War and Peace

I am deeply passionate about Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace because I find that when I re-read it, I can always learn profound new lessons about human behavior. The setting of War and Peace is Russia in the period before, during, and after the Napoleonic Wars–roughly the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century. Both directly and indirectly, Tolstoy is dealing with the question of what happens after great revolutions.

France has experienced its great revolution and is now ruled by Emperor Napoleon. The talk is of spreading ‘revolutionary justice’ to the rest of Europe… show more.

Pierre Bezukhov is one of the most fascinating characters in all of literature. Pierre—the socially awkward, illegitimate son of Count Besukhov—inherits the family fortune but struggles to find his identity. He finds it, late in the novel, in an unlikely place. After saving the life of a French officer who has invaded his house to find shelter, Pierre attempts to assassinate Napoleon but is sent to prison.  

There, he meets Platon Karataev, a simple peasant, who shares his food with Pierre. Platon embodies everything Pierre has searched for all his life: generosity, integrity, and a keen understanding of human existence—giving… show more.

When I was in junior high school, I was smitten with a girl named Vicki. On one of the three dates I managed to land with her, she got into a conversation with someone about Anna Karenina. I decided to read it as a way to get to know her better. I was hooked. I listed all the main characters on 4 x 6 cards so I could keep track of them. I was so taken with the complex world that Tolstoy created that I dove into War and Peace and its story of lives lost or rebuilt during the… show more.