I never felt any need to read War and Peace. I am not really a fan of long books. I didn't really like Anna Karenina, which I certainly thought was too long, and shapeless, as it reached its conclusion.
But about two years ago, an opportunity came up to read it with an online book group, and the desire to spend time with a friend who was eager for me to join her in participating compelled me to sign up.
I'm so glad I did.
I struggled with War and Peace at the beginning. I quickly fell far behind in the reading schedule, and then had an accident which prevented my reading! But I started listening to the free LibriVox recording on YouTube, and grew to really appreciate it.
I found Pierre to be a confusing character: I expected that Pierre was supposed to be the hero! But there were so very many disagreeable things about Pierre that made it impossible to consider him a hero! (Early in the novel, Pierre is involved in a an incident in which a policeman is tied to a bear and thrown into the Neva River. That didn't seem heroic.)
Pierre is an idealist who finds it hard to select a career and settle down; he seems to lack direction and focus. In one of the early scenes of the novel, he expresses admiration for Napoleon at a party, even though Napoleon and Russia are already enemies. He's passionate, but awkward.
But over time, I fell in love with Pierre, his school friend, Prince Andrei, and his childhood friend, Natasha Rostova.
I feared that I would hate the military scenes, and that I would find them hard to follow. I did find them hard to follow, and in other ways they confused me. The description of physical space Tolstoy offered was not something I could understand. The soldiers didn't behave the way I imagined they would. But, as the novel wore on, I became more and more interested in what Tolstoy had to say.
I found that I identified with Pierre, Natasha, and Andre, despite their faults. In fact, I found myself loving Prince Andrei despite his many faults. I imagine that we see Tolstoy himself in all three of these characters, which is that much more fascinating when you consider that Pierre and Prince Andrei are temperamental opposites.
There is a chapter, I believe in Volume II, in which Nikolai, Natasha, and their father, Count Rostov, go to visit the Count's brother. They go wolf hunting. It is a beautifully written chapter. Some animal lovers will find the capture of the wolf very sad, as I certainly did. But I was enraptured by Tolstoy's writing, its precision in describing the hunt and the reactions of Nikolai and Natasha.
I wouldn't have guessed that I would love War and Peace, nor that I would be so interested in Tolstoy's views; I would say his views about history, politics, human psychology and religion become, in essence, part of the story. Perhaps it would be fair to say that the "narrator," and the authorial point of view, is another character in the story.
In fact, while I definitely do not agree with Tolstoy about a number of subjects, I think I grew to love, and even more, to be sincerely interested in his authorial voice. I am not really a fan of philosophy at all: as discussions and language become more abstract, it is harder and harder for me to understand. But I listened to the first Epilogue, and most of the Second Epilogue. The two epilogues are mostly an opportunity for Tolstoy to talk more about his philosophy. The first epilogue does contain information about what happens after the end of the novel, to Nikolai, Natasha, Marya and Pierre.
The book group I joined proposed reading one chapter a day. The chapters in War and Peace are short, and there are about 360 of them, so it seems like a very manageable plan. But, I found it hard to keep up, as it turned out. I found it hard to find time to read every day, and when I did have time to read, I found that I wanted to read more than one chapter. It wasn't working well, and I was falling further and further behind.
And, as the author of the introduction to my copy of War and Peace pointed out, the novel is a portrait of a society in crisis. The loss of Moscow is an event for which no plans have been made and for which neither the army nor the civil authorities are prepared. Tolstoy has a lot to say about governance in the royal court, in Moscow, and in the Army in the years covered by the novel, how historians present these events, and what reverence we should offer the historical accounts (very little, according to Tolstoy).
After I'd finished this post, I found myself thinking: I haven't really explained either why anyone else should read War and Peace, nor why I loved it.
I found this rather fun post by a writer who explains why they read War and Peace: https://lighthousewriters.org/blog/nine-reasons-read-war-and-peace.
I personally don't think that the fact that finishing War and Peace is an accomplishment is a good enough reason to read War and Peace. I think the reason to read War and Peace is that it is fun, and it is very, very clever. And, I don't think it is for everyone, and I don't think that it would have been for me when I was younger.
Above all, Tolstoy can write. He's a beautiful writer, who is a sharp observer of the world around him and who describes human nature with tremendous psychological acuity.
