Take a photo of a barcode or cover
henrycooke 's review for:
War and Peace
by Leo Tolstoy
Six months of my reading life, with brief breaks for Novels of National Importance (Ali Smith). Consumed in small glimpses before sleep while covering an election, in moderate doses during hungover baths, and in huge gulps on Northland beaches. Ironically this is a book both well-suited for a Kindle (too fucking heavy) and ill-suited (too many footnotes and non-translated French.)
I read the husband and wife translation after trying two others for the first chapter and reading a few reviews. It seemed to both capture the Tolstoy weirdness while being very readable. I was attempting to learn French on DuoLingo as I started the book, so was able to translate some parts of the French, but not much of it.
As someone quoted in the introduction says, Tolstoy seems able to write life itself. Everything is here, but not in some kind of put-upon stream of consciousness thing, more in that he can effortlessly bounce between a close third-person narrative, zoomed out historical analysis, and quite lovely "people's relations to others are essentially the same everywhere". The length lets you really get sunk into how each of the families work, and into the personal failings of almost every man in the book, even Pierre, who at times appears to get above it all but is mostly just grasping around for personal satisfaction throughout the book.
My favourite sections of the book were generally the gossipy parties full of grandiloquent political statements and discussions. None of the balls quite hits as hard as the first ball in Anna Karenina, but one man can only write so much greatness.
That said, I found the section leading up to and just after the invasion of Moscow to be the best. Tolstoy is at his best confidently describing absolutes in a way modern writers shy away from - when he says that approaching danger makes every man (lol) think simultaneously of two voices, "one quite reasonably tells the man to consider the properties of the danger and the means of saving himself from it; the other says still more reasonably that it is too painful and tormenting t think about the danger, when it is not in man's power to foresee everything and save himself from the general course of things, and therefore it is better to turn away rom the painful things until they come and think about what is pleasant." He then notes that the first voice is powerful when one is alone and the second when one is with company. This is the kind of writing that lets you put down things like the "all unhappy families line" and for it to survive through the ages not just as an aphorism but as a start to an incredible novel.
I also loved basically any scene with Natasha, whether she was singing in another room or at a ball or at her uncle's estate. The scenes of her insisting the wounded be carried instead of the Rostov's possessions out of Moscow is particularly touching.
I found the battle scenes fine but boring at parts. Tolstoy's essential thesis about battles and history in general - that commanders have little real influence over events - is restated to the point of absurdity. I didn't mind the occasional historical essay throughout the book but found the 40-pager that ends the book a bit of a slog, and one that left a sour note after a book that was essentially about rich people loving each other in a time of turmoil.
And this is a novel about rich people. Serfs are either a scary other or blessedly obedient. Tolstoy was clearly interested in agri-politics but was still a product of his time and class, and thus really struggles to see anyone who is not a noble as much of a real person. Ah well.
I read the husband and wife translation after trying two others for the first chapter and reading a few reviews. It seemed to both capture the Tolstoy weirdness while being very readable. I was attempting to learn French on DuoLingo as I started the book, so was able to translate some parts of the French, but not much of it.
As someone quoted in the introduction says, Tolstoy seems able to write life itself. Everything is here, but not in some kind of put-upon stream of consciousness thing, more in that he can effortlessly bounce between a close third-person narrative, zoomed out historical analysis, and quite lovely "people's relations to others are essentially the same everywhere". The length lets you really get sunk into how each of the families work, and into the personal failings of almost every man in the book, even Pierre, who at times appears to get above it all but is mostly just grasping around for personal satisfaction throughout the book.
My favourite sections of the book were generally the gossipy parties full of grandiloquent political statements and discussions. None of the balls quite hits as hard as the first ball in Anna Karenina, but one man can only write so much greatness.
That said, I found the section leading up to and just after the invasion of Moscow to be the best. Tolstoy is at his best confidently describing absolutes in a way modern writers shy away from - when he says that approaching danger makes every man (lol) think simultaneously of two voices, "one quite reasonably tells the man to consider the properties of the danger and the means of saving himself from it; the other says still more reasonably that it is too painful and tormenting t think about the danger, when it is not in man's power to foresee everything and save himself from the general course of things, and therefore it is better to turn away rom the painful things until they come and think about what is pleasant." He then notes that the first voice is powerful when one is alone and the second when one is with company. This is the kind of writing that lets you put down things like the "all unhappy families line" and for it to survive through the ages not just as an aphorism but as a start to an incredible novel.
I also loved basically any scene with Natasha, whether she was singing in another room or at a ball or at her uncle's estate. The scenes of her insisting the wounded be carried instead of the Rostov's possessions out of Moscow is particularly touching.
I found the battle scenes fine but boring at parts. Tolstoy's essential thesis about battles and history in general - that commanders have little real influence over events - is restated to the point of absurdity. I didn't mind the occasional historical essay throughout the book but found the 40-pager that ends the book a bit of a slog, and one that left a sour note after a book that was essentially about rich people loving each other in a time of turmoil.
And this is a novel about rich people. Serfs are either a scary other or blessedly obedient. Tolstoy was clearly interested in agri-politics but was still a product of his time and class, and thus really struggles to see anyone who is not a noble as much of a real person. Ah well.