On Reading: ‘War & Peace’

Why this Tolstoy novel remains perhaps the greatest work of literature of all time

If you asked me two months ago, I likely would have scowled at the idea of any novel being the “greatest novel ever written,” and especially the idea that such a work was written in 1869. But that’s because two months is roughly how long it took me to get through War & Peace.

Heck, if you’d even asked me two weeks ago, I would have still scoffed at any notion that War & Peace was the greatest achievement literature has to offer. For the majority of the book, I found myself thinking that Anna Karenina was far superior.

But, then I read the Epilogues, and especially the second Epilogue.

When it comes to War & Peace, I’ve never heard anyone make mention that in order to appreciate this novel, you have to reach the end. But, unlike any other novel I’ve ever read, the final section of this book is the fulcrum upon which its entire meaning and power resides. Tolstoy masterfully pulls the rug out from under our minds in a way that literally left me slack-jawed for hours, and ranting about this book for days after I finished it. He also completely changed my perspective in several ways, and had me wanting to go back re-read this book I had just spent two months studying, from the beginning with fresh eyes.

When it comes down to it, I do now believe this book is the greatest thing ever written, but it’s for reasons I never expected to find, and reasons that took serious effort to appreciate.

There are several reasons War & Peace seems to suffer under the weight of its own content, for much of its length. For starters, it is just a long book. It’s a daunting task to undertake, despite many modern novels rivaling its girth, because classic literature comes with an elevated use of language. It’s dense prose, making it more of a tedious and slow read. But, War & Peace is hardly so sophisticated that it is inaccessible by any means. It’s just there’s so much of it. The audio book is over 60 hours long, which is how I chose to tackle it, while the physical copy comes in at over 1,200 pages.

This is hardly the longest novel I’ve ever read. Two of my favorite solo books by Stephen King are over the thousand…