
War and Peace is a long book (1224 pages, size 6 font, an epilogue AND a motherblanking appendix). It's also an old book (published in 1862) and a heavy one too, both in terms of physical weight (I'm guessing 7 lbs.) and metaphysical girth. PLUS-SIZED EXISTENTIAL MUSINGS. A million things have already been written about Tolstoy's tome, and I'm sure they were more intelligent and illuminating than anything my soymilk-addled brain has to offer. That being said, I wanted to share a few thoughts, if for no other reason than I'm sitting in bed, it's 4:12 in the morning, and all of my roommates are asleep. (1) War and Peace is an extremely depressing book. The narrator (an extension of Tolstoy himself) is one jaded motherfucker, a dude who continually fixates on the absurdity/horror of war, the futility of our attempts to understand the world, and the notion that free will is an utter illusion. According to Tolstoy, when we attempt to locate causality in events, we encounter a logical rub, for every action that caused something (eg Napoleon conveying an order to his troops) was caused by an infinite number of something elses (eg the emperor's health, the weather, the Russian army's disorganization). People -- especially historians -- assign causality in retrospect, which is sort of like saying it had to be this way because it WAS this way. Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense unless you think running around in circles actually gets you somewhere. (2) In 19th century Russia <b>...</b>
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