Big Fat Book: 'War and Peace' Week 7

Another week, another 50 pages. I'm languishing in War and Peace purgatory. As a seasoned veteran of reading this book, I have three important pieces of advice:

1. Never take a break. You will inevitably lose momentum and possibly even start reading other things you like better. If you truly need a respite from your long novel, try catching up back issues of The New Yorker.

2. Beethoven is the best and really the only appropriate background music while reading War and Peace. Try the Egmont Overture for the "War" and the piano concertos for the "Peace." Anything he dedicated to Napoleon is also a good choice.

3. Don't even do the mental math to calculate your finish date. Long ago I figured I'd finish in ten weeks at the rate I was reading; now at Week 7, I really regret ever getting that idea in my head. It's over when it's over, and no matter how long it takes, it's an accomplishment.

Big Fat Book: 'War and Peace' Week 6

This week I only managed another 50 pages for the complete opposite reason as last week's zero pages. I skipped 'War and Peace' in order to dig myself out of a reading rut, and as I result I delved into a half-dozen new books in an attempt to find something compelling, and it (fortunately or unfortunately?) worked. The goal of reading a gigantic book was not to become the focus of my reading, so I'm not beating myself up over it, but momentum is important with an undertaking like this, and I'm already itching a bit to finish it and start thinking about my next enormous book.

Sadly, now that my pace has slowed, the events of the novel are finally at the place I've been waiting for -- the titular "peace" portion. I don't remember enough about Napoleonic history to know how long this peace is going to last, but in the meantime every character is getting into all kinds of Tolstoyian intrigue; I'm going to attempt to make up for some lost time by really focusing on War and Peace for the next week, and I'm really desperate for Natasha's inevitable marriage proposals to start rolling in.

Big Fat Book: 'War and Peace' Week 5

Another week, another 100 pages. This week's reading flew by as I was finally able to really, fully engage with the characters and the plot.  Tolstoy spends a good 200-300 pages or so developing the characters and setting the stage, so I'm finally at the point when tension is building and actions are reaping consequences.

More importantly, I'm nearing the halfway point, and it brings me so much satisfaction to see my bookmark poking out of the middle of this enormous, heavy book.  I feel at this point I've read to the point of no return -- I've put enough time and effort into War and Peace (and made enough progress), that finishing the novel feels like an inevitability. I might regret writing that when I get to the 600 page mark or so, but right now the consistent, steady progress feels very encouraging.

Big Fat Book: 'War and Peace' Week 3

I managed to make it through another 100 pages (more like 85, but who's counting?) and propelled myself well into Part 2 of Volume I, which felt like some kind of minor accomplishment. Only another 100 pages until Volume II! I will say about Tolstoy that the very tidy division of his novels into distinct volumes, parts, and chapters, makes the whole endeavor so much more manageable and far less intimidating. Often when I fail to finish a long, difficult book, it has much to do with the structure (or lack thereof) and my inability to find good stopping points, which can make it impossible to return to the book.

I will also say that I'm happy to have made it through this section because it was not exactly the type of action I turn to Tolstoy for; it was largely composed of military stuff with an unfortunate amount of time spent with minor characters, and at this point I have a hard time evaluating which of them will be important in future and which will never be heard from again. If you've read Anna Karenina, you probably remember long stretches about Russian political theory or about agriculture, and the military elements in War and Peace serve a similar function. I'm hopeful that next week's sections will include a bit more of the other characters back at home.

Big Fat Book: 'War and Peace' Week 1

As I alluded in my Reading Resolutions post last week, you can expect more posts on extremely long, heavy, doorstop quality book in the coming year. Even as recently as last night, while I blazed through a short, excellent novel, I questioned my motivation for this undertaking. I read constantly and I generally feel that I read "enough," so that's not the reason. I'm also someone who gets an immense amount of satisfaction from finishing a book and crossing it off a list, so a 1,000-page novel is not the most efficient way to satisfy this need. 

Part of it is certainly an ego thing; I consider myself to be well-read and I even take the time to maintain a blog about my reading habits, so I'm going to read the books that I know I, of all people, should be reading. I've also had the good fortune of generally being really pleased with any long novel I've taken the time to finish, so I don't feel like I'm undertaking something completely unpleasant. And finally, I have always read many different books at once, so by committing to a long novel, I'm not necessarily giving up all other, shorter books in the meantime; I'll just be spending less time with those.

I kicked around a few different ideas before finally settling on War and Peace. I've never read Atlas Shrugged and I sort of want to, but I don't want anyone to mistake me for an actual, literal Ayn Rand fan. I also thought about Infinite Jest, but in some ways it feels wrong to undertake such a modern behemoth when there are many older, canonical books still going unread by me. I read Anna Karenina with my book club two years ago and really loved it (more on that in a future post), and as far as extremely long classics go, War and Peace is definitely genre-defining. Plus it's cold and snowy outside, so a Russian novel seems more appropriate than, say, In Search of Lost Time, which feels very springy to me. Maybe I'll take on that challenge if me and War and Peace make it through winter together. If nothing else, I'm motivated by the fact that the enormous novel is essential to the structural integrity of a half-full bookshelf designated for Russian literature (half-full because I hate Russian literature but feel a sense of obligation to keep trying).

I hope some of you will be equally motivated and try reading along with me. Expect a post on War and Peace every Wednesday until I finish it (even if that means I have to write a post in which I admit I read none of it because I had too many episodes of 'The Fosters' to get caught up on).