Wrapping Up: Peace, after War

War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (trans. by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky) (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007)

Volume Four & the Epilogue

How much do I love that Tolstoy writes a two-part epilogue almost 100 pages long? (Not a lot actually. It's so him, and that I love, but if I were his editor, part two of the epilogue would be long gone.)

Volume Four is mostly about what happens to the French (and Russian) armies after Napoleon occupies Moscow and then up and leaves, retreating all the way back to France, army in tatters. Tolstoy has a LOT to say about this, and about what caused the retreat, and how the Russians "won" by losing. This all can be mostly summed up here: "Only unconscious activity bears fruit, and a man who plays a role in a historical event never understands its significance. If he attempts to understand it, he is struck with fruitlessness."

This also gives him a chance to do what he seems to love best, which is to make fun of historians. He also shares his opinions on doctors, and on "intelligent" women - who are juxtaposed with "real women, endowed with the ability to select and absorb all the best of what a man has to show." (Yes, I almost threw my book across the room here.)

But you forgive Tolstoy. Because he is big and expansive, creating a whole world that is larger than life. Sometimes when I think of him, I think of Whitman.

Other things happen too. There are a few major deaths, a couple marriages. The epilogue takes us into the future and lays the groundwork for what I understand was the original plan for W&P: understanding how the Decembrists (not these guys) became the Decembrists.

I was dissatisfied with how it all worked out when I read it at 17. This time around, I get it more. It somehow seems more appropriate and right. I don't really begrudge the characters their actions anymore, although I wish I could have seen the alternate world where you'd get my happy ending. It probably wouldn't have been especially happy, after all.

And the last of the Twittering, where it's clear I lost a lot of steam:

• Turns out that if your sister is engaged to a dude, it's not okay for you to get involved with the same dude's sister.
• On the other hand, if then that guy were to die....
• "The war was being conducted against all the rules (as if there existed some sort of rules for killing people)."
• "But pure, perfect sorrow is as impossible as pure and perfect joy."

Volume 3: The Big Battle

War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (trans. by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky) (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007)

Volume Three

This whole section is pretty much the lead up to the Battle of Borodino and the resulting (despite a result that has to be considered a draw) Russian retreat past Moscow, ceding the ancient capital to Napoleon. In the midst of long philosophical musings by Tolstoy about how war is outrageously crazy but wheels get set in motion and none of us can really do anything about it (no matter how the history books later spin it), our characters recover - or don't - from the upheaval that ended Volume Two, they seek revenge, they move around and seek places where they feel at home.

Pierre, a la Forrest Gump, ends up right in the middle of the Battle of Borodino. Because of course he does.

Some things that happen in these 300 pages...
Tolstoy waits until page 603 to call war "an event .... contrary to human reason and the whole of human nature." [By the way, based on the complexities with which he describes people and human nature, does he really believe this?]

Tolstoy explains that the Russians fleeing Moscow essentially led to Napoleon's retreat and humiliation. He counters this act of patriotism to "the killing of children to save the fatherland." ... I would love to know what Tolstoy would have to say about the Soviets in World War II (aka The Great Fatherland War).

And all this, according to my Twitter feed:
"Everyone wished more to listen than to speak." This seems unlikely. Also, for Tolstoy, unusual.

We *think* we have free will and all, but really we are just cogs in some big master plan of fate. Even Napoleon.

Also. it's really easy to pick out evidence after the fact to justify your interpretation. This is why historians are lame.

It's kind of amazing how much I like Tolstoy considering how annoyed I get by half of what he says.

Chaotic Battle of Borodino today in #WandP. Reminds me of this poem: http://www.poetry-archive.com/s/grass.html

Tolstoy takes two pages to say: Correlation does not equal causation. (This is why #WandP is 1215 pages long.)

At the end of Volume 3, Moscow is burning, Pierre is in jail(ish), but the love story might be back on. Yay?

More tweeting Tolstoy

What I had to say about Volume 2, in 140 character snippets...

I know you haven't been missing my #WandP tweets, but they are back anyway.

Love & death are capricious.

Also, "Vera's observation was correct, as were all her observations; but, like most ... this one made everyone feel awkward."

Russian nobles can be really depressing. And Masons have a bunch of wacky rituals.

"She was in that highest degree of happiness when a person ... does not believe in the possibility of evil, unhappiness, and grief."

Tolstoy, did you just call the military sanctioned idleness? OH SNAP.

I am trying to picture how fat Pierre Bezukhov is supposed to be. Having trouble.

The end of Volume 2 of #WandP is like reading a train wreck. Why is everybody so vain/proud/foolish/sexually-frustrated/etc?

And now I'm in a bad mood. Thank you Tolstoy.

The saga continued (and delayed)

War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (trans. by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky) (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007)

Volume Two

I don't have a lot to say about V2 right now. I waited a week before blogging, mainly because I've been busy, but also because this section has such a downer ending.

It's been years since the skirmish, and everyone has grown up more. The emperor and Napoleon are pals, mostly. Pierre's marriage is going about as well as you'd expect, Andrei has given up on everything, Natasha is hmm, mostly indescribable, Nikolai is kind of a hotshot. And there are of course a bazillion other characters.

And then there's this reversal of sorts, that opens up the possibility of some sort of happily-ever-after. As if Tolstoy would allow such things. And then you spend about 200 pages feeling the same sense of dread that Natasha's family seems to feel. And, since I'm doing a terrible job with this post, I'm just going to quote this description of Mama Rostov(a): "Her maternal intuition told her that there was too much of something in Natasha, and that because of it she would not be happy."

And by the way, this time reading, I have a lot more blame to spread around. Everyone's at fault. Everyone.

Tweeting Tolstoy

During my reading of Volume One, I also shared regular thoughts on my Twitter feed. Here they are... (hashtags removed except where integral to the tweet)

"If the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy" --Isaac Babel

Feeling far more sympathetic to Pierre Bezukhov than I remembered.

If Prince Andrei turns out to be like Ethan Hawke in Reality Bites, I'm going to be pissed.

I imagine it comes as no surprise that I think War < Peace.

Andrei Bolkonsky is maybe not as awesome as I remember. (I think this is going to be a major theme of my #WandP tweeting.)

chai at Panera and #WandP (Napoleon is winning.)

The aftermath of battle: "All this was so strange, so unlike what he had hoped for."

"He was sincerely beginning to believe in his extraordinary kindness and his extraordinary intelligence..."

"... the more so because, deep in his heart, it had always seemed to him that he really was very kind and very intelligent."

The thought of battle makes soldiers emo. Also? Apparently the emperor is like Jesus or something.

Battles make for all sorts of confusion. And overblown prose. Thus ends Volume One.

Peace > War

War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (trans. by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky) (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007)

Volume One

I was all aflutter when this translation came out, and it took me awhile (a year or so) to actually purchase it. And then it took me even longer to read it. I've mentioned before that I read W&P right after high school and fell dramatically in love with it. But how would I feel 13 years later?

So here I am this summer, reading this translation. Marveling at all the French. (Apparently P & V's decision to leave so much of the original French, which I think it probably justified, caused some amount of controversy.) When I committed to this big book (1215 pages before the appendix and endnotes) I decided I would serialize my reading. There are four volumes and a (two-part) epilogue. Attaching the epilogue to Volume 4, it makes for about 4 chunks of 300 pages each. I'll be interspersing this with lighter - or at least other - reading. (For example, on my plate right now: essays about being a 20-something female.)

I remembered that Tolstoy cut back and forth between "peace" in Moscow & Petersburg, and "war" out in Austria or wherever. I remembered finding war significantly less interesting. This has not changed. The homefront has women! and gossip! and romance and intrigue. The soldiers on the other hand are mostly just riding around being melodramatic and daydreaming about glory. Seriously, I found myself nodding off multiple times during battle scenes.

I did not remember that the novel starts back in 1805, years before much of the main action. I forgot that we meet Natalya Rostov(a) as a coltish tween. I forgot that before I had an irrational excuse to dislike Pierre, I might have actually found him charmingly inept and adorable, the way I do now.

But of course I remembered the epic scope of Tolstoy's world. And the ways in which he was so generous with detail. No one is an afterthought.

I'm looking forward to Volume 2.