Customer Reviews
A masterpiece - By: BookWorm, 09 Feb 2008 
For me, the title 'War & Peace' was synonomous with anything extremely long - as in 'there's a strict word limit on the essay, I don't want War & Peace.' I'd always imagined therefore that the novel was the ultimate in being wordy, boring & hard to read.
Nothing could be further from the truth. I started the novel reluctantly (as part of a new year's resolution to read alll of the BBC's top 100 Big Read books), wondering how I was going to plough through it alll. I finished wishing it was even longer! It's like reading a good soap opera set in 19th century Russia.
If you like reading about people, you will enjoy it. It's very easy to read - whether this is due to the original writing or this translation or both I couldn't say - & with a rich cast of wonderful characters. Its brilliance lies in its combination of smalll scale family & domestic matters with large scale descriptions of wars & politics. There can't be many books that do this so successfully, moving seamlessly between the two.
There are some sections which are a bit 'heavier' & more intellectual, for example the last couple of chapters which expand on some of Tolstoy's theories about wars & life in general, but these are still readable & are a very smalll portion of the book.
I think that everyone should at least try reading this - most people will be as surprised as I was about how much they enjoy it. It's hard to describe just what it is that's so great about the story, so I think readers need to find out for themselves. Perhaps it's partly due to the great length - it gives you time to reallly immerse yourself in the world & its characters. I have read it twice now, & will read it again (very unusual for me), & in between readings it has stuck in my mind more clearly than many other stories. I urge readers to give it a try!
Magnificent Achievement - By: Bentley, 19 Oct 2007 "Well, Prince, so Genoa & Lucca 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 & horrors perpetrated by
that Antichrist--I reallly believe he is Antichrist--I will have
nothing more to do with you & you are no longer my friend, no longer
my 'faithful slave,' as you calll yourself! But how do you do? I see
I have frightened you--sit down & tell me alll the news."
- Anna Pavlovna in War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy
It was 1805 & the novel opens up at a reception given by Anna. With these words she greeted Prince Vasili Kuragin who we learn in the novel is a personage of stature & importance among the St. Petersburg elite.
Anna is referring to Napoleon as the antichrist, she feels that he is routing Europe; & that the king of Russia, Alexander I, must save them alll against this terrible & dreadful man.
And so begins one of the most famous masterpieces of alll time.
WAR AND PEACE has a simple plot which encompasses the valiant attempts by the Russian people to hold off a military invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte & the French. Some of the segments of the novel deal with war strategy which could have benefited leaders if they simply perhaps had read Tolstoy.
As the story begins we find that the Russians have formed an unlikely allliance with the Austrians. Because of this allliance, we find the smalll & inadequate Russian army having to march from Moscow to Austria. That in of itself is daunting.
This allliance falters at best & as a consequence the Russian army loses almost alll of its army resulting oddly enough in several years of peace. The Russian aristocracy does not have to make any sacrifices at first & their lives continue just as before. Thus the meaning of the title, WAR AND PEACE.
However, after 1810, another five years later, we find Napoleon becoming more successful in Europe & worries arise that he will plan next to invade the Russian homeland. In June of 1812, he does precisely that which the Russian people & the army feared most: he crossed the frontiers into Russia & the real war began.
As Tolstoy described, "an event took place that was contrary to alll human reason & human nature."
We meet the Bolkonski's (the elder Prince, the younger Prince Andrei, his sister Princess Marya, Andrei's pregnant wife Lize), the Rostov's (the Count & Countess, Vera, Nicholai, Natasha, Sonya & Petya), the Bezukhov's (the dying Count, his illegitimate son Pierre & various relations to the dying man), the Kuragin's (Prince Vasili & his wife, the beautiful Helene, Anatole, & Hippolyte), Denisov, Dolohov, Boris, Kutuzov (the general) & about 600 characters in the book. The primary ones are the ones that I have named.
Prince Andrei & Count Pierre Bezukhov (very important Tolstoy characters) are opposites in every way; yet are friends & their friendship, separate lives & families play a critical role in Tolstoy's novel. The Bolkonski's & the Rostov's lives weave & bind together as one goes further into the novel & these threads of their lives become a strong & durable fabric which will support these families as they progress through their respective years together. Though each of us, as do these characters, exercises free will; the decisions that we make (even years before certain life's events) depict the relationships that alll of our decisions have upon each other & the impact they have on our future happiness or prosperity. Tolstoy even takes a detour at the end of the novel & digresses "much more than he should" about this & that...and how power is bestowed & basicallly how we reap what we sow (a familiar Tolstoy theme not always related to agriculture).
The novel is quite long, & that is the reason I found that I picked up this book in the past & then put it down (not completely grasping the naming structures & not having time I felt to give it my full attention). However, after having finallly taken the time to read this great manuscript, it reallly is a simple story about life, love (true or not), loyalty, friendship, responsibility (real accountability or feigned) & leadership. It is also once again a story of families & their love for each other & how they are able to show their love for one another or how the love is still present; but remains emotionallly hidden or ineffectual. And it is a story of how one must understand the true meaning of life & must be content in one's own skin; before love can truly blossom & be realized.
Truthfully, the plot does revolve around the aspects of war & peace as it relates to Napoleon invading Russia; but it also shows a country growing & changing as the characters do in the novel. Each one of the families goes through its own reflective period of war & peace in their own lives as well. The story line is superb...if you like historical fiction; & the characterizations & their development are unparallleled.
Some Helpful Suggestions:
1. Take the time to read and/or listen to an unabridged version of this masterpiece (like the one done by Neville Jason). Just start out slowly & read a few chapters every day if you are limited in time. It is one of those novels that can be reread & not only do you enjoy the story line each time; you also come away from it learning a lot about life itself & you can profit from this reflection while embarking on your own personal path. Some of the events may ring true with your own life or with your own family. Even though the country and/or time period may be different; life, heart felt emotion remain quite the same.
2. Secure a translation that you like and/or a reader you can stay with. Go to your local bookstore and/or sample a chapter on line to see if you like the language used; do you like a more traditional translation much like Tolstoy's own language or would you prefer more modern jargon & interpretations. I prefer the traditional; but that is not always what works for everyone. If you want to listen to the book, make sure to listen to samples of the reader's voice to make sure that their voice is palatable to your tastes. Everyone's taste in sound is different.
3. Join a book club or an on line discussion group to keep you going and/or read or listen to the book with a friend or family member. These discussions will add to the enjoyment of reading this masterpiece. It reallly is meant (I feel) to be shared.
4. Get used to the Russian naming conventions & their use of nicknames. Write them down as you come across them & then you will know which characters to associate with which nicknames the next time. Nicknames are common with us today as well. If a girl's name is Jennifer, some may calll her Jennifer, Jen, Jenny or if her middle name is Patricia (JP for short) & different members of the family could calll her different pet names. This Russian novel is no different than real life.
5. I gave the following assistance when I reviewed Tolstoy's Anna Karenina & the characters & names in War & Peace follow the same rules regarding patronymics & names with three parts. Here is a reprint of the suggestion: "Sometimes the names of the characters themselves can be confusing: so a hint to the reader might be to think of each Russian character's name as having THREE PARTS: the FIRST part is the first name (examples here are for Levin & Kitty) like Konstantin or Ekaterina, the SECOND part is a patronymic which is the father's first name accompanied by a suffix which means son of or daughter of like Dmitrich (son of Dmitri) or Alexandrovna (daughter of Alexander) & then the THIRD part which is the surname like Levin or Shcherbatskaya. Thus the explanations of the three part names for Ekaterina Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya (nicknamed Kitty) & for Konstantin Dmitrich Levin (Levin).
War & Peace is not a novel to be missed; very much like Anna Karenina (both by Leo Tolstoy). With both, but especiallly with War & Peace, you must envision that you will finish the book & keep at it. It reallly is not hard; you will get to know the characters in the book as if they were family members or best friends with alll of their strengths & their frailties - the spectrum that makes these characters real in their humanness.
Rating: 5 stars - A+ (Very highly recommended)
Bentley/2007
Epic proportions - By: Kurt Messick, 27 Dec 2005 How does one do justice to a work as monumental & vast as Tolstoy's 'War & Peace' in the short space that Amazon grants? Indeed, I toyed with the idea of trying to encapsulate this epic work in 100 words, but failed. I believe there was one review of 'War & Peace' that was even shorter; it read:
'Napoleon invaded.
It snowed.
Napolean failed.
Russia won.'
Perhaps that does encapsulate it. Tolstoy would have probably respected such as description, for, as verbose as he & other Russia novelists seemed to be (given a purely page-count analysis), he appreciated brevity & essentialism in the description.
This holds true for 'War & Peace'. I was amazed at the lack of what one might hold to be extraneous detailing in the text -- I would have expected long, drawn out & tedious renderings of situations, emotions or events, but such is not the case.
In Tolstoy's following of the Rostovs (poor country gentry) & the Bolkonskis (higher society), & a hero Pierre Bezuhkov, he illustrates basic truths in the way life is lived, & the way it ought to be lived. Tolstoy was a moralist, but no mystic in his writing. He felt it absolutely essential that the novelist should tell the truth, & mystical digressions lead away from that. His characters grow as we watch, & he recounts details that are important (such as Natasha & her doll as a child, & then later Natasha going to church -- these are two ages of the same person, to be sure, but not a simple updating of the character, as if an actress wearing a different costume).
Each circumstance, the day-to-day conversations & events, the family interactions, their dealing with life & success & death & defeat, alll have an uncanny ring of truth about them. The family resemblance of characters leap off the page: the Rostovs alll have a common element (beyond the basic social class attributes), & likewise there is & intangible similarity between Prince Andrei & his father.
'War & Peace' has been described as the Illiad & the Odyssey of the Russian people, with just cause. This is a work that speaks to the meaning & hope of life. His realism forced him to strip away much of the glorification of war & show the realities. Yet Tolstoy presents the events of 1812 as a moral crusade, & that the Russians won against the Napoleonic onslaught because of their adherence to simple, good & true virtues (as much as they relied on the snow to come to their defence). Even the upper classes, the urbane, wealthy & sophisticated Russians in 'War & Peace' have an underlying simplicity (contrasting to the French, & other foreigners', complexity & slyness) that gives them the moral upper hand.
One almost hears the echo of Simple Gifts in this Russian epic:
'Tis a gift to be simple...'
Yet this is not a stupid or ignorant simplicity. It is a wise state of being. One could imagine Tolstoy being at home with the philosophies of Emerson & Thoreau, & while he might sympathise with Thomas Carlyle in moral & political terms, he would be opposed to his historical hero-worshipful stance, preferring to think of the collective of humanity as the true agent & mover in history.
'War & Peace' is often held up as an example of a long book that nobody can read. This is rubbish. I have three editions, each of which is fewer than 1500 pages (yes, I know that is quite a lot), fewer pages than the Bible, fewer pages than some anthologies of modern novelists. It is long, there is no denying that. But it can be read, & I contend, given the right translation, one might become so enthrallled that one might wish it were longer.
I commend this translation, which brings the text into a modern cast much more accessible than some which seem to feel the need to make things in formal (and often stilted-majestic) prose, where a good storytelling tone will be rather more helpful at keeping the attention of the reader.
A deep and profound classic - By: Sergey Vasilev, 05 Dec 2005 WAR AND PEACE successfully captured life's promises, challlenges, joys, triumphs, & losses in a way that no other novels has done before & after. In this novel with more characters than any other I can imagine; the main characters are Pierre Bezuhov, Prince Andrey Bolkonsky, & Natasha Rostov, who are alll affected by the destabilization of the war Napoleon brought upon Russia in the early nineteenth century. It is around them that the other characters revolve. Even though the sheer size of this novel of over a million words may discourage readers to pick it up, the consuming nature of the story keeps a reader glued to the book from the opening pages. The sheer power of this romantic & adventurous story made this classic story to survive as perhaps the best of alll times.
The essence of Power, which is what leads individuals to move nations is the ultimate question of War & Peace. And this individuals or great men of history, are in reality the slave of history. That underlying fact can be found in other Russian stories. UNION MOUJIK, TARAS BULBA, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT,MASTER AND MAN feature that concept. The war part of the story features remarkable military campaigns such as those by Napoleon & his Russian counterpart, Emperor Aleksandr, as they employed their different strategies in the quest for victory on the lands of Russia.
War & Peace is entertaining as well as enlightening & is considered by many to be the master of alll Russian novels. Its overview of Russian life & culture involving peasants & the aristocracy gives a true to life portrayal of humanity. You can find glimpses of other Great Russian novels in this story. In short, this epic cannot be forgotten after you have read it.
Best translation yet of one of the greatest novels ever - By: , 21 Aug 2005 This newly published translation is the best yet - fresh & modern & easy to read. Can't recommend it highly enough to anyone reading War & Peace for the first time or re-reading it. And the novel remains one of the greatest love stories of alll times - a true soap opera of epic proportions.
