Kate’s 2¢: Tolstoy “War and Peace”

Kate’s 2¢: Tolstoy  “War and Peace”

Kate’s 2¢: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

It seemed to take forever to read this tome. When it was written, reading is what people did, since there weren’t TVs, computers, and social media. They read!

At times, I wished Tolstoy cut out the history data and get on with the narrative arc, however, in the long run, it was a story that needed to be told.

I must admit, I liked getting totally engrossed in the long, classic literature pieces of old. Now that I have the time and resources to access these classics, I’ll be reading a lot.  They say education is wasted on the young! I suspect the young have neither the time nor the experience nor inclination to appreciate great literature.

From: “The Classic Challenge”2007 The Teaching Company. pg79

…Tolstoy uses a contrapuntal strategy, a strategy of juxtaposition, to achieve a kind of shock effect.

…Tolstoy wants to show us both private and public views of events.  He gives us, for example, a timeless Russian peasant witnessing the sack of his town.  The eternal peasant, juxtaposed against the encroaching War, is called “as inconsequential as a fly on the dead face of a loved one.” Note the disconnect here between events that have enormous emotional value for us and the natural scheme of things, which takes no heed of our emotions.

… his focus is not on war itself but on how we tell the story of war, and how individual lives stack up against that backdrop.

From: NLS/BARD/LOC:

War and peace DB26275

Tolstoy, Leo, graf. Reading time: 60 hours, 52 minutes.

Read by Alexander Scourby.

Classics

Historical Fiction

First published in 1864, this epic novel deals with Russia and France at the time of Napoleon Bonaparte. It describes the invasion of Russia by Napoleon and his army, and presents the author’s theories of history.