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dyno8426's review against another edition
5.0
The existence and prominence of wars always bring this unavoidable realisation and criticism of affecting people's lives for the worse due to the "higher level" decisions by those people who are the least affected by it. The inhumanness and destruction that a war is defined by brings out the irrational and regressive side of human progress where modernisation in warfare counteracts the universal benefits that every human civilisation aims at. In other words, it is always baffling to assume that in a world that we are inevitably sharing with others, the existence of wars signals something primitive and unrefined that clashes with the ideals of any progressive individualistic mindset. While individuals shirk away from physical manifestations of conflict, military establishments and destructive potential at scale exists and is considered necessary for collective survival and preservation of some shared identity. It is undeniable that historical milestones are marked by the immensity of battles and wars that have erected massive gravestones in our shared past. Wars shape history and it just leads one to think, from the peace and comfort of our present, that our individual lives are easily swept away by forces that are beyond our control - our identity and any practical extensions of it will get easily consumed and rendered inconsequential in the conditional sweep of a war. This reinforces the non-severable chaining of our collective fates; there are decisions and forces which we identify as the leaders of our area/region/country who hold some of the ends of these chains. It is enough to cause existential dread as all the histories of war-ravished civilisations tell us. The readiness to pick up arms, despite our growing ideals of one humanity, at the beckoning of other ideals of patriotism and partisanship is contradictory and conflicting. Tolstoy picks up this very nerve in the historical context and from the Russian perspective of Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1803. Through an arc that meanders through several years till Napoleon's retreat in 1813, Tolstoy unravels not only how naturally a society is affected by the destructions and fear of war, how it longs for peace, but also the very plasma that moves people and makes war possible and perpetrating at such massive scales. In the manner befitting Tolstoy, he integrates the differential of individual human experience to create the larger concept of forces that shape human civilisations and decide the course of human history.
The narrative consists of an ecosystem of brilliantly developed, classic Tolstoy characters, who are torn between virtue and vices, the consciousness of complacency and self-discovery affecting their life choices. Therefore, how they perceive the ideology of wars and man's role in them is reflected through their parts in the plot. Tolstoy's aristocratic background renders insightful colors to almost all the central characters who belong to aristocratic background, and therefore, are the middle agents between the giant powers like Napoleon (France) and Alexander (Russia). Their social position suitably serves in providing a varying perspective all throughout the battles and the intervals between it in witnessing the effects of impending battles on people of all levels. Andrew Bolkonoski is a prince who constantly looks at war and its glorified values disinterestedly, with a tinge of patriotism while having the awareness of people trying to leverage wars in gaining themselves medals, commendation and social upliftment through powerful contacts. Pierre Bezukhov on the other hand is the lost idealist who despite being influential as an ultra-rich count, clearly does not belong and care about the aristocratic image he has to uphold and instead is on an uncertain destination-bound journey towards the purpose that he is supposed to fulfill. Pierre's character arc was personally the most captivating and thrilling to me - I felt Tolstoy might have modeled Pierre closely on his ideologies. Natasha, being a count's daughter, grows shielded in the comforting and the conventional nest of aristocracy. She is a romantic that seeks love and radiates charm and liveliness, that contrasts the stressful and benumbing atmosphere of impending violence and destruction. Her contact with war and its effect happens through the people that she ends up loving. Apart from these, Nicholas, Natasha's brother, presents the reckless youth that seeks valor, entertainment, vigour and love amidst the glories and dangers of wars. His position as a rich count whose richness is deteriorating due to his mistakes shows the aging non-sustainability of all such nobility whose padded life makes them complacent towards change. Apart from these main four characters, there are other sidekicks which represent the upper-class landscape, the working class dependence that they upheld and how they tried to embrace war in the patriotism of their Fatherland, or runaway in the realistic confrontation of their own mortality.
Tolstoy presents such a wide panorama of a war-plagued country that covers balls where the rich people use war developments as leisure-talk, to the live warfront where real actions of human lives and deaths are happening. It makes the readers revolve around the original thought of how it is the peace and comfort of your everyday person, the people trying to make a living, the soldiers running headlong into the front nervously and shakingly that feeds wars that originate through conflicts over ideals and opinions. The reductionist perception of viewing a war through numbers, the victors/losers, the leaders who led, lived and died, does in no way convey the reality of war. Instead historical events like these disregard the individuality of people involved in it and makes us question the absoluteness of our own. It looks like our fate is not in our own hands. Our free will seems to dissolve into insignificance, and consequently, our entire purpose/meaning of existence when faced with such a contradiction of arbitrary wills. And this is where Tolstoy, - like a master of his craft of creating ultra-rich prose - conveys the intent behind this gargantuan journey.
The reductionist view of historians is consistently criticised and corrected by the author - where it appears as if it is solely the decision of the power-wielders that decide the way a war proceeds or when peace is resorted as an option. He refutes such a simple thing as commanding certain maneuvers in the battlefield which does not go according to plan. It is only in the retrospect and comfort of having the knowledge of outcomes do we analyse and with the confirmation bias of our own opinion attribute the outcomes of arbitrary events as somebody's will, genius, oversight, foolishness, or power to command. Tolstoy challenges anyone who praises Napoleon for his genius in winning against a much larger and formidable opponent as Russia, and criticises the same person for overlooking the simplest way to strengthen their position by holding Moscow after they had invaded it. Using our characters as direct viewers of the people supposedly calling the shorts, Tolstoy emphasizes the real existence of power outside the minds of leaders and inside the innumerable factors which affect the "spirit" of the armies. The fallacious interpretation of the incredible victories and obvious mistakes of the commanders is revealed when the readers realise how during the dynamic progress of any battle, making theoretical strategies and decisions to create a winning position, all is in constant flux and uncertainty that it's almost impossible to predict it enough to win it. Like the mistake of viewing the effects of war one-dimensionally, the causes and responsibility of any war's victory/loss can be mistakenly unloaded onto the power wielders. Tolstoy's story consistently reinforces this through developing a story of how historical events are supposed to be viewed and analysed. By bringing us in direct contact with Napoleon, the emperor, their perception of the people who come in contact with them and how they influence the "spirit" of people tells us how power is actually a relationship between the one who leads and those who are led. This relationship is not controlled and shaped just by the leaders, but also through the very people who form the bone and marrow of any war, and for whose peace the entire war is being waged. By questioning what moves a nation of people to follow their leaders into something that might obliviate their existence is what the story's ideology exists for.
Tolstoy's conclusion and ideological discourse reaches its emphatic power in the epilogue section where he summarizes and shares his intention behind analysing one of the most important events in Russian history - where he talks about how to place the quantum of individual free will with respect to the inevitability of the infinite continuum of factors which are directing our individual fates in the collective stream of codependent existence. At all points, the parallels he draws to bring home his idea is mind-blowing - like comparing the "essence" of life that exists beyond human consciousness in terms of natural laws and the inescapable existence that our "reason" forces us to accept. It ends up establishing a framework to analyse historical events and roles of human beings in it - how to properly evaluate the free-will that exists in the plans that constitute events like wars against the arbitrary forces that leave no other option from king to soldier except heading towards destruction or winning against incredible odds. Do not downplay this epilogue - it's like that powerful crescendo of symphony which elevates the listener and concludes the entire piece with an impression that lasts beyond its form. This TED-Ed video mentions that while it is daunting to pick a mammoth prose like War and Peace, I totally get now what it means when they say - "This book is the sum total of Tolstoy's imagination" - it is an essential experience that is made richer by its abundance and generosity of thought.
The narrative consists of an ecosystem of brilliantly developed, classic Tolstoy characters, who are torn between virtue and vices, the consciousness of complacency and self-discovery affecting their life choices. Therefore, how they perceive the ideology of wars and man's role in them is reflected through their parts in the plot. Tolstoy's aristocratic background renders insightful colors to almost all the central characters who belong to aristocratic background, and therefore, are the middle agents between the giant powers like Napoleon (France) and Alexander (Russia). Their social position suitably serves in providing a varying perspective all throughout the battles and the intervals between it in witnessing the effects of impending battles on people of all levels. Andrew Bolkonoski is a prince who constantly looks at war and its glorified values disinterestedly, with a tinge of patriotism while having the awareness of people trying to leverage wars in gaining themselves medals, commendation and social upliftment through powerful contacts. Pierre Bezukhov on the other hand is the lost idealist who despite being influential as an ultra-rich count, clearly does not belong and care about the aristocratic image he has to uphold and instead is on an uncertain destination-bound journey towards the purpose that he is supposed to fulfill. Pierre's character arc was personally the most captivating and thrilling to me - I felt Tolstoy might have modeled Pierre closely on his ideologies. Natasha, being a count's daughter, grows shielded in the comforting and the conventional nest of aristocracy. She is a romantic that seeks love and radiates charm and liveliness, that contrasts the stressful and benumbing atmosphere of impending violence and destruction. Her contact with war and its effect happens through the people that she ends up loving. Apart from these, Nicholas, Natasha's brother, presents the reckless youth that seeks valor, entertainment, vigour and love amidst the glories and dangers of wars. His position as a rich count whose richness is deteriorating due to his mistakes shows the aging non-sustainability of all such nobility whose padded life makes them complacent towards change. Apart from these main four characters, there are other sidekicks which represent the upper-class landscape, the working class dependence that they upheld and how they tried to embrace war in the patriotism of their Fatherland, or runaway in the realistic confrontation of their own mortality.
Tolstoy presents such a wide panorama of a war-plagued country that covers balls where the rich people use war developments as leisure-talk, to the live warfront where real actions of human lives and deaths are happening. It makes the readers revolve around the original thought of how it is the peace and comfort of your everyday person, the people trying to make a living, the soldiers running headlong into the front nervously and shakingly that feeds wars that originate through conflicts over ideals and opinions. The reductionist perception of viewing a war through numbers, the victors/losers, the leaders who led, lived and died, does in no way convey the reality of war. Instead historical events like these disregard the individuality of people involved in it and makes us question the absoluteness of our own. It looks like our fate is not in our own hands. Our free will seems to dissolve into insignificance, and consequently, our entire purpose/meaning of existence when faced with such a contradiction of arbitrary wills. And this is where Tolstoy, - like a master of his craft of creating ultra-rich prose - conveys the intent behind this gargantuan journey.
The reductionist view of historians is consistently criticised and corrected by the author - where it appears as if it is solely the decision of the power-wielders that decide the way a war proceeds or when peace is resorted as an option. He refutes such a simple thing as commanding certain maneuvers in the battlefield which does not go according to plan. It is only in the retrospect and comfort of having the knowledge of outcomes do we analyse and with the confirmation bias of our own opinion attribute the outcomes of arbitrary events as somebody's will, genius, oversight, foolishness, or power to command. Tolstoy challenges anyone who praises Napoleon for his genius in winning against a much larger and formidable opponent as Russia, and criticises the same person for overlooking the simplest way to strengthen their position by holding Moscow after they had invaded it. Using our characters as direct viewers of the people supposedly calling the shorts, Tolstoy emphasizes the real existence of power outside the minds of leaders and inside the innumerable factors which affect the "spirit" of the armies. The fallacious interpretation of the incredible victories and obvious mistakes of the commanders is revealed when the readers realise how during the dynamic progress of any battle, making theoretical strategies and decisions to create a winning position, all is in constant flux and uncertainty that it's almost impossible to predict it enough to win it. Like the mistake of viewing the effects of war one-dimensionally, the causes and responsibility of any war's victory/loss can be mistakenly unloaded onto the power wielders. Tolstoy's story consistently reinforces this through developing a story of how historical events are supposed to be viewed and analysed. By bringing us in direct contact with Napoleon, the emperor, their perception of the people who come in contact with them and how they influence the "spirit" of people tells us how power is actually a relationship between the one who leads and those who are led. This relationship is not controlled and shaped just by the leaders, but also through the very people who form the bone and marrow of any war, and for whose peace the entire war is being waged. By questioning what moves a nation of people to follow their leaders into something that might obliviate their existence is what the story's ideology exists for.
Tolstoy's conclusion and ideological discourse reaches its emphatic power in the epilogue section where he summarizes and shares his intention behind analysing one of the most important events in Russian history - where he talks about how to place the quantum of individual free will with respect to the inevitability of the infinite continuum of factors which are directing our individual fates in the collective stream of codependent existence. At all points, the parallels he draws to bring home his idea is mind-blowing - like comparing the "essence" of life that exists beyond human consciousness in terms of natural laws and the inescapable existence that our "reason" forces us to accept. It ends up establishing a framework to analyse historical events and roles of human beings in it - how to properly evaluate the free-will that exists in the plans that constitute events like wars against the arbitrary forces that leave no other option from king to soldier except heading towards destruction or winning against incredible odds. Do not downplay this epilogue - it's like that powerful crescendo of symphony which elevates the listener and concludes the entire piece with an impression that lasts beyond its form. This TED-Ed video mentions that while it is daunting to pick a mammoth prose like War and Peace, I totally get now what it means when they say - "This book is the sum total of Tolstoy's imagination" - it is an essential experience that is made richer by its abundance and generosity of thought.
timmytunter's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Violence, Death, and War
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Transphobia, Confinement, Sexism, Classism, Infidelity, and Ableism
Minor: Racism
iolair's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
4.5
hikerandbiker's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
bridgeman98's review against another edition
emotional
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? It's complicated
4.0
heather_boo's review against another edition
4.0
I learned a great deal about history and battle during the early nineteenth century. The story changes between the drawing rooms of Russia to the battlefield. I’m quite sure no better battle scenes have been written. When I correlate with historical fact the events are accurate for the majority. There are many philosophical deviations, and Tolstoy clearly wanted to impart his thoughts on how history is documented.
lottie1803's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
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? Yes
5.0
lucaswalzer's review against another edition
5.0
Yes, I definitely read the novel “War and Peace” and definitely didn’t watch the 7 hour film by Russian filmmaker Sergei Bondarchuk, which contained some of the finest directing, production design, and cinematography ever conceived for the screen; I also definitely didn’t spend 50 dollars on the Criterion blu ray and watch it all in one sitting…
Anyways, here’s a hard-ass quote from the film that may or may not have moved me to tears.
“Never, to the end of his life, had he the least comprehension of goodness, of beauty or of truth, or of the
significance of his actions, which were too contrary to goodness and truth, too remote from everything human for him ever to understand their meaning.”
Anyways, here’s a hard-ass quote from the film that may or may not have moved me to tears.
“Never, to the end of his life, had he the least comprehension of goodness, of beauty or of truth, or of the
significance of his actions, which were too contrary to goodness and truth, too remote from everything human for him ever to understand their meaning.”
dennyb1's review against another edition
5.0
Mai avrei pensato, leggendo Guerra e Pace, di ritrovarmi di fronte a un libro trascinante come pochi, avvincente, luminoso, potente e contenente un personaggio indimenticabile come il principe Andrej (che ho amato all’istante). Guerra e Pace non sembra essere stato scritto da un uomo bensì da un Dio che conosce tutti gli aspetti e i segreti dell’esistenza.