After ReadingWar and Peace is so vast that I have to jot down my thoughts one by one, afraid I’ll lose myself in the labyrinth otherwise. Even then, these notes are just fragments, barely touching the surface of what this book contains.
The Russian Who Knows Nothing
There’s a passage in the novel that made me laugh out loud in bed at midnight. Tolstoy describes Pfuel as one of those hopelessly self-confident men, unchanging and ready to die for his beliefs—a type that can only be German, because only Germans derive such certainty from abstract ideas like science, from the illusion of possessing perfect truth. The French are self-assured because they believe themselves irresistibly charming to everyone, in both mind and body. The English are confident because they’re citizens of the world’s best-organized nation, and an Englishman always knows what he should do and that whatever he does as an Englishman is unquestionably right. Italians are self-confident because they’re passionate and excitable, quick to forget both themselves and others. And Russians? Russians are self-confident because they know nothing and don’t want to know anything, because they don’t believe anything can be fully known.
I laughed especially hard at that last line about Russians. But after finishing all thousand-plus pages across two volumes, I realized something: Tolstoy wasn’t being self-deprecating or ironic. He was dead serious. This massive work can be interpreted from countless angles, but its central message is clear—we actually know nothing.
What Historians Won’t Admit
A friend once told me she preferred reading history to novels because real events are more interesting than fiction. I disagreed but struggled to explain why. I thought of Kafka’s The Castle as an example, but the distinction felt too complex to articulate in a sentence or two. After finishing War and Peace, though, it became crystal clear.
The difference is this: historians will never tell you, and will never admit, that they actually know nothing. Their specialty is laying out what they do know to convince you they know everything.
So that’s why I never liked history. I’d always thought something was wrong with me. I love anthropology, psychology, all sorts of random subjects—but history just never clicked, no matter how hard I tried. Reading Tolstoy savage modern historians helped me understand: history itself is valuable, but what I couldn’t stand was the way so many historians bury themselves in old documents while playing prophet, pretending to know the unknowable. Just tell me what happened, I wanted to say. Don’t tell me what it all means. But even “what happened” has been edited and shaped by human hands. After all, history is written, not found.
The Limits of Human Understanding
How much can we really know, given how small we are? We think we’ve mastered the world, but the world follows its own laws. The earth does this, and so does everything else. Take the wars of the 1800s—all those countries tearing each other apart, armies marching west to east one day and east to west the next. Why? Historians claim to know: because Napoleon caught a cold, because Alexander and Napoleon had a falling out, and so on.
Tolstoy says he doesn’t know. And those historians can’t really know either. Anyone who claims otherwise is full of it. The argument is complex—for the full version, see War and Peace.
We set so many goals in life, but how many actually come to pass? Even our personal lives don’t always unfold according to plan. It’s like two armies in battle: the deployment is meticulous, the maps are detailed, but when the armies finally meet, somehow everything falls apart.
What Tolstoy really wants us to understand is this: don’t fight against the current. The world is vast. Learn to move with it. Let things be as they are.
The Characters Who Stayed With Me
Strangely, my favorite characters weren’t the protagonists but old Kutuzov and that bastard Dolokhov—what a bizarre pair to love. When I reached the final chapters where Tolstoy defends Kutuzov, I found myself wondering: if being like Kutuzov leads to this kind of ending, is it still worth it?
Pierre is a big soul. Eventually he’ll reach Kutuzov’s level—becoming a great person who remains unknown or even misunderstood. Prince Andrei’s death scene is far clearer in the book than it was in the TV adaptation. He didn’t die. He woke up. That’s why I didn’t cry. I hope I can die like that someday—wake up like that.
Pierre represents one possible path for an individual to escape spiritual crisis and find complete happiness while still alive. But this happiness comes only after much suffering and after giving up pointless struggles. And we must admit: not everyone has this kind of fortune. Pierre, first of all, is a nobleman. To some extent, he has the privilege of fully pursuing spiritual fulfillment. Ordinary people often spend most of their energy solving the bread problem first, which is definitely an obstacle for many. But you could also see it this way: nobles are human too. No amount of money saves them from spiritual crisis. Andrei faces it, Pierre faces it. Life is murky water, and everyone has to wade through it alone.
The Force Beyond Us
I forget who said it, but all great artists and writers are translators. They don’t create—they listen, and then translate the voice of the divine for humanity. As I understand it, this “divine” has different representatives in various religions—God, prophets, Allah. But I’m not religious, so I interpret it as the natural laws governing all things and the force that propels them forward. It’s not the image of any particular deity, but I believe it exists.
Whatever that force is, it’s not human. We are small. We can only learn to respect it, not control it. There’s no such thing as “dramatic” events in this world. “Dramatic” is a word humans invented. Everything that happens makes perfect sense. Historians try to explain events to serve some purpose, categorizing them according to human experience. The result is contradiction piled on contradiction. Whatever can’t be explained gets labeled “dramatic.” Yet they refuse to admit they were ignorant to begin with.
A Book for Those Who Can Empty Their Minds
This truly is a book everyone should read in their lifetime—but it depends on whose lifetime. Some people spend their whole lives pleased with the little they know. They’ll never understand what this book is trying to say. They can never empty their minds, never pour out what little they think they know.
Tolstoy is so damn cool.
