Korean Job Discussion Forums

kimchi_pizza · Posted: Fri Jul 28, 2006 10:42 am Post subject: Tackling War & Peace

I'm leaving for vacation and thought I'd tackle War & Peace again. (Must be outta my mind).

Anyone else find Tolstoy a good distraction from living in a foreign country? I read War & Peace before during a long, lonely, & boring winter season in Japan. Getting past Book One was extremely tough, but once I got familiar with the characters it definitely became more interesting. Was able to finish at the end of the season, but it did take the WHOLE season to read it.

So the Battle (War) is on!

Ya-ta Boy · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Location: Established in 1994

There's nothing like a long book for summer reading...and then there is the secret pleasure of toting it to public places. Last summer I started reading Francis Parkman's 'History of France in North America' (that clocks in at about 3,000 pages).

On this summer's reading menu is Sartre's 'Road to Freedom' trilogy, at about 1200 pages).

Good luck and good reading!

kimchi_pizza · Posted: Fri Jul 28, 2006 9:10 pm Post subject:

Thanx Ya-ta,

Wish ya the best with your choice! Another hefty book I tried to tackle was Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume I at 1,000 pages. It really is interesting, but be darned if I can finish it. I've had it and toted it around (from Taiwan to here) for 3 years now. Laughing

Now is just sits on my top shelf as if daring me to read it.
I've seen all 3(?)volumes in COEX so Decline and Fall is now my Mt. Everest. I have to fight the urge not to buy it. Now I want to read it partly out of interest and partly because of the challenge of TRYING to read it!

Now I want to change the thread to "Tackling Tolstoy" as I smile and imagine actually trying to tackle L.T. (Not Lawrence Taylor!) on the 20-yard-Line!

Zyzyfer · Posted: Fri Jul 28, 2006 10:38 pm Post subject:

Man, I couldn't even get through the first chapter of Ivanhoe, and The Woodlanders is inching along at an extraordinarily slow rate. How you people do it is beyond me.

Ya-ta Boy · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Location: Established in 1994

Decline and Fall is terrific, but you have to REALLY slow your reading speed down. Those 18th Century phrases are looooong and really require a different approach to reading, in my experience. (If you promise to keep this under your hat, I will admit to skipping the section on the development of Christianity, but still claim I read the whole thing.)

Junior · Joined: 18 Nov 2005 Location: the eye

Man I ploughed through that book in 2 days. I thought it was awesome. great stuff.