in the century. Related to this is the growing intellectual competition between ‘Slavophils and Westernizers’ (memorably described in Ivan Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons) during the period when Tolstoy was writing his novel. The Slavophil influence is strong in Tolstoy’s works: like them he asserts the primacy of the moral and religious sense over the claims of reason, and like them he advocates the simple, yet profound, wisdom of the Russian peasantry against the godless absolutism of the West. That this wisdom should be a product of an agrarian life goes some way towards explaining how Romantic many of Tolstoy’s ideas are. Equally, of course, his ideas may be understood as essentially conservative (he held a low opinion of attempts at constitutional, economic and political reform as any attentive reading of Constantine Levin’s character in Anna Karenina will attest) and we are not, therefore, surprised to find Lenin execrating ‘Tolstoyism’ for the falsity of its ideas while at the same recognising Tolstoy’s importance as a writer and his central place in the national consciousness. Indeed, while Russian communism abhorred Dostoevsky, Tolstoy was occasionally appropriated to its cause, never more vividly so than in 1941 when, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union (the parallels with Napoleon’s invasion and retreat suggest that Adolf Hitler had not read his Tolstoy), Stalin instructed that selected passages from War and Peace be posted in public places for Soviet citizens to read so they might gird themselves against the new invader. After Stalin’s death in 1953 any ambivalence towards Tolstoy’s place in the literary culture of the Soviet Union was removed by the completion of the ‘Jubilee Edition’ of his works (see Note on the Translation), one of the great achievements of Soviet scholarship.

The Novel

‘This work is more similar to a novel or a tale than to anything else, but it is not a novel because I cannot and do not know how to confine the characters I have created within given limits – a marriage or a death after which the interest in the narration would cease.’ Tolstoy was aware of what we may call the ‘ontological’ problems that surrounded a work of the magnitude of War and Peace. In his ‘Some Words about War and Peace’ (p. 968) he adverts to the problem of definition when he writes that War and Peace ‘is not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less an historical chronicle. War and Peace is what the author wished and was able to express in the form in which it is expressed.’ We have here the adumbrations of a Romantic theory of organic form (the work of art is like a tree that grows according to the laws of its own biological necessity), but elsewhere, in his notes and his early drafts of chapters, we see him describing what most readers would call an historical novel. But the historical novel is for Tolstoy not simply (the word may seem infelicitous!) a matter of placing characters and their actions against a backdrop of ‘real’ events but also entails a philosophical understanding of the nature of history itself. Tolstoy was deeply sceptical of the historian’s claim that he could offer an explanation of historical events that followed a causative and evolutionary pattern. In this respect Tolstoy’s scepticism reflects a more general scepticism towards scientific models of human action. His readings of the works of Joseph de Maistre (extensively discussed by Sir Isaiah Berlin), the Sardinian Ambassador in St Petersburg between 1803–17, helped form his sense that historical events are not shaped by the individual will, no matter how much that will sees itself as the shaping force. This thesis governs his attempts to refute the theory that ‘great men’ dictate the course of historical events. According to Tolstoy, Napoleon, for example, could have acted in no other way than the way he did. Thus at Borodinó Napoleon deludes himself into thinking that the battle, to all intents and purposes, follows his premeditated design. Instead, by concentrating his attention on the actions of the ordinary soldier and the seemingly insignificant details of a host of minor actions, Tolstoy seeks to persuade us of the ineffectualness of Napoleon’s instructions and of the entirely unpredictable nature of human combat. As many commentators have noticed, however, Tolstoy writes with the benefit of hindsight and thus contrives to make the orders of military commanders seem more irrational, and illogical, than they might have seemed to those who participated in the events themselves. The individual deeds of many thousands of soldiers, which once committed are irrevocable, combine together in essentially unanalysable ways to form historical action. Thus, as Tolstoy writes in his Second Epilogue to the novel, history generalises a whole series of commands ‘into a single expression of will’; but this is simply an illusion and, therefore, a falsehood.

The novel is frequently interrupted by what might seem to be theoretical digressions on the nature of history and the nature of war, but, for Tolstoy, these digressions are indispensable to our understanding of the novel, for no account of the life of nations and of humanity (as he defines history) can choose to ignore them. The role of entertainment in the novel is for him a trivial matter; above all the novel must edify and instruct, must provide both knowledge and moral teaching. In this respect Tolstoy addresses (though not so directly) similar issues in the lives of his characters. The broad canvas of Russia’s war with France is echoed in the equally broad canvas of Tolstoy’s picture of Russian life and while we may think the two are morally and intellectually unconnected, even antithetical, an attentive reading of the novel will reveal how carefully they are woven together. Kutúzov the Russian ‘hero’ of the war – it has frequently been remarked that War and Peace is a novel with no single hero – has qualities that connect him with Platon Karatáev, the peasant whom Pierre befriends after his capture by the French. Kutúzov has no strategic genius; his qualities lie in his essentially passive character, his patience and, above all, his belief that when in doubt inaction is far preferable to action, a belief that Tolstoy endorses at the end of the novel. Similarly, in his accounts of family life and especially in his characterisations of Prince Andrew Bolkónsky and Pierre, the sensitivity to life Tolstoy enacts is intimately bound up with qualities of passivity, humility and the love of others. In this respect, of course, love might be seen as another antithesis to war, and this may remind us of the central role Natásha plays in the novel, linking many of the important male characters through the varying stages of her affections (as an adolescent she dreams of Bóris Drubetskóy, later she inflames Denísov, then she falls in love with Andrew Bolkónsky and becomes engaged to him before, finally, marrying Pierre). But Tolstoy’s interest is not in sexual love (his treatment of this in Anna Karenina throws an important light on his sense of its unsatisfactory nature) and his account of Pierre’s marriage to the beautiful, but soulless, Hélène Kurágina serves to emphasise the inadequacy of physical desire and outward forms of beauty as the bases on which a permanent relationship can be built. Tolstoy promoted a kind of anarchic Christianity in his later years and one can see the outline of this in his great novel, for the humility and passivity he describes in peasant life, in Kutúzov, and in many of the scenes of family life (one thinks especially of Princess Mary’s encouragement of a spirit of forgiveness towards the French in her brother Prince Andrew) is predicated on his belief in the ineluctable mystery of life and the futility of man’s attempts to make any sense of it.

No introduction to War and Peace can convey the magnitude of Tolstoy’s achievement, and the nature of his realism, and with it his understanding of human life, is such that few readers need anything in the way of explanation or interpretation to understand what he has created. F. R. Leavis said of Anna Karenina that it is ‘the great novel of modern – of our – civilisation’. By this Leavis meant that when reading the novel we have no sense of our having been ‘transported’ back in time: the trivial details may differ, people may travel by coach rather than motor car and wear what we might now consider unfashionable clothes, but no reader confuses this with the unfamiliar or the antiquated. What impresses us above all in Tolstoy is the familiarity of the world he describes, and while War and Peace may, superficially, seem less accessible than the later novel its historical materials are no barrier to its appreciation. The notes appended to this edition should, therefore, be consulted sparingly since Tolstoy’s narrative powers are such that his historical allusions are so intimately embedded in their contexts that they are almost self-explanatory. For Tolstoy the novel was a not a matter of plot but of story, and the story that he tells here admirably meets that criterion of simplicity from which he felt all genuine wisdom flowed.

Henry Claridge

University of Kent at Canterbury

Bibliography

Historical

Corelli Barnett, Napoleon, Allen & Unwin, London 1978

David Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1967

David Chandler, Napoleon, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London 1973

Christopher Duffy, Borodino and the War of 1812, Seeley, Service & Co. Ltd, London 1972

Christopher Duffy, Austerlitz, Archon Books, Hampden, Connecticut 1977

E.R. Holmes, Borodino, Batsford, London 1971

Georges Lefebvre, Napoleon, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1969

F. M. H. Markham, Napoleon, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London 1963

A. C. Niven, Napoleon and Alexander I, University Press of America, New York 1978

A. W. Palmer, Napoleon in Russia, André Deutsch, London 1977

A W. Palmer, Alexander I: Tsar of ‘War and Peace’, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London 1974

D. G. Wright, Napoleon and Europe, Longman, London 1984

Biography

Maxim Gorky, Reminiscences of Tolstoy, B. W. Huebsch, New York 1920

Aylmer Maude, The Life of Tolstoy, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1930

Aylmer Maude (ed.), Family Views of Tolstoy, 1926

Romain Rolland, The Life of Tolstoy, Dutton, New York 1911

Ernest J. Simmons, The Life of Tolstoy, Little Brown and Company, Boston 1946

Alexandra Tolstoy, Tolstoy: A Life of My Father, Harper, New York 1953

Henri Troyat, Tolstoy, Doubleday, New York 1967

A. N. Wilson, Tolstoy, Hamish Hamilton, London 1988

Critical Studies

John Bayley, Tolstoy and the Novel, Chatto and Windus, London 1966

Isaiah Berlin, Russian Thinkers, Hogarth Press, London 1978

R. F. Christian, Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’: A Study, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1962

R. F. Christian, Tolstoy: A Critical Introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1969

Henry Gifford (ed.), Leo Tolstoy: A Critical Anthology, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth 1971

Henry Gifford, Tolstoy, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1982

E. B. Greenwood, Tolstoy: The Comprehensive Vision, Edward Arnold, London 1975

Malcolm Jones (ed.), New Essays on Tolstoy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1978

G. Wilson Knight, Shakespeare and Tolstoy, The English Association, Oxford 1934

A. V. Knowles (ed.), Tolstoy: The Critical Heritage, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1978

Edgar Lehrman, A Guide to the Russian Texts of Tolstoi’s ‘War and Peace’, Ardis, Ann Arbor, Michigan 1980

Georg Lukacs, Studies in European Realism, New York, Grosset & Dunlap, 1964

Hugh Mclean (ed.), In the Shade of the Giant: Essays on Tolstoy, University of California Press, Berkeley 1969

Theodore Redpath, Tolstoy (second edition), Bowes and Bowes, London 1969

Ernest J. Simmons, An Introduction to Tolstoy’s Writings, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1968

George Steiner, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, Faber and Faber, London 1960

Edward Wasiolek, Tolstoy’s Major Fiction, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1978

Note on the translation

Olga Claridge

This Wordsworth edition of War and Peace reprints the translation of Aylmer and Louise Maude, first published by the Macmillan Press in 1920 and generally known as ‘the Maude translation’. A subsequent edition, known as the Centenary Edition, was published in 1930; for this edition Aylmer Maude made extensive notes (most of which have been reprinted here with only minor correction or modification) and greatly improved the maps. The Maudes knew Tolstoy, Aylmer having met him while he was working as an executive with the Russian Carpet Company in Moscow. His wife, Louise, was born in Moscow and spent the first forty-two years of her life there; she was fluent in Russian, German and English; the extent of Louise’s contribution has probably been underestimated and it is likely that her knowledge of Russian, particularly its idioms, greatly facilitated her husband’s work. Their translation received, in effect, Tolstoy’s ‘imprimatur’.

There are extensive passages of French in the novel. The opening paragraph, for example, is almost entirely in French, though in this edition Maude chose to translate the French for his English readers. Tolstoy’s realism, indeed, is such that some of the French is deliberately unidiomatic and thus accurately represents the way French was spoken amongst the educated and aristocratic classes. Russian editions retained the French and the standard ‘Communist era’ text, the ‘Jubilee Edition’ (Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, Moscow, 1928–58), reprinted the original text that Sophie Tolstoy (presumably with her husband’s approval) saw through publication in 1886 in which the French was restored (Tolstoy having translated it into Russian for his edition of 1873). The division of the novel into four volumes that Tolstoy made for his revised edition of 1873 was retained. Confusion can arise (though it is not material to the reader’s experience) from the divisions of the novel into volume and book, and the subdivisions into part and chapter; the extant translations vary considerably in this respect. This edition dispenses with the division of ‘books’ sub-divided into further ‘books’ and uses the word ‘volume’ (as the Russian word tom would be translated), as Tolstoy intended.

Russians refer to one another formally by first (Christian) name and patronymic (the name of one’s father, the ending of which changes according to gender); thus, Nicholas Bolkónsky is Nikolái Andréevich Bolkónsky and Pierre is Pierre Kirilóvich Bezúkhov; Tolstoy’s full name was Lev Nikólaievich Tolstoy, thus indicating that he is Lev (Leo), son of Nicholas. This form of address is used in all social contexts except where the speakers are relatives or intimates. Children, therefore, are addressed by their parents in various forms of the diminutive, but they themselves address their parents in forms that correspond to the English thou or you (or the French tu or vous) and never by Christian name and patronymic. The diminutive form, usually constructed by the addition of a suffix ( Andrei – Andrúsha, Nikolái – Nikólenka), but also contracted (Nikolái – Kólya), expresses endearment and is used by family members and very close friends. Intimates will habitually use the diminutive form of address; thus Pierre refers to Hélène as ‘Léyla’ after their marriage, but as ‘Hélène’ when he wishes to admonish her. These forms of address correspond to mood and situation. The Maudes retained these subtle distinctions where many modern translators would ignore them. They chose, moreover, to retain the masculine and feminine endings of proper names: Andrei Bolkónsky and Princess Elisabeth (Lise) Bolkónskaya; Prince Vasíli Kurágin and Princess Hélène Kurágina; Count Ilya Rostóv and Countess Natálya Rostóva, etc. No translation, no matter how good, can render all the subtleties and nuances of a language, but the Maude translation has the virtue of ‘anglicising’ Tolstoy’s text considerably less than those of more recent translators.

The Names of the Principal Characters, and a guide to pronunciation

Olga Claridge

Names here are, in most cases, grouped by family allegiances. The transliteration of Russian has only recently been standardised and variations (especially with respect to the i and y endings of proper names) are legion. For the purpose of consistency with the Maude translation names are rendered here as they will be found in the text. The English reader may wish to note that the stress in Russian proper-names tends to fall on the second syllable (thus Bolkónsky, Bezúkhov) and have been marked as such where appropriate. Rostóv has been so marked though the scholar A. B. Goldenveizer claims that Tolstoy pronounced it Róstov.

The Rostóvs

Count Ilya Rostóv, a nobleman

Countess Natálya Rostóva, his wife

Count Nicholas (Nikolái) Rostóv, their elder son

Count Peter (Petya), their younger son

Countess Vera Rostóva, their elder daughter

Countess Natálya (Natásha) Rostóva, their younger daughter

Sónya, an impoverished niece of the Rostóvs

Lieutenant Alphonse Karlóvich Berg, an officer of German extraction who marries Countess Vera Rostóva

Denísov (Váska), a friend of Nicholas Rostóv

The Bezúkhovs

Count Cyril Bezúkhov, a rich nobleman

Pierre, his illegitimate son who is legitimised after his father’s death and becomes Count Bezúkhov

Princess Catiche (Catherine Semënovna), Pierre’s cousin

Karatáev (Platon), a peasant soldier whom Pierre befriends

The Bolkónskis

Prince Nicholas (Nikolái) Andreevich Bolkónski, a retired army general

Prince Andrew (Andrei) Bolkónski, his son, an officer in Marshal Kutúzov’s staff

Princess Mary (Maria) Bolkónskaya, his daughter

Princess Elisabeth (Lise) Bolkónskaya, Prince Andrew Bolkónski’s wife

Prince Nicholas (Nikolái, Koko), Prince Andrew Bolkónski’s son

Mademoiselle Bourienne, Princess Mary Bolkónskaya’s French companion

The Kurágins

Prince Vasíli Kurágin, an elderly nobleman

Prince Hippolyte Kurágin, his elder son

Prince Anatole Kurágin, his younger son

Princess Hélène (Léyla, pronounced ‘Lyolya’) Kurágina, his daughter and Pierre Bezúkhov’s wife

The Drubetskóys

Princess Anna Mikháylovna Drubetskáya, an impoverished noblewoman

Prince Borís (Bóry) Drubetskóy, her son

Julie Karágina, an heiress and Boris’s wife

Alexander, Tsar of Russia

Kutúzov, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army

Lavrúska, Denísov’s batman

Napoleon Buonaparte, Emperor of France and Commander-in-Chief of the French Army

Rostopchín, Governor-General of Moscow

Speránski, a minister in Alexander’s government

Further information about many of the characters can be found in the Notes at the end of the novel.

Dates of principal events

To adjust nineteenth-century old-style dates to our Western calendar twelve days have to be added in each case.

1805

October 11th: Kutúzov inspects regiment near Braunau. Le malheureux Mack arrives

October 23rd: The Russian army crosses the Enns

October 24th: Fight at Amstetten

October 28th: The Russian army crosses the Danube

October 30th: Defeats Mortier at Dürrenstein

November 4th: Napoleon writes to Murat from Schönbrunn

Battle of Schön Grabern

November 19th: The Council of War at Ostralitz

November 20th: Battle of Austerlitz

1807

January 27th: Battle of Preussisch-Eylau

June 2nd: Battle of Friedland

June 13th: The Emperors meet at Tilsit

1812

May 17th: Napoleon leaves Dresden

June 12th: Napoleon crosses the Niemen and enters Russia

June 14th: Alexander sends Baláshev to Napoleon

July 13th: The Pávlograd Hussars in action at Ostróvna

August 4th: Alpátych at Smolénsk hears distant firing

August 5th: Bombardment of Smolénsk

August 7th: Prince Nicholas Bolkónski leaves Bald Hills for Boguchárovo

August 8th: Kutúzov appointed Commander-in-Chief

August 10th: Prince Andrew’s column abreast of Bald Hills

August 17th: Kutúzov reaches Tsárevo-Zaymíshche and takes command of the army. Nicholas Rostóv rides to Boguchárovo

August 24th: Battle of the Shevárdino Redoubt

August 26th: Battle of Borodinó

September 1st: Kutúzov orders retreat through Moscow

October 6th: Battle of Tarútino

The French leave Moscow

October 12th: Battle of Málo-Yaroslávets

October 21st: Cossacks harry the French at Vyázma

October 28th–November 2nd: The French at Smolénsk

November 4th–8th: Battles at Krásnoe

November 9th: Ney, with rearguard, reaches Orshá

November 14th–16th: Crossing of the Berëzina

November 26th: Napoleon abandons the army at Smórgoni

December 6th: He reaches Paris

War and Peace

Volume One

Book One

Chapter 1

‘Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca [1] are now just family estates of the Buonapartes. But I warn you, if you don’t tell me that this means war, if you still try to defend the infamies and horrors perpetrated by that Antichrist – I really believe he is Antichrist – I will have nothing more to do with you and you are no longer my friend, no longer my faithful slave, as you call yourself! But how do you do? I see I have frightened you – sit down and tell me all the news.’

It was in July 1805, and the speaker was the well-known Anna Pávlovna Schérer, maid of honour and favourite of the Empress Márya Fëdorovna. With these words she greeted Prince Vasíli, a man of high rank and importance, who was the first to arrive at her reception. Anna Pávlovna had had a cough for some days. She was, as she said, suffering from la grippe; grippe being then a new word in St Petersburg, used only by the élite.

All her invitations without exception, written in French, and delivered by a scarlet-liveried footman that morning, ran as follows:

‘If you have nothing better to do, Count (or Prince), and if the prospect of spending an evening with a poor invalid is not too terrible, I shall be very charmed to see you tonight between 7 and 10, – Annette Schérer.’

‘Heavens! what a virulent attack!’ replied the prince, not in the least disconcerted by this reception. He had just entered, wearing an embroidered court uniform, knee-breeches and shoes, and had stars on his breast and a serene expression on his flat face. He spoke in that refined French in which our grandfathers not only spoke but thought, and with the gentle, patronizing intonation natural to a man of importance who had grown old in society and at court. He went up to Anna Pávlovna, kissed her hand, presenting to her his bald, scented and shining head, and complacently seated himself on the sofa.

‘First of all, dear friend, tell me how you are. Set your friend’s mind at rest,’ said he without altering his tone, beneath the politeness and affected sympathy of which indifference and even irony could be discerned.

‘Can one be well while suffering morally? Can one be calm in times like these if one has any feeling?’ said Anna Pávlovna. ‘You are staying the whole evening, I hope?’

‘And the fête at the English Ambassador’s? Today is Wednesday. I must put in an appearance there,’ said the prince. ‘My daughter is coming for me to take me there.’

‘I thought today’s fête had been cancelled. I confess all these festivities and fireworks are becoming wearisome.’

‘If they had known that you wished it, the entertainment would have been put off,’ said the prince, who, like a wound-up clock, by force of habit said things he did not even wish to be believed.

‘Don’t tease! Well, and what has been decided about Novosíltsev’s [2] dispatch? You know everything.’

‘What can one say about it?’ replied the prince in a cold, listless tone. ‘What has been decided? They have decided that Buonaparte has burnt his boats, and I believe that we are ready to burn ours.’

Prince Vasíli always spoke languidly, like an actor repeating a stale part. Anna Pávlovna Schérer on the contrary, despite her forty years, overflowed with animation and impulsiveness. To be an enthusiast had become her social vocation and, sometimes even when she did not feel like it, she became enthusiastic in order not to disappoint the expectations of those who knew her. The subdued smile which, though it did not suit her faded features, always played round her lips, expressed, as in a spoilt child, a continual consciousness of her charming defect, which she neither wished, nor could, nor considered it necessary, to correct.

In the midst of a conversation on political matters Anna Pávlovna burst out:

‘Oh, don’t speak to me of Austria. Perhaps I don’t understand things, but Austria never has wished, and does not wish, for war. She is betraying us! Russia alone must save Europe. Our gracious sovereign recognizes his high vocation and will be true to it. That is the one thing I have faith in! Our good and wonderful sovereign has to perform the noblest role on earth, and he is so virtuous and noble that God will not forsake him. He will fulfil his vocation and crush the hydra of revolution, which has become more terrible than ever in the person of this murderer and villain! We alone must avenge the blood of the just one . . . Whom, I ask you, can we rely on . . . ? England with her commercial spirit will not and cannot understand the Emperor Alexander’s loftiness of soul. She has refused to evacuate Malta. She wanted to find, and still seeks, some secret motive in our actions. What answer did Novosíltsev get? None. The English have not understood and cannot understand the self-abnegation of our Emperor who wants nothing for himself, but only desires the good of mankind. And what have they promised? Nothing! And what little they have promised they will not perform! Prussia has always declared that Buonaparte is invincible and that all Europe is powerless before him . . . And I don’t believe a word that Hardenburg says, or Haugwitz [3] either. This famous Prussian neutrality is just a trap. I have faith only in God and the lofty destiny of our adored monarch. He will save Europe!’

She suddenly paused, smiling at her own impetuosity.

‘I think,’ said the prince with a smile, ‘that if you had been sent instead of our dear Wintzingerode you would have captured the King of Prussia’s consent by assault. You are so eloquent. Will you give me a cup of tea?’

‘In a moment. A propos,’ she added, becoming calm again, ‘I am expecting two very interesting men tonight, le Vicomte de Mortemart, who is connected with the Montmorencys through the Rohans, one of the best French families. He is one of the genuine émigrés, the good ones. And also the Abbé Morio. Do you know that profound thinker? He has been received by the Emperor. Had you heard?’

‘I shall be delighted to meet them,’ said the prince. ‘But tell me,’ he added with studied carelessness as if it had only just occurred to him, though the question he was about to ask was the chief motive of his visit, ‘is it true that the Dowager Empress wants Baron Funke to be appointed first secretary at Vienna? The baron by all accounts is a poor creature.’

Prince Vasíli wished to obtain this post for his son, but others were trying through the Dowager Empress Márya Fëdorovna to secure it for the baron.

Anna Pávlovna almost closed her eyes to indicate that neither she nor any one else had a right to criticize what the Empress desired or was pleased with.

‘Baron Funke has been recommended to the Dowager Empress by her sister,’ was all she said, in a dry and mournful tone.

As she named the Empress, Anna Pávlovna’s face suddenly assumed an expression of profound and sincere devotion and respect, mingled with sadness, and this occurred every time she mentioned her illustrious patroness. She added that her Majesty had deigned to show Baron Funke beaucoup d’estime, and again her face clouded over with sadness.

The prince was silent and looked indifferent. But, with the womanly and courtier-like quickness and tact habitual to her, Anna Pávlovna wished both to rebuke him (for daring to speak as he had done of a man recommended to the Empress) and at the same time to console him, so she said –

‘Now about your family. Do you know that since your daughter came out everyone has been enraptured by her? They say she is amazingly beautiful.’

The prince bowed to signify his respect and gratitude.

‘I often think,’ she continued after a short pause, drawing nearer to the prince and smiling amiably at him as if to show that political and social topics were ended and the time had come for intimate conversation – ‘I often think how unfairly sometimes the joys of life are distributed. Why has fate given you two such splendid children? I don’t speak of Anatole, your youngest. I don’t like him,’ she added in a tone admitting of no rejoinder and raising her eyebrows. ‘Two such charming children. And really you appreciate them less than any one, and so you don’t deserve to have them.’

And she smiled her ecstatic smile.

‘I can’t help it,’ said the prince. ‘Lavater [4] would have said I lack the bump of paternity.’

‘Don’t joke, I mean to have a serious talk with you. Do you know I am dissatisfied with your younger son? Between ourselves’ (and her face assumed its melancholy expression) ‘he was mentioned at her Majesty’s and you were pitied . . . ’

The prince answered nothing, but she looked at him significantly, awaiting a reply. He frowned.

‘What would you have me do?’ he said at last. ‘You know I did all a father could for their education, and they have both turned out fools. Hippolyte is at least a quiet fool, but Anatole is an active one. That is the only difference between them.’ He said this smiling in a way more natural and animated than usual, so that the wrinkles round his mouth very clearly revealed something unexpectedly coarse and unpleasant.

‘And why are children born to such men as you? If you were not a father there would be nothing I could reproach you with,’ said Anna Pávlovna, looking up pensively.

‘I am your faithful slave, and to you alone I can confess that my children are the bane of my life. It is the cross I have to bear. That is how I explain it to myself. It can’t be helped!’

He said no more, but expressed his resignation to cruel fate by a gesture. Anna Pávlovna meditated.

‘Have you never thought of marrying your prodigal son Anatole?’ she asked. ‘They say old maids have a mania for matchmaking, and though I don’t feel that weakness in myself as yet, I know a little person who is very unhappy with her father. She is a relation of yours, Princess Mary Bolkónskaya.’

Prince Vasíli did not reply though, with the quickness of memory and perception befitting a man of the world, he indicated by a movement of the head that he was considering this information.

‘Do you know,’ he said at last, evidently unable to check the sad current of his thoughts, ‘that Anatole is costing me forty thousand rubles a year? And,’ he went on after a pause, ‘what will it be in five years, if he goes on like this?’ Presently he added: ‘That’s what we fathers have to put up with . . . Is this princess of yours rich?’

‘Her father is very rich and stingy. He lives in the country. He is the well-known Prince Bolkónski who had to retire from the army under the late Emperor, and was nicknamed the King of Prussia. He is very clever but eccentric, and a bore. The poor girl is very unhappy. She has a brother; I think you know him, he married Lisa Meinen lately. He is an aide-de-camp of Kutúzov’s [5] and will be here tonight.’

‘Listen, dear Annette,’ said the prince, suddenly taking Anna Pávlovna’s hand and for some reason drawing it downwards. ‘Arrange that affair for me and I shall always be your most devoted slave – slafe with an f, as a village elder of mine writes in his reports. She is rich and of good family and that’s all I want.’

And with the familiarity and easy grace peculiar to him, he raised the maid of honour’s hand to his lips, kissed it, and swung it to and fro as he lay back in his armchair, looking in another direction.

‘Attendez,’ said Anna Pávlovna, reflecting, ‘I’ll speak to Lisa, young Bolkónski’s wife, this very evening, and perhaps the thing can be arranged. It shall be on your family’s behalf that I’ll start my apprenticeship as old maid.’

Chapter 2

Anna Pávlovna’s drawing-room was gradually filling. The highest Petersburg society was assembled there: people differing widely in age and character but alike in the social circle to which they belonged. Prince Vasíli’s daughter, the beautiful Hélène, came to take her father to the ambassador’s entertainment; she wore a ball dress and her badge as maid of honour. The youthful little Princess Bolkónskaya, known as la femme la plus séduisante de Pétersbourg [6] was also there.

She had been married during the previous winter, and being pregnant did not go to any large gatherings, but only to small receptions. Prince Vasíli’s son, Hippolyte, had come with Mortemart, whom he introduced. The Abbé Morio and many others had also come.

To each new arrival Anna Pávlovna said, ‘You have not yet seen my aunt,’ or ‘You do not know my aunt?’ and very gravely conducted him or her to a little old lady, wearing large bows of ribbon in her cap, who had come sailing in from another room as soon as the guests began to arrive; and slowly turning her eyes from the visitor to her aunt, Anna Pávlovna mentioned each one’s name and then left them.

Each visitor performed the ceremony of greeting this old aunt whom not one of them knew, not one of them wanted to know, and not one of them cared about; Anna Pávlovna observed these greetings with mournful and solemn interest and silent approval. The aunt spoke to each of them in the same words, about their health and her own, and the health of her Majesty, ‘who, thank God, was better today.’ And each visitor, though politeness prevented his showing impatience, left the old woman with a sense of relief at having performed a vexatious duty and did not return to her the whole evening.

The young Princess Bolkónskaya had brought some work in a gold-embroidered velvet bag. Her pretty little upper lip, on which a delicate dark down was just perceptible, was too short for her teeth, but it lifted all the more sweetly, and was especially charming when she occasionally drew it down to meet the lower lip. As is always the case with a thoroughly attractive woman, her defect – the shortness of her upper lip and her half open mouth – seemed to be her own special and peculiar form of beauty. Everyone brightened at the sight of this pretty young woman, so soon to become a mother, so full of life and health, and carrying her burden so lightly. Old men and dull dispirited young ones who looked at her, after being in her company and talking to her a little while, felt as if they too were becoming, like her, full of life and health. All who talked to her, and at each word saw her bright smile and the constant gleam of her white teeth, thought that they were in a specially amiable mood that day.

The little princess went round the table with quick short swaying steps, her workbag on her arm, and gaily spreading out her dress sat down on a sofa near the silver samovar, as if all she was doing was a pleasure to herself and to all around her. ‘I have brought my work,’ said she in French, displaying her bag and addressing all present. ‘Mind, Annette, I hope you have not played a wicked trick on me,’ she added, turning to her hostess. ‘You wrote that it was to be quite a small reception, and just see how badly I am dressed.’ And she spread out her arms to show her short-waisted, lace-trimmed, dainty grey dress, girdled with a broad ribbon just below the breast.

‘Soyez tranquille, Lise, you will always be prettier than any one else,’ replied Anna Pávlovna.

‘You know,’ said the princess in the same tone of voice and still in French, turning to a general, ‘my husband is deserting me? He is going to get himself killed. Tell me what this wretched war is for?’ she added, addressing Prince Vasíli, and without waiting for an answer she turned to speak to his daughter, the beautiful Hélène.

‘What a delightful woman this little princess is!’ said Prince Vasíli to Anna Pávlovna.

One of the next arrivals was a stout, heavily built young man with close cropped hair, spectacles, the light-coloured breeches fashionable at that time, a very high ruffle and a brown dress-coat. This stout young man was an illegitimate son of Count Bezúkhov, a well-known grandee of Catherine’s time who now lay dying in Moscow. The young man had not yet entered either the military or civil service, as he had only just returned from abroad where he had been educated, and this was his first appearance in society. Anna Pávlovna greeted him with the nod she accorded to the lowest hierarchy in her drawing-room. But in spite of this lowest grade greeting, a look of anxiety and fear, as at the sight of something too large and unsuited to the place, came over her face when she saw Pierre enter. Though he was certainly rather bigger than the other men in the room, her anxiety could only have reference to the clever though shy, but observant and natural, expression which distinguished him from everyone else in that drawing-room.

‘It is very good of you, Monsieur Pierre, to come and visit a poor invalid,’ said Anna Pávlovna, exchanging an alarmed glance with her aunt as she conducted him to her.

Pierre murmured something unintelligible, and continued to look round as if in search of something. On his way to the aunt he bowed to the little princess with a pleased smile, as to an intimate acquaintance.

Anna Pávlovna’s alarm was justified, for Pierre turned away from the aunt without waiting to hear her speech about her Majesty’s health. Anna Pávlovna in dismay detained him with the words:

‘Do you know the Abbé Morio? He is a most interesting man.’

‘Yes, I have heard of his scheme for perpetual peace, and it is very interesting but hardly feasible.’

‘You think so?’ rejoined Anna Pávlovna in order to say something and get away to attend to her duties as hostess. But Pierre now committed a reverse act of impoliteness. First he had left a lady before she had finished speaking to him, and now he continued to speak to another who wished to get away. With his head bent and his big feet spread apart, he began explaining his reasons for thinking the abbé’s plan chimerical.

‘We will talk of it later,’ said Anna Pávlovna with a smile.

And having got rid of this young man who did not know how to behave, she resumed her duties as hostess and continued to listen and watch, ready to help at any point where the conversation might happen to flag. As the foreman of a spinning-mill when he has set the hands to work, goes round and notices, here a spindle that has stopped or there one that creaks or makes more noise than it should, and hastens to check the machine or set it in proper motion, so Anna Pávlovna moved about her drawing-room, approaching now a silent, now a too noisy group, and by a word or slight re-arrangement kept the conversational machine in steady, proper, and regular motion. But amid these cares her anxiety about Pierre was evident. She kept an anxious watch on him when he approached the group round Mortemart to listen to what was being said there, and again when he passed to another group whose centre was the abbé.

Pierre had been educated abroad, and this reception at Anna Pávlovna’s was the first he had attended in Russia. He knew that all the intellectual lights of Petersburg were gathered there, and like a child in a toy shop, did not know which way to look, afraid of missing any clever conversation that was to be heard. Seeing the self-confident and refined expression on the faces of those present he was always expecting to hear something very profound. At last he came up to Morio. Here the conversation seemed interesting and he stood waiting for an opportunity to express his own views, as young people are fond of doing.

Chapter 3

Anna Pávlovna’s reception was in full swing. The spindles hummed steadily and ceaselessly on all sides. With the exception of the aunt, beside whom sat only one elderly lady, who with her thin careworn face was rather out of place in this brilliant society, the whole company had settled into three groups. One, chiefly masculine, had formed round the abbé. Another, of young people, was grouped round the beautiful Princess Hélène, Prince Vasíli’s daughter, and the little Princess Bolkónskaya, very pretty and rosy, though rather too plump for her age. The third group was gathered round Mortemart and Anna Pávlovna.

The vicomte was a nice-looking young man with soft features and polished manners, who evidently considered himself a celebrity but out of politeness modestly placed himself at the disposal of the circle in which he found himself. Anna Pávlovna was obviously serving him up as a treat to her guests. As a clever maitre d’hotel serves up as a specially choice delicacy a piece of meat that no one who had seen it in the kitchen would have cared to eat, so Anna Pávlovna served up to her guests, first the vicomte and then the abbé, as peculiarly choice morsels. The group about Mortemart immediately began discussing the murder of the Duc d’Enghien. [7] The vicomte said that the Duc d’Enghien had perished by his own magnanimity, and that there were particular reasons for Buonaparte’s hatred of him.

‘Ah, yes! Do tell us all about it, vicomte,’ said Anna Pávlovna, with a pleasant feeling that there was something à la Louis XV in the sound of that sentence: ‘Contez nous çela, vicomte.’ [8]

The vicomte bowed and smiled courteously in token of his willingness to comply. Anna Pávlovna arranged a group round him, inviting everyone to listen to his tale.

‘The vicomte knew the duc personally,’ whispered Anna Pávlovna to one of the guests. ‘The vicomte is a wonderful raconteur,’ said she to another. ‘How evidently he belongs to the best society,’ said she to a third, and the vicomte was served up to the company in the choicest and most advantageous style, like a well-garnished joint of roast beef on a hot dish.

The vicomte wished to begin his story and gave a subtle smile.

‘Come over here, Hélène, dear,’ said Anna Pávlovna to the beautiful young princess who was sitting some way off, the centre of another group.

The princess smiled. She rose with the same unchanging smile with which she had first entered the room – the smile of a perfectly beautiful woman. With a slight rustle of her white dress trimmed with moss and ivy, with a gleam of white shoulders, glossy hair and sparkling diamonds, she passed between the men who made way for her, not looking at any of them but smiling on all, as if graciously allowing each the privilege of admiring her beautiful figure and shapely shoulders, back, and bosom –

Reviews for War and Peace

[danielstj · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An epic that spans multiple intrigues of the lives of its principal characters. A story that is remembered for its immensity and scope and recommended to all of those who enjoy to read literary fiction.

[amerynth · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" when I was in middle school at a time I was too young to really appreciate it as anything but an accomplishment that impressed my teachers at the time. And even though I read a ton of Russian novels in college, something about that early experience put me off Tolstoy... (I was definitely more of a Dostoevsky girl.)At any rate, I spent the last couple of months reading "War and Peace" and it was absolutely marvelous... I enjoyed nearly everything about it-- from the ins and outs of the family drama during peace time, to the descriptions of Napoleone's failed march into Russia to Tolstoy's musings on the nature of man and war. Overall, just an excellent book.

[drfp_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There's always a worry with such great works like this one that they won't live up to the hype.For 2/3 of its length W&P *does* and is an excellent read. Everything is suitably grand, as is Tolstoy's style, and his prose is wonderfully easy to read as well.However the final 1/3 of the novel, starting with Napoleon's invasion of Russia, drags the rest of the epic down. From there on in Tolstoy goes into historian mode, spending many chapters reiterating the same points over and over again, temporarily forgetting all about his characters.Some of that context is nice, but Tolstoy certainly over does it. If most of it were edited out then I might just give this work the full 5 stars. As it is, just 4 will have to do.

[lapsus16 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Incredibly entertaining even if very long. The description of war hospitals is absolutely fabulous! Beware of old translations, use this one instead!

[weeturtle · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I'm not really sure how to review this book. My copy has a brief guide to Russian naming conventions as well as a list of major characters which I referred to constantly, and they were of great assistance in following along, as are Tolstoy's incredibly short chapters. I read a surprising amount of this book just waiting for my morning ride to work.It's an easy read. It's long, but the language isn't lofty or hard to get through. The story follows several families and their lives during Napoleon's invasion of Russia. They people change as time passes and they encounter various hardships and situations. Tolstoy has a curious way of describing even passing characters in a fashion that they wind up memorable for at least a time (though I still remember the scene with the woman with over-large front teeth).The characters make the book. The back of the book highlights Natasha Rostov, Prince Andrew Bolkonsky, and Pierre Bezukhov, but there are many others that bring their own tales, such that two people might read the book in an entirely different fashion depending on which character stands out to them. Both my most loved and most detested literary figures come from this book.

[norabelle414 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In 1805 Pierre Bezukhov returns to Saint Petersburg to the bedside of his dying father, and ends up inheriting Count Bezukhov’s title and all of his assets. Suddenly, he’s the most eligible (and most socially-awkward) bachelor in all of Russia. All the ladies are after him, and he is very confused, so ends up ill-advisedly marrying the seductive and manipulative Helene Kuragin, who is probably sleeping with her equally debauched brother. Whoops! Meanwhile, war is about to break out between Tsar Alexander and Emperor Napoleon, and all the young men want in on it. Pierre’s friend Prince Andrei Bolkonsky wants to go to war to get away from his very amiable, very pregnant wife. 20-year-old Nikolai Rostov of Moscow wants to go to war to prove he is an adult (and he has a huge platonic crush on Tsar Alexander). Nikolai’s best friend Boris wants to go to war because he’s broke, and in love with Nikolai’s 13-year-old sister Natasha. As is everyone else. These men are all very rich and they think war is very glamorous. Turns out, it is not.The inter-personal plot of this epic tale is quite excellent, but boy is it bogged down by both detailed descriptions of troop movements and battles, as well as Tolstoy’s personal axe-grinding against his contemporaries. It’s possible that it was insightful at the time of publication, but now, not so much. These characters though! The main characters (especially Pierre and Natasha) are mostly boring and insufferable and deserve each other. But the villains and minor characters are so delightful. Boris’ eventual wife Julie (who is only in about 10 pages of the book) is SUPER GOTH - Boris woos her by writing poetry about death and drawing her a picture of a grave. Pierre’s wife Helene is an awful person but boy does she know how to work with what she’s given. She sleeps with EVERYONE – her brother (a great villain), Pierre’s houseguest Dolokov (also a great villain), Boris (boring except for his great taste in women), a government official and a Catholic priest (playing them against each other in an elaborate plot to divorce Pierre), and dies in a botched abortion. Truly a legend. Tolstoy is not particularly great at writing women, certainly not by today’s standards, but just due to the fact that there are 600 named characters in this book, by default some of the female characters have to be unique and interesting. Good job! On the flip side from the villains is sweet Denisov, Nikolai’s mentor and Natasha’s first suitor. His only characteristics are that he is nice to everyone and he talks with a lisp and he likes to eat sausages while writing letters.

[toddsherman · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

“All we can know is that we know nothing. And that’s the height of human wisdom.”I’m not sure that I understood this book so much as I observed it. These three quotes pulled from Tolstoy’s masterpiece I believe speak to this; certainly more show than tell. And Tolstoy says a lot. Apparently, over 566,000 words, if the introduction is to be trusted—and why shouldn’t it be? Or bee. We’re all drones of one sort or another. Some just happen to drag a stinger through the honeycomb, with more sense of touch than rigid intention, and paint a portrait of the colony of humanity with more exactitude because of its dragged memory, faint graze through the chambers, the conglomeration of history through personal experience and hindsight. The only extra material I did not read from this edition was the foreword. Once I’d seen that the second part of that was concerned with the parallels between Napoleon’s invasion and Hitler’s of Russia, I stopped giving a shit. I did skim it, to be fair, and was bored to tears. Somehow Tolstoy managed to make nearly 1500 pages riveting, even with the lengthy second epilogue about free will and power. Some artists can dip the quill into honey and pull from that well the inextricably sticky souls of humans who were and are and will forever be (bee) too busy to turn head over thorax and see what they’d inadvertently written.“That is, power is power: in other words, power is a word the meaning of which we do not understand.”And Tolstoy said it better than I ever could:“A bee settling on a flower has stung a child. And the child is afraid of bees and declares that bees exist to sting people. A poet admires the bee sucking from the chalice of a flower and says it exists to suck the fragrance of flowers. A beekeeper, seeing the bee collect pollen from flowers and carry it to the hive, says that it exists to gather honey. Another beekeeper who has studied the life of the hive more closely says that the bee gathers pollen dust to feed the young bees and rear a queen, and that it exists to perpetuate its race. A botanist notices that the bee flying with the pollen of a male flower to a pistil fertilizes the latter, and sees in this the purpose of the bee’s existence. Another, observing the migration of plants, notices that the bee helps in this work, and may say that in this lies the purpose of the bee. But the ultimate purpose of the bee is not exhausted by the first, the second, or any of the processes the human mind can discern. The higher the human intellect rises in the discovery of these purposes, the more obvious it becomes, that the ultimate purpose is beyond our comprehension.”

[breic-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The ending was disappointing. (Tolstoy puts up strawman after strawman to justify his theory of history.) Until then, though, it is a very interesting book, with lots of scope and engaging characters.

[isatyajeet · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

'I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.'

[buendia_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Probably the greatest book I have ever read.

[benuathanasia · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Long. Very, very long. Normally that doesn't throw me off - two of my favorite books are The Count of Monte Cristo and Les Miserables, but unlike the French masters, Tolstoy falls flat in his attempts to get me to connect with any of the characters. The plot is fascinating, but it's cluttered by too many intrusive characters that add little to the story.

[bookwoman247 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

War and Peace is a stunning panorama of Russian life during the Napoleonic Wars, mostly from the perspective of the nobility or upper class.Tolstoy's ability to pull the reader into the story is, IMO, unsurpassed. I feel as if I not only followed the fortunes of the Bolkonskys, the Rostovs, the Bezukhovs, etc., but I feel as if I lived with them for the six weeks or so it took me to read this book. I even feel as if I were able to catch glimpses into the minds of a few of the world leaders of the time, like Napoleon and Czar Nicholas.My only complaint is the ending; the last 40 pages or so. It felt, then, that Tolstoy was speaking in his own voice. It seemed like a piece of expository writing, as if it might have been an excerpt from an essay. Since this only pertains to the last 40 pages or so of the book, and since I was immersed in the world crafted by Tolstoy for more than 1400 pages and for over six weeks, this complaint seems petty and insignificant.War and Peace confirmed the love for Tolstoy that I discovered when I read Anna Karenina, and has become my favorite book of all-time.

[booklovers2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

 Written over a hundred years ago. it remains an absolute classic story so well-written. the characters, so individual and so well defined it was a pleasure taking the trip through all their happiness, pain and loss. It was an emotional Journey. I have to say I laughed, I cried and with the battle scenes( although not exactly my cup of tea) had me fearing for their safety. War and Peace has definitely proven that the test of time has not diminished the greatness of this novel. It is definitely long but the journey was well worth it!

[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.

[maowangvater · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This epic work of historical fiction is a richly-detailed and thought-provoking tale of the Napoleonic Wars and human passion. The competing thrones of Napoleon and Czar Alexander I are vividly recounted through the lives and deaths in three noble Russian families: the Rostovs, the Bolkonskys and Bezukhovs and their contemporaries. Both battle scenes and life on the home front are vividly and realistically portrayed. The domestic is related with sharp social commentary as witty as Jane Austin, and the fog of war and its horrors with the passion that Tolstoy’s contemporary Victor Hugo puts in the description of the battle of Waterloo in Les Misérables. At the end Tolstoy gives the reader a six part essay on historiography, the causes of war, and free will.Novelist Virginia Woolf wrote that Tolstoy was, "the greatest of all novelists—for what else can we call the author of War and Peace?" Medical missionary Paul Farmer said, “This is just like Lord of the Rings!” Years afterward he’d say, “I mean, what could be more religious than Lord of the Rings or War and Peace?”

[superfastreader_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Let me start by saying that I loved this book. My heart was captured from the very start, and the soaring romanticism of such passages like Princess Marya’s flight from Moscow or Natasha’s near ruination left me breathless. It’s such a life-affirming work, and not in a facile way, either. Tolstoy’s vision of the abundant life necessitates the acceptance of death–the embrace of death–and only those characters who face the darkness are allowed to enter into the fullness of joy. I can’t imagine I’m saying anything new about this work, but Tolstoy’s exploitation of this motif was a revelation to me on a profound spiritual level.I must confess that I found the “war” sections tedious and ponderous, but that’s because I’m not very keen on history, particularly military history. I loved the way he brought the characters to life within the conflict and on the very battlefields themselves, but I couldn’t get myself interested in Tolstoy’s analysis of how Napoleon managed to get as far as the heart of Russia itself. I feel like the sixty-year-old me might really get into it, though, so I’m already looking forward to that rereading.There is nothing, nothing like getting lost in another world, and Tolstoy transported me to Russia. I’ve been there just once, ten days in Anna Karenina’s Petersburg and Andrei Rublev’s Novgorod, but never to Moscow. I’m dying to see true Russia, “round Russia” as Pierre puts it when contemplating Platon’s charisma, and hope someday to ride the Transiberian railway from Moscow through Mongolia to China. It’s a dream that I’m craving even more, now that I’ve indulged in such an excess of Russianness.I’m so glad I read this book, but I’m kind of embarrassed by what I’ve written already. I’m nowhere near conveying the experience of reading the book, or communicating how it’s worked on me over the last three weeks, or my sadness at having to say goodbye to Pierre and Natasha and Marya and Prince Andrey (oh!) and the rest. Some books are too big for anything but reading.

[wealhtheowwylfing · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Really excellent. BUT. Did it really nead ONE epilogue, let alone two plus an author's note?

[jbarringer-2 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

While mind-numbingly tedious, I did actually finish this book, and I remembered enough of what I read from one sitting to the next that the characters and plot didn't run together too much. So, I guess as epic fiction goes, this was not terrible. Will I read it again? Probably not. All the characters cry seemingly all the time, the thesis about how individuals are carried along by history pops up way too much in the last 3 books, so that the pedantic lecturer gets in the way of the storyteller and the story a lot. And, if the novel was meant to serve as a tool for discussing the philosophy, in much the same way as Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged is a vehicle for the long, tedious essay 'speech' near the end, the thesis needed to be woven into the story better.
The mostly philosophy epilogues were not as good as the rest of the book. The fiction bits in these sections seemed less well edited and had less focus to them. The philosophy was presented as if the story serves to illustrate Tolstoy's points, but he doesn't really make those connections in this section of his text. As straight philosophy these sections do a lousy job of defining the terms Tolstoy is using in his arguments.

[tronella_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Parts of this were really good, but a lot of it just seemed like unnecessary padding.

[judgefloyd · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book is mainly famous for being very long and in that respect, it's no dissapointment. It is a mixture of:- character observation. Tolstoy is very good here. He shows people who delude themselves, people who rationalise selfishness and people who slowly work out what it's all about. What It's All About turns out to be Tolstoy's idea of being properly traditional and in touch with earthy things, so this is a bit of a disapointment, especially if you're female (in which case barefoot and pregnant is what you get at the end of your quest for enlightenment)Tolstoy's thoughts on history; I found this very waffly. The gist is that history moves along regardless of individuals. Tolstory has a Hume-like scepticism about historical causes and effects. Overall the book is worth perservering with but not a patch on Anna Karenina.

[gregpc_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read this translation a few years ago and like it very much. Reading another translation now.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[novelcommentary · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It was around New Years that I decided to take on the challenge of reading what I figured was probably the most famous book that no one ever reads. So I bought this new edition, written by a husband and wife translating team, that has been getting good press for their accurate retelling of Russian novels. The biggest obstacle, besides trying to hold the book upright in bed, is the long list of characters whose names appear in various formats throughout the beginning of the story. But the translation provides an important character list and the notes in the back fill in some of the historical notes in the story. Let me say that this was one of my better New Year’s resolutions and also one that I actually fulfilled. It was well worth the two months. Once I got to know the main families and how they are connected, I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with them – through the social occasions and the wars. The title aptly describes the structure of the novel which runs chronologically from 1805 – 1815, showing us scenes from the aristocratic social world of Moscow and St. Petersburg interchanged with the war scenes that increasingly get closer to affecting this same group. I found the war scenes interesting in that they were no different than many modern novels – Catch 22, The Things they Carried, Tree of Smoke- in showing the absurdity of war, the slim thread of difference between being heroic or cowardly, and the meaninglessness of best laid plans. Tolstoy freely injects his opinions throughout and asserts that the reason the French were defeated in Moscow had to do more with the spirit of the Russian People and the greediness of the French looters, than it had to do with great strategies by great generals. I enjoyed learning about Napoleon’s invasion of Russia and the wonder of Google allowed me to constantly read about the battles. One kind gentleman actually provided a Google map of all the locations and battle scenes mentioned in the book. It was probably part of his doctorial thesis. Mostly though for me, it comes back to the characters that make the novel one that will stay with me. The development of Pierre as he explores religion and politics and war to become the man he grows to be, the liveliness of Natasha, who I always thought of as Audrey Hepburn (since checking out the YouTube of the dance scene with Andrei) – she was the energy of the novel, the lively, enthusiastic girl that everyone fell in love with and who herself had mixed and varied emotions about the men in her life. The characters here were no different than those we have all come to know and Tolstoy was always willing to point out how universal the behaviors and actions were.In summary I would certainly recommend this book. There are scenes – the Cinderella like dances, the fox hunts and the soirées that have set the standard for so many other works to come. I felt like I was reading the primary source for much of modern literature.

[fulner · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This story was a drag. I tried I really did. In hopes of learning one of the great stories of history I decided to go with the Audio book. This is why it jumped out at me as it was the largest Audio Book in the library. 48 CDs. As far as an audio book production quality it was fairly well. The foreigner reading the English version was good, the end of each CD was properly announced, the beginning of the next likewise, and the track splits made sense. 48 CDs is a lot to manage, and I think about 3 or 4 MP3 CDs would have been better. The Library still had this item marked as NEW yet the box was already falling apart. That is a problem. Worst of all I couldn't renew it because the audio book was already reserved for someone else. The story dragged on and on and on. After the first 6 discs nothing had really happened. Some guy died, someone else joined the army and a bunch of rich bastards talked about how great it is that French people kill other people, and how awesome it is to get drunk. After having to return the discs due to what was described above, I decided to watch the movie before I wrote this review. I got about half way through the 4 hour movie before I realized I still wasn't following it due to how much it dragged on and on about nothing. Save yourself some time, unless you need to for a class, or you have a much stronger desire than I to read it just because its classic literature, don't.

[gbsallery · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

At times, this book offers penetrating insights into the human condition and the flow of history. At others, it is a barely-connected set of disjunct meanderings through the broad and un-managed forest of Russian sentimentality. It is also, incontrovertibly, rather long. I enjoyed the broad sweep of the book, and the lightness with which Tolstoy dots his work with character and humanity; I was rather less keen on the endless appeals to "peasant virtue" and the impossibility of acknowledging any cause but god. Well worth reading, but set some time aside!

[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".

[martensgirl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A masterpiece, marred only by some overblown philosophical waffle. The depth of the characters, the description of the Napoleonic Wars, the description of the lives the the aristocrats... this book has it all. Once I got into it, it was an easier book than I'd feared.

[dougwood57 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

So, no joke, I’m going to review War and Peace? Pointless? Presumptuous? Yes, so feel free to get on with reading this Great Work. Of course I highly recommend that you read War and Peace. Even if I thought it did not live up to expectations, so what? Read it and form your own judgment. So, mainly for my own use, here’s my review. First, the fact that the book is one the Greatest of the Great Books (I mean, it’s *War and Peace*) does get in the way of just reading the book on its own terms, perhaps more than any work. But the book’s daunting length eventually cures you of that concern. Checking in at 1215 pages (including an Epilogue that is around 80 pages long), reading War and Peace is truly a marathon. I admit that at times it was a slog. I read the new translation by Richard Pevear, and Larissa Volokhonsky. From my limited research, the husband and wife seem to be generally considered as the best interpreters of Russian literature. How one judges a translation in a language one does not read is problematic, but so be it. A short summary: In the words of Woody Allen, it involves Russia. Ha-ha. Tolstoy basically follows the lives and fates of three families, all of them rather odd. Of course, hanging over all of them is the Napoleonic War. The story swings back and forth between the home front and the battlefields. Tolstoy’s realistic depictions of battle still seem quite modern in many ways – the fog of war, the wildly mixed emotions within each man’s breast, and the suddenness of death in battle. He also depicts life of the soldiers and life of the generals. The Rostovs are a noble family in Moscow who have hit hard times and are sliding toward disgrace. The story especially features the deeply annoying Natasha – what a helpless little drama queen! She moves from one crisis to the next, most of them either of her own making or exacerbated by her. Her brother Nikolai tries to perform heroic feats in battle. Little brother Petya provides the sudden tragedy. Over-protected Ma Ma provides the road to poverty with her witless insistence on living her normal life of luxury. The Rostoves are living examples of the need of proper Russian nobles to maintain appearances and of the men to be seen to protect the women (alas, not all Russian nobles are ‘proper’).We meet Pierre Bezukhov in the books first pages at a fancy party in comparatively racy Petersburg. He is then and remains always extraordinarily introspective and entirely susceptible to the needs of others. He begins quite poor, but his father the count acknowledges his paternity on his death bed. The count dies and suddenly Pierre is the wealthiest man in town. He also moves from one thing to the next, but never by half-measures; no dabbler is he. He marries disastrously (this wife later dies, during the occupation of Moscow, if memory serves). He joins and devotes himself to the Freemasons. He seeks to live a moral life despite his riches. Pierre always seems stunned like a duck that has been struck upon the head. ‘Dazed and confused’ might be going it a bit too far, but it gives the general idea. He is a space cadet. He is odd. He seeks out the Borodino battlefield and wonders around it. He narrowly misses being killed. At one point, Pierre ludicrously plans to assassinate Napoleon. Later during the occupation of Moscow, he is taken captive where he meets Karataev, a peasant with more sense than Pierre has ever experienced among the nobility. Well-rounded and grounded is Karataev and some of it rubs off on Pierre. He is eventually freed, falls in love with Natasha, and marries her in the first Epilogue – a fairy tale ending that Tolstoy somehow makes seem inevitable and necessary to the reader and thus acceptable. The Bolokhonsky’s are a noble family of some military notoriety and now ensconced at their Bald Hills Estate. At one time, son Andrei is to marry Natasha Rostov, but the demands of Andrei’s strange father manage to chill that idea (and then Natasha totally destroys it with an ill-conceived and idiotic fling). When war comes, Andrei signs on as aide-de-camp to Kutuzov. Andrei is intoxicated with the idea of glory and honor. He does lead an heroic charge and later organizes an artillery squadron’s even more heroic stand, but Andrei is seriously wounded. His near-death experience sends him spiraling downward. His love for Natasha flares up again, but then he is mortally wounded. Carried home, Andrei dies a long and painful death in her care.Tolstoy greatly admires the Russian general Kutuzov, who seems to have a mixed reputation among historians. He derides the ‘genius’ Napoleon. On the whole, however, Tolstoy eschews the Great Man approach to history. He regards the outcome of wars as controlled by great forces. In the second epilogue (Yes, there are really two epilogues!), Tolstoy makes it clear that he believes a divine power is the moving force behind man’s actions. He seems not mean, however, that this control occurs in a specifically direct way with the Big Guy with the Beard directing each step. As these things always do, the attempt to reconcile an almighty god with man’s free will becomes hopeless. Tolstoy would have done the reader a favor by leaving out the second epilogue. He should have left it, as he had developed through the course of the book, his rather fatalistic view that the great streams of history so control events that the ability of individual people to change its course is extremely limited.I have left great swaths of the book untouched. Suffice to say that I am already beginning to think that I need to re-read the book, just a few days after rejoicing when I at last turned the final page. The book is so vast that I begin to feel that one only gets a general grasp on the first reading.