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rahultheinvader 's review for:
War and Peace
by Leo Tolstoy
I read the book over a period of a year as part of the reddit group - /r/ayearofwarandpeace.
The experience is something I would cherish for long. You get to spend time with the characters over a long period that draws an association unlike I have ever come across. To give an example, I can chronologically determine the time I spent with each character during my reading experience. So, I was introduced to Andrew Bolkonski on Jan 5, 2021, and would stay with him (partially, as there is multiple point of views in the book) till his death which I read on Oct 2, 2021. That is 9 months’ worth of investment and hence the effect of his passing felt very surreal. In what was essentially one of my favorite chapters of the book, Tolstoy guides us through his death through prose that is self-reflective but also embellishing on the pain that is causing on the ones who loved him the most. There was a cathartic feeling on completing that chapter and is a feeling I believe only a good novel can offer.
The same can be said of other characters in the book - Pierre, Natasha, Marya, Nikolai etc. We are tethered to these characters, their follies, their beliefs, their doubts, their heartbreaks, their sufferings and their ambitions.
War and Peace is not without faults though. Tolstoy often choses to take a break from the narrative to write essays about the movement of Napolean’s army, vivid descriptions of the battle of Austerlitz and Borodino, Tolstoy’s long indulgent rants about historians and their focus on leaders or dictators, another long daunting epilogue (12 chapters) of even more indulgent rant on free will and inevitability.
Having conquered this giant of a piece of literature, I can conclude that the only way to read this epic is the way I approached it. But maybe I am justifying and maybe embellishing on the mythical mountain I conquered.
The experience is something I would cherish for long. You get to spend time with the characters over a long period that draws an association unlike I have ever come across. To give an example, I can chronologically determine the time I spent with each character during my reading experience. So, I was introduced to Andrew Bolkonski on Jan 5, 2021, and would stay with him (partially, as there is multiple point of views in the book) till his death which I read on Oct 2, 2021. That is 9 months’ worth of investment and hence the effect of his passing felt very surreal. In what was essentially one of my favorite chapters of the book, Tolstoy guides us through his death through prose that is self-reflective but also embellishing on the pain that is causing on the ones who loved him the most. There was a cathartic feeling on completing that chapter and is a feeling I believe only a good novel can offer.
The same can be said of other characters in the book - Pierre, Natasha, Marya, Nikolai etc. We are tethered to these characters, their follies, their beliefs, their doubts, their heartbreaks, their sufferings and their ambitions.
War and Peace is not without faults though. Tolstoy often choses to take a break from the narrative to write essays about the movement of Napolean’s army, vivid descriptions of the battle of Austerlitz and Borodino, Tolstoy’s long indulgent rants about historians and their focus on leaders or dictators, another long daunting epilogue (12 chapters) of even more indulgent rant on free will and inevitability.
Having conquered this giant of a piece of literature, I can conclude that the only way to read this epic is the way I approached it. But maybe I am justifying and maybe embellishing on the mythical mountain I conquered.