The Battle Ends

After 1250 tiny-print pages and more than 6 months of lunch-time reading I've finally finished War & Peace. It was definitely an interesting book. The story line seemed somewhat drab, at least from the standpoint of what happened to the characters, but the history in the book was really neat. I read a Napolean biography just before starting this book so it was neat to see the view of Napolean's Russian campaign from a Russian viewpoint. The descriptions of Russian culture around 1812 were also pretty interesting.

Aside from the history, the best part about the book had to be the analysis of the human psyche that Tolstoy put into the book. Most of the story consists of describing the thoughts and feelings of the characters. Tolstoy doesn't describe the feelings as an outsider looking in though. He describes feelings and thoughts just as they would occur to the character. It makes for some neat insights into how & why people think the way they do. It's fun to see the thoughts of the characters develop though the story.

It was long but I think worth it. If nothing else at least I can say that I've read War & Peace. You'll have to decide for yourself if that makes me an intelligent person or a glutton for punishment.