tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9000858.post806825260732519026..comments2023-01-27T13:00:06.764-05:00Comments on Eclectic Indulgence... classic literature reviews: Review: War and Peace by Leo TolstoyEclectic Indulgencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09773640906287038956noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9000858.post-5958242338756418742011-08-22T07:43:20.469-04:002011-08-22T07:43:20.469-04:00I've had War and Peace on my bookshelf for ove...I've had War and Peace on my bookshelf for over 5 years now and haven't read it yet. Mainly because, as you rightly mentioned, the size intimidated me and also my complete ignorance about the'War'. Your review has absolutely hit the spot and inspired me to tackle this classic. Great post.CHEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04634088152624853449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9000858.post-9284063996820720632011-07-16T17:43:18.866-04:002011-07-16T17:43:18.866-04:00Congrats on taking the time and effort to write su...Congrats on taking the time and effort to write such a detailed and lengthy review! I listened to this book on audio, which made the Russian names MUCH easier to deal with :)<br /><br />I wrote my review here: http://differenthomeschoolgirl.blogspot.com/2011/07/book-review-war-and-peace.htmlAbigail Rogershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10367841843553939505noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9000858.post-37300940314726664482011-07-10T16:14:38.038-04:002011-07-10T16:14:38.038-04:00I like the idea of these read alongs.
New follower...I like the idea of these read alongs.<br />New follower of your blog.neerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01986509319841061021noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9000858.post-39675006021229705482011-07-09T13:59:51.092-04:002011-07-09T13:59:51.092-04:00i just discovered your blog through the book blogg...i just discovered your blog through the book blogger hop! thank goodness for blogs which tackle classic lit :)<br /><br />http://guiltlessreading.blogspot.com/aloihttp://guiltlessreading.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9000858.post-78799074322357116632011-07-08T08:32:34.140-04:002011-07-08T08:32:34.140-04:00What a wonderful write up! I think this is the bes...What a wonderful write up! I think this is the best write up of W&P I've seen. <br /><br />"Sometimes we must throw our caution into the wind, in order to grow."<br /><br />Yes. <br /><br />My book group read this too but we only had two months and it was too rushed for me. It made it daunting every page. Don't read this with a deadline like that!! <br /><br />I too was fascinated by Tolstoy's thoughts on the writing of history. I knew nothing about the war before I read this but I know plenty now -- at least form Tolstoy's perspective. I wrote three posts on this novel: http://reviews.rebeccareid.com/tag/war-and-peace/Rebecca Reidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06062252252301802298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9000858.post-4277459696441019192011-07-03T11:38:53.725-04:002011-07-03T11:38:53.725-04:00I'm am one of those who is intimidated by this...I'm am one of those who is intimidated by this book for all the reasons that you mentioned. I've picked up Pevear's translation in the book store several times, glanced over that long list of character names, felt the weight of it in my hands and put it back on the shelf. I think I'm also intimidated by the commitment. I tend to only read one fiction book at a time and I will admit to being put off by the thought that after I start this book,I might not get to another for a month - or more! But your comments about Tolstoy, particularly the ones after the spoiler note (I didn't read the spoilers section) cause me to reconsider. I can't promise that I'll be able to overcome my fear of commitment any time soon with this book, but I'm going to give it some thought. :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9000858.post-57931993138052694512011-07-02T01:33:38.990-04:002011-07-02T01:33:38.990-04:00This next review is by Phil, a member of the bookc...This next review is by Phil, a member of the bookclub and a PHD student. Enjoy!<br /><br />War and Peace can be analyzed from many dimensions because of the breadth and scope of the story. The main focus of this review will be those dimensions that capture Tolstoy’s genius as a writer.<br /> <br />Tolstoy writes splendidly when he discusses the religious experience of some of the characters. There is Princess Marya, who is modeled in Tolstoy’s real life mother. The princess’s religious devotion is almost saint-like. She does not appear to have a selfish or sinful bone in her body. She takes care of her abusive father with little concern for her own needs. She has regular meetings with society’s outcasts on her estate. She is irreproachably generous with the peasants who till her fathers land. Her love for her father, Prince Andrey, Nicholai Rostov, and others is of a morally and spiritually pure kind that, as Tolstoy movingly states, exudes a beauty that transcends the plainness of her actual physical appearance.<br /><br />Tolstoy’s capacity to beautifully capture religious feeling is demonstrated with other characters too. When Prince Andrey falls in love with Natasha, this love manifests itself as a “sudden vivid awareness of the terrible opposition between something infinitely great and indefinable that was in him, and something narrow and fleshy that he himself was”. This quasi-supernatural love manifests itself in sadder circumstances: when Andrei is injured in the Battle of Borordino, he discovers that omnipresent power and love in the universe that makes his impending death meaningless, even welcome, for him.<br /> <br />This privileging of the supernatural over the natural may explain why, in many parts of the text, Tolstoy displays a preference for the intuitive and emotional over the material and rational. There are Natasha’s, Marya’s, and Andrei’s omens of impending doom that always come true. There is the juxtaposition between the Russian general Kutuzov, who makes crucial decisions during the war on the basis of feeling and intuition, and the German generals who introduce mathematical and scientific principles into battle plans. For Tolstoy, it is the decisions of the former that save Russia, while the decisions of the latter lead to failure. This disparaging of the rational and scientific also manifests itself in Tolstoy’s theory of the Napoleonic wars. He rejects the historians who try to explain these events on the basis of the will of powerful leaders like Alexander or Napoleon. This error, according to Tolstoy, emerges, in part, from the over-simplification that occurs when trying to find a singular cause. For Tolstoy there is no singular cause that can be identified in the material world. There is the coincidence of millions of wills all interacting with each other, and their individual intentions do not correspond with the actual outcomes of the war. And these millions of wills are themselves moved by that omnipresent metaphysical entity that Tolstoy alludes to continuously throughout the text. Since this entity cannot be perceived with the senses, perhaps only intuition and emotion are the only means to access it. <br /><br />Tolstoy can often be contradictory, however: he rejects the powerful leader theory of the war, but in some parts of the text he depicts Napoleon as a heartless megalomaniac who was responsible for the slaughter that took place.<br /> <br />Tolstoy works wonders with words when he takes those disjointed elements of internal experience and external reality and merges them into a singular, coherent, subjective impression. A moving example is when Nicholai Rostov, in the heat of a battle against the French, experiences the following: “Just then the sun began to hide itself behind the clouds. Ahead of Rostov, a stretcher appeared. And his fear of death and the stretcher, and his love of the sun and life—all merged into one painfully disturbing impression”. With writing like this, the saddest part of the book is that it ends.Eclectic Indulgencehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09773640906287038956noreply@blogger.com