Beware of spoilers!

In January, I stumbled upon a joint readings of Tolstoy's War & Peace and figured there wouldn't be any better chance to read it, since I've always been afraid of its size and put it off indefinitely. The novel is in the school literature curriculum and is expected to be common knowledge in Russia, but in fact, a lot of people haven't read it or have just read some parts. I personally think not everyone is ready to understand such a grandiose novel at such a young age. However, if you want to take a literature exam, you'll have to read it from cover to cover. That's why I have so much respect for philology students. I just read it, at the ripe age of 27 and oh boy, did I love it! I enjoyed it so much that it may be the best book of the year for me.

For now, I only want to talk about the characters. Sometimes when we talk about this novel, it's common to hear, "I only read the Peace parts" because the War parts are reputed to be dull and ponderous, but you are denying yourself the pleasure of getting to know wonderful characters that only appear in the War, e.g. Captain Tushin - one of my favorite characters in the whole book. Beside Tushin, I really like Pierre Bezukhov - idealistic, very kind, and always questing. He is relatable to me to some extent (if I dare to say so). I sympathized with his longing for truth and happiness. Prince Andrey Bolkonsky is widely loved for his dignity, however, I didn't take to him from the first read. While I found Pierre's imperfections rather cute and harmless (can your confusion or inability to manage your finances hurt anyone else but yourself?), Andrey's views on marriage and his division of people into sentient and creature-like were huge turn-offs for me.

Natasha Rostova's character in the book is just insufferable; pure emotion, no thought. Tolstoy portrays her as good judge of character, but her yearning for love stymies her ability to read Anatole's intentions. The BBC depiction of her character seems much nicer, maybe because they made her less impulsive (e.g., there was no scene with her taking poison after she was seduced by Anatole - that scene in the book really put me off her. What an idiot!). To be honest, the BBC versions of all the main characters in general appeared to me much nicer than in the book.

I'm also very sad for Sonya - such a nice, kind girl, in my opinion deserves all the love, but Tolstoy deems her futile and thus deserving of her bitter end. He is reputed to be a character connoisseur,so I guess when I reread it, I'll figure out why he denied her a happy ending.

There is also another character Tolstoy portraits as futile - Vera Rostova, the oldest daughter of the Rostov family. Natasha said she is "cold and evil", and a lot of people reckon the same, but all I see Vera do is be serious as oppose to Natasha, maybe a little gauche at social gatherings, kind of superficial, but evil? I'd say she's a grey character and I'm surprised a lot of people sincerely don't like her. She's just minding her business... Do you really have to be exceptionally good to not be considered evil?

Generally speaking, the devil is not as black as they paint him. In fact, the devil is very entertaining and well worth the time spent. The only problem now is to find a better book :)