Book # 26 War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Part 1
Last week I was looking at how just how big War and Peace is. The book is massive. It'll take a while to read it... so instead of writing something after reading it, I'll make a sort-of reading diary while I go along. So after 100 some pages my only opinion is that this will take awhile. I didn't know anything about the book beforehand, and now I know that it is about aristocratic families in Russia during the invasion by Napoleon. So far I've only been able to read in half hour increments, otherwise I'd fall asleep. I figure at this pace I should be done in three months.

Part 2
Three weeks and 450 pages later.... I'm limiting my reading to half an hour a day and the story isn't really interesting enough to make me want to read more. So far the story has mainly centered on three young Russian noblemen during peacetime, then wartime, and then peacetime again. One gets married, another loses his wife, another stays in the military... Somehow none of it is especially interesting. Maybe the next 900 pages will be better.

Part 3
Finally at the halfway point! After a few hundred pages of "Peace" now it is time for some "War". Darn that Napoleon.... Also how could Natasha betray Nikolay like that!

Part 4
I was right. It did take about three months to get through it.  For such a long book I have surprisingly little to say about it. The novel is certainly epic in scope, and while the story is never boring it is rarely compelling. As the book progresses entire chapters are devoted to Tolstoy's opinions on topics that are pretty boring. Actually the last 40 pages are entirely devoted to Tolstoys' thoughts on how historians interpret history, free will, and why certain people such as Napoleon are able to rise to power. And *Spoilers* in the end the two surviving main male characters end up marrying the two main surviving female characters and start families and have a bunch of babies. I admire the scope and I do feel that I learned more than I need to know about Russia in the early 1800's though. I'll give it an A-