Leo Tolstoy: War And Peace

[Stewart]

Go on then, who here has read it?

I tried once, many years ago, and got about four pages in. At the time I can remember thinking it boring, but more likely, in retrospect, I wasn't ready for it - be it the use of Russian patronymics or, indeed, the whole historical angle. I don't quite think I'm ready for it now, either, but it's there at the back of my mind.

[Hong]

I remembered that I left my English version behind in Canada. I have an inclination for thickish and lenthy books. War and Peace is amony my favorite 20. But if you like to try Tolstoy, his Resurrection is also a good start. I'll try to recall more details of the book to have the right to put something down here. What impressed me most was how a man as old as he could describe that vividly a picture of Natalia, a young lady/girl's soul?

[LizzySiddal]

I've read it 3 times. It is quite simply the greatest novel ever written and I'm not saying that because a similar statement once won me a bottle of wine!

I nominated it as my desert island book. Why? Because it contains the whole of human existence: love, hate, war, peace. Sweeping panoramic battlefields contrasting with intimate scenes of great tenderness. And lots of philosophy to ponder upon.

It's not simply a book. It's an experience!

[saliotthomas]

Whent i first saw the thread title,i was very curious at how lenghty a review it would have taken you to discribe this book.I'm a bit desapointed
It was ten years ago that on a impulse i grabbed it,wanting to be done with a book that has a reputation of been long and boring.I loved it,and as i re-read Anna karenina a short time ago i think i even prefere war and peace.Like Hong it would be in my 20 best(if not in the 10).
My memorie is not to fresh but i vividly remeber the caractere of Peter,idealiste forced to envision the reality life through his contact with war,the fire of Moscou.Also his loved story and a betrayal that sickened me at the time but prouved uninportant in the light of the events.
And as alway with Tolstoy a personage very like himself,the gentelman farmer,the healthy ancor of the book.
I shall try to make a proper review on Anna karenina

[Hong]

Originally Posted by Hong

I'll try to recall more details of the book to have the right to put something down here.

MYTWOSENTS:

Checked with a review on wiki and unexpectedly found that my memory of war and peace had become a bit fragmented. However I'd like to write down whatever came to my mind, hoping it could be acceptable. Nataha appears to be a literature figure that one could hardly unimpressed. Her love events with three men of different personality to me symbolize three forms of love that could happen to anyone in the world, as anyone could figured out. The first form which I characterized as spiritual love in essence, is presented in her first love with Andrie Bolkonsky, in that Andrie is intelligent and thoughtful, an intellectual figure, whom Natasha admired, showed respect with imperceptible distance (Did I project how I feel on her? Possibly.). The second form is what happened to her with Anatole (who planed to elope with the beautiful yet immature Natasha), which appears tobe much of taking flirts, playful, maybe sensual to some extent., for Anatole is a handsome playboy hardly with any sense of responsibility but vanity, whereas Natasha is misled at the time of her restless soul caused by the love with Andrie. This kind of love normally is as unsuccessful as the first kind will not be achievable. The last form is viable for its realistic basis, equality and mutual understanding, and her love extends through her marriage and motherhood, which probably represents Tolstoy’s idealistic vein in his personality, i.e. those who have suffered ought at lest to have a happy ending and a woman is complete when she has a husband and children (only my presumption though).

However, if Andrie Bolkonsky and his counterpart Pierre were both represented different personalities of Tolstoy, could we also say as it indicates that spiritual kind of love can hardly be actualized in life (I mean capable of existing in the world as well as in the stories). It can exist but only for one minute (as Andrie Bolkonsky died when both of them realized that they love each other.—this part is the one I thought I could remembered wrong though. Anyway. ) Yet, one minute is the eternity. Maybe that’s why Tolstoy shot it (to) death.

In fact, I have been thinking to comment it from some different angle, say, deconstruction angle, but nothing is willing to show up.

[humanoyd]

Originally Posted by LizzySiddal

I nominated it as my desert island book. Why? Because it contains the whole of human existence: love, hate, war, peace. ...

I've only read it once and totally agree that War and Piece is holds an extraordinary amount of experiences to those who dare to read it.
I believe that If i read it again, I'd find more and more details that failed to grasp on the first reading.

The philosophy behind characters like Natasha, Andrew, Peter, etc is timeless. I've indeed felt that they actually existed, that they actually there.

Even Tolstoy perspective of War, and how its its motivated, are truly unique. I specially remember when he states that Napoleon was just a reflex of the entire army, that he's decisions didn't decide if a battle is lost or won. That decision was inside every soldier that was part of that engine. An although this is logically true, history itself strives to dedicate the genius to the icons instead, making them eternal.

It is an incredible book. A truly masterpiece.

[Bromley]

I'd have to chip in and say I think it's the greatest novel ever written as well. It's hard to explain why, though, if you haven't read it, because it's not necessarily a plot-driven book.

It's more the fact that if you read the whole thing, you feel that you've lived through the Russian/French wars. So all the little details, which seem incidental at the time, add up to a massive picture of life.

Anyway, if you still haven't read it and you want to have a go, I'm conducting a challenge on my blog at the moment to read through War and Peace in one year by reading a chapter or two a day.

There's about 11 of us doing it, but we only started on 1 July, so you can quickly catch up if you want to join in.

The starting post that began it all is this one:

Read War and Peace - in just 10 minutes a day! The Relentless Pursuit of Cold Shivers


To everybody who's already read it - you already know how great it is - and I can completely understand reading it three times.

[Stewart]

Originally Posted by Bromley

I'd have to chip in and say I think it's the greatest novel ever written as well. It's hard to explain why, though, if you haven't read it, because it's not necessarily a plot-driven book.

I tried to read it years and years ago under the misguided belief that I had to. Needless to say, I didn't get too far. At the time though, I had a pinch less knowledge about that time period than I do now, by which I mean I still have none. One day, perhaps, I will come to it, as I quite enjoyed Tolstoy's smaller The Death Of Ivan Ilyich, and have both Anna Karenina and Resurrection on my shelves.

On the subject of translating War And Peace, I remember seeing a webcast of a talk Umberto Eco was doing at Harvard on translation, around the time Baudolino was released. He talked about how, because of the passages of French, there could not be a satisfactory translation to French of War And Peace, in the same way that an English translation can use those French passages, or a Chinese translation could translate the French to English. Rather complicated, but I'm sure he went into it in more detail in his book about translation as negotiation: Mouse Or Rat?

[Adr.]

My first post here and I'm going to jump in at the deep end. No, I have not read War and Peace yet (and I stress yet), but I recently bought the Anthony Briggs translation which, I have to say, on first glance looks eminently readable. Of the people here who've read it, which translation(s) have you read? Which one would you recommend? Does it really matter? (I suppose the answer to the latter is yes, of course it matters!)

[Mirabell]

Will be getting the P&V translation one of these days.

[adaorardor]

The Maudes' is really good. I think Tolstoy himself approved of it.

I'll be getting the P&V at some point, too, but not until it comes out in an Everyman's Library edition (on the Everyman website's sidebar they say it will come out in EL eventually).

And yes, it is that good. It seems to be fashionable nowadays to say that Anna Karenina is better, but I'm not sure about that at all. Both are of course masterworks.

[DavidZ]

War and Peace is one of the greatest books I have ever read. Well, I’m a bit of an insomniac so over a number of months I have listened to a reading of this book three times. It’s a lot easier on the eyes to listen to it! So I know the story quite well.

Stewart, yes the Russian patronymics can be a bit confusing. I have noticed in Russian literature that sometimes characters are referred to by their patronymic other times by their first name and surname.

The Russian patronymic is derived from the Christian name of the bearer's father. For example Fyodor Dostoyevsky's fathers name was Mikhail. Therefore Dostoyevky's patronymic is Mikhailovich which I believe literally means "of Mikhail". Which is a bit like the Scottish "Mac" which means "son of".
The patronymic is usually quoted between the Christian name and surname so Dostoyevsky's full name would be "Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky"

Hong, I tried reading “Resurrection”. I couldn't bear reading it, it was so sad and depressing more so than any other of Tolstoy's works that I have read. Well that's the effect it had on me. One day I will summon the courage to give it another go! I never picked up on your theory of the three types of love, I think you might be on to something there. I do agree that the ending is rather idealistic.

saliothomas, which betrayal sickened you the most Peters or Andrew's? For me it was Andrew's for many reasons, not least of which is that they both really did love each other but courtship was wrecked by the deranged old prince.

I totally endorse the reviews by Lizzy and humanoyd.

Bromley or should I say Matt I have left a comment on your blog for Book 9 chapter 8.

I prefer War And Peace to AK.

[SilverSeason]

I read War and Peace about two years ago in the Maude translation. I chose that translation because, according to some opinion, it is closer to the period and spirit of Tolstoy. I can read French a bit so those passages were ok for me. Upper class Russians did speak French. There is a story that Turgenev's mother instructed her children to pray in French because God should be addressed in a civilized language.

For from trying to get through W&P in 10 minutes a day, I had to ration myself to about 30 pages a day, so that I wouldn't finish too soon. I was not reading, I was experiencing an alternative life, one that I have to go back to some time.

I was struck by the change in tone between the first and second parts of the book. As I understand it, they came out separately, several years apart. The second part was less concerned with social detail and was more overtly philosophical.

One of the many things I liked about the book was Tolstoy wrestling with the big question of what determines outcomes in history. Do generals win battles or do battles create winning generals? His account of Napoleon's army drawn deeper and deeper into Russia was masterful. The French are winning, but they are far from home and at the mercy of the local people.

[Sevigne]

Why does Pierre tell his Masonic interlocutor that the love of women is his besetting sin? It's his damn passivity that gets him married to Helene & cheated by his stewards. It is his unwillingness or inability to make a decision that causes all his problems.

[SilverSeason]

Originally Posted by Sevigne

Why does Pierre tell his Masonic interlocutor that the love of women is his besetting sin? It's his damn passivity that gets him married to Helene & cheated by his stewards. It is his unwillingness or inability to make a decision that causes all his problems.

Interesting question. Perhaps Pierre's passivity, his go-along attitude, represents the passivity and slowness to change of Russia itself. As to his statement about his besetting sin, Pierre did not understand himself very well. He perceived his problem as caused by how attractive he found women, including women who did not have his best interest at heart. His problem was not that women attracted him, but how he responded to that attraction.

[JeremyDav]

I recently picked up a brand new Pevear and Volokhonsky translation. Will read it this summer

[jersea]

To tag onto war Silverseason said. Pierre in a sense still is slightly passive at the end of the book through his marriage to Natasha. He complies with her requests to be at home with her and the children. It is in this familiar realm that Pierre finds peace. He does experience a great transformation as Tolstoy has him assumes the role of the protagonist at the end of the story.

[jersea]

I just finished War and Peace. I enjoyed it very much. To me the best scene was the death scene of Prince Andrea. He was also my favorite character. I wish I could find that kind of peace and enlightenment toward humanity in my own life.

[promtbr]

Originally Posted by jersea

I just finished War and Peace. I enjoyed it very much. To me the best scene was the death scene of Prince Andrea. He was also my favorite character. I wish I could find that kind of peace and enlightenment toward humanity in my own life.

It is so cool this thread is re-surfaced! Tho I haven't yet read it to know if anyone died *spoiler tags* hint hint...

[Sevigne]

Oh, it doesn't matter what you know. War and Peace like The Illiad or Hamlet is all about the journey and not about where you arrive at the end. Each chapter, each scene can almost stand alone.

Originally Posted by promtbr

It is so cool this thread is re-surfaced! Tho I haven't yet read it to know if anyone died *spoiler tags* hint hint...