Product Description

Considered by many to the greatest novel ever written, Tolstoy's masterpiece is a story of family life set against the backdrop of war. The novel begins in 1805 in the crowded and gossip-filled rooms of a St Petersburg party and follows the fortunes of the aristocratic Bolkonsky and Rostov families as Napoleon's armies sweep through Europe, culminating in the French invasion of Russia in 1812 and Napoleon's defeat. Tolstoy's vast novel takes in both the epic sweep of national events and the private experience of individuals, from the keen young soldier to Napoleon himself, and at the heart of it all the complicated triangle of affection that binds his central characters.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #481837 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 1408 pages

Independent
'Translators give their wits and craft selflessly in service of others' work; this is a triumph of fidelity and unpretentiousness'

Review
`reveals Tolstoy in his majestic scope and precision to this reader for the first time...ringing with mastery and truth'

From the Publisher
Packaged like the best most desirable literary fiction - the perfect Christmas gift. It Includes a translator's introduction, a chronology of Tolstoy's life and works, a list of characters, further reading, and four maps.
'This is the best translation so far of Tolstoy's masterpiece into English. It achieves the difficult feat of combining faithfulness to the original with smooth, idiomatic English. The result is a triumph of cultural mediation' – Robert Maguire, Professor of Russian, Columbia University, New York
'In Tolstoy’s work part of the translator’s difficulty lies in conveying not only the simplicity but the subtlety of the book’s scale and effect… Professor Briggs has rendered them both with a particular exactness and a vigorous precision not to be found, I think, in any previous translation' - John Bayley

Customer Reviews

Give it a go...and keep on going!!
War and Peace is my favourite novel, bar none! It took me several attempts to read it from start to finish, but it more than rewards the effort. It is a work of understated genius, astute characterisation, and profound insight into what makes us human. Tolstoy's canvas is Russia at the beginning of the 19th century, and more partcularly the life experiences of those who lived before, during, and after the Napoleonic wars with Russia. Rather than inhibiting the appeal of the novel, this setting allows Tolstoy to explore the human condition through the highs and lows of his characters.

Rather than bore you with a plot synopsis or my fairly uninteresting insights, here are some encouragements for those who have an ambition to read War and Peace, or who have started but are flagging in the journey:

1. Don't be put off by the huge amount of characters introduced at the beginning of the novel. This is a little like entering a room full of strangers, and you can feel a little overwhelmed. Eventually, however, you will get to know a small group very intimately, and will be able to recognise them the further you read. A little like life really!!

2. Don't let the dimensions of the book put you off. Perhaps you should read sections (it is divided into four books and an epilogue, which might be a good serialisation).

3. Read other shorter books at the same time, just to remind yourself that you have the capacity to finish things you begin.

4. Go to forums and websites where others are engaged in reading it from start to finish.

5. Know that the further you get into War and Peace the better and more deep it becomes. It is a book which demands effort, but abundantly rewards it's reader. Tolstoy's opus literally changes the way you view the world.

I trust that this is of some help to those who are either wavering or flagging over War and Peace...

What is War and Peace?
Tolstoy offered his own answer to this question, in "Some Words About War And Peace," but his answer is not very illuminating. Let me try to answer the question in the simplest way possible:

It is first and foremost the story of a handful of characters: the Rostovs, the Bolkonskys, Pierre. It is not a book about war or peace in the grand, overarching sense, but about people and how they cope with such times. Tolstoy's view was that there is no point in writing only about the general course of the war - it's the people that matter.

But, unlike most other novelists, Tolstoy takes you into the lives of his characters by presenting their stories within a historical context presented with an extraordinary level of detail. From this, the popular misconception arises that War and Peace is the story of the Napoleonic Wars, as thought it were some kind of 19th Century Tom Clancy novel. It is not.

As the book goes on and the ongoing war becomes more intense, a great deal of space is devoted to descriptions of the progress of the war and analysis of its causes and effects. It can seem as though Tolstoy has forgetten his characters and readers naturally become confused and wonder what the book is all about.

But when that happens to you, persevere. It *is* worth it. At the end of the First Epilogue everything falls into place and the immense value of all that historical detail will become obvious through the way you empathise with the characters.

Savour the masterpiece drop by drop
This is the novel of all novels but it is not an easy read. Unlike an other reviewer, I find this translation to be excellent. The French text is translated in footnotes on every page and you soon get used to this approach. (It gives the historical flavour of how the aristocracy at the time spoke French with varying degrees of fluency.) We are all so used to instantly consumable fiction that we must retrain ourselves as readers to digest this monumental novel in bitesize pieces. Both the Notes and the Historical Index are a useful addition. I am sure that other translations are also admirable but you cannot go wrong with this.