Does Anyone Get Through “War and Peace”?
According to the spy comedy Get Smart, no one does — even when armed with a sword. But is Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece really as impenetrable as its reputation suggests?
I was introduced to Tolstoy through Anna Karenina, when I came across the massive Dover Thrift edition of the novel on my grandmother’s shelf. I was browsing through the books that we inherited from her a little over three years ago, during the summer of 2020 — the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Stuck inside and trying to escape worries about the future, I thought to myself, why not? If ever there was a time for tackling the (in)famous Tolstoy, now was the time.
Though I knew Tolstoy to be a tremendous and tremendously verbose figure of Russian literature, I hadn’t considered reading his work until I developed a distinct taste for the nineteenth-century novel. Named after a female protagonist, whose psychological, emotional, and moral experiences and struggles are explored and validated, Anna Karenina follows a well-established novelistic tradition. It is an exemplary work that delves into the heart and mind of an upper-class woman who grapples with love and marriage, duty and desire, social conventions and the double standard — themes that are universal and eternal. (For a closer look, see my essay on Anna Karenina here.)
But the scope of War and Peace, as its title implies, is much greater: it attempts to not only understand individuals but also nations, movements, and the forces of history. It follows the affections and fortunes of Pierre Bezukhov, Andrei Bolkonsky, and Natasha Rostova as they intersect with, and give color to, Russia’s political and military entanglements with Napoleon (who is given a very unflattering portrait) between the years 1805 and 1820. As a result, multiple chapters begin with, or are fully dedicated to, reflections on the culture and revolutions of this period and explications of Tolstoy’s historical and spiritual philosophies, which are inextricably intertwined. Like all great works of fiction, War and Peace is a meditation on human nature and meaning in addition to an illustration of individual characters and events. However, unlike most novelists, Tolstoy felt compelled to write no less than thirteen hundred pages in order to elucidate and do justice to his topic. (Count Leo really wrote twelve hundred pages and then said, you know what this book needs? An epilogue. With two parts.)
Some may argue that no one nowadays has the time or curiosity to sustain them through a book that long; but is there really any difference between reading a bulky tome versus a series of smaller novels? (For example, George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones is a popular series similar in complexity and comprehensiveness to War and Peace, but it actually includes many more hundreds of pages than Tolstoy’s masterpiece. You can access my piece on Daenerys Targaryen here.) Perhaps publishers should consider separating the four books (i.e., volumes) of War and Peace into actual ones in order to make the whole appear less intimidating. But though its length is understandably daunting, War and Peace is not an unapproachable or indigestible classic. Tolstoy’s prose is not opaque, nor his plot vague and infrequently encountered (I’m thinking of you, Les Misérables). As I mentioned, he does indulge in philosophical tangents every now and then, but he never loses sight of his story — an adroit balancing act that proves his authorial skill.
Of course, for a work in translation to be compelling, both the author and the translator must perform their job well. The edition of Anna Karenina that I had stumbled upon was translated by Aylmer and Louise Maude, a couple who lived in Russia for many years and were personally acquainted with Leo Tolstoy, who praised their work. Having found their translation of Anna Karenina both eloquent and absorbing, I decided to give the Maudes’ translation of War and Peace (the Oxford World’s Classics edition) a try. In my opinion, it is not without its faults: I often had to reread certain sentences, especially those occurring within descriptions of battles, in order to understand the sequence of events and their spatial coordinates. Yet I doubt I would have preferred a more recent translation that sought to modernize the diction of the novel. For me, a great part of the appeal of nineteenth-century literature is the fact that its language is often more elegant and elevated than everyday speech. I can appreciate that modernizing a classic makes it more accessible to present-day readers, especially those who have not had the privilege of a higher education; but the very difference of a work, in expression or content, is what attracts me to it. I want to immerse myself in a different time, a different culture, a different world — to learn about the unfamiliar, discover connections, and thereby come to a better appreciation of humanity and myself.
As his concluding pages prove, such interests and aims — linking people and events in order to better understand human nature and purpose — motivated Tolstoy to pen War and Peace. The final forty pages comprise a full essay, which outlines in depth his historical and spiritual philosophies, parts of which are interspersed throughout the novel. These last pages are, moreover, proof that this book was the product of many years of laborious reading and reflection. Tolstoy is chiefly concerned with exploring the definition of power, the forces that move peoples and nations, and the complexities and contradictions inherent in the notion of free will (that is, consciousness). He insightfully contemplates how the concepts of right and wrong exist only because of free will. Animals act the way they do because they follow natural laws, from which they cannot deviate; they are incapable of committing crimes or exemplifying virtue because they behave exactly as their nature dictates. But humans, because we possess the capacity of choice — the gift and burden of free will — are morally responsible for our actions and their consequences.
In addition to these profound considerations, Tolstoy delves into the notions of time, space, and creation. He briefly outlines his belief in the essential unity of science and religion. He manifests a rather democratic impulse in his rejection of the supposed greatness of famous generals and monarchs, arguing that power lies in the hands of the common people, whose ordinary lives he explores with detail and compassion. If he is profuse in his descriptions and prolific in his character portraits, that is because Tolstoy, like Charles Dickens, delights in his artform and believes that the prosaic elements of everyday life often elucidate important themes and provide invaluable insights. For all of these reasons, he refused to label War and Peace as a novel, viewing its scope and multi-faceted nature as a defiance of tradition and categorization. But the novel distinguishes itself from other genres by its very capaciousness and flexibility: not only can it absorb and satirize other genres, but it also evolves according to cultural developments and artistic innovations. In other words, War and Peace is a novel precisely because it exceeds the boundaries of other genres and integrates their various elements. Part romance and part history, social critique and military drama, psychological evaluation and philosophical argument, Tolstoy’s masterpiece tries to examine and reflect life itself. This is, of course, an ultimately impossible task; but if anyone has come close, it’s Leo Tolstoy.
That description may make the book sound positively overwhelming or incredibly dull, but it’s not, I promise. Of course, not every page (or every chapter) is captivating, but the characters and plot continue to draw you in and along. Let me be honest with you: the first nine hundred pages are interesting, but the last four hundred are exceptional. They elevate the novel and determine its exalted status. Yet it is only by following the characters through the many daily and momentous incidents in their lives, their passions and their mistakes, that we can truly appreciate the realizations and growth that they achieve as the story nears its conclusion. One character endures extreme physical privation and loses hope in humanity, only to encounter a man so simple yet sincere that he discovers the beauty in creation and the meaning within himself. Another learns the true nature of love and forgiveness only once the approach of death casts his life in perspective. Yet another experiences a grief so profound that she sheds her selfish and immature youth, leaving her soul purified and ready to embrace a lasting happiness. Perhaps you may not fall in love with these deeply flawed characters, but in them and in the narrative you may find moments of exquisite beauty and truth, as I did. If I had to choose one aspect of the book that particularly moved me — especially given the alarming state of the world right now — it would be Tolstoy’s belief that no matter how bleak the situation may be, no matter how much your faith in God and mankind is tested and even extinguished, someone or something good will come along to make you realize that all is not wicked, all is not fruitless, all is not lost. Even if your country is invaded, your home destroyed, your freedom stolen — even if some members of mankind are perpetrating atrocities — there are people through whom virtue and hope still exist in the world; and if we dedicate our lives to virtue and hope, we will be able to endure our suffering and shed light in the darkness. Since I cannot communicate this idea better than Tolstoy himself, I include his words here:
“From the moment [he] had witnessed those terrible murders committed by men who did not wish to commit them, it was as if the mainspring of his life, on which everything depended and which made everything appear alive, had suddenly been wrenched out and everything had collapsed into a heap of meaningless rubbish. Though he did not acknowledge it to himself, his faith in the right ordering of the universe, in humanity, in his own soul and in God, had been destroyed. He had experienced this before, but never so strongly as now. When similar doubts had assailed him before, they had been the result of his own wrongdoing, and at the bottom of his heart he had felt that relief from his despair and from those doubts was to be found within himself. But now he felt that the universe had crumbled before his eyes and only meaningless ruins remained, and this not by any fault of his own. He felt that it was not in his power to regain faith in the meaning of life” (1041).
But then this character — whose name I won’t reveal — encounters that man whose simplicity and sincerity, whose quiet but unquestionable goodness, restores hope and grants peace to his bewildered and agonized soul: “For a long time [he] did not sleep, but lay with eyes open in the darkness listening to the regular snoring of Platon, who lay beside him, and he felt that the world that had been shattered was once more stirring in his soul with a new beauty and on new and unshakable foundations” (1045).
This part alone explains why, one hundred and fifty years later, War and Peace is still praised and in print. If a piece of art illuminates a truth, or reveals a certain beauty in new or greater detail, it stands the test of time.
