Perhaps he was trying to warn us about what was coming books 8-10.

I tried to read War and Peace during grad school. I typically would try to read at night before I went to bed. I remember falling asleep several nights in a row trying to read the same page (page 65 or so). Being an exhausted grad student probably had something to do with that. I eventually gave up without getting past whatever page that was. It was pretty boring and I remember feeling annoyed that the book introduced several characters named "Anna" at the beginning of the book. I could be misremembering that.