English Assignment

Submitted by
B.tech-(ME)
77766
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Submitted to
Dr. ----------

Acknowledgement
I would like to express the deepest appreciation to my teacher who has
the substance genius and the attitude.

I would like to acknowledge the assistance of my friends for their help

and kindness.

I would also like to thank Wikipedia organization for their wonderful

content and goodread.com for helping me choose a great novel.

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy

About author
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Russian: ; commonly

Leo Tolstoy in Anglophone countries) was a Russian writer who primarily

wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and
essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna
Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and
a pinnacle of realist fiction.
Many consider Tolstoy to have been one of the world's greatest
novelists. Tolstoy is equally known for his complicated and paradoxical
persona and for his extreme moralistic and ascetic views, which he
adopted after a moral crisis and spiritual awakening in the 1870s, after
which he also became noted as a moral thinker and social reformer. His
ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom
of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal
twentieth-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

Main characters
Count Pyotr Kirillovich (Pierre) Bezukhov: The central character and
often a voice for Tolstoy's own beliefs or struggles. Pierre is the
socially awkward illegitimate son of Count Kirill Vladimirovich
Bezukhov, who has fathered dozens of illegitimate sons. Educated
abroad, Pierre returns to Russia as a misfit. His unexpected
inheritance of a large fortune makes him socially desirable.

Prince Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky: A strong but skeptical, thoughtful

and philosophical aide-de-camp in the Napoleonic Wars.
Princess Maria Nikolayevna Bolkonskaya: Sister of Prince Andrei,
Princess Maria is a pious woman whose father attempted to give her a
good education. The caring, nurturing nature of her large eyes in her
otherwise plain face are frequently mentioned.
Count Ilya Andreyevich Rostov: The pater-familias of the Rostov family;
hopeless with finances, generous to a fault. As a result the Rostovs
never have enough cash, in spite of having many estates.
Countess Natalya Rostova: Wife of Count Ilya Andreyevich Rostov
Countess Natalya Ilyinichna (Natasha) Rostova: A central character,
introduced as "not pretty but full of life", romantic, impulsive and
highly strung. She is an accomplished singer and dancer.

Count Nikolai Ilyich (Nikolenka) Rostov: A hussar, the beloved eldest son
of the Rostov family.
Sofia Alexandrovna (Sonya) Rostova: Orphaned cousin of Vera, Nikolai,
Natasha, and Petya Rostov.
Countess Vera Ilyinichna Rostova: Eldest of the Rostov children, she
marries the German career soldier, Berg.
Pyotr Ilyich (Petya) Rostov: Youngest of the Rostov children.
Prince Vasily Sergeyevich Kuragin: A ruthless man who is determined
to marry his children well at any cost.
Princess Elena Vasilyevna (Hlne) Kuragina: A beautiful and sexually
alluring woman who has many affairs, including (it is rumoured) with
her brother Anatole.
Prince Anatole Vasilyevich Kuragin: Hlne's brother, a handsome and
amoral pleasure seeker who is secretly married yet tries to elope with
Natasha Rostova.

Summary
Tolstoy's epic masterpiece intertwines the lives of private and public
individuals during the time of the Napoleonic wars and the French invasion
of Russia. The fortunes of the Rostovs and the Bolkonskys of Pierre,
Natasha, and Andrei, are intimately connected with the national history
that is played out in parallel with their lives. Balls and soirees alternate
with councils of war and the machinations of statesmen and generals,
scenes of violent battles with everyday human passions in a work whose
extraordinary imaginative power has never been surpassed.
The prodigious cast of characters seems to act and move as if connected
by threads of destiny as the novel relentlessly questions ideas of free will,
fate, and providence. Yet Tolstoy's portrayal of marital relations and
scenes of domesticity is as truthful and poignant as the grand themes
that underlie them.

Quotes from war and peace

We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of
human wisdom.

Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent

women.

If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.

The strongest of all warriors are these two Time and Patience.

How can one be well...when one suffers morally?

Review
When I was growing up, the conventional wisdom was that

War and Peace was the sine qua

non of difficult books: the scope, the length, OMG the length! Conquering this Everest was The
Test of whether you were a Man/Reader.
I have now read it. Thump chest and make Tarzan yell.
Actually, you know chump, big deal. The mountain really wasn't so large after all.
There are love affairs, there is a war, peace eventually returns to the Shire Russia.

-By Withaker
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Tolstroy's epic masterpiece intertwines the lives of private and public individuals during the
time of the Napoleonic wars and the French Invasion of Russia.
I had always wanted to read this epic Novel by Tolstroy's but was completely put off by the
sheer size of the book at 1350 pages. I am not a lover of books over 500 pages and this was
certainly going to be a challenge for me.

By Dem