The photo of the first page of Volume II, Everyman's Edition, pub. Dent shows BOOK SIX. Don't worry, this is Tolstoy's presentation of his story not the publisher's.The story of Volume II: Prince Andrew Bolkonsky`s wife, the 'little Princess', dies in childbirth on the day her husband returns from the war, where he was severely wounded. (The tragedy occurred in Volume I but I didn't mention it in the review as it may have been a spoiler for anyone starting out on the trilogy) Prince Andrew proposes to Natasha Rostov but his father makes him promise to wait a year before marriage. His sister, Maria, continues to live for God, writing to a friend whose brother has been killed in the war saying that His ways are ultimately for our own good and that her sister-in-law would not have been strong enough to bring up a child in the Bolkonsky household.
During Natasha and Andrew's layoff year the playboy Anatole Kanguine meets Natasha and with the help of Peter Besukov's estranged wife, Helen, persuades Natasha to elope with him, not telling her that he is already married. His dastardly plot is thwarted when Sonia and others of the Rostov household find out and Natasha is stricken with grief for her guilt.
Peter Besukov's concern for Natasha, and Andrew's father's classic decline into interfering senility are overtaken by the War as the French advance on Moscow. There is political confusion as factions scramble to advise Tsar Alexander. Revolution is prefigured
as the Bolkonskys' peasants refuse to allow Maria to leave the estate to go to Moscow to escape the French. The war brings Nicolas Rostov to the Bolkonsky's estate and he meets spinster Maria. He is moved by her predicament, and chastises the peasants who allow Maria, now impressed by and attracted to Nicolas, to leave for Moscow. Thinking of his family's financial problems Nicolas realises that marriage to Maria would be beneficial. Sonia, his great love, has no money. We will hear more of this issue and of the French as they reach Moscow, and of Prince Andrew when he catches up with Anatole Kanguine, in Volume III
It is a great soap opera of literature with great battle scenes for cinema. Unfortunately, I have not seen the television series, made in 1972/73 with Antony Hopkins as Peter Bezukov .....http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069654/
I would also love to see the Russian film version made with thousands of soldiers of the Red Army. The summary of the film's plot is well worth reading as it neatly sums up the War theme in particular.....http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063794/plotsummary.
It is such a great read; if you have not yet read it then do so. Ten out of ten.
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