Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.08 AVERAGE
4.08 AVERAGE
Beautiful and compelling drama, with just a slightly daunting size cast of characters and ends about 20 pages to late with a twenty page essay on history ending the novel with Tolstoy telling us everything he just spent 1200 pages showing us. Am really glad I got around to reading it. Not as good as Anna Karinena, just due to so many plots, but still, plenty of romance and religion and politics to be had.
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Tolstoy's a brilliant writer with a tremendous understanding of people's personal psychology and an unrivalled ability to create believable, multi-faceted, realistic characters. He's also a terrible philosopher, and too much of the latter part of this book consisted of him expounding on boring and self-evidently false theories of history and free will. So a great book, and one I'm pleased I've read, but not AS great as Anna Karenina or the best Nabokov novels.
p.s. [spoilers]: finishing one part of the book by making it seem like a main character has died in battle, then abruptly making him reappear at the most unlikely moment, is a little trite. Doing exactly the same thing again, with the same character, a few hundred pages later is just ridiculous, and actually made me swear and almost throw the novel down.
p.p.s. now this review seems too negative. I loved most of it. Any writer who sustains my interest for almost 1500 pages is doing a lot right.
p.s. [spoilers]: finishing one part of the book by making it seem like a main character has died in battle, then abruptly making him reappear at the most unlikely moment, is a little trite. Doing exactly the same thing again, with the same character, a few hundred pages later is just ridiculous, and actually made me swear and almost throw the novel down.
p.p.s. now this review seems too negative. I loved most of it. Any writer who sustains my interest for almost 1500 pages is doing a lot right.
War and Peace by Tolstoy 9/10
Tolstoy is an incredible writer and this fact is clearly demonstrated in his epic masterpiece, War and Peace. Though a bit slow at the start, once we have finally been introduced to all the main characters, the story weaves in and out of their lives in Russia which are occasionally interrupted by wars with Napoleon. While the novel is often praised for its thoughtful and philosophical treatment of history (and rightly so), the personal stories of life, love, and family are an emotional force carrying the reader along.
Tolstoy's two, truly lasting impressions on me are 1) how incredibly keen of an observer of human life he was, picking up on the smallest subtleties or tracing the complex and often confused motivations or drawing apart the knotted strings of society or bureaucracy. And 2) his unwavering moral character, not in the puritanical way of obsessing over parochial trivialities, but rather giving no quarter to rationalizations or persons of weak character - a duel is not men obligated to defend their honor, it is cowards incapable of extracting themselves from a self-destructive decision because they fear for something as petty as their social standing.
As a result, I found War and Peace and endless fountain of wisdom and joy. It's long, and at first a bit slow, but is relatively straight forward and I think very accessible. I strongly would recommend it to everyone.
Tolstoy is an incredible writer and this fact is clearly demonstrated in his epic masterpiece, War and Peace. Though a bit slow at the start, once we have finally been introduced to all the main characters, the story weaves in and out of their lives in Russia which are occasionally interrupted by wars with Napoleon. While the novel is often praised for its thoughtful and philosophical treatment of history (and rightly so), the personal stories of life, love, and family are an emotional force carrying the reader along.
Tolstoy's two, truly lasting impressions on me are 1) how incredibly keen of an observer of human life he was, picking up on the smallest subtleties or tracing the complex and often confused motivations or drawing apart the knotted strings of society or bureaucracy. And 2) his unwavering moral character, not in the puritanical way of obsessing over parochial trivialities, but rather giving no quarter to rationalizations or persons of weak character - a duel is not men obligated to defend their honor, it is cowards incapable of extracting themselves from a self-destructive decision because they fear for something as petty as their social standing.
As a result, I found War and Peace and endless fountain of wisdom and joy. It's long, and at first a bit slow, but is relatively straight forward and I think very accessible. I strongly would recommend it to everyone.
What a journey. At times I thought it would never end, but now I’m sad it has. Enjoyable (in places) and a slog in others. A worthwhile read, but commit.
One of those books I never thought I would get round to reading, always putting it off in favour of something else. Well, I've done it and honestly really enjoyed it.
Bis S60 gearbeitet.. Hofszenen.. puh ich tune aus
Peitsche ich mich jetzt ran? 20S gelesen.. gemerkt, dass mich die Thematik, das historische überhaupt nicht interessiert. Will überhaupt nicht die Gepflogenheiten & die Affekte von irgendwelchen Adeligen nachvollziehen, und Krieg / Napoleon interessiert mich nicht.
Anna Pawlowna Scherer S7
Fürst Wassili Kuragin S7
Anatol s11 - m. Tochter v. Bolkonski
Ippolit s12,20
Helene s13
Fürstin Lisa Bolkonskaja s13, m. Andrej S23,s48
Vincomte Mortemart s10
Abbe Morio s10
Pierre s15
..
Goodreads
"Anyway, one of the best things about reading this is how much of it is so strange so different! and how much is the same. The nuance, specificity, and instant recognizability of the characters in here is pretty amazing. I know this sounds dumb, but you really feel like you know these people, and in a way it's the minor characters -- Sonya, Anatole, Dolokhov (my favorite!) who are so perfectly drawn, and make you go, "Man! know these people! Woah!""
"What a GREAT and AMAZING book! Holy shit! I'm flipping through now, and it's all coming back to me. This was totally The Wire of 1868: If you like serious character development and plotting that unfolds over a long period of time, you should seriously read this book."
" I don’t have that wild drive anymore, except when I read “War and Peace”: Then I’m 12 years old again. (And with my bad memory, I’m able to read it as new every fifth year or so"
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/books/review/karl-ove-knausgaard-by-the-book.amp.html#:~:text=I don’t have that wild drive anymore%2C except when I read “War and Peace”%3A Then I’m 12 years old again. (And%20with%20my%20bad%20memory%2C%20I%E2%80%99m%20able%20to%20read%20it%20as%20new%20every%20fifth%20year%20or%20so
The book has some really amazing parts and some less good parts. Unfortunately the book is really long, so even the less good parts are really long.
I'd still recommend it though. The realism Tolstoy depicts his characters with has aged like fine wine.
I'd still recommend it though. The realism Tolstoy depicts his characters with has aged like fine wine.
This one takes awhile to read. I could have lived without Tolstoy's philosophizing about war, Napoleon, history, Napoleon, Russia, and Napoleon. The second epilogue in particular was a major snooze fest. Once I got all the characters straight in my head, I enjoyed the rest of the book. If you have the time to devote to it, it's worth a read.
TOOK ME OVER A YEAR TO FINISH THIS BUT I DID! THAT'S RIGHT! I DID. AND IT WAS FANTASTIC (i did NOT have to look up what was going on on Sparknotes every 2 pages)