Volume II, Part One and Two
Somehow 2 years have passed as we began the book in 1805 and it is now 1807. Happily this section passed much easier than the previous one as we zeroed in on the characters in "peace." However by the end, we had returned to war and my reading bogged down. I should time myself because I'm pretty sure the war sections take far longer to read than the peace. So much happens in this section-birth, death, duels, religious conversions, love, no love, etc.
I am trying to take the advice of another reader to just sit back and let the story flow over me. I'm not entirely sure I have a handle on all the characters (and I really wish the women got to do more/be more interesting) but I'm not stressing about it. Pierre and Nikolai seemed to be the most important in these sections with the former dueling, embracing induction into the Freemasons, and pushing for reforms on his estate while the latter loses a tremendous amount of money to a romantic rival and returns to battle. I would say that covers the bulk of the action although of course there are a lot more details that Tolstoy incorporated that I'm not entirely sure I'm catching.
Amy's post reminded us that we're just about 1/3 of the way through-definitely something to celebrate. I'm really proud of myself for sticking so faithfully to this schedule and getting my posts up. This readalong is the perfect motivation for me!
Next section is Volume II, parts Three and Four
SO impressed that you are doing this!! I often pick a classic to read in the summer, but never one quite that long!
ReplyDeleteYou can find me here: Jen @ YA Romantics
I can only handle this because we're reading it over the course of a year-I don't think I could finish it in just the summer.
DeleteYay, 1/3rd! I don't think I would ever have persevered through these previous sections if it wasn't for the readalong. It does help with the motivation! I found April's reading much more "doable" than the last months' though. Hopefully this keeps up.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you about the women! And I'm glad to see you mention it. I have it in my post that is about to go up this afternoon, and I was wondering if I was imagining things, so it's good to see someone else feeling the same.
The readalong is a huge motivator! I'm so glad you and Amy are hosting it. I also have hopes that each section is going to keep getting better.
DeleteI'm glad that the peace part is okay, but the war part sounds boring. Actually, War and Peace just sounds boring to me in general. I know it's a classic, but ugh. I hope that you end up liking it, girly!
ReplyDeleteIt's actually pretty readable-there's just so much of it to get through. I also find the peace sections better than the war but that's because there are women in the peace part.
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