War and Peace Readalong thread 2022 - thread 2

[VikingNorthUtsire]

"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: www.amazon.co.uk/War-Peace-Vintage-Classics-Tolstoy/dp/0099512246/?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

NB also this link for the kindle version: www.amazon.co.uk/War-Peace-Vintage-Classic-Russians-ebook/dp/B005CUS9AG/?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

The Signet Classics edition, translated by Anne Dunnigan: www.amazon.co.uk/War-Peace-Signet-Classics-Tolstoy-ebook/dp/B001RWQVXA/?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

The Penguin Classics edition, translated by Anthony Briggs: www.amazon.co.uk/War-Peace-Penguin-Popular-Classics-ebook/dp/B0033805UG/?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

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.

Ah! Thank you @BakeOffRewatch! That explains it.

V interesting to see Pierre channelling his dead father - 'his face lit up with a fury all too reminiscent of his father' - a really wonderful touch especially as he confronts his father-in-law.

Sorry that was too cryptic! I spend far too much time lurking on AIBU and the MN Relationships pages

Good point about Pierre channelling his father Rebecca, I missed that

Volume II Part 2
Chapter 6

We're back at one of Anna Pavlovna's legendary soirées and Pierre and Hélène’s estrangement is the talk of the town.
The received society wisdom is that the marriage breakdown was completely Pierre's fault, prone as he was to insane jealously and murderous fits of rage.
Since Hélène has returned to St Petersburg she’s been warmly received and has perfected a gracious yet martyred persona which seems to suggest that Pierre is her very own cross to bear. Her father, Vasily, meanwhile is simply suggesting to anyone who will listen that his son in law is ‘a bit touched’.

Tonight’s novelty attraction at the soirée is non other than our old friend Boris Drubetskoy, who’s so delicious he’d eat himself if he could:
“Boris cut a dashing figure in his adjutant’s elegant uniform as he strolled into the drawing-room, fresh-faced and rosy-cheeked but now fully matured as a man.”

We get a peak into Boris’s MO, which is basically ‘fake it till you make it’, before that was even a thing:
“Though not well off he would spend his last kopeck to look better turned out than anyone else. He would have deprived himself of many a pleasure sooner than permit himself to drive in an inferior carriage or be seen on the streets of Petersburg in an old uniform. He sought out and cultivated only people in higher positions who might be of use to him.”

Boris feels very at home in the glitz and glamour of St Petersburg. He hasn’t been back to his old Moscow home since he joined the army - despite the fact that he and his mother depended on the largesse of the Count and Countess Rostov to keep a roof over their heads - he views his childhood home, and in particular his infatuation with Natasha, as an embarrassment now he’s moved on to bigger and better things.

Hélène is very taken with the rather gorgeous Boris, and having hung off his every word, she turns to him with her ‘usual smile’ and instructs him to ‘come up and see her some time’ - well actually she’s a bit more specific than that - ‘Tuesday, between eight and nine’, is the actual instruction. Boris is a little bemused but happy to obey.

Hahaha... Great summary, Desdemona!

Was a bit sad to see how self kmportsnt Boris has become - I thought he seemed like a decent lad but one taste of the big time and he's become slightly insufferable.

And if we're going for acronyms, Vasily and Helene are going full out DARVO over Pierre, aren't they (Deny, Attack, Reverse, Victim, Offender) - I feel for Pierre slightly. That said, not sure he cared that much for the 'cream of society' but still - I don't see things as completely his fault.

*important (quite the typo there!)

'So delicious he'd eat himself if he could'  @DesdamonasHandkerchief

Thank you @DesdamonasHandkerchief “All fur coat and no knickers”

Thank you Desdamona for that fabulous summary . Fake it till you make it absolutely!
Well. I could feel sorry for Boris now that Hélène has set her beady eye on him, but I don't. I think they could be an interesting pair; each one as self-absorbed as the other!

I wasn’t surprised about Pierre’s chosen predilection, he said visiting prostitutes was his favourite pastime early on. Chapter VI after he leaves Andrei’s having literally just promised to stop his debauched antics and immediately joins Dolokhov and Anatole to partake in infamous bear tied to police man thrown into river evening.

It was interesting to flick back, as that prevaricating on whether to go out or not, is the beginning of a pattern of Pierre being weak willed and easily swayed isn’t it?

Have to say I agreed with the general point of the Mason in the post station, duh what are you like Pierre, of course you’re miserable.

I think the Mason initiation chapters showed Tolstoy’s (or his wife’s) flair for comedy, loved the bumbling “give him the trowel now!” “Oh will you give it a rest” from the Masonic members.

Boris is a social climber like his mum, apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Again interesting to flick back, at the time of the late Count Bezukhov’s death he didn’t understand why his mum was hanging around no was asking questions - from the description of Boris today sounds like he’d implicitly understand now.

My copy was a bit more direct, Helene actually says to Boris “You will give me great pleasure”. ! 😮

With reading, still finding it a chore but it is rewarding. I binge read “The Thursday Murder Club” this weekend and the ending was rushed and not tight plot wise and I felt unsatisfied when I finished it. That was like McDonald’s, Tolstoy is like porridge, but of a drudge but does you good.

It’s also connecting different periods of history for me, with each other and the present. I’m also watching Killing Eve and this week’s episode was flashbacks to Cold War when Russia was CCCP. I looked up CCCP and Soviet Russia was “the largest country in the world, covering over 22,402,200 square kilometres (8,649,500 sq mi), and spanning eleven time zones.”. It existed from 1922 to 1991. What does Anna Pavlovna say today? ”L’Urope ne sera jamais notre alliée sincère.” Europe will never be our sincere ally. So that sentiment has persisted since 1806?

I had a look at these timelines of world maps:
geacron.com/home-en/
www.visualcapitalist.com/the-history-of-the-world-in-one-video/

This is from 1800, 17mins in of an 18min video which shows how much of a blip 220 years really is!

I binge read “The Thursday Murder Club” this weekend and the ending was rushed and not tight plot wise and I felt unsatisfied when I finished it. That was like McDonald’s, Tolstoy is like porridge, but of a drudge but does you good

I love this description - completely agree (and also completely agree with your Thursday Murder Club summary too!)

Those maps are fascinating..

Certainly made me appreciate returning to W&P, I know by the end I won’t feel I’ve wasted my time.

Watching new series of Bridgerton now, drawing comparisons between eldest sons Nikolai Rostov and Anthony Bridgerton! Penelope is Marya, Helene the diamond?

I see Anthony more as an Andrei - which is explains my thoroughly undeserved soft spot for them both.

What I don't understand is why Helene would want Pierre back. She's got money and independence, and she's made clear she doesn't want children with him, so it's not about getting an heir. Or is it just her father wanting things to be more respectable?

Volume II Part 2
Chapter 7

Still at the soirée Prince Hippolyte tells the very unfunny punchline to an unheard joke and brays like a donkey whilst everyone else looks on bemused.
I think he and Vera should get together they’d be perfect for each other.

There’s a curious fascination with Anna Pavlovna’s hands, they were described as ‘desiccated’ in chapter 6, now we focus in on her ‘tiny wrinkled finger’. I know she’s OLD, because, as always with women in their 40’s & 50’s, Tolstoy has been at pains to point out how OLD she is, but her hands seem to be engaging in their own rapid degenerative process akin to Nosferatu getting caught at sunrise.

In the last few lines of the chapter we learn that something Boris has said about the Prussian army has inspired in Hélène ‘a need to see him again.’ (Because, of course, Hélène is renowned for her fascination with the Prussian army.)
Boris duly turns up at Hélène’s palatial pad the following Tuesday, only to find he’s not the only guest and is largely overlooked until he takes his leave at which point she fixes him with an unsmiling gaze and whispers ‘Come to dinner tomorrow …. tomorrow evening … please …. you must.’ From then on Boris becomes ‘an intimate’ of Countess Bezukhov.
(I bet he does nudge, nudge, wink, wink 😉)

Oh dear, Hippolyte really is an oaf, isn't he

I'm not sure what Helene's game is either.. I don't think Pierre gives two hoots as to what she's up to and she doesn't seem actually interested in Boris? Just revelling in being a Countess and being able to summon people at will, maybe? Although, presume she had a title before her marriage....

Thank you Desdamona!

Can Hippolyte actually talk in full sentences?! 'Fascinating' is certainly not how I would describe him. I would go along with 'oaf' as SanFranBear suggests.
I don't know what Hélène is up to either other than perhaps she likes a game of cat and mouse. I would say she likes Boris as much as she likes the Prussian army, but really, we have no inkling as to what goes on inside her beautiful head.

BakeOffRewatch – Off-topic, but I thought the second Thursday Murder Club was rather better – tighter plot and ending. Should you have a craving for another Maccy Ds at some point.

The soirée description was fun. That man – no-one knew who he was, but he was just billed by Anna as 'a man of much merit'! How one lives and dies by one's reputation!

The masonic stuff was surreal but fascinating. I've always been curious about the masons and what actually goes on behind closed doors. Tolstoy's description is so detailed (and humorous), I wonder how much is true and whether he went through it himself.

I think any consideration of Pierre must come through the lens of the fact he had no real family upbringing or proper father figure growing up and was farmed out abroad for education which, I would imagine, would give you that slightly adolescent-in-man's-clothing air that -many in our current government possess. Pierre has had no guidance, no real moral compass, and he is easily influenced and floundering hopelessly. If Andrei was more present in his life it would probably really help him!

Helene is described as Anna Pavlovna’s “exalted patroness”, has that always been the case or just since the divorce? Does Anna Pavlovna need a patroness, I thought she was a moneyed host herself. Or I guess she could be like the Rostovs, who throw great parties but are mortgaged to the hilt (never mind what their son did recently).

@StColumbofNavron I made the Bridgerton comment when i was starting episode 1, so Anthony was gadding about town in the montage, similar to how I imagined Nikolai’s gadding once he returned from war and was frequenting lady acquaintance on the river. You’ve finished both the Bridgerton series and the W&P book so you’ll know more than me!

How amazing would a Shonda Rimes (she did Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, How To Get Away with Murder, Bridgerton) production of War and Peace be? I feel a letter coming on. I will of course insist that Pierre and Hélène’s wedding night is included in her version.

Thanks for the heads up on the next Osman book @musicmaiden. The reviews are mixed for it, I bought Marian Keyes “Grown Ups” instead.

Ah yes @BakeOffRewatch I can see that.

I wonder if he means Helene is patroness in her presence perhaps? I wonder if subscriptions might be paid to hosts to keep
Salons going? Or if a contribution maybe means that the host focuses on you and introductions?

I haven’t got to the second Osman yet, I don’t want to pay proper money for it so am waiting for a 99p.

Volume II Part 2
Chapter 8

With talk of conscription, misinformation and propaganda coming out of Russia in the present day the opening paragraph of this chapter really leapt out at me. Substitute ‘Bonaparte’ for ‘Putin’ and this paragraph could be taken from a currant report on the invasion of Ukraine - although in 2022 Russia are of course the aggressors rather than the defenders. It seems the human race learn nothing from history.

“The conflict was flaring up and the theatre of war was moving closer to the boundaries of Russia. On all sides people could be heard cursing that enemy of the human race, Bonaparte. Militiamen and recruits were being called up from the villages and all sorts of news emerged from the theatre of war, all of it false as usual and therefore variously interpreted.”

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

Anyway, back at the ranch… old Prince Bolkonski is being kept busy by his appointment to Commander in Chief for the local recruitment drive. It’s his job to keep the cannon fodder coming, but this does at least give Princess Marya a break as she is no longer required to report for her daily trigonometry lesson. Just as well as she, along with Mademoiselle Bourienne, has become the de facto mother to her nephew, little Prince Nicolay.

Andrei is disillusioned with the war and is avoiding active service by working with his father on recruitment. He has taken over one of daddies estates, Bogucharovo, 25 miles away from Bald Hills, this gives him the solitude he craves, not to mention also giving him a break from his fathers eccentric behaviour. (And presumably his own fatherly duties to boot.)

On 26th February 1807 (Baby Nikolay is 11 months old) the old Prince goes off on a tour of nearby estates to drum up more recruits and Andrei moves back into Bald Hills to look after his son who’s been ill for 3 days.
Andrei and Marya have spent two sleepless nights watching over the baby and Andrei is in a bad way, physically shaking and taking his irritability out on his saintly sister, who defers to his ‘better’ judgement in all things.

Whilst in the nursery fretting Andrei receives two letters. The first one he opens is from his father telling him of a German commanders victory over Napoleon on the battle field and giving him instructions to chivvy up supplies and recruits that have been promised ‘now’.
Andrei décides he won’t be leaving Bald Hills until his son is recovered, whatever his father says.

He sits down to read the second letter from his friend Bilibin, but he’s not really able to concentrate on it because he feels his father is criticising him for not being back at the front and he begins “dwelling on certain obsessive and tormenting thoughts that had too long lingered in his mind.”

*current report 🙄

Nice to see how the Bald Hills peeps are getting on - I was surprised to see the old Count back in action, especially given his frailty. That said, he definitely has the right "won't take no for an answer" attitude that you need to recruit poor locals into what looks like a hapless war.

I had a quick look at Pruessisch-Eylau yesterday and found out it's been renamed as Bagrationovsk, in honour of our favourite general. It seems to be a notoriously disputed region.. mainly between Russia and Poland. It currently belongs to Russia and you're not allowed to visit without specific dispensation Perhaps because its only something like 13km from their border?

@SanFranBear Thank you for your informative posts. I can see you planning the Mumsnet War & Peace tour, but I don’t think our bus will be able to leave any time soon.