War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy - Part 1

War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 154

  June 3, 2017 

Book 46 - War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy (1869)
 Part 1 - first 40%
Reading Time - many hours

Well... War and Peace... go figure. This book is on my 2017 Reading Challenge list although... I had thought I might postpone it to next year but... I was on a trip and I had the free Gutenberg version on my e-book reader and so I started reading it.

A couple of things... I always thought War and Peace would be a long and tedious read but... it is surprisingly readable. Go figure! The chapters are quite short... 12-30 pages in my e-book reader which is nothing.

I do have to say... the first section was very hard going... trying to keep all the characters straight in my head. There are so many of them that come flying at you, and with their unfamiliar Russian names, that it's a bit overwhelming. I did a bit of research and found that the BBC had done a recent mini-series on War and Peace. So I kept looking up the actors for the different parts... and trying to figure out who were the main characters so I could focus on remembering them! That definitely helped. I wanted to know, for example, what a Hussar uniform looked like.

BBC cast of War and Peace

Some people don't like the War scenes in the book and are tempted to skip over them. I, on the other hand, found them quite enjoyable. But then I've read a fair few novels about the Napoleonic Wars - particularly Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series which follows the adventures of a British rifleman as he fights his way through Portugal and Spain with Wellington's army. In that way, it's nice to get a Russian take on the war. Being interested in WW2 history and the insanity of Hitler's attempt to invade Russia in 1941... and how the German Army was devastated by the Russian Winter and the Russian Army. I know that Napoleon also tried the same thing in 1814... or was it 1812? Anyhow... I'm hoping that the book will cover some of that.

There's no way I can write about each chapter or sections of this book. It would seem to be more helpful to focus on the characters. I've heard that the characters change quite a bit throughout the book. Right now... I'm liking the Rostov family... and Prince Andrew's family. Pierre just annoys the heck out of me. He is so indecisive and weak that I just want to shake him by the scruff. I know some people really identify with Pierre... but that's not me. I rather like Nicholas... and Prince Andrew. Natasha is good too as is Princess Mary.

The blogs on this book are going to come interspersed with other books... I'm reading them concurrently and can't wait until I finish War and Peace to continue with the blogs!