War and Peace - Book reviewed

 

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Finally am here to share my experience of reading this massive tome by Leo Tolstoy.
If it was not for the lockdown due Covid19, I wonder if I would have been able to go through the lives of the Russians during the war waged by Napoléon.
This was my personal War against the boredom during lockdown to attain some Literary Peace of having read one of the most read and quoted books.
It took me over a year to complete reading this book and I did manage to read a few other short novels in between just to lighten up the mood.
This book delves into the personal lives of the Russian Nobility and their subjects, their relationships, how they are affected by the War waged by Napoleon against Russia and an in-depth analysis of how historians view the war where even Losers are Winners.
Leo Tolstoy also goes to great lengths to talk about the continuity that exists in the lives of people and nations. In the Epilogue he discusses the existence or the lack of Absolute Freedom.
Overall a book to be read to understand the concept of freedom, war and peace.
I had downloaded the ebook published in April 2011, by Project Gutenberg, translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude.

I leave you with a few excerpts from the book which I liked and found them relevant in today's circumstances.

If no one fought except on his own conviction, there would be no wars.

Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.

...the endless variety of men's minds, which prevents a truth from ever presenting itself identically to two persons.

Not only does a good army commander not need any special qualities, on the contrary he needs the absence of the highest and best human attributes - love, poetry, tenderness, and philosophic inquiring doubt. He should be limited, firmly convinced that what he is doing is very important (otherwise he will not have sufficient patience), and only then will he be a brave leader.

Who excuses himself accuses himself.

If there was none of this magnanimity in war, we should go to war only when it was worth while going to certain death..

...to say that the will of many men is expressed by the actions of any one historic personage, is in itself false.

Since the world began and men have killed one another no one has ever committed such a crime against his fellow man without comforting himself with this same idea. This idea is le bien public, the hypothetical welfare of other people.

Where there's law there's injustice.

For the 'great' man nothing is wrong, there is no atrocity for which a 'great' man can be blamed.

And it occurs to no one that to admit a greatness not commensurable with the standard of right and wrong is merely to admit one's own nothingness and immeasurable meanness.

..pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.

If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, the possibility of life is destroyed.

We know that man has the faculty of becoming completely absorbed in a subject however trivial it may be, and that there is no subject so trivial that it will not grow to infinite proportions if one's entire attention is devoted to it.

My whole idea is that if vicious people are united and constitute a power, then honest folk must do the same.

Power is the collective will of the people transferred, by expressed or tacit consent, to their chosen rulers.

If there be a single law governing the actions of men, free will cannot exist, for then man's will is subject to that law.

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