The War and Peace Reading Support Group: We can see the pinnacle.
Photo of Audrey Hepburn as Natasha in War and Peace, directed by King Vidor, from imdb. Only watch the movie if you want to see Audrey. From imdb: “Audrey Hepburn’s salary of $350,000 for the film was the highest salary an actress had ever received to date. When notified of her record salary Hepburn modestly told her agent, “I’m not worth it. It’s impossible. Please don’t tell anyone.” One of the reasons we love Audrey Hepburn.
Two weeks to go in our War and Peace reading project and the end is in sight. The two-month schedule suited us–we were able to read Tolstoy at a leisurely pace while observing our daily routines, meeting deadlines, and noshing on other books.
When you finish reading W&P, post a short essay in Comments below. Tell us what you really enjoyed about the Tolstoy, and what sections if any almost made you quit. (The looong sections about religion reminded me of the loooong sections about agriculture in Anna Karenina–I took to walking while reading, which looked funny but was the only way to keep my mind awake.) At the end of the W&P project we’re giving away books (including The Last Station by Jay Parini, a novel about Leo Tolstoy’s last days) to some of the readers who signed up for this reading group.
The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.
Henry Fonda as Pierre (?!!) Audrey Hepburn as Natasha, and Mel Ferrer as Andrei (?!!). Fonda is all wrong for Pierre. Pierre is fat and ungainly, it’s part of his Pierre-ness. And Mel Ferrer–yikes.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
March 28th, 2011 at 18:09
What I really enjoyed about W+P is the thought that I could tell my friends with a condescending tone that I really finished this one, without skipping any part. It’s a milestone.
I’m kidding. Most of my friends are steering away from classics and long reads. I’m not saying that I prefer the classics; I read both the modern and the old. If I try push my friends to include W+P in their to-read lists, I should give them a few things to say about it so that they could consider.
The character descriptions are the things that I like best in W+P. I always envisioned the upper lip of Lisa whenever she talked. The corpulence of Pierre, the soulful eyes of Marya, and the accent of Denisov were also unforgettable. All of these make me think that these characters are real people, that they really went to war, had affairs, held soirees, and had a share in shaping the history of Russia. If the reader is more interested in descriptions than the plot, he should go ahead and read this book next.
I made sure that I will not give up, so I made a reading plan. I segmented the book into manageable chunks; the plan stretched for 23 days. I followed it religiously, but there were just times when things bogged me down. I found the ruminations on history a bit tedious. I sometimes think that Tolstoy was constantly repeating himself. He would spend chapters writing about history, power, freedom, and necessity across the whole book. The epilogue was not spared. It even got to a point that I wanted to scream, “Yes, yes, I got your point!”
I tried looking at that on another perspective. I think Tolstoy was guiding the reader so that the latter can fully understand what he really intended to say. But it was just too much. As a result, the ending was not as powerful as I imagined it to be. It would make you think though, that last paragraph, but the reader was stuffed too much with all those musings that, in my case, I closed the book and sighed, “That’s it?”
Still, it is a memorable book. It’s engaging, smart, thoughtful, large in scope, and not as heavy as it seems. I had a harder time reading Possession and Tropic of Cancer; the former I almost gave up and the latter I abandoned.
Thanks to W+P, my reading speed increased. I am now also able to read in public places despite the noise. I give it four out of five stars.
March 29th, 2011 at 10:40
yes, i’ve watched this movie only for the reason of watching Audrey H. it’s also the same sole reason why i like Chanel.
March 30th, 2011 at 14:22
Finally! I actually thought you’d forgotten or gave up on your tenacious little reading group Jessica.
It was about four, five years ago when I first read War and Peace. As a child I had browsed through the Classics Illustrated comics version and seen the King Vidor movie, and I was curious to find out what else was in the book that made it so thick. (I now blame that on Pierre–all that soul-searching and endless soliloquies on just about everything. When all he had to do to get some peace of mind, really, was dump his wife).
Like that first time, this rereading left me with the same conclusion and biases with regards to the war itself–all that carnage on the battlefield is not quite as revolting as the chaos that comes afterward: evacuations, burnings, unjust, surreptitious dismissals (Denisov) and even worse, unfair advancements (Boris). Princess Mary’s predicament, right before her serendipitous meeting with Nicholas, reminded me of that disturbing movie, Oro, Plata, Mata. Disturbing when you realize that like Russa then, we are a country still very much entrenched in feudalism, prone to intermittent brush fires like People Power, which can change the balance of power in a heartbeat.
But admittedly, I am most drawn to the little scenes and conversations in the drawing rooms, in intimate theater boxes, at grand ballrooms, a rich man’s deathbed–as this fly in the wall with the multiple eyes Leo Tolstoy can elaborately describe them, right down to the little nuances in behaviour only a seasoned clinical sociologist could probably detect.
I will always be smitten with the young and impulsive Natasha, and quite resent Tolstoy’s having turned her into this needy hausfrau after her marriage to Pierre, a much-changed man who has redeemed himself in the eyes of this reader after his “immersion program” with the POWs (I think most of the credit goes to his friend while in captivity, the peasant Platon Karataev). A complex, intriguing figure for me, even towards the end was the proud Prince Andrei, very much a product of his father’s tyranny I suppose, and like his father, a most agreeable man when death was imminent. And because I cannot separate my movies from my books, these are the three main characters whose names I will forever associate with the faces of Audrey Hepburn, (the un-corpulent) Henry Fonda and Mel Ferrer.
I need to get a copy of that 7-hour French (or Russian?) movie version.
March 31st, 2011 at 10:14
Reading War and Peace is like climbing Mt. Everest. Everyone has heard about it, everyone knows it’s possible but the only true way to experience it is to do it yourself. I had so many mixed reactions when I was telling people what I was so preoccupied with: “Oh one of my friends has read that book before”; “Good luck, you’ll need it”; “What is so fascinating about that book?” I have to admit that the book was bulky and hard to lug around- totally grateful that the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation did not come in hardcover, and it did give me permanent carpal tunnel syndrome, but I just could not put the book down. Tolstoy’s prose was utterly gripping and his characters were so well-developed that it was so easy to be absorbed in everyone. Maybe that is why reading the book is so daunting. Just the size alone is enough to make one hesitate before picking up the book but truth be told, War and Peace’s characters wouldn’t be as interesting if everything were condensed into a shorter version. I thought it would take me forever to read the book but I was surprised that it only took me five short weeks to finish it despite my late start.
Ironically, the part that I found tedious was the last part of the epilogue where Tolstoy reflects upon history. It was quite unexpected to be presented with a lecture on historians and the accuracy of historical fact but the of the last couple of pages kept me doggedly towards the goal of completing the book. All in all, I could have done without that bit about how man actually influences history. Although Tolstoy portrays Napoleon in quite a negative light, I find it ironic that today’s history student finds Napoleon as much of a hero as the Duke of Wellington. Reading the French phrases and their corresponding translation has caused me to unknowingly practice my French. Reading War and Peace has me now yearning to see the movie versions.