Synopsis
Leo Tolstoy's WAR AND PEACE is an epic war novel, an exploration of family ties, and a manifesto of Tolstoy's beliefs. Against the background of Napoleon's invasion of Russia in the early 1800s, WAR AND PEACE spans the social spectrum, depicting three families--their love affairs, intellectual struggles, and personal conflicts--and the cataclysmic effects of great events on their lives. At the heart of the book are Pierre Bezukhov, whose search for religious certainty (and his failure to find it) and for what constitutes a good life parallel Tolstoy's own; the noble Prince Andrei, who serves in the devastating Battle of Borodino; and ardent young Natasha Rostov, who is loved by both men. Tolstoy originally foresaw an entirely different narrative arc for his novel, and at one time planned to call it ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, but by 1867, the book's design, with its simple final title, was clearly set out, and the novel was published in 1869 after nearly 10 years of writing, rewriting, and rethinking. Tolstoy's story moves easily between love scenes, the grim details of battle, and the daily lives of both peasants and aristocrats. His stated purpose in the novel was to demonstrate his theory of history, which is that it is determined not by the decisions of the great and powerful, but by the sum total of many small individual acts of ordinary individuals. Because of its overpowering authority, its famous length (most editions run to over 1000 pages), and the comprehensiveness of Tolstoy's vision of humanity, WAR AND PEACE is generally considered to be one of the world's great books.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1983-01-01 | | Edition Description: | Reissue |
| Size | | Height: | 7.0 in | | Width: | 4.3 in | | Thickness: | 2.2 in | | Weight: | 21.6 oz |
Publisher's Note
Details the invasion of Russia by Napoleon and his army.
Industry Reviews
"It's about a search for meaning and goodness in a world that looked as bleak as anything we see now....It's deeply moving to me."
Mother Jones - Tobias Wolff
"There remains the greatest of all novelists--for what else can we call the author of 'War and Peace'?...[Tolstoy's] senses, his intellect, are acute, powerful, and well nourished....Nothing seems to escape him. Nothing glances off him unrecorded....Every twig, every feather sticks to his magnet. He notices the blue or red of a child's frock; the way a horse shifts its tail; the sound of a cough; the action of a man trying to put his hands into pockets that have been sewn up. And what his infallible eye reports of a cough or a trick of the hands his infallible brain refers to something hidden in the character, so that we know his people, not only by the way they love and their views on politics and the immortality of the soul, but also by the way they sneeze and choke. We feel that we have been set on a mountaintop and had a telescope put into our hands. Everything is astonishingly clear and absolutely sharp."
Virginia Woolf
| See an error? Submit a change request |
All rights reserved.
