Kya- War and Peace

I thought I would continue my Napoleonic era reading with War and Peace. Les Miserables dealt with Napoleon from a French perspective and War and Peace deals with Napoleon from a Russian perspective. War and Peace is a story with many characters and families mostly from the aristocratic circles. Their stories are interwoven with each other and with the invasion of Russia by Napoleon in the early 1800's. Along with telling that story, Tolstoy shares his thoughts about the meaning and mystery of life and man' s spiritual quest. Most of the major characters undergo important transformations. Tolstoy touches upon almost every aspect of Russian society through his narrative and characters. That I think is the genius of the book, there's a seamless transition between everyday life, the inner workings of the heart and mind, and the powerful social forces at work over which no one really has control. Although Tolstoy vividly describes the horrors of war, he also gives his characters the ability to transcend those horrors. The characters that are able to do that (whether they live or not) are the true "victors" of the novel. Outside of the length of the book, I did not find this difficult reading and I think modern readers are so thoroughly familiar with this kind of book that it's hard to appreciate how different it was for its' time.