War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Whew!  That took FOR EVER!  It took so long to read that I've almost forgotten how this goes.  I compared the type of this with the new Tom Clancy book.  If they were written with the same font and spacing this would have ballooned to 2,000 pages!  In other words, expect pages crammed with lots of big words in small print.

So, enough bitching.  War and Peace was not at all what I was expecting.  Basically, this was a Russian soap opera written about the lives of a few aristocratic families in the early 1800's.  Think 'Housewives of 19th Century St. Petersberg' and you get the idea.  Who should marry whom, who mistreats their peasants (basically slaves but without the hassle of having to import them from elsewhere), all the latest political gossip, etc, etc.  Tolstoy spends 1,200 some odd pages going back and forth between this and the war with Napoleon's France.  Surprisingly enough, its all pretty PG.  Not a ton of graphic violence and barely a hint of sex. 

Lots of historical perspective and moments of absolutely brilliant writing make this a very enjoyable read.  Just be aware that its going to take a while and be prepared for the epilogue.  Old Leo must have lost it a touch because the epilogue doesn't make a bit of sense.  Tolstoy spends 20 pages or so wrapping up the lives of the characters, kind of, and the other 80 pages on a philosophical rant.  I'd love to tell you what it was about, but I have no idea.  So read the book and only the fictional part of the epilogue.  You'll thank me later.

Nats