Tackling War and Peace -- with Mixed Results

Title: War and Peace

Author: Leo Tolstoy 

 

Widely considered Tolstoy's finest literary achievement. War and Peace is a weighty tome that combines a fictional narrative with Tolstoy's considerations on history and philosophy. Originally published as a serial beginning in 1865, the novel was published as a whole in 1869.  Five aristocratic families, around whom swirl the Napoleonic Wars and the French invasion of Russia, form the bones of the story. Tolstoy himself said that War and Peace is "not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less a historical chronicle."

 

A Somewhat Challenging Discussion

 

Typically, our group eagerly devours our book club selection but this month, not so much. Some read the book in its entirety, some dipped a toe in and bailed, some tried to listen to an audio book, and some didn't read it at all. Consequently, the discussion was less rigorous than was customary, but we forged ahead anyway.

An Opening Quote that Resonated

Jocey opened with a timely passage from Professor Gary Saul Morsen's recent article in Northwestern Magazine entitled "Lessons from Great Russian Novelists." Morsen states:

"In my forthcoming book on the Russian literary and political tradition, Wonder Confronts Certainty, I explore the positions Russian writers took on issues that will always matter. Does life have a meaning, and if so, what is it? If the universe is wholly explicable in terms of material cause and effect, are right and wrong mere conventions, or do they have some objective basis? How do people avoid taking responsibility for their actions (or inaction)? Are the most important moments of life the dramatic ones we all notice or the countless ordinary ones, including the tiniest movements of consciousness, that we overlook precisely because they are so ordinary? 

Tolstoy, for instance, insisted that life is a matter of “tiny, tiny alterations,” that goodness really exists and is seen most often in the small acts of kindness available at every moment, and that people too often use great theories about life and society as an alibi to avoid taking individual responsibility."

 

Insights and Opinions

+ Both Linda and Liz had finished the book and so carried the lion's share of the discussion. Liz has read it three times, at three different stages in her life, with each reading many years apart. Linda read it for the first time and found herself slowing at the end, to savor the last pages.

+ Liz's first read was as a college freshman. Too busy to read it along with the rest of her studies and too wound up in feminist leanings, she dismissed Tolstoy as a mysogynist, skipped over the battles, and wondered why Natasha was such a boob. (Don't read it when you're 17. Give it some years). Reading it again at 45, she was able to understand it, be patient with it, and acknowledge it for the masterpiece that it is. Finally, reading it now for book club, she noted the similarities between the Russian nobles' view of war as the search for glory and awards combined with love for the Tsar as if he were a god and the current disorganized, imperialistic debacle that is the Russian attack on Ukraine.

+ What Linda appreciates most about this work is this: it's a great story, universal in many ways, in the way the marriages are portrayed and in the business of war and what it is that makes us kill each other.

+ Tolstoy's philosophical speeches are a bit of a slog and interrupt the narrative. Both Linda and Liz felt they were unnecessary as Tolstoy's message comes through clearly in the narrative passages. But it's obvious these interrupting sections exist because they are Tolstoy's purpose in writing this book and he wants to make sure the reader gets it. We do, Leo, we do.

+ Pierre, the constant seeker for truth, and the taker of many faulty paths along the way, may in fact be the voice of Tolstoy.

+ There are many translations of War and Peace, some much better than others. Liz felt that the version she had was sub-par as the language in many places was clunky and off-putting.

+ Hiding within the text are instructive examples of what life was like for Russian aristocrats at the time -- copious smashing of glassware at banquets with an offhand "after the servants cleared the broken glass," endless servants helping aristocrats on or off with their overcoats, Pierre's first meeting with the Masons when he takes off his fur coat "without the help of servants."

+ Recommendations from those who read it and loved it: Secure a good translation. Read it. Take your time with it when there's no deadline. It's well worth your time.

Steve Wilbers' Book is Alive!

Kudos to Steve Wilbers for his new book, Persuasive Communication for Science and Technology Leaders, published by IEEE Press. 

 

What We Are Reading Next

Our next session will be June 19, 2023, at Linda's. We will read two books by Claire Keegan: Foster and Small Things Like These. Both of these, Margy assures us, are short.