The Appendix Is Not Neccesary
I have completed War and Peace! All 1247 pages (including the 30-or-so pages of notes)!
I received this bundle of pages, this devastator of the wilderness as a Christmas present. So it took me a little less than 5 months of heaving and hauling it's gargantuan mass from the floor to the bed to the desk to complete the reading.
There's a lot of stuff in this book. Even after you've finished pushing through the four giant "Volumes", there's the Epilogue and the Appendix. The epilogue is a brief treatise in the philosophy of history and free-will. The Appendix is, I guess, like a polite F-you to Tolstoy's contemporary critics.
I read the appendix. Though I was tempted not to, since it was clearly labeled "Appendix" and we all know that the appendix is not necessary. However, I figured that I had already come so far, I could take ten more minutes to complete the book. And boy, you know, I didn't need to do that.
5 comments:
I read War & Peace the summer I was 16 and spent in Spain. Nothing like living in a country where you barely speak the language to encourage you to read a 1200 page tome. I was especially proud of myself for reading the war parts too, not just the peace and parties bits.
Whatcha gonna read next? Anna Karenina?
Actually I have already read Anna Karenina and the Brothers Karamozov. I think both were far more enjoyable (Not to take anything away from W&P).
I may have to move beyond 19th century Russian lit, which is a shame. I have the story of Marco Polo (another xmas present) so I suppose that's up next.
You didn't want to kill yourself after the Brothers K?
And what did you think of the book?
It was long! Haha. No it was really good. Strange and complicated in its structure. The novel-ish parts are compelling, the characters fascinating. I felt kinda cheated at the end that Tolstoy spent so much time doing philosophy and did not devote as much to the novel.
However, his philosophy of history and free-choice I found really fun and fascinating. It's an eye-opening perspective. And shines a differently hued light on modern events (say the Iraq war).
I definitely enjoyed it. Four months well spent!
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