War and Peace

Title: War and Peace

Author: Leo Tolstoy

Pages: 1691

Genre: Classic

Grade: A

Synopsis: The story of War and Peace mainly centers around Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. The novel starts 6-7 years before that and follows a small group of characters throughout this part of their lives. The main characters of the book are mostly from the nobility class - rich, beautiful and talented. My favorite character is Count Pierre Bezukhov. He spends most of the novel searching for inner peace and the meaning of life. Tolstoy is very philosophical in this book, having the narrator commenting often on the decisions made by both Napoleon and the Russian commander Kutuzov and how they are interpreted by historians. The book consists of 3 parts, each 5 books long (15 total) as well as 2 epilogues.

Why I Chose This Book: I've lived in Russia, I have a Russian minor, yet I have never read anything by Tolstoy - and, this book is considered by many to be the greatest of all time.

My Review: I ended up really liking this book and I can see why it is often mentioned as being "the best novel ever written". The first few hundred pages were a little dry for me (too Jane Austen-y, if you get my drift). Once the book begins switching back and forth between life in the army and life in the rich inner circles of Moscow and St. Petersburg does the book really pick up. I started out wanting to grade this book fairly low, but every few hundred pages or so I would realize how much I was enjoying it and bump my grade up a notch. My biggest complaint of the book is obviously how long it is. I started reading this book in late July and I'm usually a pretty quick reader. While I didn't read much during school, I still had to make reading the book a priority or I never would have finished. Tolstoy has a way of describing things that really brings them to life. Although this book was completed more than 140 years ago, I was surprised by how un-old-fashioned his writing seemed (thanks in large part, I'm sure, to the translator). I'm glad I read the book and I would recommend it to anybody with a lot of patience (or trying to learn patience...), but I really think that anybody who enjoys Jane Austen or similar authors will enjoy this book.

From the Book: (I had to return my first copy of the book to the library before I was able to make note of my favorite quotations from the first 5 chapters. If I ever get my hands on the same translation, I'll be sure to add them in.)

Book VI, Chapter XXV:
"He continually hurt Princess Mary's feelings and tormented her, but it cost her no effort to forgive him. Could he be to blame towards her, or could her father, who she knew loved her in spite of it all, be unjust? And what is justice? The princess never thought of the proud word 'justice'. All the complex laws of man centered for her in one clear and simple law--the law of love and self-sacrifice taught us by Him who lovingly suffered for mankind though He Himself was God. What had she to do with the justice or injustice of other people? She had to endure and love, and that she did."

Book VII, Chapter V:
"That instant when Nicholas saw the wolf struggling in the gully with the dogs, while from under them could be seen her grey hair and outstretched hind leg and her frightened choking head with ears laid back (Karay was pinning her by the throat), was the happiest moment of his life. With his hand on the saddle-bow he was ready to dismount and stab the wolf, when she suddenly thrust her head up from among the mass of dogs, and then her fore-paws were on the edge of the gully..."

Book IX, Chapter I:
"When an apple has ripened and falls, why does it fall? Because of its attraction to the earth, because its stalk withers, because it is dried by the sun, because it grows heavier, because the wind shakes it, or because the boy standing below wants to eat it?"

Book X, Chapter V:
"Prince Andrew turned away with startled haste, unwilling to let them see that they had been observed. He was sorry for the pretty frightened little girl, was afraid of looking at her, and yet felt an irresistible desire to do so. A new sensation of comfort and relief came over him when, seeing these girls, he realized the existence of other human interests entirely aloof from his own and just as legitimate as those that occupied him. Evidently these girls passionately desired one thing - to carry away and eat those green plums without being caught--and Prince Andrew shared their wish for the success of their enterprise. He could not resist looking at them once more. Believing their danger past, they sprang from their ambush and chirruping something in their shrill little voices and holding up their skirts, their bare little sunburnt feet scampered merrily and quickly across the meadow grass."

Book X, Chapter XXXVIII (about Napoleon):
"And not for that day and hour alone were the mind and conscience of this man darkened on whom the responsibility for what was happening lay more than on all the others who took part in it. Never to the end of his life could he understand goodness, beauty, or truth, or the significance of his actions, which were too contrary to goodness and truth, too remote from everything human, for him ever to be able to grasp their meaning. He could not disavow his actions, belauded as they were by half the world, and so he had to repudiate truth, goodness, and all humanity."

Book X, Chapter XXXIX (Towards the end of the Battle of Borodino):
"To the men of both sides alike, worn out by want of food and rest, it began equally to appear doubtful whether they should continue to slaughter one another; all the faces expressed hesitation, and the question arose in every soul: 'For what, for whom, must I kill and be killed?...You may go and kill whom you please, but I don't want to do so any more!' By evening this thought had ripened in every soul. At any moment these men might have been seized with horror at what they were doing, and might have thrown up everything and run away anywhere."

Book XII, Chapter XVI - Prince Andrew:
"'Love? What is love?' he thought.
'Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.' These thoughts seemed to him comforting. But they were only thoughts. Something was lacking in them, they were not clear, they were too one-sidedly personal and brain-spun. And there was the former agitation and obscurity. He fell asleep."

Book XIV, Chapter XVIII:
"For us, with the standard of good and evil given us by Christ, no human actions are incommensurable. And there is no greatness there where simplicity, goodness, and truth are absent."

Book XV, Chapter I:
"When seeing a dying animal a man feels a sense of horror: substance similar to his own is perishing before his eyes. But when it is a beloved and intimate human being that is dying, besides this horror at the extinction of life there is a severance, a spiritual wound, which heals, but always aches and shrinks at any external irritating touch."

First Epilogue, Chapter IV:
"A bee settling on a flower has stung a child. And the child is afraid of bees and declares that bees exist to sting people. A poet admires the bee sucking from the chalice of a flower, and says it exists to suck the fragrance of flowers. A beekeeper, seeing the bee collect pollen from flowers and carry it to the hive, says that it exists to gather honey. Another beekeeper who has studied the life of the hive more closely, says that the bee gathers pollen-dust to feed the young bees and rear a queen, and that it exists to perpetuate its race. A botanist notices that the bee flying with the pollen of a male flower to a pistil fertilizes the latter, and sees in this the purpose of the bee's existence. Another, observing the migration of plants, notices that the bee helps in this work, and may say that in this lies the purpose of the bee. But the ultimate purpose of the bee is not exhausted by the first, the second, or any of the processes the human mind can discern. The higher the human intellect rises in the discovery of these purposes, the more obvious it becomes that the ultimate purpose is beyond our comprehension."