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A review by ruileite
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
5.0
"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?"
So, after much consideration (and suggestions) about whether I should rip and butcher the beautiful cover of this extreme and dense book, I was finally able to read it. Yes, all 1272 pages. I don't even know where to start but this is such a magnificent and vast book, and for two months I felt like I've had a piece of art in my hands and, besides its length, it was hugely entertaining and educational (no, literally, Tolstoy will force you to learn more than you ever wanted to know).
This book is really good, such an amazing, complex, multi-layered and multilingual piece of literature (if you ignore all the sexism and misogyny that is bluntly and quite often present, which was common back then), and I don't think I have ever read such a deadly dull epilogue. Tolstoy, instead of providing closure to the main story in the epilogue, decides to continue the main story and even raises new questions and problems rather than simply resolving old ones, which was very divergent from everything I've read. AND, instead of rewarding me for being so loyal and devoted to this book, he made sure to attach me even more in order to make me understand, once and for all, his philosophy.
"If the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy".
I'm so amazed how he was able to deeply and devotedly develop all the characters (truly, if you like character development, this book was made for you). War and Peace is about everything, and Tolstoy is able to address so many important topics that I could be here all night enumerating all of them. Everything in this book is so different and I'm so thankful that he made me think about so many thinks that I probably wouldn't have, mainly war, which is something that I've never really done before (at least not as deeply). Although I have to confess that Tolstoy does not help you understand much about why wars happen, only in the epilogue (and it is certainly not an epilogue meant for everyone).
Overall I think this was a remarkable story. The writing can be lengthy and tedious at times but is phenomenal, and I'm sure I will probably be reading this again somewhat in the future because there's always something you miss and some part of the philosophy that you can't really understand at the moment. Either way, Tolstoy gives us many rare experiences and is able to put us in battle after battle - whether it's upon a field amidst hundreds of thousands of soldiers, or upon a dangerous pregnancy, or between an embattled couple robbed and deprived of love -, and each one of them is able to touch us passionate and genuinely.
So, after much consideration (and suggestions) about whether I should rip and butcher the beautiful cover of this extreme and dense book, I was finally able to read it. Yes, all 1272 pages. I don't even know where to start but this is such a magnificent and vast book, and for two months I felt like I've had a piece of art in my hands and, besides its length, it was hugely entertaining and educational (no, literally, Tolstoy will force you to learn more than you ever wanted to know).
This book is really good, such an amazing, complex, multi-layered and multilingual piece of literature (if you ignore all the sexism and misogyny that is bluntly and quite often present, which was common back then), and I don't think I have ever read such a deadly dull epilogue. Tolstoy, instead of providing closure to the main story in the epilogue, decides to continue the main story and even raises new questions and problems rather than simply resolving old ones, which was very divergent from everything I've read. AND, instead of rewarding me for being so loyal and devoted to this book, he made sure to attach me even more in order to make me understand, once and for all, his philosophy.
"If the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy".
I'm so amazed how he was able to deeply and devotedly develop all the characters (truly, if you like character development, this book was made for you). War and Peace is about everything, and Tolstoy is able to address so many important topics that I could be here all night enumerating all of them. Everything in this book is so different and I'm so thankful that he made me think about so many thinks that I probably wouldn't have, mainly war, which is something that I've never really done before (at least not as deeply). Although I have to confess that Tolstoy does not help you understand much about why wars happen, only in the epilogue (and it is certainly not an epilogue meant for everyone).
Overall I think this was a remarkable story. The writing can be lengthy and tedious at times but is phenomenal, and I'm sure I will probably be reading this again somewhat in the future because there's always something you miss and some part of the philosophy that you can't really understand at the moment. Either way, Tolstoy gives us many rare experiences and is able to put us in battle after battle - whether it's upon a field amidst hundreds of thousands of soldiers, or upon a dangerous pregnancy, or between an embattled couple robbed and deprived of love -, and each one of them is able to touch us passionate and genuinely.