War and Peace,

Written by Count Leo Tolstoy, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

I finally finished it! Wow. What a difference twelve years makes in one's comprehension of literature. I did read it, back when I was eighteen, but I didn't really follow the story with much interest, and there were huge chunks of it that I either skimmed or outright skipped. All of that, combined with the fact that I was reading the Garnett translation (bad, bad, bad), meant that I really needed to read it again.

Was it worth spending three weeks on? Oh, yes. And one of the beauties of it is that the author is so long dead that I can say what I like without any fear that he'll somehow come upon my blog and take offense. Not that he would, because I don't find myself either intelligent or pretentious enough to criticize a genius like Tolstoy. This is the comfort of reading classic literature. You can lose yourself in the assurance of its merit and just enjoy it--as opposed to the modern, untested stuff, which you must constantly evaluate and judge whether it's good or bad. And lest that statement come across as an indication that I don't like to think for myself, but rest my opinions on long-established trends or traditions, I will say that there are many works of literature that are so-called "classic" that I have no qualms about abusing or even ripping to shreds (namely Bram Stoker, James Fenimore Cooper, and to some extent Wilkie Collins).

As for my analysis of War and Peace, I will say in the beginning that it is such a massive work, and sets out to accomplish so many things, that I have very little to say. I struggled a lot with the seemingly random historical commentary sections that always brought the narrative to a screeching halt. I found them confusing, because they always prefaced the events they were analyzing in the story. Again, I can't say that's a shortcoming. Knowing some of what was going on did tend to clarify the big picture of those action scenes.

The characters, above all, were the fascinating factor. With a book so long, there were many, many characters. It is a wonder to me how Tolstoy was able, so simply, to draw people who seemed absolutely alive. In the vitality of the characters, his writing ability is reminiscent of writers like George Eliot and Elizabeth Gaskell. But the difference with Tolstoy's is that he made the people real while giving them only a sentence or a phrase of page-time.

The book's central characters were Prince Andrei Nicolaievitch Bolkonsky, Count Pyotr Kyrillitch Bezukhov, and Countess Natasha Rostov. Other people of importance were Andrei's sister, Princess Marya; and Natasha's family, the Rostovs, most notably her brother, Nikolai. And of course, a whole troupe of intriguing "bad guys". Although I have to issue the obligatory spoiler alert for anyone who plans on reading the book, I have tried hard to keep things vague and will not mention anything specific about the plot.

Andrei was interesting to me mostly because he tried so hard to convince himself that he was a cold intellectual, but everything he did was the proof of his emotional vulnerability and passion. He thought he joined the army initially because he was bored with the superficiality of society life in Moscow and Petersburg, and he despised his sweet, charming little wife because she couldn't live without the things that he thought didn't matter at all. But it turned out that this was all just his own vanity--his desire to join the army was to earn (or prove) his courageousness, to have people's admiration and love. He wanted and needed that adoration and it was driving him crazy. A brush with death, and it seemed everything became clear, but then the subsequent tragedy showed that he was still completely clueless about what his life's purpose actually was. It's hard to say why a reader would like him so much--he was often abrupt and unkind, and endlessly fixated upon his own unhappiness. I think it was because all of his exterior was just a defense against his own fears of being vulnerable. He actually resembles some people I know.

Pierre, Count Bezukhov, was probably my favorite character. I liked him because he was just a big teddy bear, walking around in confusion, trying not to offend people but doing it anyway, trying to care about what other people cared about and failing abysmally. The coolest part of the book was Pierre's climax, when he was finally able to get out of the cloud of confusion and aimless wandering, and figure out what it was that fulfilled him. I liked that he was not handsome or dashing, but fat and clumsy, always overeating and saying the wrong things--but you always liked him anyway, for reasons that are really hard to explain.

The entire book was centered around Natasha and the progress of her maturing from a charming, precocious, spoiled, and vivacious twelve-year-old, in love with her distant cousin Boris; to a woman with a family to take care of. She was also easy to like, even though she did and said stupid things and seemed a bit too simple and selfish. I read somewhere that Natasha was a symbol of Russia, and it's easy to see that in most of the major events of the book.

The ending was perfect, and unlike some other very long and involved works of fiction with epilogues, this had a fabulous epilogue. At least part one. Part two of the epilogue was a very long, very intellectual discussion about history and power, and though I understand and admire it, I didn't enjoy it as much as maybe I should have. But part one was a very fitting end to a series of stories that needed it.

Again, I feel like this analysis, or any analysis I try to make of War and Peace, somehow cheapens it. I'm debating within myself whether I should even post this--but I think it would be even more of a slight not to post anything. So here is my best attempt at commentary on having read Count Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace.