"War and Peace" ( Война и Mир, 1869) - Russian Author Leo Tolstoy's Legendary Novel about the Napoleonic Wars' Effects on Russia via Stories of Five Aristocratic Russian Families

[DonRocks]

DIShGo and I have decided to form our own book club and read Tolstoy's "War and Peace," and we invite any and all DR members to join us in discussing it. 

We did this with "Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida" several years back, and had a wonderful time doing so - we're hopeful this will be more of the same. If you're lurking, please register and contribute - we need all the help we can get with this beast! 

Other than, gulp, "Atlas Shrugged," this will be the first-ever 1,000+ word novel I've ever attempted to tackle, and "Atlas Shrugged," though an intriguing concept, doesn't really qualify as "advanced literature" - I've read some real bears in my life, but this will be the biggest bear I've ever attempted to ride. DIShGo read "Infinite Jest" a couple of years ago, so this will be her second. Interestingly, I've read Tolstoy's shortest short story: "The Three Hermits" - all of three pages long.

"War and Peace" - a good version of it (a paperback of Oxford's World Classics) is available from Amazon for the incredible price of $12.50 - you can buy good, used copies for much less than that. I suspect that with my pencil, I'll end up going through two-or-three copies before finishing, so I'll save the leather-bound edition for my final purchase; for now, I just want inexpensive copies and good translations (Louise and Aylmer Maude are whom Oxford considers to be reference-standard for translating this novel into English, so that's who we're going with).

Nothing would make me happier than for twenty people to join us - we're going to be going slowly, and this will probably take a year to complete. When will you ever, in your entire life, have a better opportunity than this? We're kind, patient, intelligent, curious, eager, open-minded, and will always have a "more the merrier" attitude - please join us?

We'll be starting with the Introduction, which is thirteen pages long itself. The book suggests that it can be used as an afterward, but as with Shakespeare, I have no problem "learning in advance" about the story - it's the beauty of the writing I'm after (and I think I speak for DIShGo as well); not the arc of the story. We'll all (both?) try to make whatever cogent observations we can, while at the same time, hope to learn from what others have to say.

Please join us! We're both plenty busy, and don't plan to get through this project quickly; we are, instead, planning to enjoy the intellectual challenge.

DIShGo is super-smart with literature, and it will be a pleasure to discuss this with her and learn.

[Al Dente]

Can I read this version?

[DonRocks]

On 10/30/2017 at 10:13 AM, Al Dente said:

Can I read this version?

You'd be wise to do so - DIShGo has finished the book; I'm on page 214 ... 1,000 pages to go for me.

"Remains of the Day" got in my way.

For whatever it's worth, Book 1, Part 1 (where everyone is introduced via high society) is vastly different than Book 1, Part 2 (where the war in Austria is occurring) - this is such a great endeavor, but my goodness, don't wait until you're 57-years old to read it (or, maybe, do, because otherwise, you won't be able to fully appreciate it; but how much other great literature are you giving up in order to read this?)