The War and Peace Reading Support Group, week 3: You are There.
Petersburg. Screen grabs from War and Peace, the five-disc epic by Sergei Bondarchuk.
Why did I wait so long to read War and Peace?? It’s amazing.
Prince Andrei Nikolaevich Bolkonsky (Andrei) and Count Pyotr Kirillovich Bezukhov (Pierre)
The haste and confusion in the hours before battle, the skittishness of the troops in the rear in contrast to the calm excitement of the men at the front lines, the strange exhilaration in the face of death, I have two words for Tolstoy’s scenes of war.
YOU’RE THERE.
In his first battle Nikolai Rostov (Such an idealist–I fear for him) is more concerned about not looking scared than surviving. “Rostov…stopped on the bridge, not knowing what to do with himself. There was no one to cut down (as he had always pictured battle to himself), nor could he help set fire to the bridge, because, unlike the other soldiers, he had not brought a plait of straw with him. He was standing and looking about, when suddenly there was a rattling on the bridge, as if someone had spilled nuts, and one of the hussars, the one nearest him, fell on the railing with a groan.”
Amidst the cannonade, a sound “as if someone had spilled nuts.” Genius.
Pierre, now very very rich, goes courting. It’s a formality.
The difference between Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, the one that jumps out at me, is that Dostoevsky is more of an obsessive. He gets into a character’s head and he just goes on and on and on until you want to yell at him and slap him around. A flaming neurotic (I can relate). Tolstoy is also obsessive—note all the “superfluous” detail—but he’s kinder to the reader, he paints the big picture for us. So Dostoevsky goes inwards: into the brain, into the nerves, into the synapses, and often he gets stuck in a loop, going round and round like crazy people. Tolstoy goes outwards into the whole wide world. Just a first impression, I could be off.
How many are left in our Reading Support Group and how far have you gotten? How do you like it so far? Leave us a note in Comments.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
February 22nd, 2011 at 03:50
still here but sort of cheated by getting the gist of the story from.. wikipedia.. pls don’t flog me.. i will read the book sometime in this life, hopefully this year.. i think this is one of those stories where even if you know what happens, it’s an experience to go through the details, like that movie sixth sense..
February 22nd, 2011 at 09:11
I started a bit later than you guys and I’ve just finished part 1. Off to war, finally.
February 22nd, 2011 at 10:11
“He had barely finished speaking when there again came an unexpected, dreadful whistle, suddenly ending in a thud against something liquid, and f-f-flop—a Cossack, riding a little to the right and behind the auditor, crashed to the ground with his horse.”
Tolstoy’s words indeed place you right smack in the battle. I could smell the gunpowder. I could hear the whistle of musket balls and I could feel the thud of “French pancakes”, as the Russian infantry fondly referred to cannon balls.
I’m stuck with my reading. Work has gotten in the way. But those Austrian battlefields are just too damn exciting. I have no intention of making a hasty retreat.
February 22nd, 2011 at 10:28
I admit I found the chapters on the new Count Bezukhov and the botched matchmaking at Bald Hills more engaging, but Nicolas Rostov makes the chapters focusing on the war quite interesting.
Rostov acts like a high school freshman: transparently impressionable, idealistic, self-conscious to the point of absurdity. But that’s just the point, one cannot just brush it off as absurd, because these very traits Tolstoy describes in Rostov resonates with the reader who, at some point in life, has gone through some period of hero worship over a superior (a teacher perhaps, or an older schoolmate) and experienced this same ridiculous need to prove one’s self, even over the most trifling matters.
It’s interesting to note how Prince Andrei, on first meeting Rostov, so easily gauges Rostov for the green eager beaver he still is. Which makes me wonder about Andrei. Tolstoy does not explain how Prince Andrei came to be this sad, lonely man (other than Pierre, he has no other real friends). In spite of his father’s dysfunctional child-rearing, both father and son communicate well enough, and both are after the same ideals. And how did this man, with his keen judgment of character, end up with Lise, who is all about happiness and light? Did he love her at one point? Every time these two are in the same room together, my impression of Lise is of this flighty socialite who flirts with all the men while her husband observes from the sidelines. But without Andrei in the picture, my sentiments turn favorable: Lise is a very positive person, and in spite of the overpowering gloom of Bald Hills she manages to choose to be happy.
The real battle may have happened at Austerlitz, but it’s these little battles between and within Tolstoy’s well-honed personalities that make War and Peace such a fun read.
February 23rd, 2011 at 18:47
My sentiments exactly… I don’t know why I put off reading War and Peace for the longest time ever. And the plot thickens! Russia is at war with Napoleon which begins at the Battle of Schongrabern (such Russian bravery) and ends in defeat at the second battle which later on will culminate in several more undecided battles. Maybe partly because- as the Russian diplomat Bilibin writes in his letter to Prince Andrei, “The Prussians are our faithful allies, who have betrayed us only three times in three years. We take up their cause. But it turns out that the enemy of the human race a.k.a. Napoleon pays no attention to our fine speeches, and in his savage and impolite manner falls upon the Prussians without giving them time to finish the parade they’ve begun, beats the stuffing out of them in two seconds, and installs himself in the palace at Postdam”.
Hilarious.
On the home front, Pierre, as lost as ever, is duped by Prince Vassily into marrying his daughter Helene. Looking for a way out of his pointless life, he joins the Freemasons. Nikolai Rostov goes back home and he finds everybody, including his cousin, Sonya, has grown up. Prince Andrei, after being wounded on the battlefield, comes home just long enough to see his wife Princess Liza in the middle of labor who dies in the process of giving birth to a son.
Jessica, I like how you compared Tolstoy and Dostoevsky’s writing styles. For some reason, I still find Tolstoy an easier read than Dostoevsky. Just cannot stop reading this book… I am starting to have cramps on my wrists from reading laying sideways in bed.
February 24th, 2011 at 10:40
Do refrain from revealing plot points (spoilers); most readers would prefer to find out for themselves.
February 24th, 2011 at 13:17
Missed updating last week, but I’ve been chugging along on the book, I promise! :)
Favorite characters are Denisov — hope he gets better — and Mme Bourienne, who doesn’t get any air time at all.
Sorry if I sound like a teenaged girl, pero kinilig ako sa dance scene ni xxxxx + xxxxxx. :D
I get stressed every time the story turns to Pierre. It’s like watching Ricky Gervais on The Office — I can actually see myself pulling something like that. x_x
February 24th, 2011 at 19:33
As of today, I’m on page 682 (Volume 3, Part 2).
This is the Battle of Austerlitz, right? I guess I am reading ahead of the group. And I’ll stop doing that day to day diary according to JZ’s request (Do refrain from revealing plot points); I have a tendency give away spoilers with unrelented ranting.
I thought I would never enjoy novels with war scenes, but the Battle of Austerlitz was amazing. And there are more campaigns and peace negotiations to look forward to. I liked the part where Prince Andrei was sort of dying, looking at the sky, and realizing that the things that he thought were significant in his life were merely trifles.
You have to keep on reading. Things just keep getting better. Pierre and Prince Andrei will have some sort of transformation. I will try not to spill anything because Volume 2 is so good. It felt like a different writer and novel altogether, but the continuity and coherence is still there.
And oh, Nikolai redeemed himself to me. I didn’t really like his character, but I changed my mind. He is so complicated, along with Pierre, Prince Andrei, Princess Marya, Sonya, and Natasha. They are so human, maybe more human than some of us, and I sometimes get the feeling that Napoleon and Alexander didn’t exist at all and were only created by Tolstoy.
@# 4 kindler
I totally agree, and regarding Prince Andrei being this “this sad, lonely man,” just keep on reading. Tolstoy will get inside his head in the next parts. You will get a lot of insight regarding his lonely ways.
@# 7 sad_ism
I liked Denisov too, and you will like him all the way. Mme Bourienne is ho-hum. I am rooting for Princess Marya because of her quiet resolutions and profound loneliness. And all that grief locked inside her. The princess should hit that Bourienne at the back of the head with one of her religious icons. That should serve her right.
And yeah, kinilig din ako sa dance scene na yun. Teka, there are many dance scenes pala, haha. At sa elov aegilnrt blahblahblah…
February 25th, 2011 at 15:34
Finally, I’ve reached the awkward culmination of Pierre’s courtship. I’ve never liked Prince Vassily, but I just had to laugh out loud at his screw-this-imma-get-Pierre move. Hah.
February 25th, 2011 at 15:37
Also, can I just say that I love Russian nicknames? I am naming my next gadget Nikolenka. Or Alyosha.
February 26th, 2011 at 17:23
In the past three weeks that I have been reading “War and Peace”, I have learned that it is best not to worry about how many more pages that I have yet to read. I only get discouraged when I am reminded that I have barely covered half of the book. I have decided to simply enjoy the world that Tolstoy had created at my own pace. Hopefully, I’ll still finish it within the duration of the challenge.
Tolstoy’s prose is engaging by itself. It is inherently a page-turner. Even as the story shifts between ‘War’ and ‘Peace, it still manages to maintain my undivided attention. Whether Tolstoy is elucidating on Kolya’s man-crush on Alexander:
‘‘As there’s no one to fall in love with on the campaign, he’s fallen in love with the Tsar,’’
or narrating the dissolution of Pierre’s marriage, he had me anxiously anticipating what would happen next.
At this point, I have every intention of seeing this to the end.