‘War and Peace’ needs no introduction. It holds its place in the minds of contemporary society as a literary classic. One cannot pick up a newspaper article on great books without a passing mention of Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece. Like other classical works such as the Bible, I think that their obvious fame means and their influence on society and heir survival into modern times means that at the very least if you happen to pick up and read one of these rare works you will rarely face disappointment. Indeed, without further ado, I confess that ‘War and Peace’ is one of the very best books I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Critics compare it to Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey. I’d say it outflanks them. Firstly, it is a marathon read. If you’re looking on Amazon for value for money on pence per word you can’t go far wrong with Tolstoy. For about £9 you get 1400 pages. But don’t get fooled into thinking the epic will keep you going for months on end as the pages turn fast. The story is quite entrancing and addictive. I suppose one of the beauties of writing such a huge tome for an author, is that it gives you a big canvas on which to develop your story fully and also to really define your novel’s characters. ‘War and Peace, covers a timespan of about 20 years at the start of the nineteenth century, a time when enlightenment thinking and imperial nationalism had produced great changes across all of European society, including Russia. The French Revolution spread like a virus with its new emancipation ideas and politics was actively changing the shape of entire societies. Of course the guillotines of post 1789 France soon gave way to the ‘little Corsican’ to emerge and of course our hero / antihero ‘old Boney” Napoleon Bonaparte himself does play a leading role in the book. The main war is Napoleon’s initial successful attack on mother Russia followed by his ultimate failure to seize power and the retreat of his army and destruction of the Grande Armée as it backed out of a burning Moscow and headed back down through the harsh winter roads leading back to Europe where virtually his entire corps perished, famously eating their horses to dodge starvation. Of course, closer to our own times a future diminutive European dictator, Adolf Hitler, failed to learn from the mistake of Napoleon and didn’t even make it to Moscow getting his whole World War 2 campaign totally written off by the Red Army following the counterpoint of the battle of Stalingrad which swung Nazi victory away from the latest grandiose empire-builder, daring to challenge the might of the Rus Steppes. Napoleon’s enemy is Tsar Alexander I and it is warming to see the love of the Tsar demonstrated by his people, the army and the characters at peace. These were pre-Leninist times for an aristocratic Russia, still with serfs, a society directed towards the salons of Paris for its artistic and cultural influence, yet close enough to the European mainstream to be sucking in some of the candidness of enlightenment authors such as Voltaire or Rousseau with their revolutionary ideologies that would reshape modern man’s destiny. We are in an age of excitement, an age of hope, a changing world, a globalised society. Tolstoy, a novelist with direct experience of conflict, being a veteran of the Crimean War, was very eccentric in his real life, seeing much of the excesses of society, living both as a hedonist and a monk. He was a gambling philanderer, but also a loyal Russian subject with obvious amazing talent for observation and writing. Undoubtedly ‘War and Peace’ is a masterpiece and is cited as the pinnacle of Russian literary culture. Its beauty, perhaps, is in its uniqueness. The critics had no idea how to categorise it. It is such an original, creative masterpiece. Is it history, is it fiction, is it romance, is it war? Is it philosophy? The answer is that it is all. A variety of all ingredients chucked deep in with the rest of the Borsch in the pot and delivered in a unravelling exciting journey alternating between the peaceful salons of St Petersburg and the battlefields of Austerlitz and Borodino. In researching the novel, Tolstoy actually visited several battle sites just to be fully consistent in his given detail – indeed the accuracy of the book’s battle scenes has been highly lauded by military historians.
The characters (and there are over 500 throughout the book) are centred around three main aristocratic families: Thee Bezukhovs, The Bolkonskys and the Rostovs. Count Pierre Bezukhov, a wild young man, accidentally inherits a fortune and his quest for morality and happiness is an inward journey in many ways despite the outward appearance of such material wealth. Prince Andrei Nikolayovich Bolkonsky is the real military hero of the novel and fares the best out of the central characters in the fight against Napoleon. He also manages to land the love of the most delicate and fragrant female character the dainty, youthful Natalya Rostov, although her romantic life is quite meandering throughout her courting adventures. Andrei has a sister Maria and her fraught relationship with her father’s growingly irrational discipline is an interesting familial relationship. Nikolai Rostov is a hussar in the war and although perhaps not reaching the ranking heights of Prince Andrei with his more diplomatic movements in high military circles, he is yet a formidable warrior in touch with the rank and file soldiers of the Tsar.It is Nikolai Rostov’s officer friend and comrade, Denisov who steals the show for me and is my favourite character in the novel. His speech impediment, so faithfully portrayed by the English translators gives his often haphazard movements throughput the novel a genuine comedy value and to me he is the warmest and most interesting of the stars of the show. The journey moves through family life and the early scenes include salons and ballrooms where conversation and polite society in the drawing rooms of Moscow and St Petersburg reflect upon all of society’s concerns. There isa genuine nostalgia for times gone by and to see Russian high society in full flow is a forgotten world now. Oligarchs way have been the bastard children of the collapse of the Soviet Union but they are no replacement for the aristocracy who with all wealth and down to every element of the bourgeoisie, from Count to Kulak, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin et al, destroyed these societal elements completely with the Bolshevik communist revolution. The later years of Soviet Russia I think make Tolstoy even more important as an historical work in that he genuinely, even if working primarily with historical characters, captures the mood and feelings of a society in mutatis.
There is genuine love and romance and the female characters hold their own. I’m not so soppy myself and prefer the war stuff like any good redblooded bloke but it’s hard not to notice the sweet feminine grace and womanly charm of some wonderful women who do seduce and distract the gaze of our male protagonists.
Tolstoy has it all and ‘War and Peace’ is a wonderful experience from which everyone should benefit at some stage in their life. Dostoyevsky used to be my favourite Russian author but I think Tolstoy now trumps him and I’m in a mad panic to see just how many words per pence Anna Karenina contains so I can drain my piggy bank from some of my shiny rubles.