I don’t get paid enough to do a proper review of this book, so here’s an improper review for ya. War and Peace covers about 8 years of history from 1805-1813. This is the part of history where Napoleon invades Europe and makes it all the way to Russia, culminating in the war of 1812. It is a realist novel, as Tolstoy did an unbelievable amount of research into the war and paints an incredibly detailed picture of the invasion. The central theme of this book (to me) is history, and the way people relate to it.
There are two sides to the life of every man, his individual life, which is the more free the more abstract its interests, and his elemental hive life in which he inevitably obeys laws laid down for him.
Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity. A deed done is irrevocable, and its result coinciding in time with the actions of millions of other men assumes an historic significance. The higher a man stands on the social ladder, the more people he is connected with and the more power he has over others, the more evident is the predestination and inevitability of his every action. The king’s heart is in the hands of the Lord. A king is history’s slave. History, that is, the unconscious, general, hive life of mankind, uses every moment of the life of kings as a tool for its own purposes.
When an apple has ripened and falls, why does it fall? Because of its attraction to the earth, because its stalk withers, because it is dried by the sun, because it grows heavier, because the wind shakes it, or because the boy standing below wants to eat it? Nothing is the cause. All this is only the coincidence of conditions in which all vital organic and elemental events occur. And the botanist who finds that the apple falls because the cellular tissue decays and so forth is equally right with the child who stands under the tree and says the apple fell because he wanted to eat it and prayed for it. Equally right or wrong is he who says that Napoleon went to Moscow because he wanted to, and perished because Alexander desired his destruction, and he who says that an undermined hill weighing a million tons fell because the last navvy struck it for the last time with his mattock. In historic events the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself. Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of history and predestined from eternity.
Overall, I found this book highly entertaining throughout. It was of course detailed, but the details all seemed necessary to the story to me. It was the first book in a while that moved me to tears. Great narrative arcs, character development and of course insight. I would hesitate to recommend this book to people due to the sheer size of it, but it really is worth the effort if you are not in a hurry and have the time. The firsthand accounts of the battles are superb, Tolstoy had a view way ahead of his time portraying war and violence as a terrible thing. The characters are all 10d.
Leo Tolstoy