The faces of the soldiers and officers cheered up at this sound; everybody stood up and began watching the movements of our troops below, visible as on the palm of the hand, and further away the movements of the advancing enemy. Just then the sun came all the way out from behind the clouds, and the beautiful sound of the solitary shot and the shining of the bright sun merged into one cheerful and merry impression.-pg 139
I feared this book, like this blog post, for its length; the book, because it seemed so long at the outset; the blog post, because it seemed inevitable it would be too short. Happily, for the former my fear was unwarranted, and with respect to the latter, easily overcome--the shorter the better.
I was surprised by how quick a read the book turned out to be. I only grew impatient with the pacing when the scene shifted, and only then because I wanted to keep reading what I had just been reading. Other than that, the only hangup I had was with the philosophizing about history, which, while interesting, seemed to become endlessly repetitive.
Aside from that, it really is as good as people say it is. It's one of the best books I've ever read and I look forward to reading it again.
A few random thoughts/additions:
The translation, by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (this duo who seem to be translating every Russian work out there), is at times totally bizarre. Some of the sentences seem like they've been run through an Internet translation program. I picked this up because of the raves from people who study Russian literature, so I'm not sure what to think. It could use a loving editor's eye.
There is just one aspect of it that I thought was odd and interesting: None of the characters really have psychologies dependent on events outside of the book. That is, no character recalls a moment in childhood that is defining, or a time in their previous lives outside of the confines of the book's events (perhaps General Bagration recalls a previous battle, at one point).
Prince Andrei is awesome.
I was surprised by how quick a read the book turned out to be. I only grew impatient with the pacing when the scene shifted, and only then because I wanted to keep reading what I had just been reading. Other than that, the only hangup I had was with the philosophizing about history, which, while interesting, seemed to become endlessly repetitive.
Aside from that, it really is as good as people say it is. It's one of the best books I've ever read and I look forward to reading it again.
A few random thoughts/additions:
The translation, by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (this duo who seem to be translating every Russian work out there), is at times totally bizarre. Some of the sentences seem like they've been run through an Internet translation program. I picked this up because of the raves from people who study Russian literature, so I'm not sure what to think. It could use a loving editor's eye.
There is just one aspect of it that I thought was odd and interesting: None of the characters really have psychologies dependent on events outside of the book. That is, no character recalls a moment in childhood that is defining, or a time in their previous lives outside of the confines of the book's events (perhaps General Bagration recalls a previous battle, at one point).
Prince Andrei is awesome.
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