12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent guide to this venerable classic, March 31, 2006
This review is from: Tolstoy's War and Peace (Cliffs Notes) (Paperback)
If there's a book that needs a Cliffs Notes, it's War and Peace. I thought this was one of the better Cliffs Notes guides to novels, and I have a habit of picking the Cliffs and Monarch Notes up at bookstores and reading them to see what the professors who write these guides have to say about them, as I always find something interesting and insightful that I didn't know before. Having done this for the 30 years since I left college, I've accumulated a lot of at least miscellaneous pieces of information about the great books that way. The author does a fine job of analyzing the many aspects of the novel. Main characters, plot, themes, the historical and social background, and relevant info about Tolstoy's personal philosophy and background are discussed.
I had a few comments myself about War and Peace, since we're on the subject, and also about a couple of his other stories, and thought I'd post them here, so I hope you don't mind.
Trying to make a new or creative comment on War and Peace as a novel is probably like trying to sell a freezer to an Eskimo, or as someone said, trying to bring coals to Newcastle, so I thought I'd briefly discuss one of the philosophical comments Tolstoy made, since I know more about that than about the literary criticism.
In the second epilogue, Tolstoy makes this interesting comment (I'm remembering this from 30 years ago, so cut me from slack, but I think I have it pretty much correct):
"Consciousness says I alone am, and all that exists is but me; consequently I include space. I measure flowing time by the fixed moment of the present in which alone I am conscious of myself as living. I am beyond cause, for I feel myself to be the cause of every manifestation of my life."
This statement would qualify as an extreme form of philosophical idealism, also known as solipsism. The British philosopher, Berkeley, is the most famous example of this epistemological view, which basically says that we only know what comes to us through our senses, that basically the external world only exists because we perceive it. It leads to a sceptical attitude toward external reality and an emphasis on individual consciousness and innate ideas.
This contrasts with the empiricist view, which is more common among scientists and some philosophers, that says that ideas come from the external world and that it exists independently of our perception of it. While individual consciousness is certainly important, sense data reflect more or less accurately the external world and ideas arise from the mind working with that data.
I don't know if Tolstoy himself subscribed to radical idealism, but many people aren't aware that there was a rich Russian mystical and philosophical tradition in the 18th and 19th century that Tolstoy would have been intimately familiar with. Some westerners are familiar with Gurdjiev, who inherited that mystical traditional and who was also influenced by western scientific ideas.
By the way, speaking of Tolstoy's mystical and spiritual beliefs, his last work, the Hadji Murad, is a statement of his religious and spiritual beliefs. I've never read it, but apparently the Russian Orthodox church didn't like it and he was excommunicated by their Pope, who is known as the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. When he died, Tolstoy was buried without the Greek Orthodox religious services in an unconsecrated grave.
Tolstoy was an interesting author in many ways. Although he's mostly known for his long novels like War and Peace, in some ways, his shorter works are his most interesting.
For example, his short novel, The Kreutzer Sonata, which is only about 100 pages long, is basically about the dating and marriage customs among the Russian nobility. It also described an abusive and psychologically cruel marriage between two people, which was later construed to be a commentary on his own, which didn't make his own family too happy, but I don't know if it was an accurate reflection of his own marriage or not.
In his short story, Man and Master, he describes the relationship between a wealthy and manipulative Russian businesman and farmer who takes financial advantage of his faithful but downtrodden serf, who he pays only a pittance and then overcharges him for the goods the serf buys from him. The serf knows he is being cheated, but is resigned to the situation. But when the two become lost in a snowstorm and become stranded and are freezing to death, the master sacrifices himself for his servant, a surprise ending which one doesn't expect.
But getting back to the present book, overall a well written, insightful, and detailed guide and one that should help students get the most out of this long and difficult book.
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