Vol I Part Three, Ch IX Preparing for the Battle

Today I'm actually about 30 pages from the end of the book, but woefully behind on blogging.

Again, my aim is not to summarize the book (others have done that, check the links over to the left) nor to give my opinion (that a dime won't get you on the bus), but to read as a writer-- both for myself and for my writing students. What does it mean to read as a writer? To me this means asking where and why does it work and where and why does it not.

So... back to where I was reading last month, round about p. 248, this chapter loosely focussed on the disadvantaged but upwardly striving Boris in the context of the preparations for battle.

It's feeling slow, weighed down with too much detail (well, heck, Tolstoy is writing about an 80,000 man army)... Boris seems a puppet put here to illustrate something larger.

Vol I, Part Three, Ch VII: Still at War, Some Light Comedy Amidst the Gore & Politics

The narcissistic Nikolai Rostov at war. Boris the striver. Berg the tediously conventional.

p. 242 "To tell the truth is very difficult, and young men are rarely capable of it."

There's God speaking again.

Vol I, Part One, Ch XV-XXI: Pierre

It's getting intensely rich, very soap-operay but the prose is vivid and poetic. All the getting used to so many characters pays off here. As Count Bezuhov lays dying, the scheming Prince Vassily meets his match in Anna Mikhailovna, while in the background, clueless bear-like Pierre, once Count Bezukhov's illegitimate son, now becomes-- thanks to Anna Mikhailovna--- the legitimate son and heir to vast expanses of land and legions of serfs-- and the most eligible bachelor in all of Russia, it seems.

Vol I, Part One, XII-XIII Bezukhov is Dying

Anna Mikhailovna has got to be one of the most Dickensian characters in here. A mouse-like schemer. Penniless, always looking out for her son, Boris, in the most shameless way... she goes to visit the dying Bezukhov, to see if she can get some money, and she finds there Prince Vassily, who is expecting to inherit everything.

p. 51 "The prince [Vassily] apparently realized, as at Annette Scherer's soirée, that it was difficult to get rid of Anna Mikhailovna."

What strikes me: such fine dialogue.

"I live at the countess Rostov's," said Boris, again, adding, "Your Excellency."

"It's that Ilya Rostov who married Natalie Shinshin," said Anna Mikhailovna.

"I know, I know," said Prince Vassily in his monotone voice. "Je n'ai jamais pu concevoir comment Natalie s'est décidée à épouser cet ours mal-léché! Un personnage complètement stupide et ridicule. Et jouer a ce quón dit."

Prince Vassily... makes me think of Vaseline.

Vol I, Part One, IX- XI: Natasha Loves Boris, Sonya Loves Nikolai, Vera has a Story

Yet more characters, yet more complications... and who will get Count Bezukhov's money, Peirre or Prince Vassily? It's turning into All My Children.

Nice use of dialogue. The last line of Chapter IX:

"What manners! They sat and sat!" said the countess, after seeing the guests off.

Vol. I, Part One, VII: Enter Boris

Pictured left, Barry Jones (1893-1981), who played the elder Count Rostov in the 1956 movie.

By the way... I am not attempting to summarize the book as I go-- you can find a handy summary in a number of places, including at the back of the novel itself; here, I am simply offering my reactions as a reader and writer. In other words, I am not, as one blogger suggested (but it did make me laugh), "reading War & Peace so you don't have to."

So, I'm on page 35 and by this point I've made a larger investment than I would for most books-- having to keep track of a constant stream of new characters and their mult-layered and interwoven relationships doesn't make this novel a candidate for easy "beach reading." But I'm in. It feels like a whole world has opened... I even feel the bud of an ambition to start learning Russian.

The portrait Tolstoy offers of the happy go-lucky Count Rostov is a delight:

"Having seen off a guest, the count would return to the gentleman or lady who was still in the drawing room; moving up an armchair, and with the look of a man who loves life and knows how to live it, spreading his legs dashingly and putting his hands on his knees, he would sway significantly, offer his surmises about the weather, discuss health, sometimes in Russian, sometimes in very poor but self-confident French, and again, with the look of a man weary but firm in the fulfillment of his duty, would go see people off, smoothing the thin gray hair over his bald spot, and again invite them to dinner."

That use of body language is marvelous. In my writing workshops I am forever pointing out that people do more than nod, smile, and shrug.

I gather young Boris, whose mother is looking out for him, will become an important character. The burning question, meanwhile: who will inherit Bezukhov's fortune, Pierre or Prince Vassily?

I am eagerly reading...