I did it. I read all 1,215 pages of Tolstoy’s Russian
masterpiece. Although, I would not call this book a masterpiece by any means.
Honestly, it was one of the most boring and difficult books I have ever read.
It was all over the place and inconsistent and just too long for its own sake.
It would not surprise me if the only reason this book is considered a “classic”
and remembered is because it is one of the longest books ever written.
We are
still sitting in Rory’s first class at Chilton where the teacher rambles off a
list of works in order to compare how English society influenced Russian
society in the 19th century, specifically in literature. I assume
that this is a history class and literature is being used as an example. And
Mr. Medina is Rory’s English teacher (and Lorelai’s future love interest) and
this man is clearly not him. The teacher says to the class: “As Tolstoy
commenced writing both War and Peace
and Anna Karenina, Count Leo would
turn to..” Paris responds with David
Copperfield. It is not shocking, then, that if I disliked David Copperfield that I also disliked War and Peace. I am shocked, though,
that these novels are being discussed in a tenth grade English class. I can
tell you that my classes very rarely go this way. The tenth graders in this
class must be some form of robots as many of my students claim they have never
read a book let alone know that Tolstoy was influenced by Dickens.
When I
started reading War and Peace, I was
intimidated and worried how much it would impact my fun reading (I usually have
two books going at once), but somehow I got through it. I found the book
difficult to follow for several reasons. 1. I was reading it in translation.
Obviously, War and Peace was
originally written in Russian so some aspects of the novel are bound to be lost
in translation. The translation I read was very good, but I had to read a lot
of footnotes to understand what was going on. 2. This book didn't know what it
wanted to be. We claim War and Peace is
a novel, but it is not. It tries to be a novel, a historical account, a
philosophical discussion, and a poem all at once. Even Tolstoy said it is “not
a novel, even less it a poem, and still less a historical context.” It seems to
me that Tolstoy felt whatever he felt like at the moment in order to create the
longest book he could. I think it is great that he wrote what he wanted to, but
that doesn’t mean other people want to read it. So that brings me to this
question: Does anybody out there call War
and Peace their favorite book? Do they take it out when they are feeling
sad to make them feel better? Is it the one they eagerly tell their friends
about and urge them to read? Someone please tell me because I would really like
to know the answer to this question
Now, I don’t really feel like rambling on about this book
since it was tedious enough to read it so here is a list of my random thoughts:
- Tolstoy
had his wife copy the manuscript for this book seven times. Let’s do the math
here: 1215 pages X 7 = 8505 pages. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.
- I have a strange love of footnotes. I don’t know why…but
even that couldn’t save this book for me.
- I had a lot of flashbacks to my AP European history class
during my junior year of high school. Some of those were good memories, while
others were just plain stressful.
- At one point in the novel, one character tortured another
character by slitting his nostrils. My response was “Whaaaaaaa?”
- Just because something is bigger does not always mean it is better. As I tell my students, just because you write more does not mean that their essay is going to get an A. This book shows that more words does not equal a better book.
Next Book: Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens. My
last Dickens for a while! Whooohooo!!!!
Pictures
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