Give War and Peace a Chance

Russian literature scholar Andrew D. Kaufman shares his thoughts on War and Peace in Give War and Peace a Chance: Tolstoyan Wisdom for Troubled Times (boy, he just thought he was living in troubled times in 2014). He tells all the reasons War and Peace is the world's greatest novel, and he includes wonderful quotes from the book as well as episodes from Tolstoy's life.

Here are some of my takeaways:

(War and Peace is) “...a masterpiece that manages to re-create life in all its unpredictable misery and splendor.”

“Plans may very well not work, but planning is well worth doing anyway.”

He acknowledges that War and Peace is long and complicated and sometimes confusing: “In short, this pockmarked, feisty, untutored monstrosity of a work reflects life in all its turmoil, all it's roiling, overflowing possibility.”

“Tolstoy's genius lies in his uncanny ability to make our familiar, everyday world suddenly seem strange—and therefore fresh.”

“...part of the fun of the novel is that we get to know the characters in much the same way we meet people in real life.”

“Tumultuous times, Tolstoy tells us, can jar us into heightened awareness....”

The heart of W&P is what the author calls “optimism-grounded-in-reality.”

“...the real secret to survival, Tolstoy helps us to see, is learning to live courageously in a world filled with real uncertainty, real hardship, and real suffering.”

“Does hardship make us beasts, Tolstoy asks, or better human beings?”

“Do we continuously focus on getting what we think we want or on making something meaningful out of what we have?”

“To love, Tolstoy says, is to see. To see is to know the truth. And to know the truth is to truly live.”

“Joy and tragedy...give meaning to each other.”

Whew. A lot to consider. Very helpful in my reading of War and Peace.