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What better way to celebrate the birthday of Leo Tolstoy than to read his monumentally weighty tome  War and Peace …? Well, for those who don’t quite have time to get through all 561,093 words (Oxford World’s Classics edition) of it,  The Independent  has produced its own marvellously abridged version.So, on the  186th anniversary of Tolstoy’s birth , here it is; in 186 words. Petersburg, 1805: glitzy party at Anna Scherer’s. Napoleon is on the march. Kuragins? Flashy, dodgy crowd, especially minx Helene. Rostovs? Nice, penniless Moscow clan, with headstrong son, Nikolai. Gauche, thoughtful Pierre Bezukhov: a count’s bastard, super-rich (when dad dies) but adrift. Unhappily wed Andrey Bolkonsky’s the real warrior toff, but those dark nights of the soul! Pierre marries flighty Helene. Catastrophe! Rows, affair, duel, break-up (and Helene’s bad end) guaranteed. Andrey, Nikolai confront Napoleon at Austerlitz: Russian debacle. Widowed, Andrey falls for blooming ...