In reading this huge book by Tolstoy, I have learned many things, namely:
- Everyone and their grandma loved their snuff. No joke. Everyone has a snuff box. This one character even has her son's miniature in the top of her snuff box that she kisses because she misses him.
- Everyone spoke French. After 3/4 of the dialog in that book, it says "Natasha/Andrey/Pierre/Denisov/Nikolay/etc. said, in French." I guess Europe was still stuck in their whole "We love France!" stage. But what I want to know is-during Austerlitz and other battles-how did the two sides, France and Russia, tell their comrades from their enemies? Perhaps it was the beards and furry hats that distinguished the Russians from the French...
- Some people are really selfish/obsessive. Andrey Bolkonsky talks about how he would give up his wife, family, and friends simply to have a moment to impress the tsar. Wow...OK.
- Tolstoy loves his details. We are talking about "what they ate for dinner, what they wore to dinner, why they wore it to dinner, what other people think of what they wore to dinner, what they fantasized about wearing to dinner, and did they sleep that night?" kind of details. Not kidding.
- The Russians like having multiple nicknames for one person. For example, Nikolay could be "Nikolushka" and "Nik" among others. For Natasha I've come across "Nitashka," "Nitrushka," and "Natalia." This makes it rather confusing as these nicknames for one person sound like multiple people when really there isn't.
But overall, War and Peace is a good book. Ish.
It's a love hate relationship.
5 comments:
The detail thing makes sense. Considering that it's a brick of a book.
War and Peace is quite the achievement of a book. Was anybody sleeping with two people who had the same first name? I feel like that would be sort of hilarious.
Of course you would be the girl to read War And Peace over break. I will never ever catch up to you and your literary classics! Even though you didn't love it to pieces, reading War and Peace is a definite WIN!
Did you know that it was originally called "War, What is it Good For?"
Did to you know Tolstoy was originally going to title the book "War, what is it good for?"?
Samantha: no, nothing like that has happened. Thankfully. Although sometimes I forget who's married to who. Then I start thinking, "Oh so he's married to her...wait, no they're mother and son. Never mind."
Andrea: why thank you! And kudos to you-and Justin-for making the Seinfeld reference.
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