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Getting past 200 pages is the tough part. Hope I’ll get through. Also, getting used to so many characters with unfamiliar Russian names is slowing things down. Let's see.

Any tips and tricks for reading the magnum opus? Would help!

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Now that you mention it, I also struggled with that to begin with. My penguin edition had a dramatis personae list at the start that I ended up referring to a few times. Rare for me to use them. So, a crib sheet if your edition doesn't.

There's a sequence with the boys out on the town which helped me cement each of the main male protagonists images in my head. Fairly early on I think. Pierre + Andrei being main characters, Nikolai (the younger) and Antole being the rest of that group.

I also I ended up classifying the characters into three generations, the young men/woman, the older parents, and the younger children.

Thanks for the tip.

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