War and Peace: The Graphic Novel

by Leo Tolstoy, Alexandr Poltorak (Adapted by), Dmitry Chukhrai (Illustrations)

Revisit the timeless classic   in this graphic retelling of Tolstoy’s celebrated 1869 novel.

In this beautifully rendered graphic adaptation, both fans and newcomers alike will be immersed in the world of War and Peace , one of the most celebrated novels of all time, about the misadventures of about the misadventures of Pierre Bezúkhov, Natásha and Ilyá Rostóv, and company during the Napoleonic era of Russia.

With richly detailed settings re-creating the villas and ballrooms of the 19th century, character design based on the real-life inspirations for the figures in the book, and visual depictions of elements from the original text, War and The Graphic Novel brings Tolstoy's masterpiece to life as never before.

Including forewords from Russian literature experts from the Leo Tolstoy library, this graphic adaptation distills the major plotlines and characters of the sprawling epic for readers to experience this classic novel in a whole new way.

Genres: Classics, Graphic Novels, Russia, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Retellings

224 pages, Paperback

Published September 27, 2022

About the author

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Russian: Лев Николаевич Толстой; most appropriately used Liev Tolstoy; commonly Leo Tolstoy in Anglophone countries) was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist fiction. Many consider Tolstoy to have been one of the world's greatest novelists. Tolstoy is equally known for his complicated and paradoxical persona and for his extreme moralistic and ascetic views, which he adopted after a moral crisis and spiritual awakening in the 1870s, after which he also became noted as a moral thinker and social reformer.

His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

See also:
French → Léon Tolstoï
Spanish → León Tolstói

Reviews

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all]]

First and foremost, the artwork here is breathtaking. Major shoutout to Dmitry Chukhrai for these lush and colorful landscapes and full panels that really breathe life into the story. I mean, look at this:

I love the way this captures depth and mood.
The battle scenes have a lot of energy in them and having so many full page panels is wonderful. This book is a visual feat and I love simply flipping through it. Credit to the publisher for valuing the art and having this printed on quality paper.

Reading this got me thinking, however, about how the enjoyment of a book is often tied into your overall reading experience with it. War and Peace is an epic masterpiece and when reading it years back it became more a companion through the winter than merely a book I was reading. Lugging around the dense volume (I had the beautiful Pevear/Volokhonsky translated edition), I felt like I was living amongst the characters who became almost familiar friends I would visit daily. When I finished, I had a sense of melancholy when I realized I actually missed reading the book the way one misses a friend. Now Alexandr Poltorak does a good job adapting a thousand page epic into a 200some graphic, but that sense of familiarity that can only come from having spent a lot of time in a book cannot be replicated. Unfortunately, the story here feels rather rushed and major events happen in the blink of an eye, and even the most dynamic of artwork can’t capture the feeling that is being fully immersed in Tolstoy’s prose as he constructs a massive work. Which isn’t anyone’s fault, its just this is an adaptation where the best parts have to be left behind in adapting it. I’ve often felt that movies and books aren’t as compatible as people want them to be, and some graphic novels can really draw out aspects that can’t be done in a prose novel, but this was just one that didn’t need it. It just feels like the sparknotes version and cannot really capture the emotion as well. The closest I think anyone has ever come to replicating the novel is the 8hour Sergei Bondarchuk adaptation, which filmed over 6 years to capture the passage of time in the faces of the actors.

There were also a few aspects that bugged me as well, but are admittedly rather subjective. The art never really conveys the passage of time. Pierre is drawn exactly the same throughout the entire novel, looking too old for his character at the beginning and lacking the dramatic physical change that occurs during his hardships during the war at the end of the book. Illustrating the characters in a way that reflected change would have been preferred (and perhaps the lack of it is part of the reason the epic aspects never seem to stick). He also looks like Benjamin Franklin and we don’t get to see him riding the bear. The translation of Prince Andrei to Prince Andrew was also not my favorite choice. It is very dialogue heavy, though some of the panels have too much dialogue in them for a graphic novel, but the other option was just to have more panels of people sitting and talking which would become rather repetitive in a visual art form. Just another reason this works better in prose.


This isn’t bad, honestly for what it is and set out to do it is well done but it also just cannot capture what makes War and Peace such a beloved classic. It feels so rushed and I suspect that readers who haven’t read the original will find it a bit hard to follow. It is very focused on Pierre, rushing through a lot of the other character’s stories, which also fails to capture how the novel is such a tapestry of lives during a historical period of great change. Credit to them for trying, and this would make a nice gift to a big Tolstoy fan, but rather than being a graphic novel I’d rather see a new edition of the actual novel with the best of the full page panels from here printed within it. Still, this is certainly worth a read.
3/5

[Linden]

I’ve read several translations of War and Peace, so I was curious about the graphic novel. I found it very hard to follow even having read the book. I give them a lot of credit, though, for even attempting to create a graphic version of this iconic novel. Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the ARC.

[Dakota Morgan]

I made it about 50 pages in and then had to set this one down. Perhaps War and Peace works as a 1000 page doorstop. It does not work as a graphic novel. Even with the fitting, painterly art. Within the first 50 pages, I met probably 50 characters with nary a hint of a plotline. I guess the Pierre dude showed up more often than others, but by and large, it was just a series of dinners that a whole host of strangers attended.

Probably a poor choice to copy/paste dense dialogue and descriptions from the novel into the graphic adaptation. Heavy sledding for a Friday night. Maybe when I retire I'll read the real thing.

[Joanne]

I’ve never read the original nor intend to (who got time for that?! 😁) but I will always pick up a graphic adaptation of well, anything.

It’s obvious that this project was an ambitious labor of love; while the art is a bit raucous and messy and might even be traced, its attention to detail is commendable and immersed me in Tolstoy’s world from page one.

But being immersed doesn’t imply that I knew what the hell was going on, though. This was an impossible task with an impossibly large cast of characters who, unless they were Pierre, all looked the same. The men all looked the same; the women all looked the same. Having read this, the best I can say about it is that I have a better handle of a vague synopsis of W&P. But again, this determined project set the insurmountable goal of condensing this complicated war saga with dozens of main characters in intricate settings into less than 250 pages, while not using professional comic artists. Stars for that!!

[Michela Canuti]

Even if the length of this book is massive, but we can easily say that this is the most greatest Russian book of all time.
Before reading this book, I saw the tv show (the recent one) and I immediately fell in love with it. The plot is really adventurous and it has everything ~ love, war, and well in the end peace. Will not say more to avoid spoilers!
If you haven’t read this one, what are you waiting for?

[Dr. S.]

*I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for the free graphic novel.*

Let me say two things in advance: 1) The graphic novel was well done, I love the change of format. 2) I am really not a Tolstoy fan, I have DNFed so many of his books, it's tragic.

So my main issue with this graphic novel is not the graphic novel but the Tolstoy book which I find hella hard to get into and to stay interested. Yes, I know this is my problem. And yet I had hoped that the graphic novel could make the entire business more interesting to me and it did make it more interesting, but not hardcore so. So I enjoyed this, but it took me ages and it's Tolstoy's fault.

3 stars

[Hannah (Hannah, Fully)]

DNF @ 18%

[Bernie Gourley]

Ambitious. Many readers will feel it’s overly ambitious or even impossibly ambitious. It’s not just the challenge of capturing a sprawling 1,220-page tome in a 220-page graphic novel. Tolstoy’s work has a vast cast of characters and captures a broad set of both fictional and factual events whose broad contours are determined by Napoleon’s wars in Europe, culminating in his adventures into Russia. (In other words, the narrative arc wasn’t organized in such a manner as to be readily compressible, but to capture real world events.)

I must make a confession. Usually, when I’m reviewing a graphic novel adaptation of a work of literature, I’ve read the source material. In this case, I haven’t, and so I may not be the best person to comment on how accurately Poltorak and Chukhrai condense events. I can say that the pacing of the book – particularly in the latter half – is a bit like taking in the world through the window of a speeding train. Of the two most important characters, this is particularly true of the experience of Prince Andrew, whose major moments are “blink and you’ll miss them.” Pierre’s arc seems to be covered in greater detail, though still at breakneck pacing.

Given all that, many people will say to themselves: “Realistically, I am never going to read a 1000+ page novel about the experience of Russian aristocratic families leading up to and during the Napoleonic French invasion, even if it has love triangles, conniving inheritance disputes, and plenty of good ole family dysfunction.” The early part of the book is mostly rich people sitting around at soirees discussing war (in peace) as they live out their various familial and romantic dramas. If you’re that person, this graphic novel maybe the perfect solution for you, and I’d recommend it.

[Chris Fluit]

War and Peace is my favorite novel of all time and I had high hopes for the comic book based on it. Unfortunately, the creative team was not up to the task of adapting this wonderful novel from one medium to another. They spent way too much time early on focusing on minor and inconsequential details such as a joke told at a dinner party that no one else understood. The leisurely pace might have worked, and did allow for a few tender moments. But They clearly ran out of time or funds or something because reading the second half of the graphic novel is like watching a movie on fast forward. Important events are skipped over. Entire scenes are summed up in one page. Characters and story lines are left to the wayside as they hurry to finish the story. Deaths and betrothals alike lose any emotional impact because they are depicted without buildup or context. This would have been so much better if the creative team had some sense of how big a book they could make and paced their story accordingly. I can’t say I hated every part of it. However, it was ultimately disappointing and best avoided.

[Chris DuPre]

I think this is a wonderful book idea, but I don’t think it quite made it. I love the idea of reimagining classics as graphic novels. For reference, I have never read War and Peace. My impression is based solely on the graphic novel. I feel as though the story is a detailed introspection into the life of a wide swath of characters as they go through an incredibly turbulent time. I don’t believe this story is right for me (perhaps because family turbulence hits too close to home). I also believe this kind of story did not translate well to the graphic novel. Many sections I imagine were perhaps full paragraphs explaining a character’s internal state had to be reduced to a single emoji. This isn’t to say the novel does a poor job. I think it does an excellent job, but this sort of storytelling where we constantly dive into the mindset of several characters does not fit well into the graphic novel as a format. I am grateful to this book for letting me peer into War and Peace without the massive time commitment, but I think this novel cannot fully capture the book in this new medium.

[Brook]

I truly had a hard time following the story, I think a lot was lost turning such a long classic into a graphic novel. That being said, I think the art work was quite good. I do think that they took too much on trying to abridge the story quite this much. I have a feeling that it would be easier to appreciate this graphic novel if one had already read the original, or at least seen one of the many adaptations, which I have done neither.

[Stephanie Herrlinger]

I mean it encouraged me to read the real thing so that’s cool. Otherwise it was completely impossible to follow, they largely failed to communicate the plot. More enjoyable as a collection of stills from the book.

[Paige]

DNF at p43

I don’t know the story or characters of War and Peace at all (I watched the Lily James/Paul Dano miniseries in 2016 but didn’t retain a thing) and find this just impossible to follow. The characters look awfully similar, I can’t keep them straight or figure out their relationships; there seem to be snippets of plot, but none of the snippets make sense when I don’t know who is in the scene or how it relates to anything else.

3.18.23

[Anastasia Terendii (livie's version)]

I haven't read the original book, because I'm not really into reading this long Russian classic. That's why I picked up this graphic novel to finally know the plot. Unfortunately, it was very hard to follow this story, because of the writing style (dialogues and actions seemed rushed). Also, the art style didn't help me at all. There are way too many characters and most of them look almost exactly the same.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with this arc in exchange for an honest review.

[Mariam Farooq]

5/5 on the amazing artworks!!!

2/5 on the story. It still is highly appreciative for taking up a project this big and turn it into a work of graphic art.

[Honeypie]

I think this is an effective accompaniment to the Russian classic lit.

[Michaela]

Give me more Russian classic graphic novels from this author/artist duo!

[Jenn]

This is just so disturbing and I don’t know how this is considered a classic

[Claire]

i got this version thinking the story would be easier to understand.... i was gravely mistaken

[Sophia Castillo]

While it was interesting to see the art style reflect the setting in which the story takes place, with bright colors and lush backgrounds, this adaptation is found wanting in virtually every other aspect.

Rather than distilling the narrative to its nuclear elements while retaining the central themes that have captivated readers over a hundred years, elements and subplots were seemingly selected at random, jumbled together to transform a nuanced tapestry of prose into a first-grade collage of redacted nonsense. Subplots were picked up and then promptly dropped without any resolution. Random quotations were sprinkled throughout, having lost all potency (if there were any to begin with) due to the now-missing context.

The amusingly brutal honesty of the narrative voice was maintained to some degree, based on the fact direct quotes were pulled from the original text. However, this alone isn't worth much if the narrative has been rendered incomprehensible by editorial butchery.

The fist 100 pages or so of the graphic novel appear to quite literally cover the first 100 pages of the original in a 1:1 ratio, which would have been acceptable if this pacing was maintained throughout when things started to get more interesting --after all it is a long, complicated Russian novel. Much to my chagrin, the the remaining 1100 pages of the original were covered in the next 100 pages of the graphic novel.

Will never understand the selective anglicization of names (i.e. Andrei to Andrew, Nikolai to Nicholas, Marya to Mary, etc. but not Pierre to Peter) --especially when language choice is integral to the narrative.

I cannot imagine this adaptation enabling someone with no previous background on the original narrative to understand why War and Peace has withstood the test of time as a literary classic. I myself have read the vast majority of the brick, and even so, barely understood what events were presumably being depicted half of the time.

Watch the BBC miniseries instead.

[Linda]

Beautiful illustrations in a very truncated version of the Tolstoy classic. I really appreciated the opening comments which gave some of Tolstoy's background and the issues of getting backers to get this book published.

[Tyler Armendariz]

I read this graphic novelization of War and Peace almost immediately after finishing the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation primarily for one reason. I wanted to see whether there were any major plot points I had missed in my reading of the novel; however, I do not feel this project succeeds at what it appears to set out to do.

For those readers who have enjoyed the original novel, this version will detail *most* of the major plot points, though there were a handful that I feel could and should have been included. This version feels rushed at times—particularly during the battle scenes, which is acceptable to a certain degree—and glosses over a host of important beats toward the end of the novel. Specifically, I feel Platon Karataev (my favorite character???) deserved more than a single frame on one page. For the intense focus this version places on Pierre (another contender for my favorite character…), I felt the apparent dismissal of Karataev was a mistake—at best. I also felt the entirety of the plot after Pierre’s time in captivity deserved more than a page and a half.

Perhaps the answer was to extend this graphic novel by a further 100 (200?) pages. This may have allowed a greater focus to be placed on other characters and a general fleshing out of some other important points in the story. I would not recommend this to those who have not read the original novel yet, and that is why I feel this version fails at what it sets out to do. It leaves out several important details that are, admittedly, too difficult to include in this format but are simultaneously necessary for a full understanding of this work.

If you are considering reading this to determine whether you’d like to tackle the original, do yourself a favor and bite the bullet. (I would recommend the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation!)

[Leighton]

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC In exchange for an honest review!

War and Peace: The Graphic Novel by Leo Tolstoy is a lovely, illustrated comic version of the Russian classic. Although I hadn't read the original before (mostly because of how long it is), I was very excited to read this adaptation. Hopefully, the comic adaptation would be easier to read and digest than the original prose. According to the description, this book contains "richly detailed settings re-creating the villas and ballrooms of the 19th century" and "character design based on the real-life inspirations for the figures in the book".

Overall, War and Peace: The Graphic Novel is an amazing adaptation that can be used in classrooms everywhere. One highlight of this book are the vibrant colors used in the art. It felt very well-dawn. Another highlight of this book is the cast of characters section at the beginning of the book. I felt that it was very helpful, considering how many characters are in this book. I did take off 1 star, because I still had difficulty telling different characters apart. I wonder if it had something to do with the art style. If you're intrigued by the description, or if you're a fan of graphic novel adaptations, I recommend that you check out this book when it comes out in September!

[Mmiller400m]

I'm almost through my second read-through of what I usually call my favorite book - War and Peace. I like to follow the one-chapter-a-day model almost like reading through the Bible and reading along with a blog taking the same approach. I think everyone should take the time to read War and Peace at least once. Yes, I say at least once because I've come to find out that many who decide to invest the time to read the tome often read it over again at some point. I am worried that this graphic novel version may enable people to decide that this is good enough and it will save them time to just read this instead. That would be a tragedy. My best description of this graphic novel version is that it is like hitting fast-forward to the third triangle and trying to figure out a film that way. It obviously can't include everything but what it does decide to include is so fast-paced and rushed that I can't enjoy it. I do think that the art really lifts it up and I think there would be some merit to just including only the art like a Marvel 'nuff said comic. Then it could be enjoyed along side the masterpiece instead of running the risk of turning people away. 3 stars only because I really liked the art and I do think this is probably the best someone could reasonably do trying to use this medium for War and Peace. Really nice try but it can't be done.

[Eli Vannata]

Don’t ask me why I bought this I thought it would be fun.

One of the worst things I’ve read. Completely disregards just about everything important in the original book. I can get past the lazy drawing and formatting for the most part (though there are lots of confusingly bad page structuring), but the way that this incorporates plot points and disregards them in the same wave of a hand (hundreds of pages being condensed into one line of dialogue) is just so painful to read, as I watch my favorite storylines crumble before me.
Every important theme and plot point thrown out the window. Aesthetically bad not to mention. Should be like ten times the length. Will be good to bring up during my War and Peace class of how people have managed to attempt to adapt the novel (but rarely succeed).

1/5 - Don’t bother! Though doesn’t take long it’s not good and not worth buying like I impulsively did.

[Jeanea]

Well... the art was beautiful, sometimes even stunning, which is why I'm giving this book two stars, but the rest of it was just so confusing that it felt like an uphill battle a lot of the time. The timeline was sporadic, it was nearly impossible to distinguish between certain characters, and some key plot points were glazed over. I feel like this would be a great companion to the original text, or a great gift for someone who is a diehard War and Peace fan. But as someone who has never read War and Peace, I could not keep up. When certain characters died I just didn't have enough background information to care, and when I'm reading a book I expect to feel mournful when a character dies, not like I didn't even know who they were.

Thank you contributors, publishers, and net galley for this arc in exchange for an honest review :)

[Wayne McCoy]

'War and Peace: The Graphic Novel' by Leo Tolstoy with adaptation by Alexandr Poltorak with art by Dmitry Chukhrai is a pretty ambitious project.

Taking place during the Napoleoic attack on Moscow, this story follows the lives of various people with various fortunes. In one storyline a man inherits his father's fortune. In others there are romance plots and the lives of those marching in the army.

I have never finished War and Peace, so I don't know if this adaptation will help someone write a successful book report, but it feels like a good overview of the main plots. The art style is meant to mimic painting of the era, but to me it felt a bit oversaturated and a bit unclear. I still liked reading this though.

[Marti (Letstalkaboutbooksbaybee)]

2.75⭐️

Reading War and Peace is on my reading bucket list before I die. I’ve started and stopped about 7 times and it has haunted my dreams for over a decade.

So I thought, when I saw a graphic novel version, that I’d give it a go to ease me into it. To give me a general sense of the characters and story.

But if we’re being honest, the artwork wasn’t my favorite and a lot of the characters looked the same as well as having similar names and it didn’t help me to keep anything straight.

This plan has backfired majorly. I think I’m even more confused than I would’ve been before

But. At least I finished it. And along with a Wikipedia page, I think I have the gist of it.

Maybe one day I will go back and attempt the real thing again.

[Jeff]

To start, the artwork was very impressive on the whole, however it did not help to tie the story together. At times I was looking at a frame, struggling to understand what the artist was trying to tell me.

The story line in the graphic novel was also hard to follow.

It eventually occurred to me that this graphic novel should really be labeled as a companion piece. As a stand alone book, especially for someone that has never read the prose of “War and Peace” - it doesn’t really have a story.

However, I believe this GN would be greatly enjoyed by someone as they read the prose, flipping back and forth between the two (as someone might do with a dictionary or encyclopedia when reading a book with unfamiliar words, locations, and concepts.)

[marv]

2.5🌟
I feel that this was simply way too much to take on for a 200 page novel and the authors should have chosen a certain section of war and peace, or written one for each of the four books, because my god the pacing of this gave me whiplash. Beautiful artwork but often times I thought the pages were sticking together because of how quickly the plot jumped around just page to page. I feel the first half of the book was just book one and I was happy with that pacing, but then they totally speedran the last four books. I appreciate the effort but I feel most if not all of the main themes of war and peace were lost due to such a quick summary.