A bunch of over-privileged twats fanny around, going about their business, highly likely to end up where they did even if a war hadn't been going on. The author occasionally breaks the already-incredibly dense and over-descriptive narrative to talk about the mechanics of war and his own interpretation on the likelihood of historical events, even though this is a novel and not a history book. Some philosophy is espoused, speculations on human nature and life and death are sprinkled here and there, though they don't affect the barely-there plot to begin with. The rich, attractive main characters (the few out of five hundred we are supposed to care about) meander around having affairs and declaring their undying, superficial love to people they hardly know (ah the classic instant-love cliché that's somehow stood the test of time). There is war, there is life, it keeps going...somewhere...it is all rather dull, with a conclusion that isn't so much as breathtaking and revolutionary as it is pedestrian, aimlessly wandering, long past the point of caring.
There, I just saved you 1,358 pages of nothing but boredom and the dread of boredom.
It took me a year and three months to finish 'War and Peace'. I know that might not seem very long to some people, but to have this cement block-sized tedium constantly there, constantly waiting for me to read it and finish it, with no end in sight, no release; and every time I sat down with it I found myself always wanting to do something else - anything - read other books, do chores, go out for a walk and enjoy life, anything to avoid this particular chore that's so small yet is such a huge shadow on my existence...it's not fun.
I don't like to write negative reviews. Whatever I think of a book I've read, at the end of the day each published work is a little miracle in of itself, and who am I to harshly criticise a piece of somebody else's blood, sweat and tears when I don't know everything about the circumstances of how it was written, and never will? Besides, any bad and problematic book I hate would normally already have negative reviews which say far more and express views far better than I could. But with 'War and Peace', I feel I have to let somebody know of my feelings - mostly frustration - on it, after nearly a year and a half of it taking over my life.
So, here's the result; my final thoughts, my release.
I'd wanted to quit and DNF 'War and Peace' during the middle, but I couldn't, maybe because I saw it as a personal challenge from which I didn't want to let myself down - to maybe, just maybe, one day say with triumph that yes, as a bookworm, I've read the entirety of 'War and Peace', the longest and greatest book ever written. And it's not like I'm adverse to classics or long novels either - I've read 'The Count of Monte Cristo' in two weeks, and it is one of my favourite books of all time - I just found this classic to...have not aged well.
I didn't skim anything, no matter how many times I was tempted to do so, and I tried to absorb and understand as much as possible. I admit I was fairly interested in the characters at the beginning, but as the book dragged further and further onward, with little aim and consequences and un-enticing events, I cared less, not more, about them and their privileged, inconsequential lives. I also admit that I didn't get even vaguely invested in the whole thing until the last 358 pages, where a few exciting stuff did start happening, such as major characters dying, and characters making decisions, learning, and reaching enlightenment on what actually matters. I finished those pages in under a month, about fifteen days. Typical, that it took 1000 pages for me to finally get going.
The density, and the descriptions of EVERY DAMN THING with nothing happening (and in the first 500 pages, nothing happens), possibly lie in the fault of the English translation; done directly with not enough of that needed humanity and breathing room required for reading a book this size. It's still a neverending chore to shovel through.
It almost made me hate reading, which at the end of the day is the biggest crime any novel can commit. I mean FFS, even the epilogue is 100 pages long! And half of it is the biggest info-dump ever of the author explaining his views on war, humanity, power, necessity and free will. What does this have to do with the characters and how they got where they are at the end? I don't know, and 'War and Peace' is not a subtle literature study. Most importantly, I don't care to know.
At the end - the glorious, glorious END - when I finally, FINALLY finished 'War and Peace', I couldn't lean back, take a deep breath and let out a cry (not a war cry, I was too bored to do that), like I was expecting to, mainly because I was on my break at work at the time and didn't want my colleagues to see me in such a state.
I was still relieved, however. I was free. FREE AT LAST. But then I thought, "THAT'S IT!? That is what my fifteen months of torture led me to!? What kind of way is that to end a supposed epic?!"
So yeah, those are my ultimate thoughts on 'War and Peace'. The characters I didn't connect to either - that there are hundreds of them (unless you have an eidetic memory it is impossible to remember them all; to make it worse, most of them have no impact on the narrative whatsoever), and so many having similar sounding names didn't help matters. The casual 19th century sexism ended up being the very least of the reasons to hate the book.
I was half-joking about saving you from reading it yourself at the beginning of this review of opinions. Go ahead and read this classic "masterpiece" if you want to. Requiring you have the patience and perseverance of a saint. Maybe it just wasn't for me. Maybe you will look at it differently than I did, and it will change your life.
But I will give it this: if 'War and Peace' did want to teach us about the meaning of freedom and how it truly feels when it is taken for granted, it certainly gave me a taste of that when finishing it - for now I can go back to reading again with that feeling of dread now gone. I can enjoy myself once more. There's something to appreciate it for.
Except, I do have two Dickens novels to read. Will I manage them, or have the foresight and courage to DNF them before I hate classic literature again? We'll see.
Final Score: 2/5
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