War and Peace

"If the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy."

-Isaac Babel

Battle of Borodino
Peter von Hess, 1843

After finding myself alone outside of El Paso in late January I decided to begin a book that without having glanced over the first page, I had been afraid to read for two years. That book was War and Peace. After nearly seven months I am done, with only the regret that I will never again read it for the first time.

I just spent half an hour trying to express myself in regards to the impression this masterpiece made on me. It is impossible. As someone very dear to me once said, "It's one of those things that changes your life. How can you ever explain that?"

-BLOCHEAD