700-800

Pages 700-800 (so far) are SO BORING.

Think Moby Dick–the middle pages.

Think Les Miserables–the middle pages.

I don’t care about Napoleon’s war strategies.  I just don’t.  If this is the thing that keeps me from finishing this summer, I’m writing Tolstoy a nasty letter.  Grrrrrrrrrrr.

12 Miles An Hour

There is a great scene when the Rostovs celebrate Christmas and go out  with the mummers.  They talk about how they race the horses across the fields and down the roads.  Later Dolokhov and Anatole talk about their driver Balaga and how he likes to drive the horses as fast as he can and sometimes drives them to death.  I was wondering how fast he drove them.  On page 583  Tolstoy describes their “mad rides at twelve miles an hour.”  Is that all the faster they are going?

Beat, Goth, Emo, Melancholy

Ben saw a bunch of kids going to a Nine Inch Nails concert.  Being the original human beings that they believed themselves to be, they were dressed in black with long black hair, thick eyeliner, and other heavy paraphernalia.  Because NOBODY is capable of understanding the woe in their lives, that is except Nine Inch Nails, they cherish their moments with him.

Julie Karagin, as one of the richest prospects in Russian society, has made melancholy fashionable in her time.  On page 549, Tolstoy gives a great description of her melancholy attitude and actions.  “She adopted the tone of a girl who has lived through a great disappointment . . . This melancholy, which did not keep her from making merry, also did not keep the young people who visited her from passing the time pleasantly. . . . Only some of the young men. . . entered more deeply into Julie’s melancholy mood, and with these young men she had more prolonged and solitary conversations on the vanity of worldy things. . . “ 

Especially because these groups are trying to get out of the mainstream, which I guess they are away from the main mainstream, I find it ironic that 1) the trend exists for every generation and 2) was prevalent enough for Tolstoy to make a comment on it way back when.  Does the melancholy crowd grow out of it and realize that they weren’t really all that original or misunderstood?

A Nice Sentence

Page 421

“Prince Andrei got up and went to open the window.  As soon as he opened the shutters, moonlight, as if it had been watching at the window a long time waiting for that, burst into the room.”

Not only is it a beautiful personification of nature but it captures Prince Andrei’s state perfectly. 

I was moved.

Ceremonies

I just read in Newsweek or Time or Redbook or somewhere official an article about the two women behind the Republican National Convention and Democratic National Convention that are coming up next month.  They both said that they’d worked 10-12 hours/day for months already and as the events are just around the corner, they will work 14-16 hour days.  That’s a lot of work to go into a convention.  And I understand that potentially this event could go down in history if something singular happens at the convention or to your candidate so you’ve got to be prepared.   But that’s a lot of work.  And then I thought of things like the Emmys and Grammys and MTV Retardedest Teenager Awards and considered all of the preparatory work that goes into them.

On page 414 (I’ve taken to dog-earing pages for future posts) Rostov describes a ceremony that took place with Napoleon.   Napoleon wanted to give a ribbon and silver medal to the bravest Russian soldier.  Neither Alexander nor Kozlovsky was expecting this.  They looked around and Kozlovsky (the commander/general/guy in charge of the soldiers) picked some guy named Lazarev.  Lazarev had no idea that his name would be called and didn’t know what to do.  He started to walk forward and then stopped only when his comrades told him to not make a fool of himself.   Then he just stood there looking at Napoleon until Napoleon turned his horse around and rode away.  I thought that it must have been a funny scene.  Then later it talks about how Alexander had to scrounge up some award to give to some unsuspecting Frenchman. 

The contrast between the War and Peace ceremony and the Grammys, for instance, was shocking.  Months of preparation or a whim.  Several famous and politically correct nominees for each award decked out in designer frocks or some guy.  Prepared acceptance speeches or awkward roaming and rambling.  A 3 hour tv special or an impromptu 15 minutes. 

I don’t think Napoleon was such a bad guy after all!

Like Coming Home

Volume II Part Two Chapter XV

Rostov left his family to go to the army.  He went on leave from the army and went home to his family for a while.  Then he came back to the army.  On page 395 Tolstoy describes his feelings: “As Rostov approached the regiment, he experienced a feeling similar to what he had experienced on approaching his house on Pavorskaya.  When he saw the first hussar in the unbuttoned uniform of his regiment, he recognized the red-haired Dementyev, saw the red-coated hoarses at the tethering rail, when Lavrushka shouted joyfully to his master; ‘The count’s here!’–and the disheveled Denisov, who had been asleep in bed, came running out of the dugout, embraced him, and the officers gathered around him, Rostov experienced the same feeling as when his mother, father, and sisters had embraced him . . .”

I think that is such an excellent description of a obsequious human experience.  Remember when you spent the night with your girlfriends as an 8 year old?  It was so much fun but at about 10:00 or 12:00 or 2:00 the next day, you just wanted to go home.  Remember your first semester at college or not living with Ma and Pa?  You spent all semester waiting to go home at Christmas.  Then you spent all Christmas vacation waiting to go home–back to college.  Then unpacking your bag in your dingy little apartment was such a relief, getting back to your life. 

That paragraph was so powerful to me because I felt that way every time I went home. I feel so excited when I get to Clark Canyon Dam, 20 miles south of Dillon.  I feel like I’m already home and can barely stand it until I actually get HOME.  Then about YPG, I feel the same way. I get the same anticipation as a kid on Christmas morning.  I feel like I’m home and I can’t wait to set foot in my dingy little apartment.

French

When writing about the French, one should choose a bright color.

This is just a little comment.  I think that French back then is like English now.  It’s the language everyone learns to communicate across borders.

Oui?

Love of a Sovereign

Rostov is in love with Alexander.  I wonder how pervasive this was to all the Russians.  After Alexander meets Rostov face to face (Volume I Part Three Chapter X), he falls in love with him.  “He was indeed in love with the tsar, and the with the glory of Russian arms and with the hope of future triumph.  And he was not the only one who experienced that feeling in those memorable days . . .”  Denisov, who I think in German, feels the same way toward Alexander. 

On the surrounding pages, Tolstoy talks about how Alexander sees the dead and wounded.  He’s sickened and “the news spread[s] that he [is] unwell.”  Everyone, even on the battlefield, is put on hold until Alexander is well enough to continue.  Prince Andrei wonders if he is willing to die so that that man can continue to live the life that he lives and have what he’s accustomed to. 

As I read all of this adoration, I was thinking how different our attitude is toward our sovereign. If I met Bush (or Clinton or McCain or the other Clinton or anyone that high profile) I would probably tell the story until I died because it would be such a major event in my life.  But for now, the general attitude for the president is not one of adoration.  We don’t believe that they deserve special treatment or a special lifestyle.  Remember the conflict when Obama allegedly made comments about the unwashed masses.  We didn’t like that very much, did we.

We don’t fight wars for them but for ourselves.  We fight so that we can live in freedom and enjoy peace and prosperity.  We don’t fight so that our aristocracy can live well (at least not consciously).  We are a people of the people. 

The people of this book (and I realize that all of the main characters are aristocarcy) do what they do in order to maintain an aristocracy.  Even the lower classes acknowledge the superiority and the superior rights of the rich. 

We teach that every life is as valuable as every other life.  I don’t think that anyone really believes that–not really. I mean, if you had to choose to save a random someone over your family members or over someone famous, who would you choose?  Who would people expect you to choose.  But we preach that we’re all equal.

These Russians don’t believe that at all.

Physical Descriptions

So, I’ve been thinking as I’ve been reading about the detailed physical descriptions LT is using to talk about his characters.  I often don’t know what he’s talking about because I don’t know what it means to have an “austere nose” or a “noble brow.”  As far as picturing the people, I’m completely relying on my imagination, with a few helpers out there such as a “dark aspect” and “fat.”  I can understand those ones.  He often describes the women as well proportioned–which means what to a Russian? or having a long waist or high hairstyle.  Again, I’m not sure if it is good or bad to have a long waist.  I suppose it would depend on whether that waist were shaped like mine or shaped like18-year-old Britney Spears’.

Then I got thinking about why he uses those kinds of descriptions and realized that without instant picture messaging, one would have to be able to describe the charming prince to the girl living a distant 100 miles away.  I’m sure they had a vocabulary for describing people that was accurate and useful.  If you ask me what someone looks like, I’d say something like, “She’s tall and has short brown hair and brown eyes.  She is really thin and looked great in those jeans.”  I don’t think I would know how to describe a nose or neck or a waistline so that it was very meaningful to anyone.

Changes

I’ve changed the thingy to represent the cold, austere Russian with the gray and the “society” with the Fleur.

**Jenna