On Reading War and Peace

Several years ago, I gathered up my intellectual gusto and tackled Tolstoy's War and Peace. Over 1000 pages later, I started to see light at the end of the tunnel. I was a few chapters from the end one night, and though I was getting sleepy, I determined that I would finish that night. After all, I was so close. Why not push?

The only problem was that the last few chapters of War and Peace are arguably the most philosophically challenging of the entire novel. In my opinion, they are the best part (Tolstoy never did learn how to just end a story), but they give you a lot to wrap your mind around.

I pushed, and I pushed, and I pushed. And by golly, I finished the book that night. But I got dozy in the process, and I nearly drifted off several times before I was done, and when I awoke the next morning, I couldn't remember a single thing I had read.

I have since re-read the final chapters, but they have never been the same to me as they would have been if I had waited to be ready to experience them.

And this, in a roundabout way, is why I will not be taking classes this summer. The realization hit me this morning, and I saw the connection immediately, after months of anguishing over the decision. I am not in so much of a hurry that I want to trade a positive grad school experience for "hasty completion."

I would rather wait, and take my time, and know in the end that I am mentally refreshed and prepared to read those final chapters so that I will remember them the next day, and the next week, and the rest year, and the rest of my life. I don't want to risk the burnout that right now lies so close to me. And I feel very good about this decision.