War and Peace Chapter-a-Day Read-along: The Wrap-Up

Congratulations on reading War and Peace, one of the great works of world literature! Whether you finished it early, on time, or not yet, thank you for participating. I hope the read-along was as enriching for you as it was for me. (If you liked the experience of reading classic literature in one chapter a day, please consider joining the 2021 Chapter-a-Day Read-along.) I guess the read-along is technically not over, since the schedule calls for reading one final Tolstoy short story tomorrow, “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” But we have come to the end of War and Peace, so I am posting this wrap-up a day early.

Some books do not led themselves well to reading in a chapter a day, but I found War and Peace to be perfect for the format. Not only did the setting parallel the seasons of the year for many months, but it was uncanny how often it seemed to speak to current world affairs. I was especially grateful to have War and Peace as my steady companion during this very challenging year. When I look back on all the chaos that happened in 2020, I think that War and Peace will stand out as one of the bright spots.

I want to return to one of the quotes we began with, way back in January–before the pandemic and all the chaos of 2020–and see if it rings true for you:

“Reading War and Peace for the first time is one of the greatest literary experiences; reading it again and again is to realize the immeasurable gulf that is fixed between a merely good book and a great one…Here is a novel that is worth whatever time one gives to it. There is more life between its cover than in any other existent fictional narrative. All the normal human emotions find play in this novel; practically every facet of human experience is there. Its characters become as real to us as people whom we have known all our lives….No intelligent person can read it without a deep enrichment of experience. And having once read it, he is certain to turn to it again, to be amazed once more by its veracity, its tremendous vitality, its epic scope.” – J. Donald Adams

So, what do you think? Do you agree? What was your reading experience like? Now that you’ve read it, will you read it again some day?

Thank you again for coming on this journey with the chapter-a-day community, and I look forward to reading your comments. Here’s to 2021 and a new chapter-a-day read-along!