How to Eat an Elephant: A Little Book Club for Large Books

In this episode, the team discusses the last official words of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. We wrestle with his final thoughts on history and free will, and–believe it or not–defend our conclusion that the last sentences of the novel are not only perfectly appropriate, but beautiful.

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We’re nearing the end of War and Peace, but Tolstoy will have his say one last time! In this episode, the team takes up his question of history once again…

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The HEE team reveals what we’ll be reading after we finish War and Peace! They acknowledge Facebook group voting concerns and their plans for other much desired titles, and briefly expound on reasons to join us on our upcoming crusade…

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The time has come to give a reluctant and heartfelt goodbye to our favorite characters. In this episode, the War and Peace crew discuss the “backwards progress” of Pierre and Nikolai and Natasha, and attempt to articulate the thematic import of these final, intimate scenes.

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It’s the beginning of the end! In this episode, we kick off our discussion of the epilogue to War and Peace with a tour of Tolstoy’s ideas concerning “genius” and “chance,” and then check in with our good friends the Rostovs.

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We’ve come a long way in Volume 4 of War and Peace! The team looks back and considers Tolstoy’s climactic thoughts on death and resurrection, love, and history, and makes conjectures about what we’ll find in the Epilogue.

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The War and Peace crew find themselves interrupted by travel season. As a peace offering, we give you a class by Adam and Missy Andrews on one of Tolstoy’s other great classics…

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It’s the conclusion of Part Four, and we’re soaking up all the Pierre and Natasha vibes! We discuss Tolstoy’s definition of love, the difference between Pierre and Andrei, and the meaning of “it had to be.”

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In this episode we pay our respects to Kutuzov before unpacking what is the beginning of a beautiful payoff to Pierre’s story.

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At long last we’re checking back in on Natasha! The HEE crew talks about Tolstoy’s depiction of grief in her story, as well as the reason he switches so suddenly back to narrating Kutuzov’s march to the Russian border when it was just getting good.

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Follow along with our reading schedule: https://www.centerforlit.com/hee

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit centerforlit.substack.com/subscribe