The Great Watercooler Novel

On the magic of serialized narratives

Last spring my Explore page on Instagram started showing people sharing their reads. Later I discovered that it is a niche not just on Instagram: that there is such thing as BookTok, and it looks like plenty of those newer novels truly gain their popularity via that route — which I find both interesting and off-putting. Interesting, because of the ways reading stays alive; off-putting, because 80% of posts are about the same books, which also happen to be general fiction novels. I have absolutely nothing against novels, but as someone who can’t imagine life without non-fiction, I do raise my brow at that.

But what took me by surprise was how often it was not just contemporary shortish novels but something else both interesting and off-putting: volumes of Tolstoy, typically Anna Karenina and War and Peace, of course. At school, I only managed to go through the first volume of War and Peace. I must say, it’s no joke being a Russian when it comes to school program in literature, especially to the 19th century. The sheer volume of books is immense, let alone their complexity. But now, as an undergrad in literature and as someone who is eager to reclaim Russianness from the likes of the people that trample upon it by their murderous actions, I was mostly intrigued.

Initially I resolved that this venture would warrant a physical book, which immediately proved a problem: Russian editions tend to come in ugly sets, which is absolutely disheartening in comparison to the pretty one-volume joy of English editions. I was that close to purchasing the Oxford World Classics edition, so desperate I was. I don’t know about you, but to me aesthetics do matter, and I’m sure a good-looking edition makes reading War and Peace that much less intimidating.

But then I realized there’s a brick of a book I cannot read in its original, and so an English edition would make sense: The Count of Monte Cristo. 1200 pages. My boyfriend even commented if that’s an unabridged enough edition for me.

Those were blissful six summer weeks, let me tell you that. And shame on the abridged editions and the wide use of ‘anonymous‘ translations that allegedly leave out whole passages because they were created in Victorian times and opium-eating was so inappropriate a subject that it warranted erasure.

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This year Substack algorithm guided me to a War and Peace read along, hosted by

Simon Haisell

, where the idea is to go at a leisurely pace of a chapter a day, Tolstoy being a considerate enough fellow to write just the right number of them to last a year. (Thank gods, this caught my eye immediately at the start of the year though!)

And so, when an early chapter ended mid-scene and I had to wrestle myself from going into the next one and breaking the schedule, I could not help but wonder: Is this what it felt like reading those serialized novels in the 19th century?

The Count of Monte Cristo might be a juggernaut of 1200 pages but it was first released in a newspaper. It is a series! (Which explains its occasional messiness.) So, does it mean that people were discussing it at their gatherings? Were they speculating? Were they creating theories? Coming up with better developments? Was it shameful to admit you were hopelessly hooked or was it hip?

Back to our man Leo, Anna Karenina was published in this format, too. Over four years! I wonder if there were “In previous episodes“ sections, at least once in a while. I wonder how many people fell off the bandwagon. Or even didn’t live to see the end of it (reminds me of a passage in Nick Hornby where he describes every football fan’s worst nightmare: dying mid-season).

The first parts of War and Peace were published with the same magazine as AK (and Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, by the way. Now, that must have been a ride!) — only for this to be dropped until the book is finished and published in its entirety. The agony that must have been! When is it gonna be out? Where would I find it? Or is the show just dropped?

Oh yes, the show. Naturally, the form was taken over by radio shows and TV series. And century and a half later, the origins of those great novels are forgotten and now they are seen as solid bricks of intimidation.

Which is actually how I felt committing myself to watching Mad Men when it already finished its run. Totally different experince from watching Game of Thrones as it was happening, especially given what a conversation starter it was initially, before disintegrating into oblivion.

I have recently experienced something similar when HBO was releasing White Lotus one episode per week, that tension building up in me. Unfortunately, in this case it was me who was forcing everyone in my circle to watch it, so water cooler moments simply could not happen and I had to resort to liking the reactions of a few pop-culture observers on Instagram.

In general, it feels as if talking about TV series became pointless: everyone is watching something else and they never even heard of what you are currently enjoying. Which is only understandable with the sheer amount of content falling onto our heads. My to-watch list is longer than what I ever watch in a year, and it doesn’t even have all my friends’ recommendations. And as to books, you can’t discuss them with anyone not only because the disparity in interests is even larger here — barely anyone reads as much these days.

Which is what makes this experience of closing the Russian gestalt that is War and Peace this year exceptional: I’d dose it carefully in the morning, trying to catch as many nuances as possible, each chapter enriching the tapestry weaved by the previous ones, and then I’d slip into the chat several times a day to see what everyone’s thinking and picking upon. And the fact that it’s gonna last a year??! That communal experience beats even the similar discussions back in the uni days, because there’s no essay due!

Let me just say that in these days of disjointed cultural landscape where everyone mostly provides for himself or tunes into something along the lines of The Great British Dance Off, which I personally find too silly for how short our lives are, it feels incredibly and surprisingly refreshing to make a classic novel a watercooler activity.

Who would’ve thought!

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… or don’t! I’m still happy that you reached the end of this post.

I’ll be glad to hear your thoughts and experiences in the comments.

Cheers!