About 5 more historical notes and the first few pages were done. I’m assuming that will get easier as I get more into the story and time.

Gerald told me he wanted to join in (I’ll let him tell his own story if he wants to) so I set up this blog as a place to discuss anything pertaining to the novel. We are giving ourselves a year to read it in case it ends up being slow going, but I’ve only read the introduction so far so I don’t really know.

The version we are reading is a new translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. According to the introduction, unlike previous translations, they try to preserve the tone of Tolstoy’s writing in addition to the content. The book also includes a list of principal characters, notes on each chapter to help with the context of some things, a historical index of people and places, and chapter summaries should a reader forget and need to jog their memory.