War and Peace - 2011's Failed Experiment

I may have mentioned that one of my “book resources” is a website and podcast called, “Books on the Nightstand.” I’m particularly drawn to this resource because, pre-Kindle, I kept dozens of books on or under my nightstand. These books were the bane of my wife’s existence (along with: failing to put dirty clothes in the hamper, putting shoes away, leaving plates/bowls/cups in the sink, failing to close bagged foods, toilet issues, hogging blankets, others).

Anyway, the site and podcast are hosted by two people who work for Random House. They are very up-front about their Random House connection. At times, it is a limiting factor to the breadth of a podcast as, for example, when they previewed upcoming books to be released but were obviously much more familiar with Random House releases (and informed listeners of the fact).

Anyway, they do some neat stuff. They have a retreat in Vermont this April. They also have book club read-alongs. One of them is coming up as some will read “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay” by Michael Chabon with them. This is an excellent novel, and I’d read it again except so little time, so many books…

One of the two podcast hosts will also do a “War and Peace” read-along.

So, I start thinking, why not? I’ve never read “War and Peace.” That’s one you can cross off the bucket list, right? It’s a classic—some say the best novel ever written.

I try to get some of my reading friends to join me.

For the most part, the silence of the responses was deafening. However, one brave soul said he was in.

As luck would have it, we both started “War and Peace” earlier this week. We also both abandoned the project less than 24 hours after starting it.

I can’t speak for my reading buddy, but here were my initial problems:

(1) The book was written in the 1800s and, although translated, reads like, well, a 19th Century novel. Ok, I expected that.  But it still made for slow, rough reading.

(2) As the introduction to my edition told me, Tolstoy wove a bunch of French and German in the original Russian novel. Tolstoy, himself, translated the French and German in footnotes. Commentary indicates that Tolstoy’s translations were not necessarily 100% accurate—which was either intentional or not. I find that to be a fun fact. Anyway, the translators, correctly in my humble, small brained opinion, retained the original French and German and translated only the Russian. The French and German was, again, translated in footnotes. And there’s the rub. For those of you Kindle readers out there, navigating through footnotes is my hugest Kindle pet peeve. You have to click on the footnote number in the text and then jump to another location and then go back and find your former spot—it’s a huge headache. [As an aside, it’s also a big difficulty that I had in starting “Decoded” by Jay-Z. Not sure how to fix this in the Kindle, but footnotes are a stumbling block for me. Now, it’s entirely possible that I’m a moron and there’s an easier way to do this, but I don’t know].

So, anyway, my buddy and I chose to read another book together.

We went to college together, and the movie, “The Princess Bride” came out our senior year (I think??). Anyway, we often quote “The Princess Bride” to one another. (Wow. Is the previous sentence as geeky and loser-ish as I think it is. Yeah, it is.)

So, taking a quote from “The Princess Bride,” if “Murdered by pirates is good” then perhaps “Murdered by VIKINGS is better.” We’re reading Frans G. Bengtsson’s Viking novel, “The Long Ships.”

And who wrote the introduction to the edition of “The Long Ships” available on Kindle? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Michael Chabon, of course.

Live long, read and prosper. We'll leave the lights on for you.