It can get to be heavy going at times - Pierre's dabble with numerology is funny-ridiculous, but the surrounding mystic masonry and suchlike is sleep inducing. Having said that, its well worth the go. I couldn't put it down (until the aforementioned!).
There's a new translation out in Uk - with much of Tolstoy's original french dialogue left intact. The translators reasoning was that the French was a feature of the upper classes that marked them off, and that it would serve the same purpose in an english version of the book. That probably damns its US sales...
