2009 review: Despite all the jokes about the size and density of this classic, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Originally written in Russian and with and a fair amount of French (as a literary device), this gargantuan work looks at the multiple effects of the Napoleonic Wars on Tsarist Russia via five Aristocratic Russian families.

Despite a fair amount of philosophical discussions at times, the book was surprisingly engaging and hats off to Tolstoy's writing and his amazing research centred around actually interviews he undertook with people who lived during the Napoleonic Age face to face! 7 out of 12

You mustn’t let Tolstoy’s classic’s reputation and length intimidate you in the least! Contrary to popular belief, it is not a hard read and you'll be surprised to see that it is quite a page turner. And here’s a tip: having some knowledge about the Napoleonic wars and the French invasion in Russia is all it takes for the war scenes to come alive and not seem like such a drag.

This is a book that deserves to be read and you’ll be glad once you conclude this enterprise - not because you're at the finish line - but because you'll be different from who you were when you started it, as J. Donald Adams charmingly put it: "No intelligent person can read it without a deep enrichment of experience. And having once read it, he is certain to turn to it again, to be amazed once more by its veracity, its tremendous vitality, its epic scope."

In War and Peace, Tolstoy masterfully brings together historical figures - such as Napoléon Bonaparte and Alexander I - and a whole cast of fictitious characters - Natasha, Pierre, Andrei - and manages to paint them all equally human, as if they all really coexisted in that time and at that place. His imagined human beings are shown as complex and realistic individuals with their weaknesses and strengths, living moments of despair and hope, showing selfishness and benevolence - whether we’re talking about the charismatic Nikolai Rostóv or the perverse Hèléne Kuragina.

We're in for a comprehensive study on history and how history sees and narrates events and its effects on human lives from a rationalized perspective. The author forces us to question whether our fate is in the hands of a few important and designated, chosen people as we’ve been told to believe or if everything belongs to a higher set of causes inaccessible to human reason. Although at some point it may seem we’re simply seeing the outcome the wars had on the lives of those five families, Tolstoy is taking us to a much bigger and more interesting quest.

Closing this amazing, entertaining and enlightening journey is an Epilogue divided in two parts (mind you that a number of publishers simply left it out of some War and Peace editions! The nerve!) The first one concludes the story of our main characters, while still leaving hints of how their lives should continue and what they will possibly experience next, mostly by presenting to us an eager to quest and conquer Nikolenka Bolkonsky.

Epilogue, Pt. 2 is a luminous (one might even call it a philosophical) essay where Tolstoy summarizes the questions he’s been asking us all along through this literary experience: what’s the reason for whatever it is we go through in life? What does it mean? Why does it happen? What powerful forces acted on it? He shows us how attributing objectively the cause and consequence argument simply won’t answer all of our inquiries. Without pondering upon the laws of necessity and freedom, reason and conscience and, most of all, power, we’ll be as far from any spiritual achievement as we were from finishing War and Peace when we started our read on page one.

Rating: a true undeniable, mind blowing masterpiece couldn’t be rated anything less than 5 stars.

P.S.: As far as film adaptations go, I’ve watched two of them: 1) Voyna i Mir (1966, directed by Sergey Bondarchuk): very faithful to the book, follows all the events, most original dialogues and even character’s physical descriptions. It ended up winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film and 2) War and Peace (1956, directed by King Vidor) and featuring a cast with stars Audrey Hepburn, Henry Fonda and Mel Ferrer; this adaptation suffers a strong condensation of events and changes up a lot of the dialogues. Even at 208 minutes long, it felt very rushed. As lovely as it is to see Ms. Hepburn giving life to our beloved Natasha Rostóva, if you have to pick one of these to watch, go with the first option.