In this essay, I will…
…just kidding.
For starters, Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace is closer to a conservative historical reimagining than a narrative-driven traditional European novel. The backdrop of the story is Napoleon’s conquest across Europe and ultimate invasion into and defeat in Russia. While in the war sections there are added fictitious characters to drive the plot, real leaders and generals are name-dropped and interwoven throughout. For instance, Tolstoy tries to explain how Napoleon lost Borodino to Kutuzov and how he reflected on the events years after in exile. That’s the first layer. The second layer is the broad swath of plausible characters in the upper echelon of Russian society: resolute idealists, black-hearted conspirers, mercenary opportunists, gullible humanitarians. They’re quite fun to love and hate. They provide ample fodder for commentary on not only ‘human nature’ (cue eye-roll) but also on the kinds of movements and -isms that were taking hold between 1805-1820, which is a lot to unpack. The third layer is the more abstract and philosophical aspect that the book often gets both commended and ridiculed for. Like what is life and why do I want to die. I’m not super gaga about these parts; Tolstoy was rather cryptic and annoyingly deterministic, with a massive dollop of hindsight bias. He skirts over interesting ideas without adding any meaningful conversation to them, using them as plot devices for his characters to develop and interact with one another. It’s always ‘meh, it’s fate’ with a glassy-eyed stare. I could barely tolerate his unfocused rambling in the epilogue. But it’s fine. The read on the book is less on finding it within your heart to forgive him for describing calculus to explain the ‘correct’ methodology of historical science and more so on just enjoying the moment, like that one gorgeous passage about Prince Andrei staring at the blue sky on the battlefield reminiscing on life.
At a surface level, W&P doesn’t have insufferable writing. It alternates between the ‘war’ and the ‘peace’ sections, making it easy for me to pick up where I left off. It slugs in the middle, beware. My English translation (by Constance Garnett) has these really helpful footnotes to contextualize historical events and preserve language nuances. Still, it’s probably better to additionally have a map of Europe and Google somewhere nearby to digest the text well; I was so far removed that names of cities and mountain ranges and battles more often than not flew over my head. I was barely gripping onto the facts on the Battle of Ulm, the Battle of Austerlitz, The Treaty of Tilsit, and other details of the Napoleonic campaigns. (Though, it might be more obvious for some readers in Europe.)
At a more atomized level, the book is akin to a walk around a gallery: you have the Rembrandt and Monet finds, Judeo-Christian iconography, stiff-collared portraits of duchies and viscounts, the less renowned landscape oils, and the modern exhibit that denounces your aesthetic sensibilities with child scribble. Pierre inherits his fortune from his dying father. Andrei contemplates the infinite sky after being shot down. Pierre commits to freemasonry. Pierre duels Dolokhov after being insulted and unable to pay off his gambling debt. Rostov loses his family fortune to the conniving Dolokhov. Denisov is demoted in the rundown hospital for the requisition of rations for his soldiers. Andrei spots Natasha in the fields when he’s depressed. Sonya bars Natasha from running away with Anatole. The Tsar and Napoleon toast to the future of France and Russia. Rostov helps Marya leave her estate in the wake of the death of her father, the resisting peasants, and the incoming French…and on and on. These scenes flutter by: partying, hunting, dancing, gambling, fighting, dining, praying, singing. There’s a pervasive sense of futility. Feelings are fickle; leaders are hypocritical; good people are naive; bad people are sly. The book is an experience, to say the least.
I’m glad I’ve read W&P. For me, the value of the book comes from being able to think and work in the headspace of an especially interesting time and place far removed from where I exist written from a personality and perspective foreign to who I am, where I can access the texture of real things and relations from unreal ideas. The length of the book is the immersion, and as much as I’ve dragged my heels and complained about it…
I’d give War and Peace a solid 8/10.