The novel starts off with a section in which Tolstoy writes his thoughts about the nature of historic action. At first this annoyed me (as I continued reading I discovered that this was not unique to this section) because it seems to bring the story to a grinding halt. At firs this type of meditations annoyed me, but the more I read the more I realized that Tolstoy was keeping to the theme of War & Peace, the human condition. Only instead of pontificating on the subject of human condition while telling the story of a bunch of disgusting and somewhat less disgusting people, Tolstoy turns the table on the readers and discusses the subject on a much bigger scale.