Book Review: War and Peace

War and Peace

By Leo Tolsoy

This has definitely been one of the hardest books I've ever read. Four months later and One THOUSAND three hundred eighty-six pages later, I'm finally FINISHED! Woot! I'm patting myself on the back for this one :)

I've always wanted to try reading this book, mainly because it's such a huge classic that I wanted to know what it was all about. For those of you who aren't familiar with the novel, it was published in 1869 and is classified as historical fiction, my favorite genre. It covers the Napoleonic Wars with the French invasion of Russia, starting in 1805 and continuing through 1813 and an epilogue in 1820. The novel is seen through the eyes of five aristocratic families and chronicles their struggles and connections mingled with the history of that time period. Just this year War and Peace was #1 in Newsweek's Top 100 Books of All Time. So of course I have to read the #1 Book EVER written right?

So here is my opinion: I can see why this book is a classic. Tolstoy is brilliant in the way he describes his characters and events. He goes into so much detail that you really understand people's motives, feelings, etc. You meet hundreds of characters throughout the novel, so for the first half of the book, I had to write everyone's name's down so I could keep them all straight and figure out which ones were important enough to remember. However, I personally got lost in the details of the book. He goes on for pages and pages about war strategy, or describing a battle. And in the second half of the book, Tolstoy dedicates SEVERAL chapters to essays on the subject of war and Russian history, and I didn't care for these parts of the book at all. But I think the majority of the problem was that it is Russian history, which I don't really care about. If I were a Russian, and understood more about the war and the places, events, etc. that Tolstoy describes, I would probably appreciated the book more. Or if the book was centered around our own Civil War or Revolutionary War (something that I understand), I would be able to follow it better. But, I did learn a lot about the Napoleonic Wars that I didn't know before so I guess that's a plus.

As far as the fictional story of War and Peace, I really enjoyed that part. I grew to love certain characters, but even in that aspect Tolstoy disappointed me. He kept killing off my favorite characters and the book didn't end at all like I wanted it to. Consider Twilight for a moment (Tolstoy would probably roll over in his grave knowing I'm comparing his classic to a vampire love story) - How would you feel if Bella ended up with Jacob? You'd feel cheated right? Because she's SUPPOSED to be with Edward. Well, in War and Peace, Natasha ends up with Jacob...and Edward dies. At least that's my opinion. I always thought of Pierre (aka Jacob in this analogy) as kind of a dipstick, so I hated that Natasha ended up with him. But I guess she went a little nutty herself so I guess they were perfect for each other. And I cried when Prince Andrey (aka Edward) died (sorry, kind of a spoiler there but I figure nobody reading this - if anybody does end up reading this - will actually read the book- so no harm done!). ANYWAYS, So given all of that, I have to say War and Peace is not on my personal list of Best Books of All Time. I'll probably never read it again, but I am glad that I took the time to work my way through it.

So after I got done reading the book, I thought I'd rent the movie version and see how it measured up. There are a few movie versions out there; I rented the 1956 version starring Audrey Hepburn as Natasha. I have to say this is the first time in my life (that I remember at least) that I thought the movie was better than the novel - but don't read too much into that because the movie wasn't outstanding by any means. I liked that it captured all of the best parts of the book and it was fun to see the characters brought to life. Reading the book definitely made the movie much easier to understand.

I'm glad that I stuck with it and finished this book through (All one THOUSAND three hundred eighty-six pages of it :) but I'll probably never read it again. There are too many other books out there I need to get to.

Next project: The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott (should be interesting :)