reading war and peace - book 1

Me and baby Elliot at Yasnaya Polyana 1993

When you're reading War and Peace it's impossible to think of it as something in the background; it becomes something you are doing with your life. My classic book discussion group has decided to make this a project, and while I have a thousand pages to go, I think I'll jot down some thoughts. Otherwise, I'm sure my initial impressions will be lost and superseded along this epic journey.

I’m reading the Rosemary Edmonds translation, which is probably read by most people in English, being the Penguin Classic. This is in spite of a new much touted and more contemporary translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. But whatever translation you embark on, this project will have a slow start. You've got this doorstep of a book on your lap and it isn't until the first, say 300 pages, that you find yourself moving along with confidence. 

I'm now a little past page 500, and what emerges so far is the psychological development of these characters. Even as Tolstoy's characters grow and their perspectives change with time, they remain completely themselves.  This is only possible because Tolstoy has such a handle on his characters and knows them inside out. 

Pierre is, for me, the most interesting character. He starts off as a self absorbed, hedonistic and befuddled person who in the early chapters inherits a massive fortune. Now everybody wants something from him.  His isolated state is exemplified in the party where he is expected to propose marriage to Helene.  Nobody looks in his direction, even though he is the focus of the party. A battle is going on inside him as he resists the pressure to propose. But he lacks the inner conviction to oppose the proceedings.  Pierre, we are told, “was one of those people who in spite of an appearance of what is called weak character, do not seek a confidant in their troubles. He worked through his trouble alone.” And so, after a series of missteps, which include his marriage and later, a duel, he stumbles upon a new way of being in the world, among the brethren of Freemasons. 

Pierre's character stands in contrast to that of Prince Andrei, a cynical self important personality who is more than capable of fulfilling his role as a great man.  "All the projects Pierre had attempted on his estates – and continually switching from one thing to another and never carried through – had been brought to fruition by Prince Andrei quietly and with no noticeable exertion,” we learn on page 490!

Andrei is a man of consequence who in military matters always seeks ways to distinguish himself.  But there's a poignant moment in the middle of a battle when he is wounded and finds himself looking up at the sky -- “the lofty sky, not clear yet still immeasurably lofty with grey clouds creeping softly across it.  How quiet, peaceful and solemn! 'Quite different from when I was running,' thought Prince Andrei. 'Quite different from us running and chanting and fighting….'"   And you as a reader are right there with him - gazing at the sky and its immense distance from the battle waging around.

Later, when Andrei encounters Napoleon, he muses on the unimportance of greatness.  “The unimportance of life which no one could understand and the still greater unimportance of death, the meaning of which no man alive could understand or explain.”

When he meets his old friend Pierre at Bald Hills and they go on an excursion by ferry and have a long conversation, his psychological state takes a turn. Pierre is struck by the change in his friend – by the lack of light in his eyes and how much he has aged, and  they have a conversation about their views of life and the reign of goodness and truth on earth.  Pierre has been transformed by new ideas he’s encountered with the Freemasons.  And although Andrei appears unmoved by their conversation, inwardly he is awoken with a new sense of joy and possibility.  “Though outwardly he continued to live in the same way,” Tolstoy writes, “inwardly he began a new existence."

Then, of course there is the charming young Nikolai Rostov, beloved son of Count Rostov, brother of Natasha and first love of his cousin Sonya.  What happens when he doesn't have the courage to be a man, and stand up to the enemy?  When under attack he simply cannot believe it. “Who are they? Are they coming at me? Can they be running at me? And why? To kill me - me whom everyone is so fond of? He thought of his mother’s love for him, of his family’s and his friends and the enemy’s intention of killing him seemed impossible.”

It's a classic moment and you feel for him.  And his youthful cowardice and charm are challenged even more when he goes to the hospital in search of his disgraced friend Denisov and tries to intervene on his behalf, with the idea of extracting a pardon from the emperor.  The hospital alters his perspective again. 

 Later, Rostov witnesses the emperor pinning a medal to the jacket of one of his compatriots. “His brain was seething in an agonizing confusion which he could not work out to any conclusion.  Horrible doubles were stirring in his soul.  He thought of Denisov and the change that had come over him, and his surrender, and the whole hospital with those amputated legs and arms, and its dirt and disease.  So vividly did he recall that hospital stench of putrefaction that he looked round to see where the smell was coming from. Then he thought of the self satisfied Bonaparte with his little white hand, who was now an emperor, liked and respected by Alexander.  For what, then, those severed arms and legs, why those dead men?”

But what does he do with all this confusion? Poor Nikolai has already disgraced himself in gambling, and is losing a grip on his boyish charms.  Now he simply gets drunk and spouts off incoherently in a way that seems completely irrelevant to his listeners.

 Even while we follow the individual paths and psychological arcs of these characters  (and there are many more),  Tolstoy captures the collective consciousness  – the Russian army as a whole – “the whole body of men marching in step…"  He captures most notably, what moves them inwardly.  “‘It has begun! Here it is! Terrible but glorious,’ said the face of every private and officer".  We experience the collective sensibility - Russian soldiers and cavalry officers advancing through the mist on the hillside, encountering death and bloodshed,  living in dugout huts where they find camaraderie after returning from home leave.

I can't help thinking about Tolstoy’s wife Sonya, who transcribed the entire work, slogging away through many drafts.  Tolstoy's handwriting was evidently indecipherable in places – but in spite of the tedium,  she knew his work was great. Her effort was in service to his achievement.  She was transcribing, as Rosemary Edmonds calls War and Peace in her introduction, “ a hymn to life, the Iliad and the Odyssey of Russia.”

Well, that's all for now. I must get back to the next thousand pages...

my little family in St Petersburg, 1993