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.

ChanelLightVessel

Thank you from me too SanFranBear. You are a mine of information from a geographical point of view! And BakeOffRewatch's post earlier this week too was excellent.

Thank you Desdamona for your very accurate summary. Theatre of war indeed. The same machinations, unfortunately, time and time again.

I've lifted the following chapter summary from the website Shmoop as although I picked up on the sarcastic tone a lot of the content of Bilibin's letter went over my head. Excuse the very American 'down with the kids' tone!

Volume II Part 2
Chapter 8

•	The long letter from Bilibin is hilarious, in a Catch-22 meets Kafka black humor sort of way. It’s basically a long takedown of the way the army works – or rather the way the army totally doesn’t work.
•	Bilibin makes fun of everything:
•	First, that Russia is once again allied with Prussia, who not only betrayed their alliance three times already, but who are also pathetic and easily creamed by Napoleon.
•	Second, the guy who is the commander in chief decides to quit in a hissy fit because he doesn’t get a special letter from the emperor.
•	Then he tells an amazing story of two army chiefs trying to get the newly available tippity-top commander in chief job by avoiding each other (with their army divisions in tow) as they march around a river.
•	When one of them finally gets promoted, the army can’t fight any more because it’s so starved and poorly equipped that it’s not ready for combat. There are more injured and wounded and sick than there are soldiers in fighting shape.
•	Andrei knows that Bilibin loves a good story and that at least some of the letter is exaggerated. Still, he can’t help getting mad as he’s reading.
•	But then suddenly he remembers his sick baby and worries that something happened to him while he was reading the letter.
•	He goes into the nursery, and everyone there seems really weird. He totally loses it, thinking that the baby died.
•	But the truth is...the baby is getting better! No more fever.
•	Andrei and Marya share a little moment, and he realizes that his son is going to be the main focus of his life from now on. Yep, that’s how parenting generally works.

The bit about the two armies avoiding each other was hilarious!

I am so glad to see the summary you quoted of Bilibin's letter Desdamona, as I struggled to keep my focus while reading it. I could objectively see the humour without finding it particularly funny and my mind wandered off several times.

I found Prince Andrey's concern for and tenderness towards his baby son very touching, but conversely in these moments still find myself dwelling on his dismissive attitude towards Lise near the beginning of the novel. I clearly haven't forgiven him😀

Prince Andrei began by skimming the letter ... Me too

@IsFuzzyBeagMise 

Yes those letters remind of why I've failed at all my previous attempts to read this book. Which is why this thread is so rewarding - thanks all. Thanks for the Schmoop bit, @DesdamonasHandkerchief

Definitely signing up for your tour @SanFranBear

Just realised I spelt Prince Andrei's name wrongly. Think I made that one up!

Clinkey, lots of different spellings. Briggs spells it Andrey, Gradesaver Andrei. (Similarly Nicolai/Nicolay)
I prefer Andrei and Nicolai for no other reason than they look a bit more Russian!

@ClinkeyMonkey

Just realised I spelt Prince Andrei's name wrongly. Think I made that one up!

I have been doing it with Nicolai/Nikolay!

I use both too And another thanks for the summary of the letter as it was quite dense full of people we've not met. The bit with the two generals was farcical but I expect, like a lot of Tolstoys war chapters, did actually happen. Although in the previous chapter, the Preussische-Eylau battle was hailed as a success, its recorded as a bit inconclusive so was looking forward to Bilibins letter but we/Andrey/Andrei never got that far!

And I am most up for a trip although don't fancy walking it like the troops did (I have actually been making a note of places of interest on my Google Maps so will try and pull together a comprehensive map when we get to the end so we can choose the best route!) I envisage a big tour bus, like rock stars, stocked up with lots of vodka and blinis although we'll source from outside Russia, I think.

The Shmoop summary was very entertaining in itself and useful, thank you Desdamona.
The letter wasn't too bad either once I set myself to reading it. Farcical, but credible. I'd say conditions were grim for the troops who were looting, looking for food.

One of the translations used Andrew/Nicholas/Basil - I had to give up with that

I don't feel so daft now Desdamona😆

@StColumbofNavron I was reading that translation originally too and wasn't able to keep that Prince Andrew out of my mind😬

I reverted back to Briggs because I just couldn't stomach the anglicising.

Curtesy of Shmoop again:
Volume II Part 2
Chapter 10

• Pierre goes off to his estates near Kiev and meets with the stewards (like the business managers – the guys who are actually running the place).
• Pierre gives a long speech all about how he wants to be nice to the serfs who work there.
• OK, a little Shmoop lesson about how giant estates worked. Back in the day, Russia was a feudal society. That means that there were a few superrich nobles – all the guys with titles like Prince and Count in front of their names – who owned huge pieces of land. In order to make money off the land, they divided it up into sections that were farmed by serfs, who were a kind of a mix between slaves and tenant farmers. What’s the difference, you ask? Well, it’s less a difference in kind and more in degree. Serfs had their own little pieces of land that they could do their own farming on, but in practice their “rent” to the landowner was so high that they were pretty much always in debt and so were just as tied to the estate as slaves. But still, they weren’t really owned, and they were less likely to be killed by their masters – although being beaten and raped was OK – and could usually only be sold as a package deal with the land they were on.
• Back to the story. Pierre wants reforms for his serfs. No more labor for women with small kids, no more corporal punishment (meaning just yell at the serfs, don’t beat them), school and hospitals for everyone – and, eventually, freedom.
• All the stewards are like, um, OK.... But the main steward immediately understands how to deal with Pierre so that everything will stay pretty much the same.
• Pierre doesn’t understand business, so he can’t figure out the accounting books that the steward shows him. He can’t follow the budget for how the estate spends money. And even if he could, he couldn’t investigate every fire or storm or bad harvest or whatever that the steward writes him letters about and that constantly needs more money poured into it.
• In the meantime, all his friends and acquaintances come out of the woodwork, and Pierre starts living the party life again. Really, Pierre? We thought you were all about the straight and narrow now?
• In the spring, Pierre decides to check out how the peasants are doing with all his new reforms. He tours his estates, and the steward sets everything up for a believable show. The peasants seem happy and thankful, and Pierre feels like an awesome guy. Too bad that in reality no one is staffing the hospitals or schools, so the serfs don’t actually use them. Too bad that in reality women with kids are now doing crazy hard work on their tiny tenant farms. Too bad that the steward set it up so that funding for the schools and hospitals came out of the serfs’ rent, so they are farther away from being free than • Meanwhile, the steward tells Pierre that there’s not really any need to free anyone – because look how happy they are. And Pierre is all, huh, I guess you’re right. I can’t possibly think of how any of these people could be any happier, and I am a super-awesome swell guy. Excellent.
• The steward has played Pierre like a violin.

This chapter was so depressing. Pierre really isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. I get very frustrated by his uselessness.

Me too Stokey

some boring serf stuff incoming. Not spoilers but passing mention to other things you may or may not have read

He is useless, but way ahead in some ways. Russia doesn’t emancipate serfs until 1861!!! This whole idea is running thing with Tolstoy, in Anna Karenina (not a spoiler but integral to half the plot) where the character Levin doesn’t try to emancipate but is constantly striving to do everything but… more efficient working practices etc. When the serfs are finally emancipated by the Emperor, Tsar Alexander II he was assassinated for all his reforming policies.

p.s. and Alexander didn’t even really properly emancipate them, they were given plots of land that they effectively had to buy from the landowner often on very long mortgages and had to take additional work because the plots weren’t big enough and many men joined the army because it offered a future. Essentially, the Tsar really did a bit of a Pierre because they wouldn’t really be free for probably another generation, which if you want to think in the longer term when the revolution and industrialisation arrives it offers a different path - but then rurally we have collectivisation of farms which is disastrous and really a return to a sort of serfdom I guess.

Agree it was depressing... Pierre really has no idea what he's doing and obviously can't be bothered to learn. I guess he's a 'heart in the right place kind of guy' and is ahead of his time but c'mon man! Really!!

I feel like it's much more about him and his desire to feel good rather than any actual consideration for the serfs themselves

We have a mammoth chapter for tomorrow - a full 17 mins according to my Kindle.

Not for me - the Maude chapters must be different here, as I'm ahead of you at the moment but I guess you catch up with the long chapter.

I agree with SanFranBear. Pierre's heart is in the right place but he isn't competent at all. He replies 'lamely' in the Briggs version. That's appropriate.

Thanks for the background information to the long liberation of the serfs StColomb.