You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.09 AVERAGE
4.09 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
challenging
funny
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
A grand epic of literature, well deserving of its status. Tolstoy weaves an evocative story, capturing the life of Russian society during Napoleons invasion of Russia. An immersive narrative, equally engaging when on the front lines as in the Moscow balls. Tolstoy also spends reasonable time expounding on his ideas of historiography and notions of power and contractual power, etc.
Maybe I've been influenced too much by Dostoevskij's writing, maybe books about war aren't really for me.
Tolstoy falls a little short amongst all the Big Russians for me, but it was an interesting read nontheless
Tolstoy falls a little short amongst all the Big Russians for me, but it was an interesting read nontheless
dark
emotional
informative
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Well, four months later and I'm done.
I have conflicting feelings about having read it, I must have started it about 3 times back in December and had to go back to the beginning and restart, until I finally gave up and put up with the spoilers if only to be able to figure out who was who by getting a family tree, the first 100 pages fill you with so much information and characters it was difficult for me to get past them.
After you get through that though... It's a pretty history-heavy novel, to be expected, but there's a lot more reflection and personal conflict than what you would expect (Pierre's own questioning of his faith and life purpose is great to follow but made me hate him a little bit).
All in all, I'm glad I got through it but I think a re-read is much needed to fully appreciate it now that I'm more informed in the context and know more about the story. That probably won't happen for a while though.
I have conflicting feelings about having read it, I must have started it about 3 times back in December and had to go back to the beginning and restart, until I finally gave up and put up with the spoilers if only to be able to figure out who was who by getting a family tree, the first 100 pages fill you with so much information and characters it was difficult for me to get past them.
After you get through that though... It's a pretty history-heavy novel, to be expected, but there's a lot more reflection and personal conflict than what you would expect (Pierre's own questioning of his faith and life purpose is great to follow but made me hate him a little bit).
All in all, I'm glad I got through it but I think a re-read is much needed to fully appreciate it now that I'm more informed in the context and know more about the story. That probably won't happen for a while though.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
This book has single-handedly made me fall in love with classics. I have no desire to pick up any contemporary / modern works in the foreseeable future. I felt like I got hit in the face a million times by life itself just reading this.
It’s brilliant, I have no words. Also cried like 5 times
It’s brilliant, I have no words. Also cried like 5 times
It is a great piece. While very descriptive, it has the ability to bring your imagination into every scene. Totally worth it.
Speechless. Overwhelmed. I can’t believe I read and finished this behemoth of a novel. Making any attempt to convey its brilliance and the depth of my affection through a mere review feels inadequate. No combination of words can sufficiently capture the profound impact, so instead, I'll leave some of the many selection of quotes that I adore and let the sheer beauty of the writing speak for itself. <3
“—one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and now I do believe in it. Let the dead bury their dead, but while one has life one must live and be happy!”
“Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source."
“It was as if a light had been kindled in a carved and painted lantern and the intricate, skillful, artistic work on its sides, that previously seemed dark, coarse, and meaningless, was suddenly shown up in unexpected and striking beauty.”
“Above him was a clear blue sky, and the sun's vast orb quivered like a huge hollow, crimson float on the surface of that milky sea of mist."
“Platonic love, clouds”
“the harm I am conscious of in myself is something I cannot inflict on others”
“The old man was still sitting in the ornamental garden, like a fly impassive on the face of a loved one who is dead”
“Dear and precious Friend, How terrible and frightful a thing is separation! Though I tell myself that half my life and half my happiness are wrapped up in you, and that in spite of the distance separating us our hearts are united by indissoluble bonds”
"Why do I strive, why do I toil in this narrow, confined frame, when life, all life with all its joys, is open to me?"
“She felt herself a being accidentally forgotten in this world and left without aim or object for her existence. She ate, drank, slept, or kept awake, but did not live. Life gave her no new impressions. She wanted nothing from life but tranquillity, and that tranquillity only death could give her. But until death came she had to go on living, that is, to use her vital forces.”
“She felt sorry for herself: sorry that she was being wasted all this time and of no use to anyone—while she felt herself so capable of loving and being loved.”
“There is something so enchanting in the smile of melancholy, —It is a ray of light in the darkness, a shade between sadness and despair, showing the possibility of a consolation.”
“As soon as she heard his voice a vivid glow kindled in her face, lighting up both her sorrow and her joy.”
“The whole world is now for me divided into two halves: one half is she, and there all is joy, hope, light: the other half is everything where she is not, and there is all gloom and darkness....”
“I cannot help loving the light, it is not my fault.”
“Life as it is leaves one no peace.”
“Something stood sentinel within her and forbade her every joy.”
“…when you go hand in hand with someone and all at once that person vanishes there, into nowhere, and you yourself are left facing that abyss, and look in. And I have looked in....”
“The light was so strong and the snow sparkled with so many stars that one did not wish to look up at the sky and the real stars were unnoticed.”
“A joyful, unexpected frenzy, of which he had thought himself incapable, possessed him. The whole meaning of life—not for him alone but for the whole world—seemed to him centered in his love and the possibility of being loved by her. At times everybody seemed to him to be occupied with one thing only—his future happiness.”
“All we can know is that we know nothing. And that's the height of human wisdom.”
“Life did not stand still and it was necessary to live.”
“When loving with human love one may pass from love to hatred, but divine love cannot change. No, neither death nor anything else can destroy it. It is the very essence of the soul.”
“There is no greatness where simplicity, goodness, and truth are absent.”
“Modern history, like a deaf man, answers questions no one has asked.”
“Drain the blood from men's veins and put in water instead, then there will be no more war!”
“What causes historical events? Power. What is power? Power is the collective will of the people transferred to one person. Under what condition is the will of the people delegated to one person? On condition that that person expresses the will of the whole people. That is, power is power: in other words, power is a word the meaning of which we do not understand.”
“Pierre glanced up at the sky and the twinkling stars in its faraway depths. "And all that is me, all that is within me, and it is all I!”
“Who is right and who is wrong? No one! But if you are alive—live: tomorrow you'll die as I might have died an hour ago. And is it worth tormenting oneself, when one has only a moment of life in comparison with eternity?”
“In the darkness, it seemed as though a gloomy unseen river was flowing always in one direction, humming with whispers and talk and the sound of hoofs and wheels. Amid the general rumble, the groans and voices of the wounded were more distinctly heard than any other sound in the darkness of the night. The gloom that enveloped the army was filled with their groans, which seemed to melt into one with the darkness of the night.”
How much can you possibly expect from a book? ‘it is not a novel,’ Tolstoy wrote, even less is it an epic poem, and still less a historical chronicle.’
Thinking of the immense scale and complexity of his work leaves me in awe. The army is described like waves, as if a dam had burst, every soldier was but a drop in that ocean of men. Nature is sometimes used to contrast with the chaos of war and merges the elements of nature into his depiction of the battlefield, while the changing of the seasons reflect the nature of life, the passage of time, and the flux of human experiences.
There’s the moments of peace in war and war in peace. The staging of human activity, the movements of the characters are orchestrated by unseen forces, like invisible strings are attached to guide them, as if it were theatre. Oak trees, the sun, moon/moonlight and the gloomy mist being used in a symbolic sense in a moment of intense emotion. He exposes the harsh realities of death and questions the pursuit of glory by presenting characters who are driven by a strong desire for recognition, but later become disillusioned as they witness the horrors of the battle.
Tolstoy's examination of history goes beyond mere recounting of events and delves into the causes and dynamics that shape the processes often by using analogies to elucidate his reasonings. He can get repetitive at times in making his points and trying to ensure that we grasp what he is intending to say but for me personally it allowed for a deeper engagement with his ideas. I love a completely immersive reading experience.
The themes he covers; fate and free will, death and glory, social classes and inequality, human nature and morality, love and relationships, family and life, history and philosophy, war and peace. While people believe they have complete control over their actions, their decisions are often shaped by forces beyond their immediate control. The true understanding of history requires acknowledging the interplay of fate and free will and recognizing the limitations of human interpretation.
“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. All that is accessible to man is the relation of the life of the bee to other manifestations of life. And so it is with the purpose of historic characters and nations.”
“Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of history and predestined from eternity.”
“Each man lives for himself, using his freedom to attain his personal aims, and feels with his whole being that he can now do or abstain from doing this or that action; but as soon as he has done it, that action performed at a certain moment in time becomes irrevocable and belongs to history, in which it has not a free but a predestined significance.”
I loved especially reading about the transformative journey's of the characters and of their lives during the tumultuous historical period. Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov, Natasha Rostova, Sonya, Nikolai Rostov, Princess Marya, Lise, Denisov... whose individual stories intersect and interweave throughout the novel. From the grand events that shape their lives to the smallest nuances of their daily experiences, every encounter, every choice, and every consequence carries weight and meaning.
“I understood her," he thought. "I not only understood her, but it was just that inner, spiritual force, that sincerity, that frankness of soul—that very soul of hers which seemed to be fettered by her body—it was that soul I loved in her... loved so strongly and happily...”
“They went through their memories, smiling with pleasure: not the sad memories of old age, but poetic, youthful ones—those impressions of one's most distant past in which dreams and realities blend—and they laughed with quiet enjoyment.”
“Undoubtedly some relation exists between all who live contemporaneously”
also *insert Prince Anderi’s entire oak sequence & Pierre’s encounter with the comet of 1812*
“—one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and now I do believe in it. Let the dead bury their dead, but while one has life one must live and be happy!”
“Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source."
“It was as if a light had been kindled in a carved and painted lantern and the intricate, skillful, artistic work on its sides, that previously seemed dark, coarse, and meaningless, was suddenly shown up in unexpected and striking beauty.”
“Above him was a clear blue sky, and the sun's vast orb quivered like a huge hollow, crimson float on the surface of that milky sea of mist."
“Platonic love, clouds”
“the harm I am conscious of in myself is something I cannot inflict on others”
“The old man was still sitting in the ornamental garden, like a fly impassive on the face of a loved one who is dead”
“Dear and precious Friend, How terrible and frightful a thing is separation! Though I tell myself that half my life and half my happiness are wrapped up in you, and that in spite of the distance separating us our hearts are united by indissoluble bonds”
"Why do I strive, why do I toil in this narrow, confined frame, when life, all life with all its joys, is open to me?"
“She felt herself a being accidentally forgotten in this world and left without aim or object for her existence. She ate, drank, slept, or kept awake, but did not live. Life gave her no new impressions. She wanted nothing from life but tranquillity, and that tranquillity only death could give her. But until death came she had to go on living, that is, to use her vital forces.”
“She felt sorry for herself: sorry that she was being wasted all this time and of no use to anyone—while she felt herself so capable of loving and being loved.”
“There is something so enchanting in the smile of melancholy, —It is a ray of light in the darkness, a shade between sadness and despair, showing the possibility of a consolation.”
“As soon as she heard his voice a vivid glow kindled in her face, lighting up both her sorrow and her joy.”
“The whole world is now for me divided into two halves: one half is she, and there all is joy, hope, light: the other half is everything where she is not, and there is all gloom and darkness....”
“I cannot help loving the light, it is not my fault.”
“Life as it is leaves one no peace.”
“Something stood sentinel within her and forbade her every joy.”
“…when you go hand in hand with someone and all at once that person vanishes there, into nowhere, and you yourself are left facing that abyss, and look in. And I have looked in....”
“The light was so strong and the snow sparkled with so many stars that one did not wish to look up at the sky and the real stars were unnoticed.”
“A joyful, unexpected frenzy, of which he had thought himself incapable, possessed him. The whole meaning of life—not for him alone but for the whole world—seemed to him centered in his love and the possibility of being loved by her. At times everybody seemed to him to be occupied with one thing only—his future happiness.”
“All we can know is that we know nothing. And that's the height of human wisdom.”
“Life did not stand still and it was necessary to live.”
“When loving with human love one may pass from love to hatred, but divine love cannot change. No, neither death nor anything else can destroy it. It is the very essence of the soul.”
“There is no greatness where simplicity, goodness, and truth are absent.”
“Modern history, like a deaf man, answers questions no one has asked.”
“Drain the blood from men's veins and put in water instead, then there will be no more war!”
“What causes historical events? Power. What is power? Power is the collective will of the people transferred to one person. Under what condition is the will of the people delegated to one person? On condition that that person expresses the will of the whole people. That is, power is power: in other words, power is a word the meaning of which we do not understand.”
“Pierre glanced up at the sky and the twinkling stars in its faraway depths. "And all that is me, all that is within me, and it is all I!”
“Who is right and who is wrong? No one! But if you are alive—live: tomorrow you'll die as I might have died an hour ago. And is it worth tormenting oneself, when one has only a moment of life in comparison with eternity?”
“In the darkness, it seemed as though a gloomy unseen river was flowing always in one direction, humming with whispers and talk and the sound of hoofs and wheels. Amid the general rumble, the groans and voices of the wounded were more distinctly heard than any other sound in the darkness of the night. The gloom that enveloped the army was filled with their groans, which seemed to melt into one with the darkness of the night.”
How much can you possibly expect from a book? ‘it is not a novel,’ Tolstoy wrote, even less is it an epic poem, and still less a historical chronicle.’
Thinking of the immense scale and complexity of his work leaves me in awe. The army is described like waves, as if a dam had burst, every soldier was but a drop in that ocean of men. Nature is sometimes used to contrast with the chaos of war and merges the elements of nature into his depiction of the battlefield, while the changing of the seasons reflect the nature of life, the passage of time, and the flux of human experiences.
There’s the moments of peace in war and war in peace. The staging of human activity, the movements of the characters are orchestrated by unseen forces, like invisible strings are attached to guide them, as if it were theatre. Oak trees, the sun, moon/moonlight and the gloomy mist being used in a symbolic sense in a moment of intense emotion. He exposes the harsh realities of death and questions the pursuit of glory by presenting characters who are driven by a strong desire for recognition, but later become disillusioned as they witness the horrors of the battle.
Tolstoy's examination of history goes beyond mere recounting of events and delves into the causes and dynamics that shape the processes often by using analogies to elucidate his reasonings. He can get repetitive at times in making his points and trying to ensure that we grasp what he is intending to say but for me personally it allowed for a deeper engagement with his ideas. I love a completely immersive reading experience.
The themes he covers; fate and free will, death and glory, social classes and inequality, human nature and morality, love and relationships, family and life, history and philosophy, war and peace. While people believe they have complete control over their actions, their decisions are often shaped by forces beyond their immediate control. The true understanding of history requires acknowledging the interplay of fate and free will and recognizing the limitations of human interpretation.
“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. All that is accessible to man is the relation of the life of the bee to other manifestations of life. And so it is with the purpose of historic characters and nations.”
“Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of history and predestined from eternity.”
“Each man lives for himself, using his freedom to attain his personal aims, and feels with his whole being that he can now do or abstain from doing this or that action; but as soon as he has done it, that action performed at a certain moment in time becomes irrevocable and belongs to history, in which it has not a free but a predestined significance.”
I loved especially reading about the transformative journey's of the characters and of their lives during the tumultuous historical period. Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov, Natasha Rostova, Sonya, Nikolai Rostov, Princess Marya, Lise, Denisov... whose individual stories intersect and interweave throughout the novel. From the grand events that shape their lives to the smallest nuances of their daily experiences, every encounter, every choice, and every consequence carries weight and meaning.
“I understood her," he thought. "I not only understood her, but it was just that inner, spiritual force, that sincerity, that frankness of soul—that very soul of hers which seemed to be fettered by her body—it was that soul I loved in her... loved so strongly and happily...”
“They went through their memories, smiling with pleasure: not the sad memories of old age, but poetic, youthful ones—those impressions of one's most distant past in which dreams and realities blend—and they laughed with quiet enjoyment.”
“Undoubtedly some relation exists between all who live contemporaneously”
also *insert Prince Anderi’s entire oak sequence & Pierre’s encounter with the comet of 1812*
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No