War and Peace readalong thread 2022 - thread 3

I know - Napoleon's opponents seem to have made a habit of it, thinking of the Duchess of Richmond's ball the night before Waterloo...

I reckon they were hungover after the ball... I mean, who throws a ball in the middle of active service - madness!

10/10/22

Volume 4, Part 2, Chapter 5

• It’s October 5. Battle day. Kutuzov gets up, prays for victory, and goes outside.

•	He sees...nothing at all. Nothing has been prepared, no one is marching anywhere, soldiers are just hanging out.

•	Kutuzov loses it and screams at everyone.

•	The generals gather, apologize, and say that they’ll just try to do the attack the next day. Mulligan, we guess.

Yes! I agree. Bagration featured prominently in the early part of the book.
He deserved more than a dismissive relative clause!

I'm feeling a bit jaded at the moment with the war tactics. More focus on the characters please!

09/10/22

Volume 4, Part 2, Chapter 4

•	The attack is all set for October 5. On the 4th everyone is getting ready.

•	One messenger is sent to find General Ermolov to give him the orders. The messenger can’t find him anywhere. When he finally does, Ermolov is mad. Turns out, he disappeared on purpose in order to somehow make some other top commander look bad. It’s hard to know exactly how, but the basic point is that these guys who are supposed to be leaders are just having petty slap flights among themselves.

I was a bit 🙁 when Bagration was just dismissed in the text as 'who'd died'.. I mean, I know we already knew that but he was such a major figure in the first part of the war and so well respected, it seemed a bit, I don't know, throwaway - like he was just another soldier.

Not sure why I feel so protective of him - it's ridiculous - but he deserves better than that!

08/10/22

Volume 4, Part 2, Chapter 3

•	Lots of new guys get appointed to high positions in the Russian army. Mostly there’s just in-fighting and politics and general backstabbiness. Which is fine, according to Tolstoy, since none of these men have anything to do with anything anyway.

•	Meanwhile, Emperor Alexander writes Kutuzov a letter asking why the army isn't attacking the French. He's a little grumpy.

•	But by the time this letter arrives, there’s already been a battle between the two armies – mostly because Kutuzov can’t hold anyone off anymore.

•	Basically, a Russian soldier who’s out on patrol at Tarutino just happens to run into the left flank of General Murat’s forces. He comes back, the story gets up to the highest ranks, and from then on it’s a foregone conclusion that they'll fight.

Yes 😂

Schmoop has a great turn of phrase...

Kutuzov is all, talk to the hand.

😆

07/10/22

Volume 4, Part 2, Chapter 2

•	You’ve got to give it to Kutuzov. Not that he planned the strategy or anything like that, but he did have the bigger vision that the French army was hopelessly wounded. And he had the patience to just let the chips fall where they may instead of doing anything rash.

•	Tolstoy compares him to a good hunter who knows when his prey is badly wounded and just waits for it to die.

•	Napoleon, meanwhile, writes Kutuzov a letter asking for a meeting to start wrapping things up. It’s hard to tell, but we think he means that the Russians should surrender.

•	Kutuzov is all, talk to the hand.

•	Sure enough, over the course of the next month the Russian army slowly gains men and strength while the French army loses them...which is just when the Russian army starts itching for a fight.

Forgot to check in yesterday - I fell behind for a bit in this section owing to Robert Galbraith but caught up. Was glad to return from battlefields to drawing rooms and even the sick bed this section.

Id assumed Helène was somehow immune to unwanted pregnancy so her demise came as a bit of a plot twist.

Poor Sonya, even though I’m not a huge Nicholas fan.

It's a recurring theme for sure...
Just in case you missed it first and second time round!

Yes SanFran I was thinking the same!

Feel like this has been done to death a little, Mr Tolstoy... we get it - not one man, not one decision, lots of luck involved - let's get back to the people, please!

06/10/22

Volume 4, Part 2, Chapter 1

1812
• Again we start off with a big, zoomed-out view of what actually happened after the battle of Borodino, what the historians say happened, and Tolstoy’s ideas about the whole great-man style of historical writing.

•	Again, those ideas are that the great-man-directing-events version of history is a lot of hooey. Instead, it’s obvious to Tolstoy that there are an infinite number of things that cause events to happen. So many that we can’t even wrap our heads around it.
•	
•	After the battle of Borodino and the burning of Moscow, the Russian army retreated and then moved to the south to get to the supply-rich cities there. This is viewed as a totally brilliant strategy by historians, since it blocked the French from getting resupplied. But for Tolstoy, it was just the most obvious “duh” kind of move, undeserving of praise. After all, if you’ve got an army that needs supplies, where else are you going to go?

•	By tacking south instead of straight east, the Russian army actually managed to somehow lose the French, who were supposed to be marching after it. For Tolstoy, this is pretty much pure luck, more attributable to French incompetence than Russian achievement. So stop patting yourselves on the back about it, he says.

•	In any case, the move only seems clever in hindsight. Any number of things could have happened instead of what actually did happen. What if the French hadn’t lost the Russian army? What if Napoleon had decided to attack Petersburg? It’s all just blind luck when you think about it that way.

I know we were prepared for it, but, aw...Andrei 😓

Oh no 😥

05/10/22
Volume 4, Part 1, Chapter 16

•	OK, now we're going to back up and see what the heck happened to Andrei.

•	A few days before Marya arrived, everything was fine. Andrei was happy to be near Natasha, and there was love here, love there, love everywhere.

•	All this love made him fight for his life and try to overpower the overwhelming feeling of wanting to sink into the universal love he was feeling in the medic tent – which apparently is the feeling of wanting to die.

•	One night, though, after some nice love talk with Natasha, Andrei has a weird dream. He’s fighting against a door; it keeps trying to open and he’s trying to keep it closed. The more he struggles, the harder it is. And then he realizes that death is behind the door. He lets the door open and dies.

•	Well, in his dream he dies. In real life he wakes up and realizes that he needs to just let go and die, since he’s already half-dead anyway.

•	Or something. Seriously, guys, it’s so convoluted. But you know, for some reason Andrei wants to die.

•	From that night on, Andrei slowly but steadily slips away from life and those who are living around him.

•	His final hours are spent with Natasha and Marya by his side. They are peaceful and quiet.

•	After his death, his body is laid out and everyone cries for him in his or her own way.

•	For Pete’s sake. This novel is way depressing all of a sudden. Maybe it’s time for another stress-relief break. Go outside with a frisbee or something. Yikes.

Agreed. I was thinking of sepsis too. I'm surprised Andrei lasted this long with such severe injuries, really.

I think that, in those days of less medical knowledge, you wouldn't always know exactly why someone had died. But the person themselves might have a sense that death was around the corner (without really understanding the medical reasons for it). I assume it's sepsis or similar?

Oh no

Oh, poor little Nikolay...

And I'm not sure I fully understand what is happening either Andrey.. had he jisy resigned himself to death as it sounds like, medically, he'd turned a corner? Or he hadn't and its now just hit him?

And I think I've got used to authors doing the annoying accent thing as, even though I'm reading Briggs, I've not noticed it in a while (not since some of the war sections where an Austrians speech was being totally bastardised??) I really don't like it though so am surprised it's not standing out to me anymore...?

04/10/22
Volume 4, Part 1, Chapter 15

•	It turns out that two days ago, Andrei had kind of given up and become all soft and strange.

•	When Marya goes to see him, he asks about her and answers her questions in a totally flat, weird, alien voice, without any emotion or inflection at all.

•	Andrei has clearly disconnected himself from the living. He makes a bit of an effort to see his son and to pretend like he sort of cares about Moscow burning down, but he is just not there anymore.

•	Nikolushka, who is only seven, is somehow able to understand what’s happening with his dad and Marya and Natasha. After leaving the room, he hugs Natasha and starts to cry.

03/10/22
Volume 4, Part 1, Chapter 14

•	As soon as she hears that Andrei is with the Rostovs, Marya takes off for the city of Yaroslav.

•	It’s a hard trip, because the most direct road is in French hands, but Marya is full of energy, and she makes it in under two weeks.

•	Although she is very happy about Nikolai, feeling that he loves her as much as she loves him, she pushes all of this aside with the stress about Andrei.

•	In Yaroslav, she finds the house where the Rostovs are staying. No one will say how her brother is doing, so she goes straight to the house.

•	She first runs into the Countess, who starts to hug her. Marya is going crazy wanting to see Andrei or hear something about him, so she gets upset when the Rostovs start doing their visitor politeness formalities.

•	She asks to see Andrei again, but the Countess and Sonya are leading Nikolushka and Mlle. Bourienne into the house, and then doing more introductions.

•	Finally, as Marya is beginning to cry in frustration, Natasha bursts through the door.

•	Immediately, Marya can tell by her face that they are united in their fear and grief about Andrei. Marya falls into Natasha’s arms and starts to cry.

•	Natasha has a hard time explaining how Andrei is. We get the sense that he’s taken a turn for the worse, but it’s hard to really understand how – just that Natasha knows that he isn’t going to make it.

That's interesting about the Briggs translation. I'm reading the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation and Platon's speech is in standard English. I didn't notice any difference in register really. It looks like Briggs has made a radical translation choice here.

I agree that the recent run of chapters has been harrowing. Pierre has gone from being a kind of bystander at the Battle of Borodino to being directly under threat himself. I'm thinking he must have massive PTSD after the execution experience, despite the soothing presence of Platon!

I'm resigned now to the idea of Nikolai marrying Marya instead of Sonya. But poor Sonya! Too many deserving self-sacrificing women, and not enough decent men. I was amused by the narrator telling us in Ch 7 that even though Nikolai scorns spirituality in men (and therefore doesn't like Andrei), he admires it in women. He's a bit of a lad, isn't he?! I hope he and Marya are able to get on in marriage, because Marya is spiritual to the utmost degree imaginable.