Scan barcode
A review by remjunior
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
4.0
I want to give this 5 stars, but there were a few parts that really dragged for me and seemed needlessly bloated. It took me probably 900 pages to really understand this mammoth of a novel, if you can call it that, because Tolstoy didn't see this as a "novel". The second epilogue is interesting but seems misplaced and repetitive as Tolstoy tells the reader over and over again what his theory on the science of history is.
Anyway, there is a lot to say about this book but at this point I am a little burned out. It was LONG. Part of the challenge in reading this isn't that it is hard to understand or overly complicated (other than the 400 names) but rather in its sheer epic length. It is daunting. It is scary. But it is doable.
This was my first venture into Russian literature and I enjoyed it. I plan on reading more Tolstoy because of this book. It is easy to see, once you have read it in its entirety (and I do believe that is necessary, pushing through it even when it gets tough, to understand its value) why this is a classic.
Anyway, there is a lot to say about this book but at this point I am a little burned out. It was LONG. Part of the challenge in reading this isn't that it is hard to understand or overly complicated (other than the 400 names) but rather in its sheer epic length. It is daunting. It is scary. But it is doable.
This was my first venture into Russian literature and I enjoyed it. I plan on reading more Tolstoy because of this book. It is easy to see, once you have read it in its entirety (and I do believe that is necessary, pushing through it even when it gets tough, to understand its value) why this is a classic.