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War and Peace

Leo Tolstoy

Start date: April 1, 2024

Finish date: June 30, 2024

Discussion: Old School Classics, Pre-1915

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Long Read Classic Group Read, 1st & 2nd quarter, 2014
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Long Read Classic Group Read, 1st & 2nd quarter, 2014

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Jul 05, 2014 Maggie rated it really liked it

Shelves: guardian-1000, classics, boxall-1001, fiction, adventure, war, historical-fiction, russian-ussr

Tolstoy is famously quoted as saying that War and Peace is "not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less a historical chronicle". It can be read like a novel – there are characters and there is a plot – and it can also be read like a historical chronicle of Russia's political, military and social scene in 1805 to 1820. But it is also much, much more than that. Tolstoy uses this book to explore his ideas on what drives history, and through several essays interspersed throughout the book, a Tolstoy is famously quoted as saying that War and Peace is "not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less a historical chronicle". It can be read like a novel – there are characters and there is a plot – and it can also be read like a historical chronicle of Russia's political, military and social scene in 1805 to 1820. But it is also much, much more than that. Tolstoy uses this book to explore his ideas on what drives history, and through several essays interspersed throughout the book, and especially in the second epilogue at the end, he has a vague conclusion that it is a combination of free will and destiny and creates history and produces wars.

One of the ideas that was repeated several times is how historians focus on "great" men like Napoleon, but that there are no great men. Napoleon made mistakes, and his successes were lucky. Tolstoy asserts that it is God who drives history, and if Napoleon appears great, it is only because God used him with his peculiar characteristics in a certain time and place to produce God's desired results. And yet Napoleon was as ordinary as every soldier under him was, because there would have been no Napoleonic Wars if the soldiers had refused to fight.

That's an interesting thought, and it explains why Tolstoy uses over 600 characters, from kings to elites to soldiers to serfs, with a broad range of personality types within each category. If history is driven by the everyday man, then a book on the Napoleonic Wars must include the descriptions of people from all walks of life.

Yet Tolstoy's characterisation is so distinct that you never get the characters mixed up. There is the handsome, proud, elitist yet tender-hearted Prince Andrew, the bumbling, kind Pierre looking for fulfillment, the impulsive, animated, passionate Natasha, her amiable, happy-go-lucky brother Nicholas, and tons of other main characters. I liked Prince Andrew most, but really it is difficult to pick favourites, because the characters are so three-dimensional. The best of them make mistakes, go through trials brought on by their own foolishness, and do annoying things, so that I would alternate between liking and disliking them, but at the end of it most of them grow, and their ideas transform whether for better or for worse.

About the names – I read the Maude translation, which anglicises the names. I would have preferred Russian names, but the Maude version is widely available, and is apparently a more accurate translation than the other widely available Garnett version.

But back to the characters. Tolstoy describes historical characters like Napoleon, Emperor Alexander and General Kutuzov. He portrays them in ways that were not generally accepted in his time. I found his portrayal of Kutuzov especially interesting. Kutuzov seems to have been vilified in his time. Tolstoy portrays him as an old and fat man who dozes off in meetings, but defends him precisely because of his passivity, and submission to destiny which Tolstoy views as wise.

Tolstoy's descriptions are sometimes impeccable. In one scene when a prisoner is about to be executed by the French, Tolstoy writes,

When they began to blindfold him he himself adjusted the knot which hurt the back of his head; then when they propped him against the bloodstained post, he leaned back and, not being comfortable in that position, straightened himself, adjusted his feet, and leaned back again more comfortably.

Scenes like that are so detailed that you can picture every intense moment of it. Sometimes, though, his descriptions are repetitive to the point of being tiresome. How many times did we have to read about Princess Mary's radiant eyes or Helene's bare shoulders? And since we're on the topic of repetition, why did we have to read so many times about the point already mentioned on how there are no great men? Repetition is a hallmark of Tolstoy's writing, and some of it probably helped to cement the characters in the readers' minds, but a lot of it was unnecessary.

The ending in the first epilogue might be a disappointment to some. The kids grow up and form domestic homes. Nicholas, the impetuous boy who rushed into battles, becomes a man obsessed with farming. Natasha, the spritely, charming girl, becomes a housewife who cares for nothing and no one besides her family. Yet in these adults, we see traits of the youths we grew to love. Nicholas as a youth rushed into battles because he loved the emperor, and as an adult still treasures obedience to authorities. Natasha's passions are no longer directed towards attracting people, but are directed towards building a loving home. As the older generation grows old and turns senile, the youths take their place, and in their place other youths emerge like Prince Andrew's son Nicholas, about whom Tolstoy hints will join the next uprising. The ending is not disappointing at all if you see things Tolstoy's way – that all life is a cycle, and we, the insignificant players, have great, unknown significance in our abilities to change the course of history. ...more

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