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Great Book!!	Customer Rating:
I am loving this book because it gives me something to keep my mind active during my down time!!

War and Upstairs-Downstairs

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The nineteenth century was the era of the great novel. The twentieth may have seen far more, but 20th-Century novels are basically dispo-lit: throw-aways not expected to endure: published in paperback, and rightly. "Atlas Shrugged" (1951) was the last "great" novel. The worst shortcoming of 19th-Century novelists was their tendency to get the train of story stalled on irrelevant sidetracks while they explored history and geography: Dickens & Dumas wandered afield, but divertingly, & Hugo strayed so far that many readers never got back. (You have to read the first quarter of "Notre Dame de Paris" before the plot begins.) In W&P, Tolstoy carried it to the ultimate: the history is so intimately connected with the story of five aristocratic Russian families of the early 1800s that you cannot separate the background from the story. His masterly descriptions of the Austrian retreat from Vienna, and the battlefields of Austerlitz, Shevardino, and Borodino, are so intimately connected with the fortunes of the families that a reader cannot disentangle them. Which would be wonderful if the family dramas were worth recording. But they are not. Sitcom-producers generally expect to produce 37 episodes per season, and if the show becomes popular enough to last 10 years, they find themselves scraping the bottom of the drama-barrel for the 369th episode. That is what W&P is: a sort of two-century-old Russian "Upstairs-Downstairs", that can never finish. It starts with the emotional involvements of the youngsters of five families: love (with betrayals, divorces, mesalliances, etc) and death (in childbirth, or by murder, suicide, duel, war, disease, or cruel neglect); and at the end, a new generation going in for the same silly mess all over again. Meaningless, pointless, and endless. With most 19th-Century novelists we have historical description contaminating a brilliant plot; with Tolstoy we have the plot contaminating brilliant historical description. Tolstoy would be great if he had stuck to historical romance. If you really like soaps, by all means plow your way through the war to find the peace; but if you love history, don't bother. You will never find the beautiful war in all those suds. Andrew Charig 9/25/08

Great story, but terrible historical accuracy....

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For me at first the novel started pretty good, and was quite one of the best I ever read, but from the half part of the book on after the french invasion of Russia, I was shocked to see so much historicals inaccuracies, and descriptions that seemed more and more propagandistic. For example his description of Napoleon, as a tiny egocentric man, that believes his own lies, and this is the secret from his victory, obviuosly seem more of Russian propaganda than anything else. And besides the Battle of Borodino, WAS A FRENCH VICTORY, and a Russian one, like Tolstoy try to makes us think....... Perhaps this is because of the time were he lived..... In summary buy it if you want to hear a great story about human nature. But take it as a fiction, as hardly anything Tolstoy says may be actually considered truth in a historical sense.

Rosemary Edmonds trans. of War and Peace	Customer Rating:
I'm suprised not to see anyone mention Rosemary Edmonds' translation of this masterful work. Her translation, published by Penguin Classics, is really quite good, and reads smoothly, and it seems accurate to what Tolstoy would have considered his message. I highly recommend this translation of War and Peace.

An amazing novel

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Leo Tolstoy combines philosophy and history for one of the best fictional stories about a historical event that I have read. The plot is captivating from the beginning. A glimpse at the high society of Russia in the early 1800's followed by the story of the lives of the families at that gathering. The story of the Rostov's captures all the human emotions. The excitement of Nikolay at his first battle, only to be overcome by cowardice. The maturing of Nikolay into a courageous soldier. To see the same cycle beginning in his brother Petya. The life and death experiences of Prince Andrey and Pierre that shed light into the character of men. But throughout this story, Tolstoy inserts his cynical view of historians and government. Tolstoy does not love Napolean or think of him as a great commander, nor does Tolstoy give him credit for leading the French army to victories. Additionally, he criticizes the actions of government officials and military leaders for their brutality to their citizens and soldiers. I can only begin to describe the plot and the multiple story lines in War and Peace, but I assure you this novel will captivate you. The brilliance of Tolstoy is demonstrated in this novel and I highly recommend it.