Should I read it or is it just a meme? So god damn long

kys cumskin

If you can't tell tolstoy is a great writer from the first few chapters you won't enjoy it

>>9520780
Fuck off nigger, can you even read?

God-tier.

Tolstoy is a tier above Dostoevsky so yes, read it.

>>9520774
Kys

If I had to choose only one Dostoevsky book to read the rest of my life, it would be that one OP, read it

>>9520774
I didn't like it. I don't need to be reminded over and over again how crappy Napoleon was and that life is out of our control. I'd rather reread paradise lost.

>>9520833
Pleb.

>>9520833
>how crappy Napoleon was
>>>>>>>implying

>>9520970
That certainly was Tolstoy's opinion about him, he is so butthurt about him he has to call him fat and greasy haired. According to him he isn't a genius but a common guy lifted by some invisible hand that would have picked anyone else if he did not exist, everything was luck basically

>>9520995
Which is a fair perspective if you're a Russian writing in the 19th century and dealing with Russian cultural repercussions of Napoleonic rule, and are still being barraged by anti-Napoleonic, anti-Republican propaganda.

The man as he actually was, as he's better understood now, is undeniably flawed, but his (eventually faltering) genius is undeniable. To call him "common" ignores the countless personal and intellectual capabilities that made him who he was. If Tolstoy wants to call that "an invisible hand" then it's fair only to the extent that the same remark could be made about literally every single person ever. We are what we are. He "happened" to be brilliant but flawed. I haven't read W&P but from your brief description it sounds like Tolstoy's criticism is just based on his own version of understanding "fate" in the sense of how it makes us who we are; it doesn't hold as a condemnation of Napoleon, nor would it of anyone else.

Like, yeah, he wouldn't have been a genius if he hadn't been "picked" to be brilliant with man-management and war and law...but he was. So...?

Idk I'm not trying to be contentious, I just think Tolstoy's argument sounds undeniably dated and, even if it weren't, it just doesn't sound particularly strong regardless. Does that make sense?

>>9520774

It reads like a breeze though. I read 80-100 pages every day easily.

>>9520794

This

>>9520995
>t. Knows nothing about Napoleon.

>>9521013
Well I'm not saying his distate for Napoleon is unfounded, obviously it has to do with the era he lived in. Even Pouchkine was talking mad shit about Napoopan before he changed his mind.

He called him an insignificant tool of History and said the best generals were the ones sitting on their arses doing nothing since their plans never really works once the battle starts. Mostly I think he is saying that great people are not great, they attain their status because they got carried by a mass of people.

>>9521030
As for Pouchkine, he was still critical of course but he softened up a bit. I think the only russian that was sympathetic with him was Lermontov

>>9521021
I don't share Tolstoy's opinion