I got NOTHING out of this when I read it the first time.

I suppose story time is in order, here.

Back in 7th grade I made a list of about 150 “classics” that I wanted to read. My current “250 Books” list is an extension of that original list. I don’t know why I made this list – I probably just wanted to look smart – but I started working through it immediately, selecting books that our junior high library had.

One of these books was War and Peace.

Now, I don’t remember if I decided to read it first and then the kid I liked (Lead) decided to read it as well or if he decided to read it and I chose to read it because of that, but somehow we both ended up reading it at the same time. I don’t know where he got his copy, but I had the junior high library’s copy, which was this massive tome of a thing where the text was in two columns on each page (like a dictionary). I took this thing everywhere and read it at every opportunity with the sole goal of just getting through it and showing Lead how smart I was (he actually never did finish it and I did, so that’s kinda cool I guess).

But I remembered NOTHING from it apart from the fact that one of the main characters was named Pierre.

Now in my defense, there ARE a lot of characters in War and Peace and they all have very Russian names. And if you’ve ever read any Russian lit, you’ll know that one dude can be referred to by like seven different names. So that was rough.

Also, I don’t know what translation I had, but I have a feeling it was one of the worse ones. I can’t blame my lack of comprehension entirely on the translation, but it’s worth noting that I was reading other books around this time that were objectively “as hard” or “harder” vocab- and grade-level-wise compared to War and Peace (e.g., Of Human Bondage, As I Lay Dying, The Bridge of San Luis Rey) and had no problems understanding those. So.

Anyway, let this be a gentle prompting to revisit books you read in your youth (especially any of those “classics” that you HAD to read for a certain class) and give them another chance. Perhaps you’ll find something you really enjoy.