Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

I had always had "War and Peace," by Leo Tolstoy, as a to read book in the back of my mind. I have never been too sure about this book as it did not seem all that interesting to me from what I've heard. So, I bought a copy a while ago, but have not had a chance to read it. So, I decided to see if they had it on CD at the library, and unabridged version, as I didn't want the cliff notes. And whaddya know, their is an unabridged reading of the book, in two parts. Part 1 is 25 discs for 30 hours and 20 minutes. Part 2 is 26 CD's for a total of 31 hours and 25 minutes. It is read very well by Neville Jason. As stated in previous posts, my work allows for many opportunities in listening to such works.

The book is amazing in its descriptive qualities considering it is a historical novel and Leo himself was born in 1828, and the "War and Peace" concerns the time of 1805 to 1812, during the Napoleonic wars in Russia.

At first I found the book rather boring, seeming more like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous instead of an important novel about war. However, as it reached the first battles of Austerlitz, the fuller the characters took in ones minds.

Tolstoy has a descriptive quality that makes it feel like he was there. Like he was dreaming the reality and sharing it with the world. He has a way of molding the characters as a whole. They are three-dimensional and not flat. Some of the characters I hated, some I loved, and often, they were the same characters. My favorite was Pierre Basuhoff (sp? as I did not actually read, but listened to the book) . He starts out as a partying youth who participates in drunken festivities such as tying a policeman to a bear. A fella like that can't be all bad.

The war descriptions are amazing. They have qualities in only stories that I've been told by vets and works I've read by boy soldiers. He describes well the effects war has on the people during times of relative peace, i.e. not at war, as well.

All in all, although at times boring, the novel, "War and Peace," is well worth the read. I feel like I got something out of it.

The above photograph of Leo Tolstoy was taken in 1908 and is an actual color photograph. In other words, it is not Turnerized, but an actual color photograph by a pioneer in color photography, Prokudin-Gorskii.

I've also read a little that Tolstoy was quite the peace activist especially later in life. I won't hold that against him, however.

ADDENDUM

I would like to point out something that interested me about the wars in this book compared to the wars of today.

In the wars between Russia and France, the teams were rather close to equal. The fighting was nasty, bloody, up close and personal. The generals and the rest of the rank fought beside the grunts, as it were. The rich fought just as hard as the grunts, the rich were just as cowardly as the grunts. They were all side by side in the nastiness that is known as war.

Observers were common. You could ride out onto the field and watch war. The people fighting it would not support you, like feed you like they would the fighters. But you could watch, stand under fire, maybe get killed, as long as you stayed out of the way.

Not so today. You would never see the likes of that POS Tony Hayward, fighting beside the grunts who Obomber and Killary want to start slaughtering Iranians with and already have and are slaughtering Iraqi's and Afghani's. You won't see the generals and fighting side by side with their men.

Nor are the sides close to even. The U.S. is overwhelming in its Blitzkrieg of military might and technology. Yet, oddly, unlike in "War and Peace," there are no clear winners in these illegal and genocidal wars started by mass murderer George Bush and perpetuated by mass murderer Barack Obama, aka Obomber. With no where near the military might, the Iraqi's and Afghani's are still fighting back.

I'm just sayin'.