War and Peace Readalong thread 2022

Chapter 6, part 1:
At Home With The Bolkonskys:
Woah this is a seriously messed up marriage.
Andrei seems to find Lise’s company intolerable. Lise, painfully aware of this, is insecure and needy and the needier she becomes the less he can bear to be around her.
Lise begs Andrei to reconsider leaving her and St Petersburg for the army, Andrei becomes increasingly angry and impatient with her until she is reduced to tears and can only fearfully gaze at her husband “her face [wearing] the timid, apologetic look of a dog wagging its drooping tail quickly but without much confidence.”
(On a side note I’m gratified that, as well as the abused puppy imagery, Tolstoy describes Lise as ‘squirrel-like’ twice in this chapter. I was definitely on the right rodent lines with chipmunk.)
This distressing scene is all played out in front of Pierre who’s wishing the ground would swallow him up.
Eventually Lise, realising she’s getting nowhere with the “Don’t go to war, don’t send me away to the country to your mad dad and sad sister” schtick, makes her excuses, and leaves the boys to some serious bonding time.
Once they are alone Andrei pours his heart out to his good friend Pierre. (I am at a bit of a loss as to when Pierre and Andrei became so close given that we found out in the last chapter that Pierre’s been out of the country since he was 10, but maybe all will become clear.) Andrei embarks upon a seriously lengthy anti marriage rant, including but not limited to the following nuggets of wisdom:
“Never, never get married, my dear fellow, that’s my advice to you.”

“Marry when you’re old and good for nothing … Otherwise everything good and noble in you will be finished.”

“what wouldn’t I give now to be an unmarried man!”

“you tie yourself to a woman and you’ll lose all your freedom, like a convict in fetters. And all the hope and strength there is in you just drags you down and tortures you with regret. Drawing-rooms, gossip, balls, vanity, vacuous nonsense–that’s the vicious circle I’m stuck in.”

“If you only knew what these fine women are, or let’s say women in general! My father’s right. Selfish, vain, stupid, totally vacuous–that’s what women are when they show themselves in their true colours. You see them out in society, you think there might be something there, but no, there’s nothing, nothing. Don’t get married, my dear fellow, just don’t!’”

Sounds to me like Andrei is a teeny tiny bit misogynistic and possibly inherited it from Daddy dearest. Frankly Lise should be considering herself better off without him.

Rant over Andrei turns to Pierre and basically says ‘but enough about me what about you?’

Thanks for your kind words cassandra & Fuzzy & StColumbo.
I've found the BBC War & Peace adaptation on an obscure tv channel called Alibi. Ive watched it before (three times I think) But because I don't want to get ahead of where we are in the book this time around I've only watched the first five minutes so far
Chapter 6 packs a lot in (a lot of stupid as Columbo says ) I'm splitting my verbosity into two parts! Mainly because I haven't tackled the end of the chapter yet!

If you want something else to read alongside your daily chapter, I recommend this:
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B071N9ZG1V/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?tag=mumsnetforu03-21&ie=UTF8&qid=1641461290&sr=8-23
It's NOT a calendar (which is how Amazon has categorized it) but a collection of thoughts and quotes compiled and commented on by Tolstoy.

Pierre has gone way down in my estimation.

Chapter 6 done.

I CANNOT wait for today’s potted history. So much stupid!

I think I need to read something else too, @StColumbofNavron - otherwise I'll keep getting ahead!

I think the thread will slow down as a PP said so the exact breakdown will become less obvious I think. I am enjoying the 10 mins or so before my day starts reading each chapter. I do have an urge to read on but am not letting myself - helps that I am reading other things too so can’t really.

BakeOffRewatch not a millennial but very close! May explain a few things though...
MamaNewtNewt it really was, wasn't it? Unfortunately it's not on iplayer, was looking forward to a rewatch.
I'm enjoying the chapters I've read so far, just hope it doesn't become more of a slog when we get to the war chapters.

Totally agree about Andrei being depressed, either that or he’s just a miserable sod. I suspect I also cut the character some slack because of the association with James Norton (swoon!) and his clear affection for Pierre. I just love the character of Pierre, he may be a bear but he’s just a big, sweet teddy bear with no guile or artifice.

The BBC series really was superbly cast, I thought Paul Dano was amazing as was pretty much everyone.

Cassandre

crazyjing, I did like the style of Briggs. In fact my original plan today was to keep reading the Briggs translation, but keep the Pevear/Volokhonsky one alongside it in order to check whether I was missing any French. I soon realised that this would involve holding TWO thousand-page tomes up in bed, so was not physically practicable.

I had chosen the Briggs translation (Penguin) just because I already owned it, and I found the language of the first chapters to be very lively and readable, but it drove me crazy that the French bits weren't there (since I read French, and would quite like to read the French bits in French).

Same here, but I've decided to stick with the Briggs because I'm finding it very readable. I'm just at the end of Chapter 14.

I wouldn't care to have that weighty tome fall on my face as I nod off in bed, Cassandre

you’re not alone ChessieFL , there seem to be loads of flavours of Maude, I’m reading a different one to you and thought I was the only one totally out of step - where everyone else is is still mid chapter 1 for my edition! I think if you divide the number of pages in your book 1 by the number of days we’re reading it over it’s a fairly steady pace!?

Wow, this thread is moving so fast already. Thank you Viking for all the brilliant resources, including the article about different translations, and thank you Desdemona for your witty summaries!

I had chosen the Briggs translation (Penguin) just because I already owned it, and I found the language of the first chapters to be very lively and readable, but it drove me crazy that the French bits weren't there (since I read French, and would quite like to read the French bits in French). So I switched to Pevear and Volokhonsky (Vintage Classics) today. My impression is that it's a slightly more literal translation than Briggs, but I don't mind that. My decision was slightly influenced by the fact that it was the only translation available in my local bookshop, ha. But it's a very good bookshop, and they usually stock the editions recommended for the uni students.

Also, the book itself is nicer to hold than the Penguin edition -- slightly larger print, and the pages turn easily. I'm still going to have to get used to holding up a thousand-page tome in bed though. Either that or take the plunge into Kindle, which I've never tried!

The women characters are interesting so far. I like the way the book starts out in medias res, and the amusing similes about Anna's party: how she keeps all the spindles moving, serves up famous guests like a joint of beef, etc.

I haven't made up my mind about Andrei yet. He certainly seems far more passionate about Pierre than about his wife. Maybe he's gay? And Ippolit is clearly a buffoon.

Hi Viking - yes I saw the blog and realised that different editions have different chapters, but I was expecting everyone to be slightly out of step with each other and it seems to be just me out of step with everyone else! I’m happy to stick with my version now I’ve paid for it - and it’s quite helpful having everyone else’s interpretation before I read it as it points things out I might otherwise miss!

I’ve got the Maude translation.

Andrei is definitely coming across as a bit of a git.

My copy’s behind again, my chapter 5 seems to have been everyone else’s chapter 4!

Hippolyte is so creepy. If I caught him staring at me through his lorgnette, he would get a jab of my embroidery needle!

I’m wondering if the only reason Lise is putting up with it, is a hope that seeing other men flirting with her will make Andrey pay her some attention.

Yes makes me think of an idiot ex boyfriend in the early 80's that used to swan around in a full length leather coat 😂 He was a right Hippolyte!