Reader Request - War and Peace

Leo Tolstoy plumbs life for love

Welcome to By the Books, a newsletter dedicated to capturing and distributing wisdom from works of classic literature.

Each post will take less than 5 minutes to read, and will feature one great book, including:

• A brief summary

• A distillation of relevant themes

• One actionable insight

Live by the best books, one day at a time.

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“War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy

In Tolstoy’s day, people might only ever buy and read one book, which is why it seems like Russian novelists tried to cram everything they knew or cared about into one enormous tome.

There’s a certain violence in attempting to summarize what is famously one of the most sprawling works of classic literature in one short paragraph, but here we go:

Set during the Napoleonic Wars, the story follows several Russian aristocratic families, with a particular focus on Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who seeks glory in war as an escape from a domestic life he finds stifling. After being severely wounded in battle, he questions the meaning of life, and eventually falls in love with vivacious and impulsive Natasha Rostova. Deeply hurt by her attempt to elope with another man, Andrei heads back out to the battlefield. This time, he is wounded beyond recovery. In his final days, he reconciles with Natasha, finding peace in forgiveness and love.

Prince Andrei’s story should feel relatable to anyone who has managed to survive youth and obtain any kind of filial stability. We all seem to need to go out and get hurt before we learn that lasting happiness has nothing to do with glory.

“Love? What is love?" he thought. "Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is connected only by that. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.”

Actionable Insight*

After something like twelve hundred pages, Tolstoy finally gives Andrei this insight on his deathbed, so that maybe we could learn “love is life” before it’s over.

This idea is one that we tend not to take very seriously, because it’s spoken so often, in so many ways. It feels trite, and easy. We might even say we believe it, but then our actions betray the claim.

Because we really can’t seem to help going out to seek glory in battle. And while our metaphorical wars look a lot different from the ones Napoleon waged in the early 19th century, they still leave us wounded and despairing.

So how do we get Tolstoy’s trite little truth into our bones, into our bodies? How do we get so that when we say we believe it, we mean it?

I’m not sure, but I suspect that that’s what all the suffering is for.

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*As a lover of literature, I must emphasize that the best way to truly absorb the wisdom of any work of literature is to actually read it, from start to finish, the way the author intended. I hope By the Books will occasionally inspire you to do just that.