War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

A magnificent book. Often named as the best novel of all time in any language. I suppose that’s a meaningless claim, but it is certainly a great book, and a great read. Although it’s long, it’s otherwise not a challenging read. I thought that I would be uninterested in the battle scenes and military strategy but found those to be fascinating. I encourage anyone to set aside a few weeks (it took me three) and read this masterpiece of literature. You’ll enjoy it. Many people read it every year, or alternate years reading this with reading Anna Karenina. I don’t know if I’ll read it a second time, but I understand the desire of those who do.

Tolstoy began writing War and Peace in 1863. It tells a story of Russian life at the time of the Napoleonic wars that reached Russia 60 years earlier. He began publishing portions of the book beginning in 1865, publishing the entire novel in 1869. Anna Karenina, his other long novel, came next, published in 1877. I read Anna Karenina in my 20s and loved it. After Anna Karenina he wrote a biographical work called A Confession (1879) and then wrote only short fiction thereafter. I read The Death of Ivan Illych a few months ago, which is from 1886. He lived long enough to be eligible for a Nobel prize, which was first awarded in 1901, but he never received it. He died in 1910.

Tolstoy was born in 1828. The time he writes about in War and Peace, 1805 – 1820, occurred before he was born. He relies on historical accounts for his telling of the war, accounts which he quotes from in his novel and also critiques. For the stories of life among the Russian nobility, he relied on stories of his own life and friends (he was Count Leo Tolstoy, himself) and his brilliant imagination.

The novel includes dozens of named characters, both fictional and true life, including Napoleon and Tsar Alexander I, and the Russian Commander-in-Chief, Kutusov, who opposes Napoleon. About 20 characters could be called major characters. But principally the novel concerns five characters from three families and a friend. These are:

Prince Andrei Bolkonsky and his sister Marie Bolkonsky. They live on their father’s estate outside St. Petersberg. At the beginning of the novel Andrei is married to a woman named Lise. Marie has a French companion named Mademoiselle Bourienne.

Nicolai Rostov and his sister Natasha Rostov. Their family also includes their mother and father, the Count and Countess, an older sister named Vera and a younger brother named Peter, and there’s an orphaned cousin they are raising named Sonya.

Denisov, a friend of the Rostov family.

And finally Pierre Bezuhov, a friend of Andrei Bolkonsky. The first episodes of the novel concern Pierre, who is an illegitimate son, and the question of whether he will receive his father’s inheritance. He does, and becomes extremely rich.

There is a fourth family, named Kuragin, whose members act as the antagonists for many of the novel’s stories. Prince Vasili has two sons, Anatole and Hippolyte. Not much is heard of the father or Hippolyte but Anatole appears throughout the novel. There’s also a Kuragin daughter, Helene, who marries Pierre Bezuhov but without love and is immediately and serially unfaithful to him.

The “peace” stories concern the usual stories of nineteenth century aristocracy. Families are worried about money and servants and arranging good marriages for the children. The settings are parties and dinners at large houses or quiet meetings in a drawing room. There’s always someone playing cards. There are several wonderful scenes of dancing, small affairs at home and a great ball attended by the tsar. There’s a scene at the opera. There’s a duel. There’s a hunt.

But running behind and through this courtly life there is the war. Nicolai, Denisov, and Andrei become soldiers. Pierre too, though he doesn’t fight, gets involved when the war reaches Moscow. He is taken prisoner. Tolstoy recounts three major battles. Two happen in Book One of the novel (there are four books each divided into parts, plus an Epilogue itself in two parts): Schongrabern in 1805 in Austria, a success, where Nicolai gets his first experience of war; followed shortly by Austerlitz, which is a disaster for the Russian forces and Napoleon’s greatest success. Andrei receives a serious wound at Austerlitz and is captured but recovers and returns to Russia later. I found it easy to follow Tolstoy’s descriptions of the battles and understand the strategy.

The third of the major war scenes comes in Book Three: Borodino, in 1812, outside Moscow. Napoleon has marched his army into Russia through Vilna and Smolensk. Nicolai is able to help Marie abandon the Bolkonsky estate before it is overtaken by the French. At Borodino, the French nominally win, but the stage is also set for their ultimate defeat. Pierre observes the battle. Andrei fights and is wounded again by an exploding shell. Anatole is also wounded and ends up in the camp hospital beside Andrei. The Russian army retreats and realizing that it is impossible to defend Moscow they abandon the city. The Rostov family flees Moscow with the rest of the citizens. Moscow is occupied by the French and the city burns.

Napoleon has achieved his objective and petitions for peace. But the Russian forces realize that Napoleon is incapable of holding what he has won. The Russians refuse to surrender. The Tsar urges his generals to engage the French army but Kutusov (and Tolstoy) understands that the French army is now a wounded animal that will die on its own if left alone. Napoleon is forced to retrace his steps out of Russia harassed by the Russians as they go. Kutusov attempts to hold his forces back to prevent meaningless losses, while the French forces are picked off piecemeal or starve or succumb to illness or the Russian winter.

Tolstoy is interested in telling this history but also correcting it. He disagrees with the standard interpretation that the war is guided by Napoleon’s “genius” asserting his will and power through his ability to inspire and direct the French forces. Tolstoy’s view is that military leaders assert no power. He sees that battles never play out as planned. Divisons never arrive where they are supposed to, or arrive late, or the enemy doesn’t appear where they are predicted to appear. Once the battle is engaged, every individual is consumed by their own circumstance. I imagine it is impossible for a general to really direct a battle even today, but particularly at a time when communication required sending a courier back and forth on horseback and when intelligence was restricted to what could be seen from miles away and only during daylight when there happened to be no mist or smoke obscuring the view. Tolstoy holds that military success is not a matter of superior leadership or even superior numbers but a question of which side has the stronger spirit, the willingness of individuals to engage, with ferocity, to fight.

Tolstoy’s philosophy is that history is made of millions of individuals following their own ends. Sometimes the ends combine together to sweep up a leader and a clash of armies, but not the reverse. Thus the love affairs, and the concerns about inheritance that make up the “peace” of War and Peace are also part of the “war” of War and Peace. The French army didn’t follow Napoleon; individual soldiers followed their individual needs, for personal glory, or duty, or a paycheck, and in battle pursued excitement or safety, and in camp needed clean clothes, and something to eat, and a place to sleep. Of the battle of Borodino, Tolstoy writes, “And it was not Napoleon who ordained the course of the battle for no part of his plan was executed and during the engagement he did not know what was going on before him. Therefore the way in which these men slaughtered one another was not decided by Napoleon’s will but occurred independently of him, in accord with the will of the hundreds of thousands of individuals who took part in the common action.” (page 933). (I read the Penguin Classic, paperback edition, translated by Rosemary Edmonds.)

The novel ends with Napoleon retreating to the edge of the frontier of Russia and then riding off back to France abandoning his collapsing army. Several characters have died. Those that survive reshuffle into new relationships. Natasha marries Pierre. Nikolai marries Marie.

Then an Epilogue in two parts. In the first part we flash forward seven years to 1820 for a domestic scene at the Bolkonsky estate, now the home of Nikolai and Marie. They are raising Andrei’s son and have children of their own. Natasha is with them. Pierre returns from a trip to St. Petersburg. They are also parents together. Denisov is also with them. Life is normal and good and happy.

And then in part two Tolstoy addends a philosophical essay. First he muses about power, then free will. These themes have run through the novel. Now he discusses them explicitly, divorced from the narrative. Tolstoy denies free will. He separates our lives into “form” and “content”. The exterior form of our lives is controlled by necessity: outward circumstances and internal compulsions that force our lives in certain directions. Earlier in the novel he writes of Pierre, “How horrified he would have been seven years before, when he first arrived back from abroad, if anyone had told him there was no need for him to look about and make plans, that his track had long ago been shaped for him and marked out before all eternity, and that, wriggle as he might, he would be what everyone in his position was doomed to be.” (page 633). The content of our lives is where we perceive our freedom. But Tolstoy holds personal freedom is an illusion, which he analogizes to the illusion that the earth is stationary. The final words of the novel are, “In the first case it was necessary to surmount the sensation of an unreal immobility in space and to recognize a motion we did not feel. In the present case it is similarly necessary to renounce a freedom that does not exist and to recognize a dependence of which was are not personally conscious.”

Tolstoy combines in War and Peace a novel, a history (as well as a critique of the history as told by others) and philosophy. It is rich. The novel is human, depending on character and feelings familiar to us all rather than drama or surprises for its excitement. In keeping with his denial of free will there are no heroes and little heroic action. Pierre, perhaps the central character is nearly always a passive player. Kutusov commands his army mostly by avoiding conflict. The history is straightforward, accurate (as far as I know) and educational. I learned a lot about the Napoleonic wars and appreciated that. The philosophy is intriguing, and challenging, and coming most densely at the end of a long, engaging book, serves as a satisfying reflection on the story just read.