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.

Thanks, that all makes sense about the bed.

True Fourseasons Sonya and Nikolai might 'only' be second cousins but they have been brought up like brother and sister.

Thanks again Desdemona. Is anyone else getting browned off with all the tiny body parts and kitten comparisons? DD is 13 tomorrow, and I wouldn’t describe her like that, or want anyone else to.

Thanks for posting those YouTube clips, Desdemona & rifling. They're fab! I pictured the Count doing a really embarrassing jig - a bit like Dad Dancing at a wedding

ChannelLightVessel, yes I noticed Sonya had become a bloody kitten again in the last chapter! I wouldn't mind but Sonya's definitely not a kitten if anyone is a kitten it's Natasha with her bouncing around all over the place.
Maybe it's more disconcerting for modern audiences because of the association with 'sex kitten' which presumably wasn't 'a thing' in Russia at the time.

Thanks SpongeBob, I think it was more embarrassing gran dancing from 'The Dragon' in this case!

I picked up on the kitten reference again too. It's just so bloody creepy! Thanks for posting the dances, I was wondering how they would go. The Count does sound like a lot of fun!

I do think it is hard for us to contextualise it all. 16-20 would be a reasonable time to marry so mother’s (and sons) would begin looking earlier than modern times. What is hard to reconcile is the way Tolstoy presents Natasha as a child and her childish ways and we have to reconcile that with Boris marrying her (albeit in 4 years). Like I said, I read all of them as at least two years older which makes it more palatable to me. I do think maybe there is cultural nuance too, our own as mentioned in the ‘sex kitten’ example or whatever the 19th century association might be. Kittens might have been associated with innocence and youth or sultry ness or something else.

Ahem, just a reminder please to try to avoid mentioning things that happen later in the book as quite a few of us are reading it for the first time. I know it's tricky especially with a classic.

Chapter 18:
Whilst the guests are still dancing over at the Rostov Res., Count Bezukhov is suffering his sixth and final stroke. The doctors pronounce there is now no hope of recovery, he is given silent confession and Holy Communion and the last rites are prepared.

Aware that time is now of the essence Prince Vasily goes to find the oldest of the three princesses living chez Bezukhov, his cousin Katishe. (aka Princess Katerina Semyonovna Mamontov) He tells her that, although by rights the heirs to the Bezukhov estate are the three princesses and his own wife, the Count wrote a new will the previous winter bypassing his heirs and leaving everything to Pierre.
Katishe is unperturbed by this news and confidently (some would say smugly) says that Pierre is illegitimate and therefore cannot legally inherit anything. Vasily counters with the fact that Count Bezukhov also wrote a letter to the Emperor to request permission to adopt Pierre as his legitimate son and, whilst this letter was never posted, if it is still in existence and amongst his papers it threatens to disinherit them all.

Katishe is incensed by the injustice of this and swiftly comes to the conclusion that Anna Mikhaylovna is to blame:
“‘It’s that Anna Mikhaylovna, your lovely protégée. I wouldn’t have her as a housemaid–ghastly, horrible woman… Last winter she wormed her way in here and told the count so many rotten, terrible things about all of us, especially Sophie–I can’t repeat them–that it made the count ill, and for two weeks he refused to see us. I’m sure that was when he wrote that awful, dreadful document, but I thought it didn’t matter.’”

Finally fully understanding her precarious position Katishe tells Vasily that the papers he seeks are likely to be in the portfolio that the dying Count keeps under his pillow.

Oh whoops, hope that wasn’t me - I was referring to a Boris saying he would marry Natasha earlier in the book.

Oh man get with the programme Katische. I really wanted to reach into the pages of the book and shake her - she really wasn't getting it was she? Prince Vasily is way too subtle for that audience.

I do find it odd that it seems to be an all of nothing situation, especially for the princesses who have nursed Count Behukhov. Could the Count not split his assets?

Is anyone else reading the daily meditations? I hadn’t read them for a week and caught up. I’m not necessarily agreeing with his reading of the scenes now, I didn’t see what Vasilly and Catische discussed as dastardly or not to their duties; I saw it as they had all played their parts and the Count was betraying them in his last moments, and giving it all to this numpty from abroad that he’d barely spent time with and is now honouring as a direct heir to both his fortune and title. They would have all been in service to him on the understanding of the social structures and mores being preserved. brianedenton.medium.com/vasili-the-unvirtuous-55105d779c41#.d7q8g0w2

@BakeOffRewatch I was reading them at the start but totally forgot. Thanks for the reminder.

@MamaNewtNewt

Oh man get with the programme Katische. I really wanted to reach into the pages of the book and shake her - she really wasn't getting it was she? Prince Vasily is way too subtle for that audience.

I do find it odd that it seems to be an all of nothing situation, especially for the princesses who have nursed Count Behukhov. Could the Count not split his assets?

Ha ha...my thoughts exactly! Get with the programme, Princess! She was also slow to disclose that nugget of information about the portfolio under his pillow!

This made me smile. 'She got up and smoothed her hair, which was always, even now, so extraordinary smooth that it seemed to have been made out of one piece along with her head and given a coat of gloss'. Ronseal!

That's an interesting perspective BakeOff, and you're absolutely right that the Princesses have been nursing the dying Count and no doubt have a greater claim to his wealth than Pierre, who he seems to have barely seen for the last decade. However Vasily is such a slippery character and I'm so firmly 'Team Pierre' that I only saw Katishe as a baddie in that interaction.
Thinking about it in her position I'd probably feel the same as she does, particularly if Anna M. did have a hand in getting Bezukhov to change his will in Pierre's favour - although realistically I'd have thought Anna Mikhaylovna would have had a vested interest in Vasily inheriting rather than the unknown Pierre.

@StColumbofNavron

Oh whoops, hope that wasn’t me - I was referring to a Boris saying he would marry Natasha earlier in the book.

Ah, of course! Sorry I forgot they had discussed that. As you were 😊

To be clear, I haven't read this before and I have 0 idea of who marries who, in case anyone is worried that I have spoiler-ed via the act of policing spoilers.

It is a bit tight-ropey I think 😀.

Also, I think someone suggested Proust next year and whilst I think next year is too far away right now and I cannot think of one book by Proust - all I hear is ‘impenetrable’ so I am tentatively interested in that.

Today’s chapter was interesting. I think we have been given inklings that the Count favours Pierre, he has educated him, though we don’t know if he has done that for his other children. Based on the very little we know about the Count’s character I might hazard a guess that a Count with no fortune is no count so that’s why Pierre inherits.
Why an allowance cannot be made elsewhere is beyond me though. Was Anna M sufficiently aware of Pierre before Petersburg to have influenced this; if she was then she could be relying on his naïveté to help out Boris but I can’t see how she can have known very much about him.

I like Vasily’s scheming. He makes me smile when he is in a chapter. He is very diplomatic and sly, like he is doing everyone a favour.

Anyone else sceptical about Vasili 'showing' the new will to the dying count so he can change his mind about it? Ripped up and put in the trash as soon as he gets his hands in it, more like.

Hahaha. After his sixth stroke I’m not sure the Count can change his mind, didnt the doctor say most would die after the third.

Indeed StColumbofNavron, I'd be surprised if he even understood what Vasili was going on about, never mind able to give his consent to changing anything!

I've been a bit quiet but I'm still reading along and enjoying everyone's comments.

I'm a fan of Pierre, I'm not entirely sure why after the bear incident, but as CornishBlues said, he's endearingly genuine compared to the other more socially self-aware characters.

I didn't think I would mind spoilers, because I usually don't, but then I accidentally read an old New Yorker article on War and Peace (by James Wood I think) and suddenly there were massive spoilers, about who died and who married whom, and I was so upset! Nooooo, I didn't want to know that! So I'm assiduously avoiding spoilers, now that it's too late. I'm looking forward to seeing the younger characters mature and grow up. It's a benefit of a novel this long, that Tolstoy has plenty of space for character development. (Just to state the obvious...)

Chapter 19:
As the wrangling over the whereabouts of the Counts last will and testament is going on Pierre himself is in a carriage en route to the Bezukhov residence with Anna Mikhaylovna in tow, who unsurprisingly, ‘found it necessary to come along’ when Pierre received word that he was to return home immediately.
The courtyard is strewn with straw to muffle the sounds of horses and carriages, a common practice at the time to avoid disturbing the dangerously ill or dying, and outside the shadowy figures of undertakers are hoping to obtain some lucrative business as the Count lies on his deathbed.
As they arrive at the back door (no doubt at Anna M’s suggestion - all the better to slip into the house unseen and unchallenged) Anna Mikhaylovna rearranges her features into a sympathetic and consoling look and turns to Pierre, only to find he is so wracked with grief ... he has fallen asleep on the ride over, no doubt a result of too much eating, drinking and partying at the Rostov’s.

Pierre is unsure why he has to visit his father at all and starts to doubt he’s even been requested at the death bed but Anna M.‘s ‘confident manner and sense of urgency’ makes him think it must be ‘absolutely necessary’.
As he falters she takes his arm and reassures him:
“‘I took to you and I’ve loved you like a son. Trust me, Pierre. I shall not forget your interests.’”
(It’s convenient that Pierre, who as far as I can tell she hardly knows, is ‘like a son’ to her now he is in the running to inherit a fortune!)
Anna Mikhaylovna and Pierre pass the door to the Princess’s bedroom and see Katishe and Prince Vasily deep in conversation. (Presumably the tale end of the same conversation we were party to in the last chapter.) Vasily looks at the two intruders in shock and irritation Katishe leaps up slamming and bolting the door ‘with all her might’.

Pierre, bewildered, stops in his tracks. Anna M. however is not in the least perturbed and with a sigh and a thin smile, continues to lead Pierre through the labyrinth house to the Counts fairly crowded anti chamber.
Once she has attained her goal Anna Mikhaylovna becomes aware that the ‘moment of crisis’ has arrived and with her ‘Petersburg business woman’s air’ she takes charge of the situation, entering the Counts bedroom and motioning Pierre to wait on a sofa outside.
Pierre suddenly becomes aware that everybody’s eyes are on him, and not only that but he is being treated with a deference and respect he has never before experienced. Even Prince Vasily, who is obviously at this stage hedging his bets, takes Pierre’s hand firmly - something he has never done before - telling him to ‘take courage, my friend’.
Anna Mikhaylovna emerges resolutely from the inner sanctum, taking Pierre by the arm and leading him back in to see his dying father.

What a cliff hanger!

You have to admire Anna M's machinations in this. Her control of the situation is magnificent. Pierre is absolute putty – and this also seems to make him develop an awareness that he needs to fall in line socially here.

What an exciting chapter! It is full of suspense and conniving. Anna Mikhaylovna is one canny lady. I enjoyed her antics too.
Pierre is almost oblivious to what's going on, but there is a glimmer of awareness towards the end of the chapter that he senses that his fortunes are about to change.