Scan barcode
A review by ulanur
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
5.0
My bud Leo said "the subject matter of history is the life of peoples and humanity" and to try and express it in words is beyond possibility.
My disjointed ramblings:
– It's an immense panorama of humanity
– The range of human experiences from sublime happiness and joy of trivial everyday life, to the suffering and futility of war, from romantic frustration to bloody battlefields, intimate moments to sweeping observations of the tides if history, this book is described as the greatest novel ever written, not a novel at all (according to Tolstoy himself), a "fluid pudding" and a collection of "large, loose baggy monsters." Take your pick of definitions.
– Small lives make up big tapestries
– Life is lived under the impending shadow of death that hangs over everything
– Told mostly from an aristocratic perspective (as that's what the author knew), but emphasises that the highs and lows of life are fundamentally human and transcend all social trappings
– Somehow a hilarious character assassination of Napoleon (and all the "Greats" of history)
– A heartbreaking tale of love and loss
– A treatise on the horrors, futility and savagery of war and philosophical observations on the nature of recorded history
The beauty of W&P is that it leaves you with more questions than answers about the meaning of life, while promising that life is worth living. You come to the end of this epic tale but it somehow feels like you're still at the beginning of your journey.
I feel like my life is richer for having read it. And isn't that the point, in the end.
My disjointed ramblings:
– It's an immense panorama of humanity
– The range of human experiences from sublime happiness and joy of trivial everyday life, to the suffering and futility of war, from romantic frustration to bloody battlefields, intimate moments to sweeping observations of the tides if history, this book is described as the greatest novel ever written, not a novel at all (according to Tolstoy himself), a "fluid pudding" and a collection of "large, loose baggy monsters." Take your pick of definitions.
– Small lives make up big tapestries
– Life is lived under the impending shadow of death that hangs over everything
– Told mostly from an aristocratic perspective (as that's what the author knew), but emphasises that the highs and lows of life are fundamentally human and transcend all social trappings
– Somehow a hilarious character assassination of Napoleon (and all the "Greats" of history)
– A heartbreaking tale of love and loss
– A treatise on the horrors, futility and savagery of war and philosophical observations on the nature of recorded history
The beauty of W&P is that it leaves you with more questions than answers about the meaning of life, while promising that life is worth living. You come to the end of this epic tale but it somehow feels like you're still at the beginning of your journey.
I feel like my life is richer for having read it. And isn't that the point, in the end.