War and Peace

Russia learns of Napoleon's threat. Pierre inherits a fortune, makes a disastrous marriage. Andrei goes to war seeking glory and receives instead the infinite sky of Austerlitz.

Pierre's miserable marriage and duel. Andrei's withdrawal from life after Lise's death. Natasha Rostova enters society. Andrei and Natasha fall in love. Their engagement is broken by Anatole Kuragin's seduction of Natasha.

Napoleon invades Russia. The Russian army retreats. Natasha's family evacuates Moscow. The Battle of Borodino — the bloodiest day of the Napoleonic Wars — is fought. Andrei is mortally wounded. Pierre wanders the battlefield in civilian clothes.

Napoleon occupies a deserted, burning Moscow. Pierre stays behind, is captured, and marched with the retreating French army. He meets Platon Karataev, whose peasant wisdom transforms him. Andrei is carried on a cart through Russia; Natasha nurses him; he forgives her and dies.

The French retreat from Moscow becomes catastrophic. Pierre is liberated in a Cossack skirmish. Platon Karataev dies on the road. Pierre returns to discover Hélène dead and Natasha still alive. He knows what he wants.

Pierre and Natasha are married with children. Nikolai Rostov has married Princess Mary. The families are settled. Pierre is involved in early reform movements. Nikolai Bolkonsky (Andrei's son) idolizes his absent father. The epilogue questions whether peace is possible after such a war.

Tolstoy abandons narrative entirely to argue his philosophy of history: that great men do not make events; events are made by the aggregate force of millions of ordinary people. Free will and determinism are both illusions we use to make sense of what we cannot understand.