Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What is War and Peace?, 11 Aug 2005
Tolstoy offered his own answer to this question, in "Some Words About War And Peace," but his answer is not very illuminating. Let me try to answer the question in the simplest way possible:It is first and foremost the story of a handful of characters: the Rostovs, the Bolkonskys, Pierre. It is not a book about war or peace in the grand, overarching sense, but about people and how they cope with such times. Tolstoy's view was that there is no point in writing only about the general course of the war - it's the people that matter. But, unlike most other novelists, Tolstoy takes you into the lives of his characters by presenting their stories within a historical context presented with an extraordinary level of detail. From this, the popular misconception arises that War and Peace is the story of the Napoleonic Wars, as thought it were some kind of 19th Century Tom Clancy novel. It is not. As the book goes on and the ongoing war becomes more intense, a great deal of space is devoted to descriptions of the progress of the war and analysis of its causes and effects. It can seem as though Tolstoy has forgetten his characters and readers naturally become confused and wonder what the book is all about. But when that happens to you, persevere. It *is* worth it. At the end of the First Epilogue everything falls into place and the immense value of all that historical detail will become obvious through the way you empathise with the characters.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A deep and profound classic, 1 Aug 2005
WAR AND PEACE successfully captured life's promises, challenges, joys, triumphs, and losses in a way that no other novels has done before and after. In this novel with more characters than any other I can imagine; the main characters are Pierre Bezuhov, Prince Andrey Bolkonsky, and Natasha Rostov, who are all affected by the destabilization of the war Napoleon brought upon Russia in the early nineteenth century. It is around them that the other characters revolve. Even though the sheer size of this novel of over a million words may discourage readers to pick it up, the consuming nature of the story keeps a reader glued to the book from the opening pages. The sheer power of this romantic and adventurous story made this classic story to survive as perhaps the best of all times.
The essence of Power, which is what leads individuals to move nations is the ultimate question of War and Peace. And this individuals or great men of history, are in reality the slave of history. That underlying fact can be found in other Russian stories. UNION MOUJIK, TARAS BULBA, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT,MASTER AND MAN feature that concept. The war part of the story features remarkable military campaigns such as those by Napoleon and his Russian counterpart, Emperor Aleksandr, as they employed their different strategies in the quest for victory on the lands of Russia.
War and Peace is entertaining as well as enlightening and is considered by many to be the master of all Russian novels. Its overview of Russian life and culture involving peasants and the aristocracy gives a true to life portrayal of humanity. You can find glimpses of other Great Russian novels in this story. In short, this epic cannot be forgotten after you have read it.
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29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The greatest book ever written, 18 Sep 1997
By A Customer
War and Peace has the reputation of the greatest book ever written, and it doesn't dissapoint. You don't so much read this book as live it.
What Tolstoy has done so effectively is to give himself room to let the characters grow. You don't get a three page info-mercial about each character, but you get to know them from their thoughts and their interactions with other people. The result of this is that when something profound happens to a character, or within a character, this change reverberates deeply within the reader.
The scope of this book is enourmous. Tolstoy takes you from romances, to battles, inside the mind of Napolean, and most of all death.
War and Peace not only tells a great story, it raises interesting questions such as man's free-will and whether there's a god. It does so through the characters self doubt and trials, and results in an amazing and powerful book.
If you havn't read it, don't be discouraged by the size, you MUST read it!
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