Read War & Peace in a Week
Goggly Eyed?
The challenge was entered twice, the second with the caveat of completing it in a week. This presented no mean feat as an audio version is apparently just over 60 hours of listening & undoubtably would have been easier. It left me with goggly & somewhat tired eyes by the end of it. 1200 & some pages in the tiniest print known to man. The need to wear reading glasses has caused a decline in my desire to read physical books. An audio book has much more appeal as I can work & listen. The audio book option will be definitely the preferred way if I ever feel inclined to read Tolstoy.
I had some sense of the story from watching a TV dramatisation some years ago which helped me keep on tract with the general story & numerous characters with impossible sounding names.
Why is it a classic?
Literary scholars describe the premise of War & Peace as one where people seeking political change & suffering from a degree of spiritual confusion try & work things out. These themes are enduring. If you changed the names of the characters & placed it in a different time & location the human issues would be easily recognised. The reasons for reading it might be many & varied. Whether you had to read it at school or are just a reading snob its a story we could all learn from.
Despite studying literature at school the works of Tolstoy did not feature.I have to confess this point to many previous failed attempts to read Tolstoy stories. The tale of Anna Karinina is well known but I never made it past the first chapter. I suspect if I had not been challenged I would not have got past the first page of War & Peace. What is sad is that these lessons go un learnt by successive generations.
Fortifying Beverage
Reading Feverishly
I read on the ferry to Ireland, in the car while my husband was watching rugby. With 1200 pages to get through I needed to spend every spare minute reading. Cold & wet Irish weather provided a huge incentive to sit by an open fire & read. Not to mention lots of snacks & alcohol too.
My husband thought it hilarious that I had to wear a ‘headlamp’ to continue reading while he slept. A combination of small print & dim light made my eyes ache.
Although I had a basic understanding of the story, I got horribly confused with the names especially as some seemed to have more than one. I am a fighter & not known to quit easily. Book in hand, light on head I got ready to dive deep into the classic novel of War & Peace the themes in which could be easily applied to the world today.
‘Indomitable spirit’ & ‘perseverance’ are two of the tenets of Taekwondo that helped me through this challenge.
