Maybe I'd like it better if it were called "War, what is it good for?"

I have, off and on over the past few years, been trying to read "War and Peace". This is a remnant of an earlier effort to read a variety of classics ("Moby Dick", "Don Quixote", etc.), all of which ended in failure 100-200 pages in. In the end, I decided to focus all my efforts on finishing *one* book, consider myself "well-read", and move on with my life. However, my sporadic attempts to read Tolstoy's masterpiece have been interrupted by many shorter, less weighty books, including more than one John Grisham novel :(

I have once again reached the point where War and Peace is the *only* book on my shelf, and thus I've decided to give it another shot. Unfortunately, after so many stops and starts, and too many weeks and months of neglect, I have no idea who is who, or what the relationships between the characters are. Thus, I took a quick skim through the 400-ish pages that I've read so far, and created the following chart:


Phew, glad to have cleared *that* up! Now I just need to be able to decipher my chart, and I'm all good. Like any good procrastinator, I am also considering re-doing the chart, so that the relationships are arranged in space both generationally, as well as by family. If/when I get that done, I'll post it here for your viewing pleasure. Until then, it's back to the peace that preceded Napoleon's invasion of Russia, and the life of Prince Andrew Bolkonsky.