War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Often called the greatest novel ever written, War and Peace is at once an epic of the Napoleonic Wars, a philosophical study, and a celebration of the Russian spirit. Tolstoy's genius is seen clearly in the multitude of characters in this massive chronicle--all of them fully realized and equally memorable. Out of this complex narrative emerges a profound examination of the individual's place in the historical process, one that makes it clear why Thomas Mann praised Tolstoy for his Homeric powers and placed War and Peace in the same category as the Iliad" " "To read him . . . is to find one's way home . . . to everything within us that is fundamental and sane."

This book is incredible monotonous. All the characters feel the same and there is too much of them. They're introduced by name and given a police sketch-up artist description. Something I've felt also in Anna Karenina is that all characters are aristocratic, many are princes or princesses. Overall the prose is too descriptive, it feels very stereotyped Russian.

Read 1:43/60:49 3%

What's great about this book is how good Tolstoy is at creating and describing characters. The various plots of all the characters are interesting and move quickly. The story of Napoleon's warring across the continent is quite interesting too. I don't like all the ranting about historians and self-congratulating about how Tolstoy himself knows how to analyze history; in particular, I did not care for Part II of the Epilogue, which should have been entirely excised so I could have gotten on with my life.

This translation seems really good to me, although I haven't read any other translations. It's written in a very lively and modern style, more so than I remember the translation of Anna Karenina that I read being. There are several typos throughout, though.