Consisting of over half a million words, spread over 1200 plus pages of small print, and involving around 600 characters (including roughly 160 historical figures), Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace enjoys almost mythical status as the archetypically monumental novel that most people either casually have on their list of books to tackle one day, or who wouldn’t dream of taking on. It is one of the most famous works of literature in history and generally considered to be an absolute masterpiece.
War and Peace is certainly a challenging read and not one to be tackled lightly. I came across it in a pile of second-hand books left by fellow travellers in a hotel in Peru, of all places, and realised that here was my opportunity to take it on (there must have been quite a few people over the years who have read it whilst on a gap year). Anticipating a slog, but not expecting to derive any actual pleasure from it, I dived in. What a pleasant surprise! Despite some admittedly distended and meandering passages on historiography and some lengthy military minutiae, I found it a thrilling read. It is historical novel, family chronicle, and philosophical treatise, all rolled into one, centred around Napoleon’s invasion of Russia and featuring the intertwined lives of the Bezuhov, Bolkonsky, Rostov and Kuragin families.
If you want to understand the big picture, thinks Tolstoy, you have to examine the details – which is exactly what he did. He studied countless manuscripts, letters, and diaries, and visited all the sites where the battles (Schöngrabern, Austerlitz, Borodino) took place, drawing maps of the area and interviewing locals who had lived through the war. The novel is so long and detailed because he believed that that was the only way to tell this story. To do it justice, the canvas had to be broad.
So War and Peace demands patience and focus, but if you are willing to accept those conditions, it is well worth the effort. If you’re in the market for an epic work encompassing love, war, religion, family, class, history, and philosophy, you could do worse than to bump it up that “must read” list of yours.
