War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy, part I

Yes, really.

I am reading the Mt. Everest of books. No air packs, no sherpas, no Cliff’s notes. Why? The only answer I have is that I am reading this book just to see if I can get all the way through this sucker.

Week one progress: 220 pages of 1455 pages. 1235 pages to go.

I finished part one a day or so ago, and am now in part two. Part one seemed like a clip from a Jane Austen novel. Lots of people, lots of parties, and a lot of social maneuvering. Many of the people I’ve talked to who mentioned having attempted this book said that one of the biggest problems they had was keeping track of the cast. Fortunately, my edition has a dramatis personae of the main families in this book and, so far, I am managing to remember most of the people in this book.

Part two is a lot more interesting. I’m currently following Prince Andrei Bolkonsky and Nickolai Rostov as they fight the French. I am not quite sure where we are in the timeline of Napoleon’s Russian campaign. Somewhere after Ulm, but before Austerlitz I think. All I know is that we’re somewhere at the end of 1805 and have seven more years of war before Napoleon retreats.

This book isn’t that bad so far. It’s just that there’s a lot of it left to go.