Brave readers, by now you've cracked the spine of one of the loveliest novels of all time, and perhaps the most daunting. So I would like to begin with a warning: Prepare to discover that War and Peace is entirely surmountable. By anyone. Yes, even you. Prepare to remain captivated for such lengths of time that when you look up, you are surprised to find that it has become dark outside. Prepare to pronounce names with baroque consonant chains. Prepare to read sentences so beautiful you pause in the middle of the narrative to reread them.
I realize it's the size of a phone book, even in paperback. That's why we are taking our time.
We will be using this blog as a discussion forum in the interest of including readers who are not affiliated with Facebook and would prefer to keep it that way, thank you very much. So please feel free to comment or post any insights, links or questions that you would like to share with the group. We'll also schedule meet-ups for those of us who are local to the Claremont/Pomona area.
I'm Desiree. You know me because I'm the one who suggested you read W&P. This glowing review of the Richard Pevear/Larissa Volokhonsky translation piqued my interest, so I picked it up and rarely set it down until I had devoured the whole thing. I took a little Russian in college, and I have a background in literature, writing, and linguistics--I specialize in falling in love with epic tomes and using overenthusiastic discourse to persuade my friends to read them. This is the first time it worked.
