"War and Peace", Parts I-IV

So at this point I have read 200+ pages. So far I haven't decided what I think about the book. It's well written, very 19th century style which makes it a bit more difficult than, say, modern teen fiction, which has been my primary entertainment of late. I've read other works by Tolstoy, so I'm familiar with his style, as well as with the peculiarities of Russian literature as far as proper names are concerned. So I'm not having too much trouble following the story, although I'm afraid the temptation to skim the purely military bits is strong! This book seems to me to be the most epic in scope of the Tolstoy works that I've read. "Crime and Punishment" and "Anna Karenina," for instance, as well as short stories like "The Kreutzer Sonata," deal very much with one or two individuals' moral struggles. "War and Peace" seems to deal with the entire aristocracy, as represented by the various characters and families whose stories are all interconnected. This has, I think, made it a bit slower initially, because it takes longer to introduce the characters. I am finally starting to get to know them now, to distinguish the various formal names and pet names, even to understand their complex connections to one another. This is making the story more engaging.
There are a few characters who stand out to me so far as intriguing or hard to figure out. Pierre Bezukhof is one. I think he is a person who is very simple, not very subtle, but he has trouble understanding his own emotions. That is why he went along with Prince Vasili's connivances to get him married to Helene, that is why their relationship never worked. He is the strong silent type, not the dashing cavalier. Andrei and Lisa's relationship is a bit mysterious to me. Initially I felt that she was the sympathetic one and that he was uncaring, but now it seems that he is being treated as the noble character and she is superficial and selfish. Even her death seems selfish, dying with an expression that asks, "Why have you done this to me?" But it seems to me also that the female characters have less reality to them and more superficiality. I don't know if this is the case, although I wouldn't be surprised, as Tolstoy is a man and is limited by his own knowledge and understanding. But I will keep an open mind as I continue to follow the story, perhaps he hasn't yet gotten to the in-depth stories of various female characters. At the moment, my favorite characters are Princess Maria, Prince Andrei, Boris (because he's cute), Denisof, Pierre, and Nikolai Rostof (although he is also irritating, insofar as he is an accurate depiction of a teenage boy).