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WAR And PEACE
SonofZ3:
I'm out this spring after year 5. I have 4 day weekends, a night job 2 days a week to keep me in liquor and one of the other students in the Russian Lit class is by far the best looking girl I've seen on campus. I;m pretty pleased. I can say that last year was my party year without a doubt, this year I have a new roomie and the craziness is gone =/. Oh well
leperphiliac:
--- Quote from: RedLion on 12 Jan 2008, 17:26 ---Having read classic epics like Les Miserables, I constantly surprise myself with my inability to get past the first 400 pages of War and Peace. It's just too slow and relentlessly expository, with very little actually occuring.
--- End quote ---
Funny, I gave up on it around page 400 too. Some books take awhile to get going, but I would think that by page 400 something would be happening. It was surprising, because I adored Anna Karenina.
pilsner:
I read it for fun about 5 years ago, I believe the Constance Garnett translation, and it's a great read that can be a lot of fun if you peace yourself. Some of the parts are riveting and exciting, most famously the Battle of Austerlitz portion but also some of the earlier scenes where Pierre is drinking and whoring on his inheritances, and some of the later ones where he starts to mature a bit. Yes, the action does come to a dead stop every time Tolstoy gets on his "Great men history is wrong" bandwagon, but relative to the straight narrative these parts are minor and totally worthwhile to get to the good stuff. Frankly I've always been mystified by the length deal, I mean 1400 pages is just 4 average sized books, and if you read at a rate of 50 pages a day, you'll be through within a month.
It's definitely a book that needs pacing though, because I can't even imagine how much it must suck to have to read it in a week before a final or paper is due. Oh, and you're probably going to come out totally idolizing Andrei -- don't worry, that's normal.
SonofZ3:
So far I've enjoyed everything in the book EXCEPT where Tolstoy inserts the bit about Pierre becoming mystified with Free Masonism (Masonry?) while waiting for post horses. I realize that Tolstoy was interested in the concept at the time, but I really felt it did little to help the character of Pierre, or any other part of the plot. Other than that I've been loving it, and the aforementioned prediction of me idolizing Andrei is 110% right. I have come to the conclusion that Andrei is the man, and the world simply isn't good enough for him.
Tom:
It's freemasonry.
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