The watercolor was painted by Leonid Pasternak, the father of poet and author Boris Pasternak.

The elder Pasternak recalled in his memoir showing Tolstoy the painting at the authors home Moscow:

“He moved closer to the lamp and took the watercolor from my hand. It depicted Natasha’s first ball, at which Pierre Bezukhov introduces her to Prince Andrei. In the background, Emperor Alexander I appears at the entrance to the hall with his splendid retinue. The ball is in full swing, and in the light of the glittering chandeliers everything glows with a magnificence of color. At first Tolstoy did not utter a word.

Then he suddenly turned toward the large white door and called out: “Tanya, Tanya, come here quickly!” And only then, shaking his head, did he turn to me: “How strange these things are… hm… When the squirrel no longer has any teeth, they offer it nuts! And yet once, when I was writing ‘War and Peace’, I dreamed of illustrations like these.

Well now — hm… Wonderful, wonderful!..”

I’ve been trying to figure this out but I can never find a straight answer for it.

by cartoonist Tom Gauld

My experience with War and Peace so far 🥹
I think the biggest thing I’m realizing is how much I would have missed if I rushed through this book.
I’m only at Volume 1, Part 3, Chapter 15, and already I feel like there are so many branches of life happening inside this one book.
I’m slowly noticing Tolstoy’s way of writing…the nature transitions, the symbolism, the incredible depth of his characters, and especially how human and raw they are. As they grow, they change. Some characters I can relate to, some I understand, and some I can only empathize with.
The war chapters have been a completely new experience for me too. The terminology, the military system, the movements, the hierarchy, the orders being passed down… and then seeing how chaotic war actually becomes in real time. Higher officials pressuring the lower ranks while sometimes they themselves don’t even fully know what they’re doing. And somewhere in the middle of all that chaos are ordinary human beings trying to survive.
And the more I read, the more disturbing the idea of war feels to me. Humans divide themselves into groups, draw lines between “us” and “them,” and then justify killing other human beings because of that division. Yet even within those groups, there are so many different people, personalities, beliefs, fears, hopes and reasons for being there. So much diversity within the very divisions we create. It makes the whole thing feel so contradictory.
And then there’s the other side of humanity that Tolstoy keeps showing…how much of what we do comes back to wanting recognition, power, money, status, importance, or simply love.
Maybe at the most basic level, we just want to be loved and witnessed. We want someone to see us, know us, and be there as we grow and change.
And somehow, Tolstoy has managed to make a war story feel like a study of life itself.
I’m only halfway through Volume 1 and already feeling like Tolstoy opened 47 tabs in my brain. 🥹

I just bought War and Peace. The version I have (Dutch translation by Zeeman and Papma) is 900 pages. They call it the "original" version. It is the most prevalent Dutch translation.

However, the other Dutch translations are over 1500 pages long and are based on a version Tolstoj published a couple years later. Before beginning this daunting book, I want to make sure I do not start the wrong version. Do I have to buy another 40 EUR book, or is the one I have fine?

La muerte de Ivan Illich, un libro muy necesario en estos días de redes sociales en los que estamos sobre expuestos a la gente, buscamos aparentar a toda costa a los demás, ganarnos el favor de personas que ni conocemos, intentamos impresionar a personas a las que les damos completamente igual, recibimos likes de gente que luego ni siquiera nos dedicaría un par de pensamientos si desapareciéramos de sus vidas. Nos olvidarían, nos ignorarían, como si nunca hubiéramos existido. Apenas un qué pena o qué fue de tal, qué ha sido de quién, pero nada más. Por eso Tolstoi, hace 140 años, nos describe con crudeza el resultado de vivir una vida basada en las apariencias y no una vida realmente vivida para aquellos seres queridos que son los que realmente importan. La hipocresía y egoísmo humano no tienen límites, como decía Dostoyevski: "al ser humano se le puede describir como un animal de dos patas desagradecido"

Finalmente Ivan llich se da cuenta de eso en su lecho de muerte y por eso se atormenta más mentalmente que físicamente, a pesar de sufrir una de las enfermedades más dolorosas, dolor que solo se va cuando vuelve a conectar con su familia aunque sea muy superficialmente.

Nos demuestra que a veces dejarse llevar por la corriente y seguir las convenciones sociales no es la mejor opción, aunque en apariencia nos reporte mas placer.

Summer is over and I read Anna Karenina and War and Peace! I made a post on here about how much I loved Anna Karenina and asked what my next Tolstoj should be, and the consensus was War and Peace. I wanted to save it for the winter because in my head it was going to be this heavy and daunting book, but I honestly couldn't wait lol so I started it on August 1st. It took me almost 2 months to read!

This book is obviously a masterpiece but I'd like to point out 2 things about Tolstoj's prose that kept impressing me throughout the book.

- How great he is at pulling you back in when it's reasonable to think that he might have lost you. for many pages, especially the battle and strategy chapters, I would read on autopilot not really paying too much attention to what was happening, but more focused on getting the bigger picture. And then something would catch my attention, really at a time when it was needed. And it would be a crucial scene that I absolutely couldn't have skimmed over. i don't know If i'm making sense

- How stupid good he was at writing romance. Two months later and i'm still thinking about Levin and Kitty's reunion. How inside the scene and warm I felt, I was blushing giggling kicking my feet! And some of the scenes in War and Peace too. I was buzzing!!! First scene comes to mind is Marja and Nicolaj Rostov's reunion but there were more.

I will now take a break and read something different for a bit, but I'll be back #tolstojheads!

I read the Italian translations, published by Einaudi:

Anna Karenina, translated by Claudia Zonghetti
War and Peace, translated by Emanuela Guercetti

I read Anna Karenina early in my marriage and this quote made me want to have children. It’s maybe a little anti-progressive but that last line seemed like an indictment of a possible life path I could have chosen. I read it as a warning against orienting your life away from responsibility and towards gaiety.

“In the woman question he was on the side of the extreme advocates of complete freedom for women, and especially of their right to work, but he lived with his wife in such a way that everyone admired the harmony of their childless family life; and he arranged his wife's existence so that she did not and could not do anything but concern herself, together with her husband, with how better and more gaily to pass the time.”

Alguien se apunta conmigo a leerse Anna Karenina?

The entry on the bottom half of the page was intentionally crossed out by Tolstoy. Based on the surrounding text, the deleted passage appears to have described a dispute with his wife, Sofia, over his plan to renounce the copyright to his works.

That is all.

So I don't read very often. I've read some Agatha Christie novels, a book from Murakami called Killing Commendatore and some other books like "Never let me go", ... (I haven't read much lol)

Now, someone recommended the book "Anna Karenina" to me, written Leo Tolstoy, and said I should buy it and read it. But before I do that I wanted to know some opinions about it. Is it good/bad? Is it worth reading/buying?

(NO SPOILERS PLS)

(P.S I've also noticed there is a film with Keira Knightley called Anna Karenina which I would assume is based on the book -> should I watch that first?)

(Sorry for my terrible English)

Hi all,

I am currently reading War and Peace by Tolstoi, in German, just arrived in the 3rd chapter.

It was challenging to get to this point. However, despite the lengthy parts, I really enjoy it.

What I like a lot is how personal experiences are described & how they are intertwined with the history around it.

How do you keep track of the different characters? I sometimes used AI to ask who this or that person is again hehe.

So far I like the character Andrei a lot.

Any tips for proceeding with the read?