War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of War and Peace
Book Review: Greatest Novel Ever!!!!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is by far the best book I have ever read for so many different reason. Tolstoy is absolutely my favorite author and he out did himself with this book. The realism, the historical background, and the depth of the characters made this book so great.Book Review: Hard to put down
Summary: 5 Stars
War and Peace has the handicap of being on almost every short list of "greatest novels of all time," and on many such lists in fact stands at the top. That, plus the size of the book and its huge cast of characters, makes it a little intimidating for those who are unused to Russian names and their numerous affectionate variations. Yet once one starts reading, the mantle of greatness falls away as a barrier with the discovery that this is a book that's very hard to put it down. Tolstoy had an amazing gift to bring each person who figures in his epic fully to life, the women no less than the men. He records not only what is said but, in many cases, what was thought but not openly expressed. Tolstoy has a surgeon's eye for what is going on beneath the surface.
As the title suggests, this is in part a book about war (the heroism, the horror, the chaos, the tragedy), but even more importantly it is a study of the spiritual development -- for several cases, the transformation -- of a number of people whose lives the reader follows closely over the course of years.
This my second reading of War and Peace. The first time around, 37 years ago when I was in prison for taking part in an act of civil disobedience protesting the Vietnam War, it was the translation done by Constance Garnett. She did ground-breaking work introducing English-language readers to Russian authors, but took a great many liberties with her translations.
This long-awaited new translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky is the most readable I know of, and (judging from the earlier translations) is probably the closest English-language edition of the Russian original, including the decision to retain French in all the places Tolstoy used it, with translation into English appearing as footnotes.
Tolstoy's masterpiece remains as vital today as it was when it was originally published.
Book Review: How to Read War and Peace, and Enjoy It Completely
Summary: 5 Stars
War and Peace is, without question, the greatest historical novel ever written.
However, if you carry a copy of War and Peace with you anywhere, you will be subjected to ridicule of many varieties. This, of course, says more about the critics than the reader. It tells us first that most people have largely lived their lives deprived of reading one of the most "need to read" books in Western literature.
The book and an understanding of it are essential for a classically liberal and comprehensive education in Western civilization. No other single book so completely expresses the essence of a critical age in history than War and Peace. As such, the central reason to read it is that it is an efficient window into who we are and how we got here.
The customary joking and ridicule also tells us that many people have been forced to read War and Peace in school, but never understood or appreciated it. That is a very sad state of affairs. It implies a kind of abuse that comes from forcing any good thing on someone just because it is deemed good for them and before they have a chance to understand and benefit from it.
I guess what I am saying is that this is not a book for the young or anyone else, unless the reader is prepared and coached along the way. The only way, indeed, a youthful reader can get the lessons of War and Peace is through extensive preparation and contextual education. War and Peace requires a whole course of background to be fully revealing and illuminating.
The purpose of my review of War and Peace is not to praise it or to evaluate its literary achievements. I am simply not an expert in a position to do that.
My purpose is to draw on my experience with the book and to provide prospective readers of all ages and backgrounds with an efficient but penetrating guide that will make the journey through the pages of the book come to life and swell with enjoyment and comprehension.
For now the review will have to be a work in progress. But in the end, I promise to provide a comprehensive plan of syntopical reading complete with travel suggestions that cement the standing of the book and equip the reader with the ability to disarm any critic and, more importantly, enjoy a life of interesting cocktail conversations upon completion of this great work.
In addition to this review, I recommend that anyone getting ready to mount the challenge of reading War and Peace can and should refer to the reading lists I separately provide on the Age of Napoleon and on the reading of War and Peace, as well as travel to and enjoyment of Paris, Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Book Review: I Can't Believe It, But I Want To Read It Again
Summary: 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.
Book Review: I don't get something...
Summary: 4 Stars
I guess I don't get something. If a book is a translation why retain the French. I thought it awfully difficult to keep reading the English footnotes for the French. Hell, if you're going to translate note that the words are in French then translate the French into English in the main text. After all, it's a translation!