War and Peace Readalong thread 2022

[VikingNorthUtsire]

Interest thread for the 2022 War and Peace readalong

THIS OP WAS UPDATED on 4/1 BY MNHQ (THANK YOU) TO ADD MORE DETAIL TO THE READING SCHEDULE AND UPDATE THE AMAZON LINKS

"The finest novel ever written on this planet"
"Here is a novel that is worth whatever time one gives to it. There is more life between its cover than in any other existent fictional narrative"

This is a really helpful blog post by someone who has done the challenge: nicksenger.com/onecatholiclife/announcing-the-2020-war-and-peace-chapter-a-day-read-along

1. Translations

The main complication seems to be which edition to choose. The blog post above contains some commentary of the different tranlsations that are available and their merits. There's also a pretty comprehensive guide here including samples from some of the best-known translations: welovetranslations.com/2021/08/31/whats-the-best-translation-of-war-and-peace-by-tolstoy/

The main differences that I can see are:

• some editions (including the free download on Project Gutenburg) have a different chapter structure. I think/hope we would manage to find one another if some are reading versions with more or fewer chapters but I have based the readalong on the versions with 361 chapters.

• there's quite a lot of French in at least some parts of the book. Some editions translate it into English, others keep it in French but use footnotes

• some translators have chosen to anglicise the characters' names. I guess its personal preference whether you prefer Mary, Andrew and Basil or a more Russian version.

Looking at the editions recommended and reviewed in the above blog:

The Vintage Classics edition, translated by Pevear and Volokhonsky: ]]

NB also this link for the kindle version: ]]

The Signet Classics edition, translated by Anne Dunnigan: ]]

The Penguin Classics edition, translated by Anthony Briggs: ]]

As a general rule I would definitely recommend downloading a sample of any kindle edition before buying, so you can be sure that you are happy with it.

Obviously, some people will prefer to avoid Amazon! Feel free to use the weeks in the run-up to Day 1 to share any tips on what you are buying and where from. Can I suggest though that we stick where possible to the editions with 361 chapters otherwise we will all get very confused!

1. Reading timeline

Nick, of the blog post, has very helpfully done the calculations for which chapters fall on which days, except he did it in 2020 which was a Leap Year. So feel free to take a look at nicksenger.com/onecatholiclife/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Nicks-2020-War-and-Peace-Chapter-a-Day-Reading-Schedule.pdf but see below the schedule for the Mumsnet Readalong.

Again, different editions name and number their chapters differently - some refer to four books divided into parts (as below), others refer to fifteen books although it's essentially the same structure just with different numbering. Hopefully there's enough info below to keep us all in sync, and always happy to let anyone know via PM what's happening in today's chapter so we can keep together.

Book 1: 1805
Book 1 Part One (25 chapters): 1/1 - 25/1
Book 1 Part Two (21 chapters): 26/1 - 15/2
Book 1 Part Three (19 chapters): 16/2 - 6/3
DAY OFF: 7/3
Book 2: 1806-1812
Book 2 Part One (16 chapters): 8/3 - 23/3
Book 2 Part Two (21 chapters): 24/3 - 13/4
Book 2 Part Three (26 chapters): 14/4 - 9/5
Book 2 Part Four (13 chapters): 10/5 - 22/5
Book 2 Part Five (22 chapters): 23/5 - 13/6
DAY OFF: 14/6
Book 3: 1812
Book Three Part One (23 chapters): 15/6 - 7/7
Book Three Part Two (39 chapters): 8/7 - 15/8
Book Three Part Three (34 chapters): 16/8 - 18/9
DAY OFF: 19/9
Book 4: 1812-13
Book Four Part One (16 chapters): 20/9 - 5/10
Book Four Part Two (19 chapters): 6/10 - 24/10
Book Four Part Three (19 chapters): 25/10 - 12/11
Book Four Part Four (20 chapters): 13/11 - 2/12
DAY OFF: 3/12
Epilogue One 1812-20 (16 chapters): 3/12 - 19/12
Epilogue Two (12 chapters): 20/12 - 31/12

Phew!

I would suggest that we meet at the end of each section (so 17 times over the course of the year) to discuss what we've read, but with (non-spoilerish) chatter welcome at any time in between. According to my guru, Nick, each chapter is around 4 pages long, so it should be do-able.

1. Chapter "meditations"

This looks like another really interesting blog post from someone who has done it, with thoughts and meditations on each chapter: brianedenton.medium.com/a-year-of-war-and-peace-cc66540d9619#.yabefbbgz

Come and join me! This time next year we will almost have finished reading the finest novel ever written on the planet.

PS Some may feel that each day off deserves a shot of vodka or two. I couldn't possibly comment.

Another one enjoying the short chapters 😀

Chapter 9:
Vera, the 17 year old oldest daughter of the Rostovs, Julie Karagin (the young visitor) Nikolai and cousin Sonya remain in the drawing room with the adults.

Sonya feels it necessary to get involved in the adults conversation ‘if only by smiling’. This is the first indication that her status within the household is somewhat below that of the natural children. She is perhaps slightly more on her mettle, aware that she is there by dint of the Counts good nature and charity, and doesn’t want to be seen to overstep the mark.

Count Rostov gently teases his son, Nikolai, for joining the army as a hussar, which the Count thinks he has only done to emulate his friend Boris. (I’m thinking the Hussars may not be the cushy guards posting that Anna Mikhaylovna has managed to secure for Boris however.)
Nikolai is outraged by this supposed slight, claiming the army as his “vocation”, and certainly not an ‘I will if you will’ dare with Boris.
It transpires Nikolai is leaving Moscow that very night, with a family friend, to join his regiment - much to the dismay of poor (in more ways than one) cousin Sonya who is obviously hopelessly in love with him:
“now, in spite of herself, she found her eyes under their long thick lashes turning to her cousin, who was going off into the army. Her girlish passion bordering on adoration was so obvious that her smile didn’t fool anyone”

Much is made of Sonya’s beauty by Tolstoy and there’s also a lot of imagery around cats and kittens connected with her. She’s ‘a pretty half grown kitten that will one day grow into a lovely cat’ and has crouched ready to ‘pounce’ on Nikolai. This suggests he is her play thing, but as the chapter progresses it is Nikolai who torments her, playing with her emotions as he flirts with Madam Karagin’s daughter, Julie.
However when Sonya glares at him ‘venomously’ and leaves the room ‘scarcely holding back the tears’, he gets the not too subtle message, makes his excuses, and hot foots it after her.

As the youngsters depart Anna Mikhaylovna and Countess Rostov have what feels like a very universal, even modern, conversation about the perils of parenting teenagers which contains “more dread than enjoyment. You’re always, always afraid for them. Especially at this age when there are so many dangers both for girls and boys.”
I’m guessing in turn of the century Russia the dangers were death and injury from duels and war for the boys, and loss of virtue/reputation and unwanted pregnancies for the girls. But I can’t help but feel the latter would be a concern for any family that had two sets of hormonal, love struck, teenagers living under the same roof. (It later transpires that Natasha has the hots for Boris.) Although Countess Rostov consoles herself that at least her children confide their innermost thoughts to her:
“Up to now, thank God, I’ve been a good friend to my children and they trust me completely.’
Tolstoy wastes no time in sticking the boot into this oft repeated parental misapprehension 😂:
“The countess was repeating the delusion of so many parents, who imagine their children have no secrets from them.”
Oblivious of Tolstoy undercutting her the countess blithely continues:
‘I know my daughters will always turn to me as their first confidante, and I know that if Nikolay, with his impulsive nature, gets up to no good (boys will be boys) it won’t be anything like those young gentlemen in Petersburg.”
No love of course it won’t! And luckily for the countess, due to her permissive parenting, her daughter Natasha also considers her a ‘best friend’:
“If I was too strict with her, you see, if I was to stop her … Heaven knows what [Boris and Natasha] might get up to on the quiet, … whereas now I know every word she speaks. Tonight she’ll come to me and tell me everything. Perhaps I do spoil her a bit, but, well, I think it’s the best thing to do … I was strict with the eldest.’”
At which point our attention turns to ‘the eldest’, who confirms she was indeed brought up very differently. Vera is ‘radiant’, good looking, clever, attentive in lessons, polite and has a nice voice. But there’s something ‘off’ about her, when she talks everyone feels embarrassed and uncomfortable. When she smiles it’s unnatural and unpleasant. Poor Vera!
It falls to the lovely Count to assure his first born, with a wink, that despite his wife making the common PFB parental mistake of being a too strict disciplinarian, she’s turned out wonderfully all the same.

Eventually the Karagins take their leave, promising to return for the ever expanding dinner party, and the countess waves them off with the heartfelt cry of all weary hosts:
‘Bloody hell, I thought they’d never leave’.

Hi sociallydistanced, meant to ask when is your baby due? I reckon you'll either be too busy for the W&P challenge when it arrives or racing ahead of us all with all the night feeds!

I felt very sorry for Vera in this chapter, I couldn't really see why everyone was uncomfortable around her. And as an older sister to a more spoilt brother, she had v my empathy! Sonya's pain was well written and loved Tolstoy's well-founded parenting cynicism. Anyone who thinks they're best friends with their kids is deluded.

I finding it hard not to race forward, I really want to get to the dinner party.

Agree that other than Tolstoy telling us, it’s not really explained why she makes everyone feel uncomfortable. There didn’t seem anything wrong in what she had said!

I really enjoyed that chapter. It was splendid, splendid!

I'm the 'Vera' of my family too Stokey, and it's absolutely true that the oldest fights all the battles whilst the siblings breeze through their childhood once the parents have chilled out on the parenting front and become a bit more confident. I can see it would be irritating for Vera to watch her over indulged brothers and sister getting away with murder, whilst mummy dearest is determined to be a friend to them rather than a parent.
I think Vera reveals herself to be somewhat uptight later in the novel but on the basis of this chapter she's definitely getting a bad press!

Another one whose heart has gone out to poor Vera, who does everything she’s been taught to do and yet is ‘less than’ others to everyone else. A Mary Bennet?

Another Vera here. I didn't see anything wrong in her behaviour, she just can't compare with her cute, over indulged young siblings. Did anyone else find the references to Sonya as a cat / kitten a bit creepy?

@MamaNewtNewt

Another Vera here. I didn't see anything wrong in her behaviour, she just can't compare with her cute, over indulged young siblings. Did anyone else find the references to Sonya as a cat / kitten a bit creepy?

Absolutely - there's something distinctly creepy about knowing the author to be a middle aged man (well, in his mid-late 30s anyway) and reading his description of a teenage girl as "kittenish"!

Chapter 10:
Natasha rushes from the drawing room to the conservatory and has a little hissy fit, stamping her feet and becoming tearful, because the object of her affections, Boris, has not followed her as quickly as she’d have liked. When she hears his footsteps she hides behind, I’m imagining, fairly substantial tropical plants and watches him:
“Boris came to a halt and stood there in the middle of the room, glanced round, flicked a speck of dirt off the sleeve of his uniform and went over to the mirror to examine his handsome face. … He stood there for a moment before the glass, smiled at himself and walked towards the opposite door.”
At this point Natasha should realise that Boris is never going to love anyone as much as he loves himself and run for the hills. But then she is only 13 she’s going to have to learn the hard way 🤷‍♀️

She remains in hiding as Sonya and Nikolai enter the room arguing over his flirty behaviour with Julie Karagin, Nikolai placates her, dismissing his behaviour as ‘a silly bit of nonsense’ and drawing her close saying:
“‘Oh, Sonya! You’re more than the whole world to me! You’re everything,” before kissing her.

This obviously gets Natasha going, who decides to go in search of Boris. There follows an excruciating scene where Natasha tries to get Boris to kiss her stupid doll and then takes the lead in kissing him, basically saying ‘on my planet we’re married now’, afterwards.
Somewhat taken aback by Natasha’s forwardness Boris tells her he does love her but as she’s so young there will be no more kissing and he will wait four years before asking for her hand. Natasha decides to include the current year in this scenario and ticks off the waiting period on her ‘tiny little fingers’ landing on sixteen as the age at which they will be united ‘till death us do part’.
Run Boris, run and don't look back!

Natasha is very irritating isn’t she! Hopefully she becomes less so as she grows up.

Oh God, "my doll wants to kiss you" has to be the creepiest opener ever.

Bless vain Boris for doing the right thing.

I totally agree with 'excrutiating' to describe this scene and agree with all your comments above.
Natasha seems to be a right little minx!

Or 'excruciating'... If I spell it properly!!

@ChessieFL

Natasha is very irritating isn’t she! Hopefully she becomes less so as she grows up.

She really is a spoilt little brat, if ever a character has to go on 'a journey'...

Not sure what the parents expected chucking a load of hormonal teenagers together but they are lucky that Boris, while vain, does the right thing. Or he's just as irritated by Natasha as I am.

Again with the creepiness Tolstoy: "her tiny little fingers" (not envy).

Natasha is extremely irritating but I suppose we have to remember she's only 13!

You can “flick” through books on a Kindle. Mine is an old one, you swipe up the middle and it brings up a mini page over the top of the page you’re reading with a scroll bar to flick through, and has the option of a grid to see 9 pages at once to flick through. You can scroll with the bar, or the arrows jump pages and chapters. I’ve attached photos. You can see your highlights and notes on them as you flick through.

Re sexualising Sonya and Natasha, I read this as a reflection of how teenagers were treated at the time in upper society - that wasn’t even a thing, you were either a child or an adult, and responsible parents kept their daughters from being out in society at too young an age, but that didn’t stop the kids hitting puberty and into the feelings and situations that come with it. I’m definitely getting the sense we’re not meant to think of Count and Countess Rostov as responsible parents…

Before reading the comments here, I thought the comments about kitten etc were more about Sonya and Natasha’s innocent intended forays into a more grownup playfulness - but now I’m wondering about male gaze.

I’ve been avoiding this thread as it can be a bit spoilery. I have no experience of the book, any adaptations, films or shows and really savouring the experience of coming to it completely new and reading it day to day giving the experience of when it first came out serialised. It was part of the intro in the V&P translation, what is lost in the experience of reading something that becomes a known classic. I don’t know who will become important characters. Vera could be as important as Natasha at this point! I’ll say it’s not coming across as an important time, it’s easy to read and gossipy and society led, finding it hard to see how this will segue into hard hitting philosophy and war scenes. What was Tolstoy trying to do? Hook in lighter readers for the lessons later? Get it picked up and sold in the first instance?

And ever grateful to OP @VikingNorthUtsire forstarting this, I’m getting so much from this and the daily meditation on Brian Denton’s blog.

“I’ll say it’s not coming across as an important time“ - I meant “important tome”

Hi @BakeOffRewatch! I have that function on my Kindle too. It's exactly the same. I shouldn't give out about my kindle. I do like it. It's handy :)

I've started listening to the Audible version which is included in the 'free' part of the catalogue, so far so good. I hope it won't be too complicated to keep up with who everyone is on audiobook.

Chapter 11:
Countess Rostov gives her least favourite child the old heave ho in a rather brutal fashion:
“‘Vera,’ said the countess to her elder daughter (clearly not the favourite one), ‘you don’t seem to understand anything. Can’t you see you’re not wanted now?”
And settles in for a chat with her oldest friend Anna Mikhaylovna.
Vera does as she’s bid and retiring to the sitting room finds the two young couples cosying up to each other, a sight that immediately makes her hackles rise.
With the universal cry of all older siblings ‘Stop taking my stuff!’ Vera sweeps up the ink that Nikolai has borrowed to write love poetry to Sonya, and berates them all for bursting into the drawing room earlier and generally being a total embarrassment.
She accuses Natasha of making a spectacle of herself by chasing after Boris (something Vera would never do with her own boyfriend, Berg) and brands Boris a ‘Diplomat’ (A term the Rostov children have apparently imbued with severely negative connotations.)
Natasha has had enough:
“Why does she always pick on me? You’ll never understand,’ she said to Vera, ‘because you’ve never been in love, you’ve no heart, you’re just a Madame de Genlis” (A French stick in the mud writer of moralistic stories apparently, probably like calling someone ‘a Mary Whitehouse’ for those of a similar vintage to me!)
The four youngsters rise as one and leave Vera to stew in her own juices, mocking her as they go. Vera cries after them somewhat plaintively:
“You said nasty things to me. I didn’t say anything nasty to anybody,’
However Tolstoy doesn’t want us to feel too sorry for Vera - I don’t think she’s his favourite either:
“This beautiful girl who had caused so much offence and unpleasantness to them all smiled, and, evidently quite indifferent to what had been said to her, she went over to the mirror and tidied her scarf and hair. One look at her own lovely face and she seemed to grow colder and more composed than ever.”

Meanwhile in the drawing room Countess Rostov is complaining that her husbands generosity will be the ruin of them all, and wondering how on earth Anna M. managed to bag an officer position for Boris whilst her own son is starting in the army as a lowly cadet.
Anna Mikhaylovna basically says that, as a determined widow, if you don’t mind humiliating and making a total nuisance of yourself, it’s amazing what you can achieve.
Confiding: “But Natalie you know how much I love my son. I don’t know what I wouldn’t do to make him happy.”

She stops short, however, of revealing the depths to which she sank to ensure Prince Vasily put in a good word for Boris, in fact she describes a ‘kind’ Prince Vasily the reader would be hard pressed to recognise at all:
“So approachable, so full of generosity. All those honours haven’t gone to his head.
“I regret that I can do so little for you, my dear Princess,” he said, “but do tell me what you want.”
Yes, he’s a splendid man, and he knows that blood’s thicker than water.”

Twice Anna Mikhaylovna mentions a lawsuit she is embroiled in which is eating up all her money. She confides that she is 475 roubles short of the payment needed to kit Boris out in his regimental finery, and as Anna begins to weep at her impoverished state, her oldest friend the countess finds her own heartstrings being tugged.
Anna M. pulls herself together and decides that Boris’s godfather - the extremely wealthy and extremely ill - Count Kirill Bezukhov, is just the person to tap up for a small allowance to solve the immediate financial embarrassment. Deciding there’s no time like the present and with two hours to kill before the evening party, Anna sends for Boris and the two depart for Count Bezukhov’s.

On their way out Count Rostov asks Anna M. to invite Pierre along to the shindig that night if she sees him at his fathers mansion - apparently he’s been to the house lots of times and used to dance with the Rostov children. (Did Pierre have some sort of teleporting device when he was out of the country from the age of 10?)

The appearance of disgraced Pierre at the name day party would no doubt go down like a lead balloon with Madame Karagin and her pearl clutching ilk, but the Count obviously recognises a kindred spirit when he sees one.

This party promises to be a good one!

I quite liked how the countess was sympathetic to Anna M but not too sympathetic either.
'The countess, who could feel her own eyes filling with tears, thought things over but said nothing'.
Don't you be asking me for any roubles!!