Five Russian aristocratic families navigate the Napoleonic Wars, and Tolstoy uses their lives to argue about history, fate, and what any of us can actually know about why things happen.
About This Book
Against the backdrop of Napoleon's invasion of Russia, this immense novel follows a large cast of aristocratic families through years of war and peace, chiefly a searching, illegitimate heir stumbling toward meaning, a disillusioned prince seeking purpose in battle and love, and a vivacious young woman coming of age amid the glittering, treacherous social world, as private lives of love, marriage, faith, and doubt unfold beneath the vast, impersonal forces of history. Tolstoy writes one of the supreme achievements of world literature, weaving intimate psychological realism together with sweeping battlefield panoramas and philosophical essays on history, free will, and the illusions of great men, creating a book that seems to contain the whole of life in its pages. The scope is staggering, the characters unforgettable, the wisdom profound. This suits readers who want to immerse themselves in one of the greatest novels ever written, a vast and humane portrait of a society at war and the individuals within it, and who welcome a long, demanding masterpiece. It fits less well anyone wanting brevity or a tight plot, since the book is enormous and its digressions substantial. The detail that intimate personal dramas of love and faith play out against the crushing impersonal force of history gives the book its towering scope. Monumental, humane, and profound, it rewards committed readers enormously. Those wanting economy may find it daunting, but its vision of the whole of life is exactly what makes it a summit of the form.
Who This Is For
Best for readers who want to feel something deeply, books that stay with you long after the last page. This is a book that asks something of you. Dense, layered, and best read slowly. It takes its time, and that's the point. Patience is rewarded. If you prefer to read at arm's length, this one may get too close.
Best Read When
Best read when you're in the mood for something moving and emotionally resonant, and a read that's slow and deeply immersive.
What It Explores
War and Peace explores war and its costs — both during and long after, love in its most complicated forms, family in all its complexity — inherited and chosen, and identity and the gap between who we are and who we pretend to be.
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