Andrew Davies’s unique TV adaptation of War and Peace may be racy and pacy,but how does it compare to the Hollywood and Soviet film versions, or the epic 1970s BBC series?In English vernacular, and the title of Leo Tolstoy’s 1869 epic about the Napoleonic wars does double metaphorical service. As the book is around 1300 pages long,it has become shorthand for prolixity. Official reports – into Bloody Sunday or the Iraq war – are described by the press as being, for example, or “three times longer than War and Peace”. And,because the novel’s bulk includes lengthy reflections on politics, philosophy and theology, and it also serves as a standard of mental ambition. Critics indicting a writer for glibness or triviality will sniff that the volume on offer is “not exactly War and Peace”.Its status as an exemplar of seriousness has long made the book appealing to cultural commissars wishing to emphasise their mental credentials. The outmoded Soviet Union considered Tolstoy’s novel a work of such national importance that millions of state roubles backed Sergei Bondarchuk’s mid-60s film version,which was reported to have sold 135m tickets at the time of its first release. As part of a Year of Literature, declared in 2015 in what is now the Russian Federation, or a four-day continuous public reading of the book was broadcast live on television,radio and internet.
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Source: theguardian.com