“War and Peace” the Top Book of All Time

Today Russian experts in literature comment for the Voice of Russia the results of a poll conducted by American magazine “Newsweek”.

Recently it has published the list of top 100 books of all time. “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy heads the list and another Russian novel ‘Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov is in the top ten.

The criteria on which the list was based were serious indeed: how a book influenced historical process, its contribution to world culture, its current popularity.

Writer Pavel Basinsky reflects on the first criterion – the influence of “War and Peace” on historical process:

“War and peace” is generally a novel about happiness –says the expert. Happiness was a key notion for Tolstoy. He used to say ‘Life is happiness”. So all the readers of the world felt that this book was about happiness. It was as if they identified themselves with the characters of the novel. I have read recently that Nicole Kidman, a famous Hollywood actress, as a child compared herself to Natasha Rostova. It may seem strange- a different country, different epoch. People read “War and Peace” as if they were reading about their own fate. It is also important that all Tolstoy’s characters had real prototypes. It is real life, shifted to literature and then back to reality. There exists a notion of reverse prototype, when a character returns to life and determines people’s behavior”.

Cultorologist Alexander Archangelsky sees the power of the novel in its overall artistic realism:

“Tolstoy described the historical events of 1812 in the way that there is no place left for historians –the expert believes. Since then all future generations have to see the bloodshed Napoleon wars through the eyes of Tolstoy. We can not, for example, describe the Chief General of the Russian army Kutuzoff in a different way from Tolstoy because his description was so persuasive. You may not believe that history moves circle-wise and is determined by objective laws as Tolstoy writes in “War and Peace”, but this is all cheap talks. Offering another model of thought is waste of time. And if you drop into any book shop in any European city you will find “War and peace” everywhere. When one starts talking about Russian culture abroad he will hear “Tolstoy”. He is a symbol of Russian global contribution”.

There is a different opinion about literature top-lists express by a literary critic Igor Shajtanov:

“Such lists tell more about contemporary readers’ interest in a certain book and its fame. The “War and Peace” case is clear- it is an epic due to which each generation can touch the past. As for “Lolita” it is more about Nabokov’s role of an iconic writer. Maybe, experts would choose another novel but his mass-known visit card is “Lolita”.

Finally, we may say that other novel by Tolstoy “Anna Karenina” is also included in the middle of the top books list.