My Quick Takes:
- 4.5/5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
- Genre 📚 classic
- Language 🤐 mild, Gods name in vain
- Spice ❤️🔥 none
- content 🤔 death, war, infidelity
Book Information
Title: War and Peace
Author: Leo Tolstoy
Publication: 1869
Genre: Classic
Series: N/A
Part literary fiction, part historical fiction, this epic drama spans a decade during the Napoleonic wars taking place on the Russian front.
My Thoughts
How does one begin reviewing a 1600+ page novel? Let me start with my first memory of this title: I vividly remember my middle school library having a large, red, hardcover edition of War and Peace on the top bookshelf. For most of my life I thought that it was a nonfiction book about war strategy. Much to my embarrassment, it wasn’t until recently that I realized it is nothing close to a nonfiction book about war strategy, but instead a coming of age story of how war (physical, spiritual, and emotional war) impacts and changes personal lives and the lives of those around them.
Admittedly, War and Peace was ABSOLUTELY NOT on my personal to-be-read (TBR) list. It was not a classic I ever desired or planned to read, so how did I get here? We recently moved and have finally found a home church. I was quickly informed that there were a few ladies in a book club, their current read? War and Peace. I jumped at the chance to be a part of an in-person book club! So far it seems that all the book picks are classics that are NOT on my personal TBR and I’m excited for all the literature to come.
Reading War and Peace feels like a once-in-a-lifetime experience, so I committed to the read whole-heartedly. I listened to the audiobook (included on Audible) while also reading the book with my eyes for an immersive reading experience. Marking up the pages with my thoughts was also a way I added another level to my reading experience. Like I said, this is a coming of age, you spend hours and hours (and years and years) with these characters and I was quickly invested in their personal lives and character development.
While reading this book I commented multiple times that it was like Anna Karenina, but with war. If you’ve read Anna Karenina, War and Peace is definitely felt like an adjacent novel. The characters in War and Peace felt like they would’ve rubbed shoulders with the characters in Anna Karenina. I kept waiting for Anna or Levin to join in the plot, but alas. I read the Maude translation of both Anna Karenina and War and Peace and highly recommend. It was translated into English during Tolstoy’s lifetime and Tolstoy endorsed the Maude translation, can’t beat that!
Mixed in with the litfic narrative are historical essays about the Napoleanic war. I personally enjoyed getting these historical narratives added between storylines as I never learned much about Napoleon or his conquest of Europe in school. The narrative switches back and forth between the aristocracy in Moscow and St. Petersburg, to the Russian war front against Napoleon and the French. Since Napoleon is a character in the novel, the historical essays effortlessly giveway to the litfic narrative of the warfront, which I really appreciated.
I really liked how the book club sectioned out the reading of this massive novel, the longest novel BY FAR that I’ve ever read. We read it over the course of 3 months, each month reading 1/3 of the book. It made it feel very attainable and was nice to meet each month to discuss eachothers thoughts on the narrative and characters.
Most surprisingly, I REALLY REALLY enjoyed this book. I was captivated by the different storylines and points of views, even staying up until 2am one night to finish out a scene. I’ve never stayed up that late reading a classic. Fantasy or murder mystery? Absolutely. Classic? Never… until now! I debated rating this book a 5 stars just because I want to give myself 5 stars because I *actually* read War and Peace (still can’t really believe it!)
War and Peace really cured my thoughts on being “scared” to read a book because of page length. I’ve always loved a chunky book, but War and Peace is more than double my average chunky read. Now I’m eyeing books like Les Miserables and The Count of Monte Cristo and can’t wait to see where this classics reading journey takes me! The most unexpected thing about all of this was the amount of messages I received from people who read and loved War and Peace. It was so fun to get messages of excitement and encouragement along the way.
Biblical Worldview/Themes
One of the themes running through this book was the idea of free will. At one point, Tolstoy questions Napoleon’s war efforts and decisions because the conqueror fell ill with a cold (was this the original man cold?!) Through it all, the thread of free will was pulled and it was so easy for me to connect that to God’s continued working writing His story.
Romans 13:1 states:
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.
No matter Tolstoy’s thoughts on free will or who is ultimately in control (which he extensively explains in a second epilogue lecture) I can rest in knowing that God is in control and He places kings on the throne as easily as He dethrones them in both history and current day.
Who I’d Recommend This To
If you are interested in Russian literature, historical fiction, litfic, or just interested in this title in general I think you should give it a try. I recommend reading it with a friend or book club to keep you on track and keeping a decent pace through the novel. I truly believe that reading literature like this at a consistent pace is the best way to experience it.
Similar Reads
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: for a shorter-ish Russian lit without the war (this is where I started with Russian lit)
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky: Russian lit but make it psychological with high stakes (and a male main character that wants to be Napoleon)
*Some of the links on this website are affiliate links. That means that if you click on a link and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. My goal is to provide valuable and helpful content, and any commissions help me maintain this site and the continual creation of high-quality content for my readers (that's you!) Thank you for supporting the content I create!
