War and Peace
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Anyone else hated this book?
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Manuel
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Feb 03, 2014 08:39AM
Today it seems like all i can do is make enemies on Goodreads. After Melville, Tolstoy's is the other classic I am having an increasingly hard time enjoying. There is good stuff in it. There are interesting elements. But I cannot shake the feeling that it was written in installments, almost soap-opera style. A snapshot of Russian aristocracy during the Napoleonic wars, it could have been absolutely grandiose, but whatever he is trying to say, he could have said with half the words. Maybe that was his intention all along, to make people chuckle about what a bunch of pompous asses the Russian nobles were, but that cannot really stand the test of time forever. I confess, I am still not done with it, and I will conquer this monster. But so far, the snail-pace and the extra fluff, the endless brooding (makes Batman come across as a jolly fellow), make me wonder whether its importance is not overstated.
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I'll go 50/50 with you here. I like War and Peace, though Tolstoy is not my favorite Russian author. But I do agree that Melville is tough to enjoy.I was laid up when I read War and Peace and so was able to read it on a steady continuum. I think that keeps the book flowing. I think that is a requirement to get the most out of a lot of books. I can't imagine reading a Samuel Beckett novel, stretching it out to several weeks, and then expecting to get anything meaningful from it.
P.S. You won't make an enemy out of me :)
Mustafa wrote: "To me, this was the worst book ever. I have read so many other huge fat classic novels such as Les Miserables, Don Quixote, Vanity Fair, Middlemarch, etc. But to me, this was nothing more than an o..."I don't understand why you rated it 5 stars if you hated it??
William wrote: "I'll go 50/50 with you here. I like War and Peace, though Tolstoy is not my favorite Russian author. But I do agree that Melville is tough to enjoy.I was laid up when I read War and Peace and so ..."
I think you hit the nail on the head. My reading is segmented in 10' intervals (home - bus - bus - metro ) which for a book of this breadth does spoil the rhythm.
PS
Hah! Monsieur, I am glad we are not enemies (what's up with hussars demanding satisfaction in sabre duels every other chapter, I love that part!!!!)
Yes, most tedious book I've ever read.
Vincenzo wrote: "Little to do with the Napoleonic Wars...? You're kidding, right? I'm not trying to be a jerk, but you finished the novel...?
Austerlitz...Borodino... the burning of Moscow. The author spent seve..."
The last 25 pages on "man's free will" was especially odious.
Troll252 wrote: "I am from Russia and we read such boks in age of 15 -16 ."Nobody said it was hard read, it's just not fun to read.
Marius wrote: "I first read (and finished!) "War and Peace" about a year ago. Since then I have read several other novels (including other classics) but lately the urge to reread "War and Peace" just became too s..."Yeah, everything in the book is described to the nth detail, to the detriment of the story.
Michael wrote: "I've just been through some of the comments on W/P and frankly I'm suprised at how people can be so determinedly negative about it.It seems that instead of reading the book independently with an un..."Not true. I learned to dislike it the hard way, by reading it myself.
James wrote: "I loved this novel, the parts and the whole. It's definitely in my Top Ten All Time Desert Island novels. I wish I could read it in Russian. I guess we just disagree."
Boy, do we ever. One of my ideas of a great author is one who says more with less (Kurt Vonnegut comes to mind). It's not Tolstoy per se, Anna Karenina is very enjoyable.
I really liked Anna Karenina. I sympathized with her predicament. I do agree with you about War and Peace. I thought it tedious and boring and wonder why it is called one of the greatest novels of all time.
It is funny how during high school or college we are 'forced' into reading classic literature like "Anna Karenina" "War and Peace" "To Kill a Mockingbird" to write a book report or essay on them and not really understanding what they are writing about because they did not like the book. After school is finished, though, and you go back and reread the classics, I think they are more enjoyable. It is funny how that works!!
Phyl wrote: "I really liked Anna Karenina. I sympathized with her predicament. I do agree with you about War and Peace. I thought it tedious and boring and wonder why it is called one of the greatest novels of ..."Yeah, I wonder that myself. Think it's just because it's long? (kind of) kidding...
Loved it, loved it...the massive scale, how it encompassed the lives of so many characters, the vivid descriptions of 19th century Russia - the sights, the smells of a world that is gone and bringing to life the Napoleonic wars. There's something magical about flying across the Russian Steppes on a sleigh....My advice is don't read it under the age of 25, and definitely not at school.
Jenn wrote: "Loved it, loved it...the massive scale, how it encompassed the lives of so many characters, the vivid descriptions of 19th century Russia - the sights, the smells of a world that is gone and bringi..."I agree with you--there is something magical about entering a completely different world, and I thought the novel brought the experiences of war at that time, among those particular characters, to life.
Best book ever, and Anna Karenina is a close second. Despite the translation - well, the Garnett translation of W&P is not great (she was old and blind and having someone help her with it by the time she did W&P), but I don't mind her translation of AK. I'm getting a little off the subject here - I think that Tolstoy is the best, and while I respect Dostoevsky and enjoy Brothers K etc. I don't find him as immensely readable as Count Leo is. All of these opinions are quite subjective, of course, and the epilogues to W&P are hard to defend - they could have just been essays he published separately.
Long story short, War and Peace is a 18th century soap opera, for the rich and bored aristocrats of the time. That doesn't take away that fact that it is superbly written. However good writers are almost a cliche these days. What separates Tolstoy from his compatriots is his complete disregard and disrespect to his years of toil, and the purposeful destruction of his work with the most anti-climatic finales I have ever read.
I guess I liked it, but I feel lots of it could have been left out and it wouldn't affect the story at all.
I don't know if I can continue reading it. I'm trying. But there are so many random characters introduced at once and referred to obliquely so you can barely distinguish one from the other, I feel as though I were a blind woman sitting Iin a drawing room listening to many interrupted conversations going on at the same time, except that then I would have the different voices to help me understand who is saying what. At other times I feel as though I were watching a parade of paper dolls that all looked about the same except for the "the little Princess Bolkonsky" with the tiny mustache and raised upper lip and the tall, fat Pierre.
It all rushes at you at once with an unpleasant impressionism, as though the author couldn't bear to leave anything out and leaves selection of what is important to the reader. Which I suppose is a valid authorial decision, but so far I am unable to care about any of it. (I am reading the lengthy sample of the Pevear translation available on Amazon after giving up on the Briggs).
I don't remember Anna Karenina, a book I thoroughly enjoyed, being this hard to get into.
Well, two things happened. I switched to the Maude translation, which seems much more natural, and I got past the introduction stage and as far as the Rostovs' nameday dinner party, and the conversations are starting to make more sense and the characters beginning to take shape. I may be able to read it after all.
When I re-read W&P I may well give the P-V translation a go, but I reckon that the Maude might actually be the most readable one.
Troll252 wrote: "I am from Russia and we read such boks in age of 15 -16 ."<Ok and no offence but a book title war and peace, should only be about war and peace not about royal life and people's families. In other words, this book didn't get to the point.
So, Kelly Lambert, I guess you just wanted a high-action war story, and for the peace part to be at the end, after the good guys, however you conceive of them, win the war and drink to victory.
Yes I wanted this book to be a summary about war and peace, not about royal family life, lol, the first chapter was titled Anna Karenina, I think or something like that! Also, this book wasn't one book, it was I think 5 books within a book, if not more than 5, and I hated that.I'll say it again this book never got to the point!
Back then when there was no TV and certainly no Internet, writers had to keep people entertained and/or informed for much longer periods of time than these days where if it is not instantly digestible people complain about having to read the whole damn thing. So I do not have problems with lengthy books. However, having said that, there is arguably a lot of 'waffle' in this book and it is hard to figure out what is Tolstoy's main point. Is it to put down Napoleon? Is it just to record what Russia was like at the time. Is it to remember the royals during the campaign? Who knows. I always preferred Dostoevsky myself - he asks more serious questions, his novels have better structure and his characters are simply unforgettable.
By the way, the whole book wasn't even about war and peace, so it should of had a different title.
I didn't hate it. Nothing and no one in it was interesting enough to me to instill any sort of emotional response.The book taught me that I could feel both immense, gnashing frustration and tremendous, endless ennui simultaneously.
It also hurt when I'd drop it on myself when it put me to sleep trying to get through it.
My point is that in my opinion, this book was horrible.
If you didn't hate it, why did you rate it one star?
I gave it one star, Kelly, because I didn't hate it. It evoked no real emotional responses other than frustration and ennui. If I'd hated it I'd feel that it accomplished something.It never gave me any reason to hate it.
Other than the falling on me thing.
This book never got to the point, so I stopped reading it, although most books that I start reading, I absolutely finish reading.
The most remarkable feature of the Internet is that it gives a platform to imbeciles and pointless people, who say "I hate it" but cannot give a single reason that might convince a sentient adult to reconsider his or her differing point of view. Among the reasons that don't count are "It bored me." To many of us, that says more about you than about the work itself. So I'm reposting a point of view - it's all opinion, right? - from 18 months ago or so. But first let me repeat the opinion that this is the worst (the stupidest, most ludicrous) thread ever:
Mustafa wrote: "To me, this was the worst book ever...etc."
This is the worst thread ever. Even if you "hate" War and Peace, you should at least try to make an intelligible case for how it failed you as a work of fiction. And how other "classics" you've read succeeded (in your estimation). And if you can do that without exposing yourself as an utter idiot, you'll have made a contribution to understanding. Needless to say - and of course this is simply a often repeated, even inherited, point of view - in the judgment of many readers - and not simply readers who, like the professional professoriate, are paid to appreciate "works of literature," but in the judgment of everyday readers like me and you and the rest of the people who have offered their views in this worst of all possible threads - in the judgment of millions of everyday readers, War and Peace is the "Greatest Novel of All Time." When one cavalierly asserts, "I hate it," those who feel themselves part of the critical consensus that views both Tolstoy and War and Peace as "great" have two immediate responses: "Why?" and "Surely, this is a moron." Whatever you say after "I hate it" should at least respond to that question and observation, as a matter of public service at least as great as your serving of "I hate what you love."
As I wrote in this thread a while ago, this book never got to the point. The first chapter wasn't even about war and peace, which I thought was pointless and didn't make since, the first chapter was about a princess and living in a royal palace, I mean if you title a book, war and peace, I want to hear some action, not some stupid fairytale. When a book is written the title needs to match the story line, lol!
Since you say this book was great, on what reasonable explanations do you state your opinions? By the way, I know a lot about, military history so that enables me to say why this book sucked, to me, history is one of my favorite subjects to study, especially military history, since I am formally writing a book about war and why it exist.
This will be my last comment on this useless thread. Life is short, and threads like this take up valuable seconds. Too many comments, very like Kelly's, read like parodies of commentary in The Onion. That "War and Peace" might refer to anything other than a literal war and a subsequent peace is lost on Kelly, who fancies himself something of an authority on history - breaking news: Tolstoy was a novelist - because "it's one of his favorite subjects" (are we talking about high school or college?). But I do have advice for him on his "formally writing a book about war and why it exists," a topic I have some familiarity with: if you haven't already, consider taking a look at Stephen Peter Rosen's War and Human Nature; Lawrence Keeley's War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage; Peterson and Wrangham's Demonic Males: Apes and the Origin of Human Violence; Ian Morris, War: What Is It Good For; and Azar Gat, War and Human Civilization. Needless to say, it's easy to build a useful bibliography on the topic, but, again, life is short, time is valuable, and you might usefully try to cull out what's best - and, for starters, what best situates war into a human behavorial context - from all the rest.
When most people hear the phrase, war and peace, they think of War and Peace, do they not, point proven and end of story.
I think you should leave War and Peace for another 15-20 years Kelly. It was written in another time and place, people thought differently then. Part of appreciating the great works of fiction is understanding they lived in a society unlike yours, their values and mindset and education was different, and you seem too young to comprehend that which is sad because it speaks of an emotional immaturity. Even if you don't like the book yourself you must respect those who do or at least give valid reason why you didn't enjoy it.
Ok I'm just going to take a few minutes to say that I did write why I hate this book and I've written a few of them which you can find by searching for them on the subject of anyone else hated this book. By the way, I know people have different opinions on why they like or book or why the hate it, an I respect people who have reasons of why the like or dislike a book. I just so happen to not this book at all, and in the first few chapters or pages actually, there wasn't any detail about war and/or peace. THE TITLE NEEDS TO MATCH THE DETAILS IN THE BOOK, ESPECIALLY IN THE FIRST FEW PAGES AND SO ON: THE ENTIRE BOOK HAS TO MATCH THE TITLE. I mean you wouldn't title a book:the History of the World and have the book only be about one continent or one country. , lol.
So you're saying you like your literature to be . . . literal?
Yes
I read this book a chapter at a time for over year, and loved it. I think blogging about it and spending time with the characters helped, but the scope and brilliance is enormous. It even made me cry. One of my best reading experiences ever. Just beautiful.
OMG is this book rlly that bad????? I'm reading it right now!
I think this book is great! Maybe if you read it with historical purpose isn´t as good as people see, but the psychological content is so good... Tolstoi show us how human psychology works. Characters evolve since the first page of the novel to the last. And those changes aren´t unmotivated. It´s just the life, the endless story of existential disappoinments.
No, I did not hate it. It was exactly as I expected. However, I really disliked the end. The story was going on forever and everything was very detailed, but the end was simply too short.
I am currently reading this book. This is my first classic book and boy has it been a difficult task. I managed to finish 400 pages with great difficulty and I'm not sure if I can continue further.
It's just that the chapters with wars bore me to death!!
I like the family drama, the interwined stories, the tragedies, love, friendship and romance in *non-war* section of the book.
But the war, just can't bear that.
And I have already purchased Anna Karenina. Let's see how that one turns out.
Maybe someday later I'll return to war and peace and actually finish it, till then it can rest in my bookshelf.
I read this book this year and hated so much I almost didn't finish it I did finish it and hated it almost from beginning to end
I would read it again, but perhaps mainly because I remember so little from the first time. It's not reader friendly by any means, what with so many Russian names both informal and formal used to describe the cast of hundreds, and Tolstoy's ceaseless harping on his own personal philosophy of history (that epilogue...), but I do recall fondly some pretty magisterial ball scenes and was quite fond of Natasha.Will definitely read the P & V translation next time, I get the impression the Maude ones are more tiresome based on my experience with AK.
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