War and Peace - thoughts…
First of all, don’t be intimidated by Tolstoy. He writes beautifully and in a non-complicated, unpretentious way. The only thing intimidating about Tolstoy is the sheer volume of his cast of characters and the length of his tomes. They are so worth the endeavor.
War and Peace is an epic story following the lives of three Russian Society Families during the invasion of Napoleon’s army in 1812 and through the emotional and physical devastation of war, their spiritual evolution.
The greatest novel of all time?
Well, if this is true, it is because the characters are the richest, most flawed, realistic, complete and complex characters possibly ever written (bold statement, I realize.) Tolstoy completes almost every character from the smallest to the largest. Every image is vivid, every emotion is felt. He takes you there.The scenes are set - you can smell the smoke in the air and the blossoms on the trees. You can feel the coldness of the prisons and the heat from the fires.
He writes, “But the sun stood high in the sky, veiled by a pall of smoke, and ahead of them, especially on the left, over by Semyonovsjm the smoke was alive with movement, and the glamour of cannon and musket, far from dying away, was getting louder, in mounting desperation, like a man in terrible agony putting all his effort into one last scream.” (Volume III, Book II, Chapter 32 Briggs)
War and Peace is a deep search for redemption and enlightenment. I seem to be attracted to stories involving this particular quest.
The story opens at a gathering of Russia’s aristocracy. We are immediately introduced to nearly every important character in the story. Pierre Bezukhov is the illegitimate son of Count Bezoukhov who shortly dies leaving Pierre his vast fortune. Pierre marries Helene, believing he loves her but soon finds that was a grave mistake. Helene is a despicable, incredibly unlikable young woman.
We are introduced to Prince Andrey Bolkonsky, a serious and unhappy young man, married to a woman he does not appreciate who is pregnant with his child. He soon leaves for war, leaving his young wife to have the child on her own. I immediately rejected Prince Andrey for this selfishness and complete disregard and lack of responsibility for his beautiful young wife. Prince Andrey is equally important to the story - his transformation is profound and perhaps I will write about it one day - maybe on a re-read - and for some he will be the favorite - the war hero.
We are also introduced to Natasha Rostov. She becomes more important later…but not to me.
My experience reading the first 100 - 200 pages was one of effort - just trying to figure out who everyone was, why and how they were connected and what was their current trajectory or mission. There were so many characters - all of them deeply and richly drawn - that I found in order for me to connect, I had to focus on only the characters I was immediately connected to. In the beginning, this was Pierre.
“Pierre was ungainly, stout, quite tall and possessed of huge red hands. It was said of him that he had no idea how to enter a drawing room and was worse still and withdrawing from one, or saying something nice as he left. He was also absent-minded….But all his absent-mindedness and his inability to enter a drawing-room or talk properly once inside it were redeemed by his expression of good-natured simplicity and modesty.”
I immediately loved him and never stopped. The pages I turned were to get to his next scene. Pierre experienced by far the most growth yet stayed the same inside whereas Prince Andrey seemed to have changed inside completely - when it was too late.
Pierre Bezukhov is the undeserving heir of a vast fortune but a deeply good human. He’s a bit of a doofus, or at least comes across that way to me - just bumbling from one altruistic endeavor after another. He duels, he loses at love, he becomes a freemason, he becomes a land baron (unsuccessfully - realizing that throwing money at a problem does not always solve the problem but often makes it worse). Pierre’s quest is to find meaning in an occupied country filled with death, finally finding the enlightenment he so desperately sought while being held captive by the French. It is in his captivity where he meets my second favorite character, who appears so briefly but leaves an unforgettable stain; Platon Karatayev.
Pierre is captured by the French while saving a little girl from a burning building. It is in his captivity that he meets Platon. This time of captivity and this meeting and friendship with Platon is life transforming for Pierre. He has been on this quest for peace within himself and has failed and failed again in his efforts to find it…then he meets Platon; a man with nothing - who seems to have everything.
Karatayev …”His face, for all its web of rounded wrinkles, shone with the innocence of youth, and his voice had a pleasant lilt. But the great thing about his way of talking was its spontaneity and shrewdness. Clearly, he never thought over what he had said or worked out what he was going to say, and this gave his sharp utterances a ring of truth and a special stamp of irresistible persuasiveness.” …. Every night as he lay down to sleep he said, “Lord, make me lie down like a stone and rise like new bread.”, and ever morning when he got up he would stretch his shoulders always in the same way and say, “Sleep deep, wake with a shake”. Platon is the kind of character that I am drawn to in that he is mysteriously optimistic and happy despite where he finds himself in this dreadful world, this unimaginable human condition - yet Tolstoy does imagine it - and he makes it real for us - and he made this sweet character real for me.
“Karatayev enjoyed no attachments, no friendships, no love in any sense of these words that meant anything to Pierre, yet he loved and showed affection to every creature he came across in life, especially people, no particular people, just those who happened to be there before his eyes.” Volume IV, Part I, Chapter 13.
This brief meeting, this friendship was deeply transformative for Pierre. Tolstoy wrote this character, Karateyev, with such humanity and sympathy - that he stays with you … he just stays with you. It has been nearly a year since I finished this book and I still think about him sometimes - as if he is a memory of someone I have known that is gone.
Pierre is transformed - without giving you a play by play…things happen and we witness the profound evolution of this flawed human.
“Pierre now saw the absence of suffering and the satisfaction of our basic needs, followed up by the freedom to choose an occupation, or lifestyle, as the highest and most dependable form of human happiness. It was only here and now that Pierre had fully appreciated for the first time in his life the enjoyment of eating when you are hungry, drinking when you are thirsty, sleeping when you are tired, keeping warm when it is cold and talking to a fellow creature when you feel like talking and wanting to hear mens voices.” (Volume IV, Part II, Chapter 12)
That is the thing with War and Peace. It sticks with you. The vivid settings, painted for you by a master of words. The human characters, written for you like a professor of the human condition - with a deep and true understanding of our strengths and failings and our struggle to find meaning in a difficult but beautiful world.
