# War and Peace; worth the time to read it?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-and-peace-worth-the-time-to-read-it/443659>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [April 2, 2008, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-and-peace-worth-the-time-to-read-it/443659 "2008-04-02T12:26:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2008, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-and-peace-worth-the-time-to-read-it/443659/21 "2008-04-04T23:12:51Z")

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Meh, it’s just a rip-off of _Dune_.

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**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2008, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-and-peace-worth-the-time-to-read-it/443659/22 "2008-04-04T23:24:13Z")

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[QUOTE=mbh]  
Tolstoy will spend two or three chapters telling the story of the characters. Then he well spend two or three chapters preaching a sermon on the meaning of life. A couple more chapters of story, then a couple more chapters of sermon.

The sermon-chapters are a good cure for insomnia. But the story-chapters are wonderful.  
[/QUOTE]

Tolstoy’s musings take up far, far less of the book than the fifty-fifty chapter split that you suggest here. In any case it’s pretty obvious when he is going off on one of his rants. Those few chapters are easily skipped. Just read the thing for the huge sprawling wonderful epic that it is. I agree that anglophones need to make an effort to keep track of the names.

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