The Big Read 2021: War and Peace

Though we’ve encountered Natasha here and there throughout the book, she hasn’t yet played a starring role. Until this last week. The big event, of course, is her first ball. These chapters really highlighted not only Natasha the character, but Tolstoy’s tremendous abilities as a writer. He’s putting us right there in that ballroom and getting us to be …

Last week was one of those War and Peace weeks where the plot doesn’t move forward much, but Tolstoy blows us away with the beauty and quality of his writing. In the first seven chapters of Volume II, Part IV, the Rostovs are on a hunt. And that’s it, in terms of the plot line. And yet,…

Part IV of Volume II was the shortest Part of the book yet — just 13 chapters. Though last week’s reading on the hunt was particularly evocative, this week didn’t seem to have that same quality. Not much happened and it seems we’ve been in a sort of limbo with the characters for a while.

We’ve been in Part III of Volume II for almost a month — 26 chapters! In many ways, this chunk of text has seen a lot of characters grow up, for better or worse. This is also where they’ve all experienced some sense of disillusionment and have been searching for real meaning …

This was an interesting week of reading. By the end, I could barely remember what had transpired without skimming through it again or looking at my notes. What stood out most in my memory was the parade of minor characters in these chapters. But then when I scrutinized just a little closer, it see…