the fate of a family representing the social conditions of that time, having to bear to that situation apparently because of a few selected individuals in quest for (more) power (isn’t that what it all always comes down to?) and the inevitable cause vs consequences analysis -, this novel is analogous to Tolstoy’s War and Peace, where we understand the effects that the French invasion had in Russia through the lives of (mainly) the Rostóvs and the Bolkonskys.