After a year and a half, I’ve finally finished Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

Published in 1869, this is a huge book of 1,400 pages and almost 600,000 words, and is no small undertaking.

Not being sure when these COVID lockdowns would end, I started reading it. Happily, it was the ebook version as carting the actual book around would have been most impractical!

Then, on becoming fascinated by the Napoleonic Wars, I bought The Napoleonic Wars – A Global History by Alexander Mikaberidze which is, itself, a long book but which I finished well before I completed Tolstoy’s.

Yes, it’s a thick book!

I was rather promiscuous and read other books too during those 18 months but I kept dipping into War and Peace and then we soon found ourselves in an exclusive relationship!

I must confess though that I didn’t read every word. (Do you listen to every word your partner in life says?) I found myself skipping bits where there the dialogue was overly long with the characters arguing or discussing uninteresting philsophical or political matters.

War and Peace cannot be described as a standard novel for Tolstoy intersperses it with what can only be described as essays about the war, philosophy and even science. But I was only interested in the story and so skimmed over much of this.

But still, I feel like I’ve read the entire book because I’ve spent all that time with the characters from the beginning to the very end.

And it was a satisfying read.

So go get yourself a copy!

(And you’re most welcome, Mr Tolstoy!)

p.s It was somewhat ironic, reading the section of the book where the Russian’s were very worried about Napoleon’s invasion of their motherland, that it’s currently Russia that’s ruthlessly invading their neighbour, Ukraine.