thrilling to begin with; some lag especially where real historical events were concerned, where tolstoy gave leave to his own voice and opinions; lackluster, is the word i ascribe to it 6 hours after...well, not finishing it per-se, i couldn't bring myself to finishing part ii of the epilogue. the story is that i'll read it sometime in the future but this, in-and-of-itself, is not a good indication of a favorite book. i loved 1,150 pages of it, in the end, that is to say, in the last 50 or so pages, i came to loathe it. harsh? perhaps, but a 5 star for me is a gut feeling, rarely something attained after a period of deliberation (6 of crows notwithstanding although that 5 star is on thin ice). 

i look forward to going through the annotations, taking out all the quotable quotes, all the angst and death motifs; i want to tattoo page 814 onto my body. 

having now read 2 works by tolstoy, i'm beginning to understand his methods. i despised resurrection for its lack of pay-off; i'm somewhat hesitant to read anymore of his works this year, palette cleansers only, anna karenina, i will be with you momentarily, but no rush.