War, Peace and Sleep

In order to improve my sleep schedule I’ve picked up the habit of reading a bit before going to bed. It becomes a ritual that helps me ease into sleep. This however, places some constraints on the book as getting excited is counterproductive to the goal of relaxation. The book can’t get too boring either as the goal is to be able to read a book, and boring books are no fun to read.

This is a sweet spot War and Peace hits perfectly. Of the 1000 pages a significant portion is spent observing the daily lives of the Russian nobility, which isn’t exactly exciting — most of it is spent gossiping, mingling or the occasional glimpse into the daily life of an officer, but what made me keep reading each chapter was that it was interesting to observe this culture. It’s weird how they shower each other with shallow affection or how ordinary folk are practically invisible because the nobility take all the attention.

Another aspect of War and Peace that makes it ideal for bed time reading is that the concrete events aren’t terribly important, so it often doesn’t matter if you don’t remember what you read in your half-asleep state. There isn’t that much to think about for much of the book because the heavy themes surface towards the end. For me at least, the importance or the message of this book, is derived from how the style of writing, the focus of the narrator, and the general theme of the text changes over the course of the book (which I’ve written about here). In some sense it’s not a book about plot, but a book about change.

With that said, there are still some elements that makes it harder to read. There are many characters in this book which can make the reading experience confusing. I read it pretty methodically, a few chapters per night (they can be pretty short) which made it fairly easy to remember who each name belongs to. Towards the end the number of names continued to grow but at that point I had a pretty good grasp on which characters are actually important so I didn’t bother to remember some of them.

I say that War and Peace is good for reading above, but the reverse is probably also true. My previous attempt failed because I was trying to get to the good parts quickly. This isn’t that kind of novel, dramatic events rarely happen and there are no mysteries to uncover. Tackling War and Peace methodically, a couple of chapters a day instead of trying to power through it is probably the way to go. I can tentatively recommend this book, but with the caveat that it requires some patience. Find the little things that pique your interest and bake reading into your routine, and you’ll be able to complete the book.