I have an announcement to make!

I started reading War and Peace today! It had been gathering dust - literally; the pages are yellow - on my bookshelf since 1997; and mind you, it is not in a durable edition but a cheap, ugly Signet Classic. Some of the pages might fall out since those damn Signet Classics are so fragile (this happened to me when I read Crime and Punishment). Anyway, I'm rambling.

Is there any particular theme or motif I should look out for to greater appreciate the novel?

Has anyone here read it?

What are your thoughts on it?

War is bad; peace is good.

That's it - but the read is good. The story that goes along with it is interesting.

Enjoy.

(I rather doubt that the pages have yellowed since 1997.)

if you let a book sit out in the sun atleast the edges of the pages (and some of the inside) will yellow in a short time....

War and Peace is on my shelf as well, waiting for the summer, when i'll have more time to read (if i start reading now, i'll never study and read the things i have to read)

I'd need a 6-months summer tho, since among my projects i also have The Karamazov Brothers (and ohter stuff)... pretty long stuff isn't it? ;)
But i love Russian literature and i actually am a student of Russian literature, so it might be useful to read huge things when i have time, instead of doing it in a hurry when i'll have exams about them...

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Originally Posted by Tabac

War is bad; peace is good.

That's it - but the read is good. The story that goes along with it is interesting.

Enjoy.

(I rather doubt that the pages have yellowed since 1997.)

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They're not literally yellow, but the edges are yellowish-brown and unpleasant to the touch and stiff. The binding is a lot weaker also, and it has that disgusting smell of old books.

***I'd need a 6-months summer tho, since among my projects i also have The Karamazov Brothers (and ohter stuff)... pretty long stuff isn't it?
But i love Russian literature and i actually am a student of Russian literature, so it might be useful to read huge things when i have time, instead of doing it in a hurry when i'll have exams about them...***

I have also resolved to read The Brothers Karamazov, but I opted for War and Peace since I like to read in school and my copy of The Brothers Karamazov is much too large.

When you are a student of Russian literature do you have to read the books in the original Russian?[/quote]

Hello, I've read "War and Peace", too! In Russian, certainly, since I'm Russian! :) It didn't really take me a long time -- only three days and this book is much longer in Russian than it is in English. It's one of my favourite books and I've read it like 7 or 8 times.
And I wanted to say that this book is not only about Peace and War, since in Russian the word "peace" ("mir") means not only the absence of the war, but also 1) all the people on the Earth; 2) world; 3) the small community of people (it's an old meaning...), etc. When Tolstoy was writing the title he (as far as I remember) used the meaning #1. :)
I enjoyed reading your comments!
By the way, are there any other Russians here?

Hello, I've read "War and Peace", too! In Russian, certainly, since I'm Russian! :) It didn't really take me a long time -- only three days and this book is much longer in Russian than it is in English. It's one of my favourite books and I've read it like 7 or 8 times.
And I wanted to say that this book is not only about Peace and War, since in Russian the word "peace" ("mir") means not only the absence of the war, but also 1) all the people on the Earth; 2) world; 3) the small community of people (it's an old meaning...), etc. When Tolstoy was writing the title he (as far as I remember) used the meaning #1. :)
I enjoyed reading your comments!
By the way, are there any other Russians here?

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Originally Posted by glushkna

By the way, are there any other Russians here?

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Not that I know... no ja izuchaju russkij jazyk :)

good luck. chapter 3 was all i could handle.

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Originally Posted by Molokai

good luck. chapter 3 was all i could handle.

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Why? What didn't you like about it?

heh, i guess you could call it capricious youth.

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By the way, are there any other Russians here?

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I know Russian very well (there are some Russians in my lineage :)), though I rarely read Russian authors.