Tolstoy is considered to be one of the best writers in the world, and War and Peace is considered to be one of his best pieces of writing. But it is debatable whether or not War and Peace is a novel. Both Morson and Norton, and Tolstoy himself” have said that War and Peace “…is not a novel” (Morson, pg. 1090; Norton, pg. 75-76; War and Peace, pg. 1090). They believe to some extent that Tolstoy writes in absolute language because he was a visionary and thought through the novel while writing, and that everything he wrote was intentional. In the first half of the story Tolstoy’s absolute language is not as strong and it does not constraint the reader’s creativity as much, but the same is not true for the last half.
The story quickly moves from a narrator who tells the lives of his characters and of the society they live in to an omniscient narrator who uses general absolute language when it comes to history and individuals in history. For example, at one point the narrator …show more content…
In the first half of the story Napoleon is a distant figure that is not talked about very much on a personal level, but in Book 10 of War and Peace this changes. Tolstoy portrays Napoleon in a very two-dimensional character. This is odd to me, as a reader, because Napoleon was an actual person in history but was simplified and given fewer dimensions (War and Peace, pg. 604), whereas all the other characters, Pierre, Andrew, Natasha, Nicholas, etc., who have never been alive, are given much more specific and vivid descriptions and personalities. As a nationalist Tolstoy has written a great novel, but as a historian he did not do nearly as great of a job because of how narrow-minded he portrays French men in this chapter. It was disappointing getting to know Napoleon through Tolstoy’s eyes because previously he was a distant figure and Tolstoy could have been more just about his description of
The story quickly moves from a narrator who tells the lives of his characters and of the society they live in to an omniscient narrator who uses general absolute language when it comes to history and individuals in history. For example, at one point the narrator …show more content…
In the first half of the story Napoleon is a distant figure that is not talked about very much on a personal level, but in Book 10 of War and Peace this changes. Tolstoy portrays Napoleon in a very two-dimensional character. This is odd to me, as a reader, because Napoleon was an actual person in history but was simplified and given fewer dimensions (War and Peace, pg. 604), whereas all the other characters, Pierre, Andrew, Natasha, Nicholas, etc., who have never been alive, are given much more specific and vivid descriptions and personalities. As a nationalist Tolstoy has written a great novel, but as a historian he did not do nearly as great of a job because of how narrow-minded he portrays French men in this chapter. It was disappointing getting to know Napoleon through Tolstoy’s eyes because previously he was a distant figure and Tolstoy could have been more just about his description of