Tolstoy unflinchingly touches on the big questions in life. Why am I here? What is the meaning of life? What is the right social system for a country? What is the right way to model romantic relationships in society?
If you’ve had these questions in your head from time to time, you might resonate with his treatment of them. He doesn’t necessarily try to answer them directly. Instead, he shows what might be the consequences of taking certain stances on the issues. Some of the characters consciously pick over these questions. Others haplessly encounter the results without realizing that there was even a question or a stance to be taken.
The philosophical merit aside, this moving story is still worth a read. It takes you through the lives of people you probably know or will meet. You will learn something about them if not about yourself.
I had some difficulty wading through some of the pages toward the middle of the book but toward the end, I couldn’t put it down. It was well worth the time.
