Once you get through the first 400 pages they tend to pick up.

The pivotal duel in War and Peace where Prince Nikolay Andreevitch Bolkonsky (the elder, not the grandson of the same name) battles Prince  Boris Vladimirovich Galitzine through the Winter Palace ballroom, leaving dozens dead before uncovering Galitzine as a lizard-like alien being is the highlight of the book, though missed by many readers and rarely discussed by stuffy professors of literature.