It's Lit: War and Peace

Shelby Machado

I've never known anything about War and Peace at ALL. Now I am compelled to read it. Thank you!

Tim Hammack

My grandfather had really enjoyed War and Peace and liked to joke about "that Pierre" when as a teen I'd ask him about the book (it was his influence that led me to read it as a teen--I wasn't an *utter pedant* ;)

Tim Hammack

This is a great overview. You omitted the Game of Thrones books from crazy long books! (Game of Thrones books have especially caught my interest because my relatives, who normally don't read, had penetrated the first 2 or 3 books (books that struck me as long and unfocused).

I've only read it once and a long time ago so remember it only in a patchy sense. It seemed to me to have at its centre Russia, and the question of what Russia is and why it endures

Magnus Galåen

I saw your book in the bookshelf! Smart product placement 😂

Carlfish

A modern parallel might be "Netflix bloat". Whether you're commissioned to deliver twenty 32-page chapters or thirteen 40-minute episodes, at some point you're going to stretch to fit the story into the format.

Carmine Red

What is it about Fiction Writing that gets serialized in newspapers? I have a pet theory this contributed to a lot of "filler"... Didn't Dickens write this way? And wasn't The Count of Monte Cristo also done this way? Compiling all those pay-by-the-word chapters into a novel seems very weird to me.

Eli Bildirici

...after seeing this vid I actually want to read it now. Which translation was this?

Shiny Skunk

I cannot get over Princess coining the phrase "literary size queens."

Tim Hammack

I am glad I read War and Peace (as a self-compelled act in highschool). But yeah I skimmed the 100-plus page overview of masonry. On the other hand, I retain vivid memories of the scenes with the Kossack horsemen pursuing the French out of Moscow as well as vague memories of Pyotr wandering around Moscow.

Karel P Kerezman

So basically Tolstoy was just out there operating on a whole different level. Huh!

Vladimir Barash

Yay!! Really appreciate this episode and the insightful look into War and Peace :) Love that novel!!

Peter McDevitt

i got the notification this went up just as I was watching Charlie Brown lug around this novel in "The Peanuts Movie," just added to D+ today. AMAZING coincidence.....

Don Bright

it's a great episode..... however if j.k. rowling could be cancelled Tolstoy could be quadruple cancelled.

Frances Webb

When I read Ivanhoe in high school, my reaction was, "OMG! It's a romance novel!" I also liked it pretty well, but still remember there was an entire chapter describing a stadium, what the various sections of seating looked liked, etc, just because there would be games played in that stadium in the next chapter. And that like every Robin Hood story ever, yes, the Black Knight is always King Richard.

Carl Sage

"Long...And (Sotto Vocce) Russian." Classic. Simply classic.