Someone who likes Da Vinci code should not even talk about TolstoyOriginally Posted by Pierre Cloutier
...Audio-book
Yes, HC Andersen, I was 4 years old, I loved those fairy tales...Your degree should make you much smarter, instead of showing signs of arrogancy. Shame on your teachers who let you pass.
At thunder and tempest, At the world's coldheartedness,
During times of heavy loss And when you're sad
The greatest art on earth Is to seem uncomplicatedly gay.
To get things clear, they have to firstly be very unclear. But if you get them too quickly, you probably got them wrong.
If you need me urgent, send me a PM
oooh, I'm so jealous!
As for the rest of the discussion....
When I was in Highschool, War and Peace and Anna karenjina were reqired reading, and yes, I read them.
Now about 20 years later, I'm almost finished with War and Peace, and Anna Karenina is next...
Life experience and maturity (especially emotional maturity) will certainly contribute to seeing the work in a different light, and with different level of enjoyment and entertainment.
The older I get (and I'm not all that old, not even 40 yet) the more I understand the phrase "Youth is wasted on the young"
Last edited by conniekat8; 04-09-2007 at 07:31 PM.
Boris is Russian.
oooh, I'm so jealous!
At thunder and tempest, At the world's coldheartedness,
During times of heavy loss And when you're sad
The greatest art on earth Is to seem uncomplicatedly gay.
To get things clear, they have to firstly be very unclear. But if you get them too quickly, you probably got them wrong.
If you need me urgent, send me a PM
War and Peace is one of the best books I've ever read, but I wasn't able to get into it when I was younger. I too thought it was boring - then. Little by little, my tastes turned away from popular fiction and literature to mostly literature. Some of you will know what I mean.
I now prefer extremely good writing. Reading Tolstoy out loud is dicey (I'm doing it right now, but I have spent a decade or more practicing my dramatic reading skills - hiring some announcer type voice or actor to "read" War and Peace would be a difficult project to make successful). Some parts read well out loud, some parts need to be gazed at and savored with the eye. If a person isn't into the actual written word - but needs their literature read out loud to them - that's a different action than reading a book.
That being said, though, even as a reader (rather than a listener), War and Peace did not appeal to me when I was in my twenties and thirties. I would have liked it in my middle thirties, but I had already developed a bias against it - mainly because people said things like the original post on this thread.
Now, I find it one of the most absorbing, intelligent books I've ever read, and it so skillfully mixes romance, history and character study, it's amazing. Of course, now I'm interested in European history, alternate military history, critiques of history itself, and so on - and find those interests essential to this read. The love stories are lovely, but is the overall historic scope of the book that makes it fascinating. I see nothing being written about our current time - or the wars of our past century - that even comes close.
Tolstoy's anti-war stance is profound and there may never be a better one.
I'm only 23, just read it for the first time, and whether I liked it or not, I'd never be fool enough to denounce any book I'd only read a third of, especially on a forum specifically in place for people who have read the book! To me, and I'm going to assume most here, in modest silence, simply calling it boring makes it sound like it's just over your poor head, and that together with your strange method of "reading", as well as the contradicting insistance of informing us both of your distaste for high class affairs as well as your supposedly high class education, just doesn't lend any credit to you or why you even think you're a person who should voice an opinion in these regards. Thanks for wasting my time.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote