Already starting the second volume, we are all no so deeply enmeshed in the lives and loves of so many of Tolstoy’s characters, that there’s no looking back, and we feel we have to read on until the end – no matter how far away it is. What will happen to Prince Nikolay Bolkonsky? Will he come to terms with his dissatisfaction with life? What of Nikolai Rostov and his youthful enthusiasms? And even more intriguing – how will Pierre Bezukhov live a meaningful life with the hand that he has been dealt: a wife who despises him and a fortune greater than any in Russia? However, it is Tolstoy’s female characters who hold out the most hope for redemption and growth. We cannot leave these characters behind now. However, with Exams on the horizon, some of us are going to put aside Tolstoy’s epic for the time being. We will all meet up after exams some, time in June – when our Year 11s have finished their GCSEs – to see where we are all up to, and how we ourselves have been affected by reading this great work of literature.

Mr Ahern