Tolstoy: Anna Karenina vs. War and Peace

[Deleted]

War and Peace has been on my to read list forever.  I read Anna Karenina last year though and I found it to be chore.  I didn't enjoy it at all (I found it too long and tedious, thought at least 1/3 of the book could have been cut out and it would have been good).  Is War and Peace similar?  If I found one tedious will I find the other so also.

[aurora]

I just started Anna Karenina last night and am only on p. 39, but I did read all of War and Peace some years ago. I enjoyed it overall until the last 100 pages, but it is definitely wordy and takes concentration. I had to make myself a little cheat sheet of the names because it had so many characters who each had 3 or more nicknames so I couldn't remember which nickname went with whom.

I did feel that the story ended about 100 pages before the end of the book and the end was all an annoying political diatribe.

[daydreamer]

I found both Anna Karenina than War and Peace similar in respect to ease of read. I think Tolstoy's writing style lends itself pretty well to translation to English. That said I didn't get through War and Peace for personal reasons unrelated to the ease of reading. Do you think you will be more or less interested in the story? IIRC, W&P has a lot of military scenes and a lot of drawing room scenes.

[secretlyevil]

I've been working on War and Peace for years. It is painful.

[GilliC]

I read War and Peace first and hated it, but a friend convinced me to read Anna Karenina, and I quite liked it. I describe Anna Karenina as War and Peace without the war part. I felt that the writing style was fairly similar, but the endless descriptions of Napoleonic battles was terribly boring to me, and it disrupted the part of W&P that I did enjoy. If you struggle with AK, I wouldn't recommend W&P unless you really like reading 19th-century military descriptions.

[aurora]

Apr 29, 2013 11:59:00 GMT -5 GilliC said:

I read War and Peace first and hated it, but a friend convinced me to read Anna Karenina, and I quite liked it. I describe Anna Karenina as War and Peace without the war part. I felt that the writing style was fairly similar, but the endless descriptions of Napoleonic battles was terribly boring to me, and it disrupted the part of W&P that I did enjoy. If you struggle with AK, I wouldn't recommend W&P unless you really like reading 19th-century military descriptions.

For some reason this part made me laugh out loud.

FWIW, I am enjoying Anna Karenina at the moment (probably more than W&P, but I read that a long time ago so it's hard to remember).