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reading (War and Peace)
I started "War and Peace" on the train down to New York (3/1). I finished it yesterday evening. It's one long book! The first scene in the ball seemed to take forever and I really wondered what I had set myself up for.
Things did start to move along after that, although detailed descriptions and long play by play sequences make the book as long as it is. During the course of the book I came to root for some of the characters and scream against their misfortunes. Tolstoy's portrayal of the lifestyle and attitude of the upperclass is detailed. The stupidity of some of the characters was unbelievable, but then again, the stupidity of people in real life is unbelievable so maybe he was spot on. I still feel Tolstoy bent the characters around (and over) to pound his own drum.
In between the sections with characters, plot, and action, Tolstoy puts chapters covering the theory of history and other macro topics. In the early going these are usually helpful to understanding the context in which the characters are acting. In the later parts of the book they become more and more theoretical and more and more frequent. As if to make the book impossible to finish, Tolstoy filled the entire Second Epilogue with this navel gazing philosophy.
This book turns out to be a long strange mix of philosophical treatise and novel. Was it really an act of freewill that I read it? I'm sure it is inevitable that I'll never read it again.
16. Leo Tolstoy "War and Peace"
Things did start to move along after that, although detailed descriptions and long play by play sequences make the book as long as it is. During the course of the book I came to root for some of the characters and scream against their misfortunes. Tolstoy's portrayal of the lifestyle and attitude of the upperclass is detailed. The stupidity of some of the characters was unbelievable, but then again, the stupidity of people in real life is unbelievable so maybe he was spot on. I still feel Tolstoy bent the characters around (and over) to pound his own drum.
In between the sections with characters, plot, and action, Tolstoy puts chapters covering the theory of history and other macro topics. In the early going these are usually helpful to understanding the context in which the characters are acting. In the later parts of the book they become more and more theoretical and more and more frequent. As if to make the book impossible to finish, Tolstoy filled the entire Second Epilogue with this navel gazing philosophy.
This book turns out to be a long strange mix of philosophical treatise and novel. Was it really an act of freewill that I read it? I'm sure it is inevitable that I'll never read it again.
16. Leo Tolstoy "War and Peace"