War and Peace, Volume 1
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War and Peace, Volume 1
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Narrated by:
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Neville Jason
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By:
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Leo Tolstoy
War and Peace is one of the greatest monuments in world literature. Set against the dramatic backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, it examines the relationship between the individual and the relentless march of history. Here are the universal themes of love and hate, ambition and despair, youth and age, expressed with a swirling vitality which makes the book as accessible today as it was when it was first published in 1869.
In addition it is, famously, one of the longest books in Western literature and therefore a remarkable challenge for any reader. Neville Jason read the abridged version of War and Peace and proved his marathon powers with his outstanding performance of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. These make him the ideal narrator to essay Tolstoy's epic.
War and Peace was translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude.
© and (P) Naxos Rights InternationalCritic reviews
"There remains the greatest of all novelists - for what else can we call the author of War and Peace?" (Virginia Woolf)
unremitting tedium of a boringly read W&P - this is anything but.
Exemplary
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It is extraordinary that Tolstoy's massive novel centred round the Napoleonic wars and saturated in the Russian class system of the time manages to be such a remarkable comment on the human condition. Tolstoy's observations on the quirks of human nature and his reading of human psychology is a very good illustration of how great novelists are so much more useful than psychology textbooks if you really want to understand something important about how people think and feel.
Neville Jason has a delivery which, like that of a good interpreter enables you to forget that there is anyone between you and the text. His subtle but accomplished contributions of accidents and dramatisation (conveying the way the troops cheer on the battlefield, for example) brings everything to life but leaves the essence to your imagination in the way that a full dramatisation does not.
This is a reading it will be very hard to beat.
An imaginative and immaculate rendering!
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First rate story, beautifully read
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Excellent
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Quite a challenge, but I guess that is why I took it on. Keeping a written list of the characters that make up the five main families in the book really helped me. (They are introduced during a party at the very beginning.) Also I followed Spark Notes as I went along, that helped me in understanding the very many characters who popped up briefly during the long plot, and the deeper meaning behind the story being told.
This is about the Napoleonic wars, and especially the 1812 invasion of Russia, so reading up some history before starting the book was worthwhile. That is the War part. The peace part is reflected in the "soap opera" among the 5 families - the usual period drama stuff about who loves whom, who actually has money, and so with that in mind, who will actually marry whom.
Amongst all this the narrator keeps jumping in with his philosophical thoughts on Freewill & Inevitability and their role in wars and history. For the whole of the two hour Epilogue-2, we hear nothing else.
So in all, I would say it is well worth the read, but it takes effort if you are to get anything out of it and not just let it wash over you as you doze. The quality of the writing is excellent.
It's very long!
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